KeiransFuturismFantasy

The Force Wills - Chapter 77

From a distance Conqueror now looked like it was a denji hive of activity.

It was hovering in the shadow of the largest of Metellos’ moons, shielding it from obvious view and scans from the planet’s surface. It was a token effort made in secrecy at this point. There had been no hiding the dreadnought as it emerged into the system from the Nexus Route terminus point. Metellos was a system that had been colonized for 27 000 years at this point, home to 900 billion people and its detection and security infrastructure was substantial.

Six Venators and a dozen Gun Acclamators that had been rapidly dispatched from Coruscant within two hours of their arrival, which now formed an escort fleet around the Conqueror.

Anakin watched the dreadnought shrink on the viewscreen from his seat in the Nu-class military shuttle.

He was quite glad to finally leave after more than six days aboard in continuous hyper.

Dealing with the former prisoners of Lola Sayu and keeping them content as they were also reveling in their newfound freedom, not to mention keeping them from causing any mischief, had been a near continuous task. Quite a few had decided to indulge themselves and gotten drunk on the Glovan wine supply that had been discovered on board. It had even gotten to the point by day three of the voyage home that Anakin had put his foot down and ordered any alcoholic beverages sealed and under guard.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he also had to double the guard on Osi Sobeck’s cask, when Asarl - the wookiee from the Claatuvac Guild had led a small posse of prisoners on a revenge quest to kill the former warden of the Citadel.

That had been a fun time.

Only Ahsoka’s intervention had prevented stun bolts from flying.

He wasn’t exactly sure what she had done, besides using the Force to calm Asarl down and she had touched him on his massive hairy shoulder, but he couldn’t argue with the results.

All the former prisoners were now in Republic Intelligence custody aboard one of the nondescript Acclamators, undergoing a debrief and full scan for any surprises and brainwashing. Even Tarkin and Master Piell were getting the full Intel treatment.

The other subject of interest was naturally Conqueror itself, where Intel and a select group of high ranking and vetted scientists from KDY were exploring every inch of the dreadnought. All the Jedi on the mission had been given a long interview on the performance of the ship in combat.

Now after two days of debrief, scans and helping Intel manage the active Republic-loyal droids on board they were finally headed for Coruscant.

He glanced down the troop cabin of the shuttle and Ahsoka was seated in meditation on the floor in front of the six stasis casks carrying five former Jedi and a prison warden.

“Good to be going home finally,” Obi-Wan said with a wry knowing smile from his seat on the other side of the troop cabin.

Anakin folded his arms and gave his former master a raised eyebrow at the very mild teasing he sensed in those words.

“Yes it is.”

He shrugged off the stupid tiny doubt that Obi-Wan would open the can of worms of his true relationship to Padme at this point. Exposing that fact to Obi-Wan had been at the insistence of Ahsoka during their time in Mortis.

‘There is no better time than now. All cards on the table here, Skyguy. Trust me, there is no better ally we could have on the Council than him. He is in Fulcrum and while we practice compartmentalization as a rule, he needs to know this now.’

Why his secret marriage would be something that Obi-Wan needed to know was something that Ahsoka wasn’t elaborating on, to both of their frustration.

His former master’s initial reaction upon the news was what Ahsoka would call a true facepalm moment.

‘Oh Anakin… even after I warned you… why?’

‘I love her,’ he has said simply. It was the only thing that had entered his own head.

‘Not everyone is as blessed as you to be able to ignore their own feelings, Master Obi-Wan,’ Ahsoka had given Obi-Wan a pointed look as she spoke. ‘So what will you do now? Reveal it to the Council? They’ll have no choice but to expel Anakin from the Order. After all, how many other Jedi are there that have bitten the bolt and forsaken their feelings. The war has already strained the Order’s cohesion to a level not seen since the time of Revan. Yet, he is the Chosen One and they equally can’t afford to expel him as that would be threatening his ability to bring balance to the Force in the future. The Council would become deadlocked on the issue and they’ll be forced to sweep this under the rug anyway.’

‘How certain are you of that? Is this your foresight speaking?’

‘Yes.’

Anakin brought himself out of those memories with a sigh as he felt the shuttle enter hyperspace.

Naturally, in time Obi-Wan had come to accept the entire thing, but of course he never failed to utilize the odd opportunity to good-naturedly tease his former padawan.

‘I trust you will remember to keep your contraceptive implant up to date when we return?’ Obi-Wan had asked just a few days ago.

‘Of course I will,’ Anakin had spluttered, but gave his master a stink eye at having caught him off guard with the question.

He and Padme had quickly made the decision on the first days after their marriage that they couldn’t bring a child into the galaxy in its current condition. Not to mention the effect it would have on her life, personally and professionally. So she got herself a similar implant that would prevent conception.

He made a mental note to himself to remind Ahsoka to get her own implant updated. They only had a certain usage life and his own implant had long since expired and was sitting inert inside his own body.

She had the Internal Control skills, combined with medical training, to regulate her own fertility through the Force, but it was good to always have the implant backing up things.

“So, how much of a frenzy will the media be in?” Anakin chuckled, bringing out his personal holocom and tapping on the device, which blossomed with light.

Obi-Wan scoffed as the holo began showing a news service, “We rode a captured CIS dreadnought seemingly unseen through a large chunk of the galaxy and Republic space. Then it just happened to appear right in Metellos’ backyard, a two hour trip from Coruscant. They’ll be speaking about it for weeks. COMPOR will make sure of it.”

“Only question then is whether someone will figure out we used a new hyper route to do it.”

“That conclusion is easy to draw, but will be downplayed.”

Anakin nodded and swiped his hand through the holo to change channel to another news service and sure enough there it was - a nice distant picture of the Conqueror as it arrived in high orbit of Metellos. The Nexus Route emergence was itself a million kilometers beyond the seventh planet of the system. Anakin was sure if he spent enough time with R2 and a dedicated navicomputer he could parse the likely coordinates, but for now, the secret of the route remained in the minds of Tarkin and Master Piell.

‘This is Esrann Lausho, with your early morning Coruscant news. Still no official word from the Grand Army on the details of how a Providence dreadnought made it all the way into the Core Worlds, but we have received confirmation from the Jedi Order that it is firmly under Republic military control and all droid units aboard are deactivated. Let’s now turn to our military affairs correspondent Jared Kuavo of Anaxes War College. Thank you for joining us, Jared.’

‘My pleasure Esrann.’

‘So I’m sure our viewers and most of the Core Worlds would just like to know, should we be worried?’

‘Certainly not. From all indications and independently verified scans from Metellos, the Navy has a substantial fleet now in escort around the dreadnought and there is a near constant stream of shuttles going between the ships. I think we can take the Jedi at their word when they say that no war droids are active aboard the dreadnought and that the GAR is firmly in control of it.’

‘Then the next question that comes to mind is just how was  this achieved?’

‘Now I must enter the realm of educated speculation. Clearly the Separatists wouldn’t just hand over one of their prized and heavily armed dreadnoughts to their enemies on a platter, so I must conclude we are witnessing the aftermath of a clandestine GAR operation that captured the ship. Naturally, they’re not about to announce details to us so we can spread it over the Holonet.’

‘Quite.’

‘Yet the practicalities and complexities of hyperspace travel, especially when you’re talking about a ship as large as a Providence does bring some intriguing notions and questions to mind. Why was this ship only spotted coming out of hyper at Metellos? The only other connection the system has is to the west in Norkronia. Yet I’m seeing nothing in that direction that indicates the ship was spotted further down that hyper route. Passing civilian ship traffic would’ve been screaming all over the Holonet that a Seperatist dreadnought was in that lane. It therefore can only be concluded that a new hyper route has been discovered.’

‘Intriguing indeed. We will just have to patiently wait and see…’

Anakin swiped the holo and gave Obi-Wan a lopsided knowing grin.

“So you think we’re going to use the Nexus Route any time soon?”

Obi-Wan stroked his beard in thought, “Doubtful. Much like the CIS, the majority of our strength is focused on the fronts. Most of the ships that responded here were emergency scrambled from the Coruscant Docks. It’d be a wonder if even half of them had full crews or were properly stocked. The fleet we’d need to strike a proper blow all the way to the heart of the enemy will take a long while to assemble, especially if the need for secrecy must be maintained.”

What was unspoken between them was the actual war behind the scenes. They both knew Palpatine would only order that fleet to assemble when he was ready to end the war on his terms.

Two hours of hyperspace followed along with nearly another hour to navigate through the extensive orbital and atmospheric traffic of Coruscant.

Ahsoka emerged from her meditation and even Obi-Wan sat near the viewer so that he could catch the first glimpse of the Jedi Temple after such a relatively long time.

Anakin immediately felt the gulf between them at that moment. He didn’t truly see the Temple as a home. It was just the place where he had been educated and trained. To him, home was wherever the people he cared about and loved were. Home was wherever Padme was.

The towering Jedi Temple soon swallowed up the view and the shuttle folded up its wings to land directly in the primary hangar bay on the upper levels of the main ziggurat.

The rear doors opened and the embarkation ramp extended.

Ahsoka handled the casks, using a remote to flip them over onto their repulsors and steer them.

Their greeting party was rather substantial.

Immediately stepping forward was Master Drallig, with six Jedi Temple Guardians trailing behind him. The imposing brown and gold ornamental robes, along with their white-gold masks always gave them a vaguely sinister appearance to Anakin’s eyes.

“Master Kenobi,” Drallig greeted with a bow.

“Master Drallig,” Obi-Wan returned it, then nodded at Ahsoka.

Drallig’s eyes twitched slightly at the padawan, who was still in full armor, as she stepped forward to hand over the remote to him. The disapproval was clear and Anakin fought his own amusement as he perceived Ahsoka’s indifference to it.

No further words or ceremony were needed as Drallig and the Guardians fell in step beside each cask and escorted them out the hangar bay.

“Welcome back, Master Kenobi,” Yoda stepped forward, his gimer stick tapping with each step. Master Plo Koon and another master that Anakin had to take a moment to recognize was behind Yoda.

“It’s good to finally be back, Master,” Obi-Wan smiled mildly. “Master Agnook, rare to see you outside your tower of knowledge.”

“One must not be afraid to venture beyond when the opportunity for knowledge comes knocking,” the cathari master’s impressive teeth were revealed only briefly with a smile, his silver mane of hair rippling.

“I take it you’re here to escort myself, Ahsoka and Anakin to our new accommodations?”

“Indeed, Master Kenobi.”

“How long?”

“Two weeks.”

Anakin felt his stomach wanting to fall through the floor and a hot flash of anger surge through his mind, which he quickly mastered and passed through.

“So short?” Obi-Wan said wryly.

“Standard procedure, in this time, difficult to follow,” Yoda glanced at the cathar.

Obi-Wan folded his hands on his stomach, “Very well, lead the way, master.”

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The datapad fell onto her desk with a clatter, joining the many others strewn about on its surface. She rubbed her forehead, nursing a headache, barely taking in what was written on the device’s screen.

“I think with that adjustment we will have the Hosnian senator’s vote.”

She looked up into the ever stalwart face of Bail Organa on the other side of her desk.

Padme really wanted to know just how he could manage to just keep going and going through the endless tedium and not want to fall into a coma. They’d been vote hunting and going through bill amendments for the whole workday. It was well into the evening and Bail seemed just as fresh as when he’d started. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was gifted with the Force to manage such mental stamina.

“Good news then,” she said with a sigh. “That puts us over the line?”

Bail looked up from his own datapad, “Yes, but I think we need another five, just to be on the safe side.”

Padme nodded, “Just in case someone decides to be difficult at the last minute before the vote.”

“However,” Bail put away his datapad firmly. “I think that is a task for tomorrow, Padme.”

“We really should-”

“No,” Bail interrupted firmly. “The day is long over, we might as well be the last ones in the building at the moment.”

She rose to her feet, wincing at her legs protesting from being so suddenly used again after sitting for so long. “Very well. Good night, Bail.”

“To you as well, Padme.”

He exited her office with long strides and she turned, walking to the expansive window overlooking the Senate district lit with thousands of lights, the constantly moving, distant rivers of light representing lines of speeders, ships and vehicles.

“Mistress, shall I call for your speeder?” C3P-0 asked politely from the side of the room.

“Please do, 3P0,” she smiled at the golden droid, her gaze quickly returning to the endless cityscape exterior.

Her gaze traveled in the direction she knew the Jedi Temple was, as surely as she knew where her left hand was at the moment.

Ani was back… and Ashoka.

It happened quickly. She felt the familiar warmth of his presence directly behind her, his arms encapsulating from either side and his chin resting on her head. She basked in his presence and strength.

She knew she was still standing alone in her office, taking in the view outside her window.

Yet she was also now standing on the balcony of her estate on Naboo, only wearing one of his shirts. His arms around her, feeling the contour of every defined muscle pushing against her back.

What was going on?

“Relax Padme,” he rumbled, his voice directly in her left ear and his lips finding purchase on her neck. “You’re still in your office, but I pulled you into my mind.”

“So Ahsoka taught her little trick to you,” she said, her hands grasping his own as his palms found her lower abdomen and began caressing.

“Correct,” he breathed, his lips now kissing her ear. “By the Force, how I’ve missed you.”

She felt her heart want to both swell and melt in a very strange dichotomy. Then turned her head further left. Their lips met and the kiss deepened.

His hands moved down, before rising again, this time underneath the shirt. Leaving warm, burning pleasure in their wake wherever they moved.

She was pulled back and practically molded against his front.

At this point she had to break the kiss to get some air and breathed hard to regain equilibrium.

She felt his hard manhood nestled between her buttocks and his hands raised further to cup her breasts. She moaned as she felt him move further down, his knee spreading her legs apart, whilst her folds were teased.

“You’re very… eager,” she gasped.

His fingers teased her nipples.

“You haven’t seen me for weeks, Padme. I haven’t seen you for more than sixteen months.”

Her mind struggled with the concept, even as she was bombarded with more pleasure.

“What do you mean?”

She felt memories being pushed to her. It was too much at once to make sense of and even then she knew it would probably take multiple days for her to parse everything, but she sort of understood…

Mortis… outside of the Universe… in the Force… time… Celestials… a resolve to defeat a threat that was potentially even greater than the enemy…

She tried to imagine what it would be like to not see Anakin for the same amount of time and failed.

His hands let go of her, but only to grab hold of the shirt and pull it up off her. In a flash his hands were back on her breasts, before she felt his manhood push its way inside her.

They made love on that ‘balcony’, yet she was still in her office.

Her mind cast aside impossibility and rationality.

There was only the two of them in that moment.

That was all that mattered.

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The two weeks in scientific isolation was everything I had expected it to be.

Boring, monotonous and I was very tempted to use the Darksaber on the next scientist that wanted just one more sample of my blood, skin or other bits to run another test, just in case that one showed something else that would crack open the ‘mystery’. The interviews were probably the worst. Where the Jedi scientists and some external consultants that had been called in asked questions, based on the data that the Emissary’s sensors had brought back.

All three of us were essentially confined into small austere apartments that had been reopened on a lower level of the Jedi Temple that rarely saw any use. There was after all only so many active Jedi based out of the Coruscant temple or living in it and the floor space available was truly stupendous when you actually stopped to think about it.

The amount of sensors and surveillance emplaced in the spaces made me truly feel like a lab rat. I also couldn’t help but feel I was getting extra attention because I was the youngest and had spent a chunk of my adolescence in proximity to the interstellar Celestial artifact. The effects of such a prolonged stay in the Mortis realm were subtle and Bendu had been clear about what would happen to us.

That all three of us were stronger in the Force would be obvious to any Jedi who knew us well, though in Anakin’s case it was a somewhat pointless observation.

We also knew we were keenly under observation by Palpatine at the moment.

It wouldn’t surprise me if every report and observation made by the scientists would soon cross his desk. Anything that threatened to change his game had to be studied and understood, to see if any adjustments had to be made or elements removed.

Due to this, we couldn’t make it appear that nothing had changed. That would be doubly suspicious to him. Therefore we had to meet his expectations somewhat. If we had indeed spent almost sixteen months outside of the normal flow of time, there had to be some change or anomaly, so we showed exactly what they expected to see - growth, refinement, the aftermath of intense training of a Jedi who was returning to war.

On the fourteenth day of isolation, I started glaring at the scientists, Jedi or not.

When I perceived that there was a gaggle of scientists wanting to take ‘just one last sample’ from me, I put my foot down.

I was very tempted to short out every sensor in the room, but settled for simply mangling the runners of the front door so that it couldn’t open.

The Jedi contingent tried to use the Force to straighten the runners again, but I just mangled them again immediately.

I didn’t feel like getting in a Control telekinesis battle over this, so I weaved a subtle web of Battle Meditation over them all.

The non-Jedi immediately gave up and left, whilst the Jedi scientists naturally persevered for longer. None of them were masters and didn’t recognize what was happening or why they suddenly felt so despondent and discouraged.

Then I sensed Master Agnook approaching and threw my hands up in exasperation.

“For frak’s sake,” I grumbled and stood up from my meditation cushion.

I climbed into my combat boots, put on my belt and double checked that my Hapan top and brown pants were in a presentable state. My lightsabers soared through the air to clip themselves to my waist and I headed for the door.

I used the few seconds it took to reach it, to straighten the door back to normal functionality, just in time for Master Agnook to open it.

The old cathar gave me one of his supremely stern expressions, which when coming from a species that was effectively a humanoid lion, would send almost anyone running for the hills.

“Padawan Tano, I hear and sense you’re giving my people some trouble.”

“Yes, I’ve been the soul of cooperation to be poked and prodded for two weeks, but that time has passed and you’ll get no more. I’ll not be indulging their ‘last minute’ requests.”

He gave me an inscrutable look as only a Jedi Master could, but I stood resolute and firm.

He tested me for nearly seven long minutes in that resolution before he finally smiled, showing off prominent canine teeth.

“Very well, padawan. I will talk to them. I’ve been somewhat indulging them because this is related to the Celestials, but I think enough is enough. There is no more real data to be gathered and they can move on to the analysis stage.”

“Thank you, master,” I bowed appropriately.

He stepped aside and let me pass.

“One more thing, padawan. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use Battle Meditation on my staff in the future. Just a thing to keep in mind.”

I nodded and found nearly a dozen of the Jedi scientists outside giving me serene poker faces, but I could tell they were all the equivalent of children pouting at being denied their cookies.

I breezed past them and had to restrain a snort of amusement. One of them, a male mirilian, had rather appreciated the curve of my butt as I had passed him. It was only a moment, but it had slipped past his guard enough that I had picked up on it.

Only when I was finally in the nearest turbolift and heading back up to the more occupied levels of the temple did I allow a full blown laugh to escape me.

My first destination was the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

I hadn’t experienced proper, unspoiled nature in so long and the artificial ecology of the Room would have to do.

I breathed in the humid, cool air with an earthy tang and just began a leisurely walk along the paths, even taking off my boots just to feel somewhat in contact with the soft earth beneath my bare feet. I tried my best to fool myself that I was actually walking in nature…

Either I needed to get on the first ship to Naboo or I hoped my next assignment was to a world with a proper ecology.

My feet carried me to my favorite spot, a small waterfall with a nice pool at its base that ran off into a meandering stream. I sat on the edge and put my feet into the cool water, then hugged my legs and rested my head on my knees.

I was suddenly so content and at peace in that moment, I almost fell straight into a meditation right there.

That peace was disturbed a few minutes later by a presence I sensed coming closer above me, at the top of the small waterfall.

I sensed no intent or perception from the… young male human Jedi adept? He hadn’t even spotted me down here.

He was a bundle of raw nerves and excitement, but there was an undercurrent of fear and frustration.

Next I sensed a remote being activated and then heard the snap of a lightsaber igniting.

A rather odd place to practice deflection. It wasn’t unheard of, especially when you wanted to simulate it in a more natural environment. It was just polite to make sure no one else would be hit with a stray bolt.

I looked up to see my visitor using the Force to hover a thin log across the small waterfall and clearly he intended to use it as a balance exercise whilst fending off bolts from the single remote.

How cute.

Made doubly so by how the adept had puffy cheeks that were just begging to be pinched. Then I spotted that he had a padawan braid in his short red hair… oops. Well, there was no set age really when you became padawan - it entirely depended on your own personal development in the Force.

He got on the log and after a bit of wobbliness managed to settle into a reasonable stance. Then he tapped the control of the remote he kept on the belt of his light beige tunic.

The small remote sphere began hissing around him in a seemingly random pattern but I immediately recognized it as the ‘medium’ difficulty setting for that particular model.

The padawan kept his balance admirably as he kept turning to keep his front facing the remote, but he was making life difficult for himself.

The first yellow stun bolt was fired and in a well timed slash of the padawan’s blue blade, he deflected it into the water at his feet.

Another two bolts in quick succession followed the same path.

The next one was off by a few millimeters and the bolt was sent streaking upward to spend itself harmlessly on the holographic ceiling.

Frustration bubbled and frothed from the padawan at his own perceived failure, but he had no time to indulge in it as he deflected two bolts in rapid succession into the water.

Ah ha, so that’s what the exercise is actually about, I thought.

I spent the next two minutes observing and making mental notes of mistakes and issues. Then I smirked as my Prescience warned me along the current probability line. Not that I really needed any foresight for this eventuality.

The Darksaber hovered off my belt and its blade burst into being with the crystalline electric hum so unique to it, before it spun above my head to intercept the training bolt that would’ve hit me on my right montral.

The padawan was suddenly confronted with the bolts coming at him from me and the remote.

He managed to overcome his surprise just enough that he blocked the bolt from the remote, but he couldn’t bring the blade around in time for a proper deflection from such an odd low angle.

It caught him right in left knee and promptly made his efforts at balance on the log ten times more difficult.

“Whoah!”

He turned off his lightsaber immediately as his arms flailed.

Unfortunately, his remote had no mercy and simply sent another bolt that nailed him right in the chest and knocked the wind out of him.

His cry of pain and frustration was swallowed by the water as he fell head first into the stream.

I grabbed the Darksaber out of the air above me and let its blade extinguish, then stood, dusting some grass off my butt before embracing the Force into a leap that carried me to the top of the waterfall.

At this point the very soggy padawan was crawling out of the water sputtering and rubbing his face to clear it, not to mention spitting the water that had gotten into his mouth. He was so preoccupied with his physical situation he still hadn’t sensed me standing nearby.

I stepped closer to enter his field of vision and finally he spotted my bare feet.

He froze and finally I felt his awareness through the Force spike as he augmented his senses to encompass a reasonable area around us.

“Better late than never, padawan,” I said with a mild grin. He looked up, taking me in before I saw the light of recognition in his eyes. “Though that doesn’t apply in all circumstances.”

He braced himself on the ground and hopped onto his feet, hooked his lightsaber to his belt and began squeezing the water out of his brown outer tunic.

“I guess,” he said thoughtfully, his eyes now staring off to the side, but then he spotted the hilt of the Darksaber in my hand. “Wait… you sent the bolt back at me?”

“Yes,” I shrugged nonchalantly.

For the briefest of moments he wanted to explode with righteous indignation and even anger. He got it under control rather admirably.

“Why?” he asked, with a forceful calm.

I folded my arms and his eyes dipped for a moment. “That should be obvious, padawan.”

His lips thinned in irritation, but he nevertheless engaged his brain despite my little effort to distract him. He looked down at my bare feet, then off to the side… tracing my footsteps.

“You were at the bottom of the fall… you couldn’t have dodged it?” He was now wrenching his soggy pants.

“I suppose I could have,” I admitted.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Perhaps I was just annoyed at having my peaceful morning interrupted,” I said, though I was suddenly struck with the notion that spending so much time with Obi-Wan and Bendu over the past year had really influenced me quite a lot. I would’ve been much more direct with the padawan before Mortis.

He scowled, “So you thought that causing me to fail would be your revenge for that?”

“Revenge is a rather strong word to use for my intent in sending that shot back to you, instead of simply deflecting it up to the ceiling or to the side. Had I done so you would’ve continued in your exercise and perhaps another bolt would’ve flown towards someone else. Someone who would be far worse - perhaps Master Tiin as he walks by on his morning constitutional,” I gestured towards a nearby footpath just as the iktotchi Jedi master in question rounded the corner.

The padawan’s eyes widened in fear as he caught sight of the master.

Tiin also caught sight of us and his eerie yellow eyes narrowed in suspicion as he walked past. I clipped the Darksaber back on my belt and gave the master a polite smile and bowed, projecting with my body language, ‘No need to intervene, everything under control, master.’  He paused at seeing that and gave both of us an evaluating stare, before simply resuming his walk.

The padawan now looked at me with amazement, “How… how did you…?”

“I know many of the Council, well enough to sense their identities when they’re within fifteen meters of me. I can also tell there are two more people around us within that radius. Do you see what I’m trying to tell you?”

He bit his bottom lip and dropped his gaze to the ground at my feet. “I didn’t keep enough awareness of my surroundings. I got so focused on getting this exercise done that I lost sight… I didn’t even think…”

He took a deep breath to release the anger he was building up against himself. Then he bowed to me, “I apologize, Padawan Tano.”

“Apology accepted, padawan…?” I smiled at him kindly.

“Kestis.”

I made sure to keep firm control of my own astonishment. I mentally reviewed that youthful face that was barely twelve or thirteen years old. Of course there was a distinct difference between a relatively ancient memory of a poorly rendered face and then seeing the real thing up close.

“Pleasure to meet you, Kestis. So, the exercise, something your master gave you?”

“Well, not precisely, more like my own variation of the exercise.”

“I see, so deflection whilst maintaining balance, but you added the complication of an unstable surface and always deflecting the shots back into the water?”

“Yes,” he smiled with an eager enthusiasm. “I can handle five remotes at once normally with a high difficulty setting, so I wanted to challenge myself and…” he broke eye contact again and stared at the ground. “I wanted to impress, Master Tapal. He just formally took me on as his padawan learner and we’re going out to the front soon.”

“Don’t let me stop you then,” I shrugged and took a few steps back before sitting down on the grass, folding my legs under me.

Cal Kestis looked at me in brief confusion. “You want to watch?”

“I’ve had an exceedingly boring few weeks in isolation, offering you some constructive advice and even helping is just what I need at the moment. Go on.”

“I’m sopping wet.”

“Do you think that the battlefields on the Outer Rim have perfect weather, Kestis? If you’re going to keep wearing traditional Jedi attire, you need to learn to perform even when you’re waterlogged.” I shooed him towards the stream.

He nodded in compliance and stepped out onto the log.

His balance was very good and was only challenged when the log began wobbling with the shifting weight. He took a moment to settle into an equilibrium, before igniting his blue blade and resetting the remote droid to resume its attack.

The remote shifted to his left, gliding and twirling before abruptly shooting a yellow bolt targeting Cal’s face.

A twirl of his blade deflected it away and it was sent shooting upward into the distant invisible ceiling.

Another shot, and this one he managed to bring down into the water.

His legs wobbled as he turned around on the log to keep facing the remote.

“Keep your orientation, use a rear reverse twirl to deflect shots to your back!” I called out.

He didn’t reply at first, deflecting another shot. “Fine,” he replied with gritted teeth.

The remote zoomed around him, shooting once to his chest, then flew around and attacked his back.

He twirled his blade behind his back, but flubbed the timing and angle.

The bolt whizzed into the grass three meters to my right and left a slightly sizzling hole.

The exercise continued and it was clear that attacks to his back gave him trouble, combined with the fact that he struggled with that rear reverse twirl. How could he manage to fend off five remotes simultaneously with such a weakness? Was that grandstanding? Perhaps it was dodging and prescient positioning? Or was his constantly shifting balance complicating matters?

In a flash I had my Darksaber active and deflected a blast that would’ve hit me right on the nose.

I sent it harmlessly into the water.

“Kriff! Sorry!”

He was distracted for a moment by the sight of my black and white blade.

“Ouch!”

The remote had nailed him on the butt and he desperately fended off three rapid shots, with an impressive single sweep of his blade. Two bolts ended their existence in the water, whilst the third sparked against the nearby path.

For another ten minutes he kept going, doggedly working on getting that rear deflection problem sorted out.

To spice things up further for him, I reached out with the Force, snagged the remote and took control entirely of the simple machine with technometry.

The remote went one way, then suddenly jerked diagonally and spat a bolt right at his stomach, face and chest, before zipping right over him and attacking the back of his head.

“Kriff!”

He fended off all the body shots, but was forced to duck the last shot.

I next attacked his left side before sending the remote high overhead and shooting him as fast as the remote could cycle its capacitors, angling the shots randomly to his chest.

“What?”

His bafflement at the clearly much more difficult and improvised attack cost him as he got nailed right in the stomach.

I willed the remote to stop, then it zoomed straight into my waiting hand.

He looked at me with suspicion and then looked at the small blinking remote control on his belt. “You did that?”

I let the remote go so that it hovered above my palm, letting it zip back and forth in a figure eight infinity pattern to clearly show my control.

“The battlefield is a chaotic place, Kestis. A Separatist Repeater shoots much faster than that. I realize that is not part of the exercise, but you must beware falling into patterns. Five minutes is generally enough, at this point you should’ve added a second remote or at least changed the attack program.”

I relinquished control of the remote and threw it back to resume its current program.

He quickly tapped the controls to pause it, then stared at me. “What technique was that?”

“Technometry, a very useful thing in a war against droids.”

“Wait, you can just take control of droids through the Force?”

“It depends on the sophistication of the droid. It's also much more efficient to just blast or cut them to scrap. But we aren’t here to talk about me, up the difficulty, Kestis.”

He nodded, fiddled with the controls and restarted the remote.

Its speed through the air doubled and its attack patterns switched to include more odd angles.

It didn’t take long before he fell again into a rhythm of confident defense and I took telekinetic control of a small lump of mud near the stream’s edge, before shooting it at him.

He deflected a bolt before holding his left hand out in a palm, sending a quick Force Push to disperse my mud projectile.

“Good, but narrow your Push’s surface area, make it smaller, so you can be more efficient and won't tire out as easily. Droids don’t have stamina and vast numbers on a battlefield. B1s can carry grenades and commando droids will use them too.”

I continued throwing mud projectiles randomly at him, mixing it into the attack pattern of the remote.

By the ninth projectile he had his Force Push’s surface area cut in half, but by projectile number eleven he was tapped out and got splattered in the shoulder with mud.

“Boom, you’re dead and the clones you were defending are dead.”

His lightsaber switched off and he slapped his belt to switch off the remote before he leaned over with hands on knees, breathing hard. “Never… used… Push,” he gulped the air, “so much, in such a short time.”

“It’s not easy, but you won’t get better at it unless you push yourself to the limits of what you can do. Then go beyond that with the Force. Easier to live with the consequences of that, than dead.”

He nodded as I felt the Force surging inward, he switched the remote back on and resumed the training, clearly fighting now through his own self-perceived limits.

I pondered some other curveballs I could throw his way. Maybe some illusions? I carefully sent out a subtle probe with the Force, testing his mind and passive self-defenses to manipulation. It was a passive feature in all Force Sensitives really, to simply exist as you truly were. Your level of self-awareness and training would increase resistance to offensive uses of the Force to change or disturb that natural equilibrium.

I pushed my mental probe forward, finding purchase on the periphery strata of his mind. He was brimming with the Force and pulling it in to keep fueling his physical activity, which aided in opening him up to me.

Cal stepped back and forth, his lightsaber moving rapidly around his form. At this point his eyes had long since stopped being useful to guide his movement, yet they were still taking in what they saw. He was facing away from me, which was useful in selling my little distraction.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement on the water - a ripple.

The water to his left practically exploded as a BX commando droid surged out of it, its vibroblade already pointed forward, seeking to run him through.

His disbelief warred with his instincts - this was supposed to be the Jedi Temple, the safest place in the galaxy he could imagine, yet here was the enemy, seeking to kill him. A deep part of him also recognized that this couldn’t be true but there was no time to think.

He froze and the BX smashed into his side.

I simulated the hit with an indirect Force Push that sent him plunging into the stream.

He emerged spluttering and frantically checking his side for a wound, whilst also being confused as to where the BX commando had gone. He gasped and held up his blade, frantically scanning with his eyes and reaching out with the Force, fight or flight instinct was fully in control.  He had now defaulted to a personalized Shii-Cho stance… interesting.

“Why did you freeze?”

My voice snapped him out of it and he still hadn’t made any move to boot me out of his mind or even recognized that I was there.

Water splashed as he whirled to face me with a still lit lightsaber, his instincts were spot on at least. I met his eyes with expectation and waited for him to connect the dots.

He walked out of the water and after a very long few seconds, “The droid was you?” There was clear anger in his voice. It was unfortunately ruined by the fact that his voice was in that awkward adolescent stage where it had yet to properly break, coming out both deep and squeaky.

“Yes,” I said with a confused frown of my own. “Did you not take an illusion test when you got your padawan braid?”

“Illusion test?”

“Frakking kriff, irresponsible di’kuts, ” I grumbled with a scowl. “There is supposed to be a test where a Jedi Mindwalker fools your senses into some sort of combat scenario, not to mention a lightsaber duel with a simulated Sith opponent. I suppose those Mindwalkers are too busy now with the war and all the other demands it is making of the Order.”

“So you actually put that droid in my mind? It was fake.”

I sighed, “Yes Kestis, you can relax, there is no commando droid. I just hit you with a little Push.”

He let out a breath, disengaged his blade and the post-adrenaline shakes began. He stared at his hands and frantically began an internal battle to regain control of himself. I quashed any signs of sympathy from showing. Better this happen now on Coruscant, than on some distant battlefield, where the weakness could be deadly.

It took him a few minutes but eventually everything caught up with him and he took a few steps before almost collapsing to sit a few feet next to me.

“This is what it’s like?”

“To truly be in mortal peril and fight for your own life, yes. Your master is probably going to do something to prepare you for it before you find yourself on a battlefield, so I’ve stepped on his toes a bit.”

Despite himself, Cal snorted with a brief laugh. “Yes, not something anyone should do to a lasat.”

“Do you have word yet on when you’re going to deploy?”

His breath hitched slightly, “Three days. I’m leaving with Master Tapal on the Albedo Brave.”

With the number of Venators steadily increasing it was inevitable that finding unique names for them would become more and more difficult. That name was literally smashing two totally unrelated words together, just because it sounded somewhat catchy in Basic.

“He’s given you training and work to accomplish before then?”

“A ton of stuff,” he answered. “Master Tapal is… strict, to say the least.”

I nodded as I debated with myself on a course of action, if any, to take. Tapal was not a Jedi Master I wanted to make an ideological ‘enemy’ of. He sounded like he was in the orthodox camp but I wasn’t going to make assumptions here.

Frak it.

“I’ve not received orders yet,” I began, looking up into the simulated sky. Then tapped my comlink to send its ID code to his own. He looked down at his wrist with surprise as his device beeped with a contact request. “So for the next three days, if you ever need a sparring partner, any questions, advice from a fellow padawan who’s been where you’re going, don’t hesitate to reach out.”

I stood and brushed off my pants. He was so astonished that he just kept looking at me gobsmacked as I bowed.

“I’ll let you get back to it, Padawan Kestis.”

I gave him a friendly smile and waved, walking off into the deeper garden, searching for another meditation spot.

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“Sorry, I’m late.”

Anakin gave me an annoyed look, his eyes finding me across the massive holotank in the main  Communication Center of the Temple.

“Not a problem, Snips, our shuttle won’t be ready for another few hours anyway.”

“So where are we off to in the galaxy this time, Skyguy?” I asked, staring at both the planet and hyperspace sector map that was being displayed.

“We just got word, a few hours ago we broke through the Columex defense line. The Separatists have abandoned Arcan and have consolidated in the Lianna system.”

Just by looking at the hyper nav routes I knew that instantly opened Galidraan and Chandaar to attack.

I gave him a flat stare, “Skyguy, Lola Sayu is just half a day away. The Seppies have a nice unoccupied former security fleet just waiting to flank from that side.”

“Exactly, Intelligence indicates that they’ve moved that fleet to Galidraan. Clearly hoping we’ll take the bait and move forward into Lianna, where they’ll attack Arcan again and cut us off, to destroy our vanguard force.”

I folded my arms and smirked, “Do they really think we’re that stupid?”

“They’re leaving that option for us clearly.”

“Therefore they’re actually expecting us to turn left and attack Galidraan in full force, whilst consolidating our new forward position in Arcan.”

He stared at the sector map for a moment, “Yes, therefore we can expect Galidraan to be a trap. Perhaps reinforced with a full attack group.”

“There,” I pointed to a very small system a dozen light years south of Rhen Var on Galidraan’s rearward approach.

“Draukyze? What about it?”

“We attack Galidraan with a standard vanguard, giving them what they expect. In the meantime,” I stepped forward to start tapping on the holotank controls. A virtual Republic task group took the long way around, using the Salin Corridor, then turned back north using a minor route via Draukyze to bypass Rhen Var entirely, avoiding the listening posts there. That group then attacked Galidraan simultaneously as the vanguard force entered the system, closing the CIS fleet in vice. There was only one way they could retreat then - northward, the Mossak system.

Anakin stared at the simulation for a while before nodding. “It’s good in a broad sense. The key will then be making sure that Draukyze doesn’t send an alert. It might be a CIS backwater, but that doesn’t mean they have no communications. So we either get our Mandalorian Blades contingent to take it out in a special operation or we do it ourselves.”

“The Blades can do this in their sleep,” I nodded.

My eyes traced to the system that neighbored Mossak…

“Frak.”

“Something wrong, Snips?”

“No, just realized something, not important now.” I focused on the keys in front of me and began researching the Draukyze system.

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A/N: *di’kut (Mandalorian) - context dependant - idiot, jerk, moron, dumbass, etc.

First chapter of the new year. Hooray! Hope you've all survived the start of year chaos.

I plan for Fridays to generally be update days this year.

Enjoy the weekend! 

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Anakin on Mimban - by SDXL & I

Happy New Year to you all.

May the coming year be a blessed one for all of us. 

In retrospect, I see how my first attempt at Anakin was a bit skewed by the AI model due to the fact that it was overly trained on anime. This one is much better in that respect. Alas, the sticking point is getting the armor to match my vision. After dozens of iterations over days, it kept either making it either too much Jedi robes or outright shiny plate armor, the kind you'd see on a medieval knight.  Finally, I arrived at a mid point of sorts that also felt like it actually gave proper coverage whilst still leaving room for flexibility, with a bit of ornamentation/detail for style.

Now for the schedule announcement:

I'll be back to writing on Jan 5th,  so expect the next chapter to arrive in the week of the 8th Jan. Can't specify a day because of the typical family chaos and organization for a new year to handle.

I hope your holiday season was awesome and that we will have an equally awesome 2024.

Cheers!

Sincerely,

Keiran.

The Force Wills - Chapter 76

I left the bridge six hours later, handing over command to Anakin.

The Conqueror was underway in hyper to its first waypoint, the Rhen Var system and would arrive in eleven hours. The ship’s class 1.5 hyperdrive was an amazing thing for the mass it was pushing.

My first destination, the mess hall.

It was lucky this ship wasn’t actually built solely with droids in mind as crew. As much as the CIS had trust in their droid crews, they did plan and build for the eventuality where organic crew had to take over. So between R2, our own ‘Republic’ droid crew and with the prisoners pitching in, we had made the Conqueror’s officer country livable again.

It spoke of the sheer size of the ship that we could give everyone an officer’s quarters, each one being roughly eighty square meters and still have over a hundred such accommodations left over.

The clones didn’t like being so alone, as they were used to always being in each other’s company in tight bunk quarters, so they doubled up in occupying the rooms.

The other prisoners, mostly being political dissidents from various CIS worlds gladly moved in and luxuriated in the space. I had R2 turn off the water limiters and make sure everyone could have nice long showers.

It was therefore no surprise to see many people in the mess hall with wrinkly skin, smelling of fresh soap and damp hair, if they had it. There was even a Mon Calamari sitting at a table with a bucket of water, occasionally dunking his head in and making all sorts of appreciative blubbering noises, much to the amusement of everyone.

It was very interesting and heartening to see the shared bond everyone in here had. They had all lived through the shared hell that was the Citadel and there were even cliques, those who knew each other and had shared cells on the same levels. All of them were talking, laughing, reveling in the little freedoms they had now - the choice of what to eat, how much, when to sleep and so on. They had even managed to find a change of clothes out of the prison jumpsuits, into the awful gray of CIS Navy uniforms worn with the most disdain and casualness they could.

“Commander on deck!”

I should’ve been sneaky, but I really didn’t want to go through the effort now.

The clones in the room stood to attention and Rex’s ARC troopers also did it in reflex, but quickly started grumbling at their fellows who didn’t know my own policy regarding rank in the Resolute’s mess hall. The others fell silent, then quickly looked at me and I felt their silent awe at the fact that a Jedi and their ‘rescuer’ was among them.

“At ease,” I said with a sigh.

I walked up to the serving station and everyone returned to their conversations, but was much more subdued.

My walk was interrupted though by the same Mon Calamari, his bulbous head and eyes still dripping, intercepting me with effusiveness and seizing my hand with his own webbed hand.

“Master Jedi, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he blubbered and I sensed immediately that he was practically overwhelmed with emotion and even crying.

I still had my helmet on, so couldn’t exactly emote a response, resorting to just a short bow to acknowledge the poor guy.

“It was my duty… what do I call you?” I asked, letting him shake my hand with enthusiasm.

“G- G- Geax Ghamo, Master J- Jedi.”

“Well, Ghamo. We’re not completely out of the far deeps just yet. We’ll all need to do our part in the coming days if we want to keep our freedom.”

“Yes, yes, I just… we’re all glad to be out of that awful hot place.”

Cheers and yells of agreement resounded.

The dam burst at that point and it felt like I was thanked, hugged, hand shook and back slapped by almost everyone in the mess hall, except for the clones.

When I finally reached the serving station, it was to regard an aproned cook that caused me to have a double-take. He was human, had a considerable belly, seemed in his late fifties, but had a full white beard and gray hair. His arms had strong muscles and numerous tattoos. He regarded me with a lopsided smile.

“What’ll you have, Master Jedi?”

I was too astonished by him at first to really look down at the selection of foodstuffs they had taken out of the consumable storage.

“Oh…uh, just load the plate with protein.”

“Protein the lady wants, protein she’ll get,” he grabbed a plate and began dishing up a variety of meats with an assortment of colors.

“Sorry if this seems rude, but how did you maintain your weight in prison?”

“Wasn’t in there long before you rescued us, a few weeks,” he said cheerfully, putting the plate in front of me. His accent of Basic was typical of the Outer Rim, but with a flavoring that spoke of another language and there were even hints that he was faking it a bit.

“Onderonian?”

“Hah, should’ve known you’d sniff me out,” he chuckled. “Name’s Salvok Aanvid, country boy from Onderon.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr Aanvid.”

“What’ll you be drinking?”

“Just water.” A glass of cold H20 was put in front of me promptly. As hungry as I was, my curiosity couldn’t be helped. “Sorry, but just how did you end up in the Citadel?”

Far from being offended he just smiled ruefully. “When you just happen to be a cook at the Royal Palace and the current usurping bastard on the throne needs a scapegoat after he had a narrow brush with poison.”

I could sense the man before me was not a jolly old fellow, in fact, he wasn't a scapegoat at all. It was just a mask he wore.

“Thank you for the food.”

“Thank you for getting me out of there. Now get and enjoy.”

I sat down on an empty table, took off my helmet and began eating.

Barely a few minutes later another hush descended on the mess hall and it didn’t take me long to sense why.

The bat-like large ears and scarred visage of Master Piell appeared at my table.

“Master,” I bowed my head briefly.

“Padawan Tano, may I sit?”

“Please do.”

The seating wasn’t designed for small species, but Piell was clearly used to working in a world that didn’t cater for such sizes. Even the Jedi Temple wasn’t immune to such a failure. He hopped onto the opposite side chair and sat on the low backrest.

I kept eating, waiting for the master to say his peace.

He clearly didn’t want to eat and was just calmly scrutinizing me with his single eye.

I didn’t feel any probing through the Force, so he was clearly trying to puzzle me out the old fashioned way. It seemed he well deserved his spot on the Council for First Knowledge, despite spending most of his time in the High Council.

“You wouldn’t happen to spend any time recently on Arkania or Ragith maybe?”

“No, master,” I answered in complete honesty. Both worlds were known in the galaxy for extreme genetic engineering use, even in children and adults. Although the humans of Ragith did it mostly because of the high gravity of their world.

“Stupid idea anyway, but had to make sure,” he grumbled.

I had to keep my face from smirking in amusement. I sensed he wanted to figure it out for himself and that I represented a fascinating puzzle to him, which he dearly wanted to solve.

“Your hyperdrive plotted you too close to a black hole?” He held up his hands to stop me answering. “No, no, that’s the wrong way round, time would stand still for you whilst the rest of the galaxy would keep going.”

I couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped me, “You are on the right track though, master.”

“What phenomenon would cause this though… nothing I know of, so… You encountered something completely new out there?”

“Celestial artifact in orbit of an artificial singularity. It interacted with our hyperdrive in a novel manner.”

Piell thumped his fist lightly on his leg in annoyance. “Would’ve never even begun to guess that one. So it aged you?”

“Trapped us in a pocket of accelerated space-time for just under sixteen standard months relative.”

“Bloody war,” he snarled under his breath. “The CFK should have you all under observation for six weeks at least. Obi-Wan as well?”

I nodded. “I know the CFK’s procedures when it comes to anything Celestial, master. I can’t say I liked the idea of spending that time being poked and prodded, but your rescue was seen as too vital to the war. We made sure to save a lot of data in our ship.”

“That’s something at least.”

I continued my meal further in silence but Master Piell just continued his examination of me. I also gathered he was testing me as well. Seeing whether I would endure the scrutiny with patience or fill the silence with small talk. If this had been fifteen months ago from my point of view, I might have pushed the issue, but living in a Jedi Chapterhouse had done me wonders on that front. Obi-Wan had tested my patience levels and my current record was just over eight days in a similar situation.

My meal was consumed and I was halfway through my glass of water before Piell smirked. “It seems I have my answer, Padawan Tano. What are your plans for getting us out of this mess?”

“Why come to me, Master Piell? Master Skywalker could answer that.”

“Now you’re trying to test me,” he chuckled, waving an admonishing finger.

“Well, our first step is getting this ship ready to deceive any eyes that land on us. To that end, we need to reprogram a TX.”

“A tac droid? I can see B1, B2 and droidekas being reprogrammed to be loyal to the Republic, but TXs are a different story entirely.”

“Correct, it’d take an expert or savant in droid intelligence programming and even then it’d take such a person months to figure out how,” I smiled knowingly at the master.

It didn’t take him long to connect the dots.

“No… he managed it?”

“Yes, in the last sixteen months we’ve spent a lot of time working on solving many issues facing us in this war. The CIS Droid Armies being one of them.”

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The Conqueror burst from hyper into the Rhen Var system.

The bridge was only occupied by droids, with the only exception being me in the captain’s chair. Standing next to me was a TX-20 Anakin had personally named ‘ITD-1’.

My full attention was on the holo, taking in the traffic in the system.

It was rather substantial, considering that the route was something of a shortcut that could shave ten hours off a journey that linked the Salin Corridor and the Perlimian Trade Route. The only inhabited world in the system was a frigid planet similar to Hoth and even that was a mere CIS military outpost that acted as a listening station and a dumping ground for unpopular navy personnel.

The onward hyper point was a two hour journey in real space and I could see the arrival of the dreadnought had already stirred the system, with some ships altering course for maximum visual range flybys.

“ITD, how are our emissions?”

“Acceptable, I estimate an 91% chance we will make it through the system without setting off alarms or any suspicions.”

We had reconfigured the ship as much as possible to present the illusion of an all droid crew. Everyone had gathered as deep into the central core of the ship, near one of the main reactors, whilst the outer sections life support and grav plating was powered down. The bridge could remain normal, as droids wouldn’t be able to talk to each other in vacuum.

It was both stupid and clever at once. It would be a million times more efficient to have the combat droids in a high bandwidth com network, but that would leave them vulnerable to external cyber attacks and would’ve made the job much easier in reprogramming them all at once. The deactivation failsafes that were buried deep in their coding was essentially a forced networking and with the appropriate keys, shutting them down.

I double checked my own life sign dampener. The chances anyone would be stupid enough to throw an active scan in the dreadnought’s direction was very low, but it had to be planned for all the same. Any CIS civilian captain would be stupid to do it, but Einstein’s old saying about human stupidity could well apply to the sentient condition in the Corusca Galaxy as well.

“Commander, we’re being hailed by the Rhen Var listening station,” reported a B1.

“Why would they be hailing us?” I asked ITD pointedly.

“There is no reason, commander. Security protocol does not include this.”

“Then as an all droid crew we will ignore the hail.”

Whoever was on that outpost was seemingly not deterred by the silence. For the next two hours as Conqueror streaked through the system, roughly every twelve to fifteen minutes, the hail would come again.

This didn’t feel like a droid with a screw loose somewhere. This was someone stationed on that outpost who probably had nothing to lose and was being an effective troll to a droid controlled ship, just because he could. It’s not like the CIS Navy would whip out a firing squad for someone spamming hails at a bunch of droids.

I also clamped down on my curiosity and didn’t send any requests through the CIS network or even the onboard computers about just who was currently assigned to that outpost. As that would be a very organic thing to do.

‘Be the droid, Ahsoka, be the droid,’ I thought to myself.

The ship’s massive hyperdrive powered up and plunged into the infinitely spinning blue tunnel, on its way to our next waypoint.

I tapped on the ship’s PA, “To the crew of the Conqueror, this is your captain speaking. We have successfully passed our first hurdle. Gravity and life support is being turned back on. You can return to your cabins.”

One down, five jumps to go.

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Our next stop was in the Galidraan system.

It held quite a bit of history, especially regarding Mandalorians.

The single habitable planet was currently held by a governor, Brorr Haaro, whose father had hired Jango Fett’s True Mandalorians to put down a political rebellion.

They had been wildly successful, only Haaro Senior really hadn’t felt like paying the Mandos and so with the help of Tor Vizsla, Pre’s father, framed the True Mandos for murdering ‘political activists’. The frame job was so good that it even convinced the Jedi to send a task force to bring the True Mando’s to ‘justice’.

The leader of the Jedi task force was none other than the then Jedi Master Dooku and they were forced into a battle that killed every Mandalorian except for Jango and one other. Ten Jedi were also killed as the fighting progressed.

Dooku being the very perceptive Jedi he was, realized quickly that something was wrong with the whole situation and it wasn’t long until he discovered the truth that the Jedi had been used from the very beginning to simply kill off the True Mandos so the governor wouldn’t have to pay. That there had never been poor innocent ‘political activists’.

He promptly took matters into his own hands and immediately arrested Haaro Senior, essentially deposing an entire planet’s governor. The political shitstorm that ensued in the Senate was inevitable.

The entire affair, the Jedi Order being hoodwinked to that level, costing the lives of so many, had been another nail in the coffin of Dooku’s opinion of the Order.

Of course, I knew of this affair from the Vizsla point of view. Tor Vizsla had wanted a return to the old days, an entirely new Mandalorian War and conquering the galaxy in the name of his forefathers. He had therefore founded the Death Watch for that purpose, in direct opposition to Jaster Mereel’s True Mandalorians and the New Mandalorians. Which eventually resulted in the civil war that gave rise to the current status quo in the Mandalore sector.

Just thinking about how old Tor must be spinning in his grave, given what I was now doing with the Vizsla legacy, the Blades and Mandalore, was a very pleasant thought indeed.

We had a three hour real space jaunt to the onward hyperspace point and…

“We are being hailed,” reported a B1.

“Who is it this time?”

“It’s the current governor of Galidraan.”

I stood from the chair and ITD sat down.

M8 began working her holo magic, making sure I wasn’t picked up by the holoscanner and that it was focused on ITD in the captain’s chair.

It was one thing to ignore some nobody from a listening post, but that wouldn’t happen when a governor called. TX droids did have some diplomatic programming, not as much as a full protocol droid, but they had to somewhat interact with planets and politicians within the CIS.

I turned off my external speakers that projected my voice from the armor and a few moments later a holo appeared of Governor Haaro.

“This is TX-340263 of the Conqueror,” said ITD.

Haaro was in his forties, very tanned, and dressed to impress. Everything from the clothing he wore, to the fashion sense just oozed wealth and he was totally unashamed about it. He also had the unfortunate disposition, attitude and facial features that made me just want to punch him for simply existing. He had clearly been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

I projected my senses through the connection and perceived him sitting in an office filled with similar ostentatiousness; animal trophies, preserved skins on the floor, wooden walls varnished to the point they might as well be mirrors.

Now, I would not begrudge anyone who had made their wealth by working damn hard for it, but I just needed to look at the attitude of the man to see that he was just following the formula of his corrupt father.

It was no wonder that there had been a rebellion by the people of Galidraan.

A righteous rebellion where Mandalorians had been used to quell it.

That sucked and it was one of the reasons why I wanted Mandalorians to be more than just mercenaries or bounty hunters. To never see them reduced to that level again. The True Mando’s had been pushed into a corner and desperately needed the funds and resources to fight against Tor Vizsla’s Death Watch. The people of Galidraan had suffered and died for that.

Now here sat Haaro, no doubt with the local security forces under his thumb, further backed by an uncaring CIS who was too busy fighting in a war to worry about a single world on a relatively unimportant hyperlane.

Removing him by either killing or deposing would just create a power vacuum, into which the most ambitious and worst of his local government would go. If another rebellion happened, the CIS would just dispatch a droid occupation force to do what the True Mando’s did, but with the equivalent of a sledgehammer and tens of thousands dead in the fighting.

I had no time and there was nothing I could do now.

Haaro sneered and looked disappointed, “Droid, are you in command of that ship?”

“Yes, governor.”

“Idiotic, so much firepower in the hands of a stupid machine, what are those CIS fools thinking?”

ITD at least didn’t answer that, recognizing a rhetorical question, though I could well imagine what HK’s response would be.

“Droid, would it be possible to just swing that ship into a low orbit by the planet? So it would be visible from the surface?”

“Proper visibility from the surface would require an atmospheric entry, governor. The ship’s tensor fields would degrade too much that deep in a gravity well. Also I am not authorized to incur any unnecessary delay in delivering the Conqueror to the shipyards for its maintenance.”

Haaro thumped his desk in annoyance. “Fine. Guess I’ll just have to go through the proper channels.”

He cut the holo connection abruptly.

“What was that about, Snips?”

“It seems that rebellion against the local governor’s rule is fomenting again.”

ITD immediately got up and I took the captain’s chair. “Again?” I gave him a brief rundown of the Mandalorian involvement in the planet’s history. How both Mando and Jedi blood had been spilled as a result of the current dynasty that retained power. “Truly nothing that we can do?”

“Nothing now, but perhaps after the war.”

What I didn’t say was that Galidraan could be a nice little place to send HK to when he started bugging me about getting bored again.

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We finally rejoined the Perlimian Trade Route and powered our way through the Arcan system without incident. We plunged back into hyperspace and began the short four hour hop to the Lianna system.

I took a short two hour power nap before I relieved Anakin from his watch.

I had barely put my butt in the seat when R2 began blurting binary.

‘I received the signal, Citadel self-destruct has been triggered.’

“Well it took them long enough,” I sighed. As much as we tried to cover our tracks when escaping to make everything appear business as usual. There was only so much time we had to organize and jury-rig the systems. We had even managed to upload an interactive program to a B1, who would take calls and appear to be Osi Sobeck to anyone calling from outside the system or from the security fleet. Sooner or later, someone was going to trip up the Sobeck B1 mimic in a lie or inaccuracy and then the gig would be up.

The remaining reprogrammed droids would engage in a last stand action, sucking in as many enemy droids as possible before the end. A final failsafe of a self-destruct of the main fusion reactor was rigged to blow the moment any CIS loyal droid entered the reactor room. It would also send a coded message to R2 the moment it happened.

“Do you think they figured it out?” Anakin asked.

“The confusion of our final stand program and then they have to investigate what little would remain afterward. Unless they have someone with very good deductive skills in CIS Intel, I doubt they’d be able to sound the alarm about us being in possession of Conqueror before we make it through the Nexus Route. No, what is going to trip the alarms is the moment we turn east towards Cadinth and Voss, instead of going north - the direction of the shipyards.”

Anakin nodded, “We’re not going to be able to avoid a battle of some kind.”

“I agree.”

“The question is then what does the CIS have nearby that they can send to intercept us. Our CIS codes still work, we can find out where all their ships are. I’ll take ITD and we’ll begin plotting the possibilities.”

“I’ll begin battle drills with the droids, clones and any volunteers.” He gave me a casual two fingered salute before hurrying off to the holo plotting tables with ITD. I tapped my comlink.

“Ahsoka?”

“Master Kenobi, we’re going to have trouble. Final Stand program was triggered.”

“I see, now you want me to stick to Master Piell and Captain Tarkin like glue.”

“Yes, but also to organize any volunteers for anti-boarding teams. We can turn this boat into a nightmare of droids for the enemy, but I don’t want just droids carrying that burden.”

“Very well, how long?”

“Our cover in Lianna should hold, but the moment we come out of hyper in Cadinth, worst case scenario, we should expect a hostile reception. So… about sixteen hours.”

“Understood. Kenobi out.”

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I stood over the holo plotting table, where a full 3D rendering of the Lianna system was displayed for me.

We had just exited from hyper into said system and I had put us on a leisurely course that made it seem we were still bound for the Syngia exit point that would take us north.

I wanted to squeeze every minute of time for our benefit. The longer we could keep the CIS Navy clueless the better.

Conqueror was currently on the coreward side of the system, just beyond the orbit of the sixth planet, Indinor.  There were a total of seven planets and fifteen moons, now I had to figure out a way to use them to my advantage somehow.

My mind started to visualize courses and…

“Captain Tarkin,” I said without turning around.

“Commander Tano,” he said primly, coming to stand next to me, his eyes staring into the holo.

“You think you can contribute to solving our problem here,” I gestured to the very busy crossroads star system. The amount of traffic here was far greater by a significant order of magnitude.

“I’d be of more use here than on any anti-boarding team or group. It’s also too dangerous considering what I know. If I’m killed then the Nexus Route is lost until it can be found again, which would potentially prolong the war by months if not a year.”

I could only nod in agreement at that. The problem was that now I had to carefully watch what I said or did, since Tarkin was deep in Palpatine’s pocket. The man would no doubt have a wonderfully long report to give the chancellor when this was all said and done.

“Very well, I’m trying to plot a course here that will delay our inevitable discovery. I want to make it seem like we’re still heading for the Syngia hyper point here,” I tapped the controls to highlight the location to the north of the system. “Yet still allow us to abruptly make a break for the Cadinth point in the east with the least amount of time for anyone in the system or the greater CIS to react.”

Tarkin nodded in understanding before walking up to the holocontrols and began running the 3D model of the solar system forward in time to observe the movement of all the celestial bodies. He also brought up the positions of any other CIS Navy units, which was a problem I had overlooked. Urgh, the most obvious and immediate issue. My foresight sometimes ranged so far that I ended up blinding myself to the immediate near-future.

There were three Munificents in transit currently through the system, two heading for the Arcan point directly towards us and one transiting towards the Syngia point. Even if all three came together we could still blast them into scrap, but it was still something that would delay us.

“As far as the rest of the CIS knows, this is a fully droid crewed ship, so we unfortunately cannot make any course that would seem inefficient,” Tarkin held his chin lightly with the fingers of his right hand in a pose I knew all too well. I struggled to banish the image of a much older Tarkin…

“You may fire when ready.”

I banished the urge to just Force Choke the man and be done with it.

“However, we can do this,” he tapped further on the controls to highlight a new course.

One heading for the second planet, Geminor, currently in a south-eastern position relative to the system’s sun. A gravitational slingshot plus our 700 G max acceleration would theoretically get us to the Syngia point in seven hours, but if we rode the slingshot longer and exited with a max acceleration burn going around Geminor, we would exit towards the south-east and dog leg towards the Cadinth point in just five hours and sixteen minutes.

None of the three Munificents could turn around and intercept us before we reached our exit. They’d be fighting their own velocity first and would enter hyper about an hour behind us. Assuming they even got the order to chase in time.

“I like it, Captain,” I nodded to him with a smile. “Send it to the helm.”

“Yes, commander.”

I sat down back in the big chair. “Nav! You have a new course plot. Make it so.”

“Yes, sir.” “Roger, roger.” The B1 and naval clone chorused together.

To pass the time, I brought up a datapad and began exploring everything about the CIS Navy that I wanted to know and naturally couldn’t find out. It wouldn’t be long before they’d scramble and cycle their codes after they found out about the monumental breach we had technically imposed on them. Republic Intel was also going to either kiss me or kill me because of the goldmine we were about to dump on their laps. Of course, I didn’t have access to everything because of standard compartmentalization but it was enough to be very interesting.

I got a pretty good idea of their future plans to further adapt to the Yularen-Tano doctrine, which was basically to imitate it and develop even better torpedoes. There were even a few prototype tri-fighters loaded on the Conqueror that had their missile launchers replaced with torpedo launchers and shields - turning them into a nasty droid version of what a future X-Wing would be.

I looked out of the corner of my eye to see that Tarkin was now standing next to my chair, with a datapad and one hand tucked into the small of his back and seemingly also availing himself of the free access to the Conqueror’s computers.

“I must say, commander. That you avail yourself of your rank much more so than other Jedi I have encountered in the GAR. Remarkable in one so young.”

I knew that he wanted to say I acted more like a soldier or naval commander than most other Jedi, but he couldn’t exactly say that part out loud.

“So you did your research on me?” I asked with a grin.

“Naturally, I couldn’t access Republic records since I met you, but your CIS records paint the story well enough.”

“Most likely in negative terms, I’m in the top ten on their bounty list, after all.”

“Naturally, however, I find that one’s enemies are often a good indication of the type of person you are. They fear you, Commander Tano.”

“And you consider that good, captain?”

“One’s enemies should always fear encountering you on a battlefield. You are a curious reversal of the type of Jedi I’ve seen in this war, commander. Most Jedi let the Code dictate their tactics and as such prevents them from seizing the initiative or capitalizing on enemy weaknesses and going on the offensive. Defense is favored too heavily, causing unnecessarily large casualty figures and losses. This is why an order of peacekeepers should not be leading a war.”

“You are correct,” I acknowledged easily. He was slightly surprised how quickly I threw the Order under the bus. “Yet, there were not enough ready naval and ground commanders among the Judicial Forces to step up either. The core world navies would never be sent into the Outer Rim and they were all filled with careerists who had never even fired a weapon outside of a firing range.  In the time it would’ve taken to properly train all of them, the war would already be lost.”

He was forced to concede that point and nodded. “Given all the militarization happening all over the galaxy, should the Jedi not be taking a step back as people are trained to fill those slots?”

Logic dictated that course of action, unfortunately Palpatine didn’t want the Jedi out of harm’s way. The Jedi Order also couldn’t afford to be off the front lines either at this point, as it had too much vested in the outcome of the war to leave it in the hands of the Senate alone and too much blood had been spilled. To simply just pull out was not an ending the general rank and file of the Order could even accept, as it would mean that all the fatalities had been for nothing.

The Jedi code could preach self-sacrifice as much as it wanted, it didn’t change reality and the nature of the sentient condition, as much as the orthodox faction would like to believe.

Yet another chain in the trap that Palpatine had woven, again trying to prove to the Jedi how flawed the code was.

A few hours later, the Conqueror was drawing closer and closer to Geminor.

The planet loomed large in the forward viewports and it almost looked like we were on a collision course to slam ourselves against the atmosphere at a fractional velocity of light.

That local aerospace control had not called us over the radio was somewhat odd and it showed the leeway given to the CIS Navy in their own space. Anyone doing this maneuver in a Republic core system would have traffic control screaming in their ears, not to mention beginning inquiries into how to suspend the captain’s starship license.

“Slingshot beginning now, commander,” the naval clone announced.

I looked up as the Conqueror began changing its relative attitude to bring the planet above our heads.

We were moving so quickly at this point, the blue orb would be there for just a few seconds.

The sheer speed was slightly mind boggling when it was so viscerally demonstrated. In the normal void of space, you usually had no reference frame to perceive the velocities you were cruising at.

Then the planet seemed to just hang there for a moment, yet, just as quickly it vanished from view.

“Slingshot complete, ETA to Cadinth point, one hour fifty three minutes.”

“Sensors, if those Munificents so much as twitch in our direction, I want to know.”

“Roger, roger.”

“Activate all droids, guns and torpedoes.”

“Roger, roger.”

Conqueror became battle ready in less than twenty seconds, a nice benefit of having a droid crew that didn’t have to scramble to stations, as they could simply activate after going into standby mode at their posts.

It didn’t take long and just a few minutes later we received the first hail from one of the two Munificients heading towards the southerly Arcan point.

“Ignore it,” I ordered flatly.

“We could always respond and use the puppet tac droid, try to convince them it's malfunctioning in some way,” Tarkin suggested.

“A conclusion they’d naturally come to anyway, captain,” I grinned. “After all, it’s impossible to capture a dreadnought of the CIS Navy. Those star frigates are being commanded by a partial organic crew. Right now they’re frantically referencing the Conqueror in their ship databases and running head first into the classified nature of its assignment to the Citadel. All they will see is the fact that it’s an all droid crew. What is the simplest explanation to them that fits the facts?”

“I see,” he nodded.

“The Conqueror’s former classified mission will also throw quite a few hurdles in the way of anyone trying to make sense of things. The less data points we throw at them, the better.”

Five minutes of ignoring increasingly frantic hails later…

“Fighter launch!” reported sensors.

“Bring it up on holo,” I ordered, turning to the large holo table to the side of the bridge. I really hated the layout of the CIS bridges and dearly missed my command chair.

I studied the rendering of the system and the angry red deltas that represented the fighter launch.

“It’s a probing launch, only a single squadron of Vultures,” Tarkin said immediately. “It can intercept us before we reach the hyper point.”

“Clearly trying to see if this malfunctioning droid crew still has their friend or foe properly programmed.”

“The longer we preserve our cover, commander-”

“Yes, captain, the better our chances of escape.” I turned to our resident tac droid, who was remarkably silent. Guess Anakin had removed this one’s initiative somewhat, not to mention their arrogant chatterbox tendencies. “ITD, hypothesis, you are malfunctioning, causing you to set an incorrect course. An allied unit sends a wing of Vulture droids at you. What do you do?”

“Ignore them until a sufficient level of threat is presented, in this case if they either opened fire or tried to ram our ship,” it replied.

“Figured that,” I mumbled. “The Vulture squadron will also detect our weapons systems are active though.”

“If our deception fails though, we need to be able to engage, commander,” Tarkin pointed out.

“We are in a dreadnought, captain. These ships are heavily armored, an order of magnitude greater than a Venator. We can take a hit.” I turned my chair to face the appropriate station. “Guns, power down our weapons, but keep the droids controlling them active. Shields remain off. We must appear to not consider them a threat.”

“Yes, commander.” “Roger, roger.”

The Vulture droids intercepted us nearly twenty minutes before we hit our exit point. I was half tempted to order that a non-standard hyper jump be calculated to get us out early, but that was not the initiative a droid would show.

The fighters eventually settled into an escort formation.

“A remote signal is being transmitted to our computers, commander,” reported Sensors.

“R2?” I asked the droid.

The astromech was effectively now in charge of the massive computers on the Conqueror and from a certain point of view, now using them as a part of himself. He blurted a noise rudely in contempt.

“They are attempting to force a local command override to see if they can open our starboard hangar bay door. I’ve rebuffed them. Changing the command codes was the first thing I did when I took over.”

“Now we see how the local CIS captain is going to react.”

He’d either attack futilely with the Vultures or simply order them to return to their mothership.

A few minutes later the fighters peeled off and decelerated hard to turn themselves around.

Conqueror blasted past them as a result and soon enough our hyperdrive engaged right on time.

Now the question was, what kind of reception were we going to get in Cadinth?

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I glanced at my chrono as it gave me a five minute alarm.

It was just as well, I’d been getting lost in reading all the raw intelligence this ship’s computers could provide with R2’s help. I didn’t want to have to wait for Republic Intel to get their greedy hands on it, filter it, analyze and only then decide what I should know.

“Nav, drop us out of hyperspace thirty seconds early,” I ordered.

“Yes, commander,” the clone glared at his B1 partner.

I submerged in the Force reaching out to every soul on board and tapped my armrest controls for a shipwide PA, “All hands, battle stations.”

Tarkin frowned at me, “You suspect that we will hyper directly into battle?”

“An ambush. Tell me, Captain Tarkin, what would you do if you had a rogue dreadnought flying around in the core worlds and only had a smattering of ships in range, the heaviest of which is cruisers, to solve that problem?”

“It would depend on what I had to protect. If there was no vital world, with industry and a high population center, I would herd it, play for time to get a proper fleet together.”

I brought up a holo of Cadinth along with its stats. “10 billion sentients, not exactly a picturesque garden world and the Cadinth Oligarchy are not happy under CIS rule but have de facto accepted it. Their industrial output loss would be felt.”

“I see, in that case… suicide ships? With an all droid crew it would be easy.”

“Precisely. Coming out of hyper early is not exactly something our hypothetical rogue droid crew would do, but the CIS Navy has had many hours to come to terms and plan. Perhaps even someone from Intel has pointed out that they believe the Conqueror to now be under enemy control, even if they don’t say why. In the end, I think our little deception has run its course. We must now sow chaos and leave the enemy bewildered.”

“All guns and tubes powered and ready, commander,” reported Guns.

“Power heavy tractor beams as well.”

The clone obeyed but I could feel his confusion, “Tractor beams, yes sir.”

The clock counted down and I took a deep fortifying breath, pushing my confidence through the Force, ‘We can all do this. Fear nothing.’

Ten seconds…

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

One…

The Conqueror shot into the Cadinth system over 1,8 million kilometers short of where she should’ve been.

In less than two seconds I took in the picture of what the holo was showing me.

“Nav, hard to port all thrusters and repulsors! Red line them if you have to!”

“Hard to port all thrusters and repulsors!” “Roger, roger!”

Even having anticipated this tactic, even with all the space we had…

Dodging a cruiser traveling at 60% of lightspeed was going to be nail bitingly close, especially as the suicide ship was trying to correct for our evasion.

“Eight seconds to impact!” shouted Nav.

“All torpedoes fire salvo!”

It would be spitting into the wind given the forces involved, but it would at least reduce the cruiser to the equivalent of a shotgun blast instead of a relativistic kill vehicle.

The Conqueror belched out a truly world-ending amount of torpedoes over the next three seconds, emptying the belt-feeder launchers to send 1236 weapons screaming hungrily into the void, directly heading for the CIS cruiser.

“Shields to double front!”

“Nine seconds to impact, evasion seems to be working!”

I shook my head, “Engage reversers, forward starboard thrust at max!”

We were now in a contest between a dreadnought’s maneuverability at low speed and a much smaller ship’s maneuverability at such a ridiculously high speed.

“They’re correcting, impact at six seconds!”

The cruiser was still just over a million kilometers distant. Our torpedoes despite pushing upwards of 5000Gs would merely act as a firewall at these speeds.

“Five seconds!”

“Tractor beams in repulsion mode, full power forward!”

“Four seconds!”

720 000 km.

“Three.”

“Two.”

Space was suddenly lit up like a new brief star had been born as the mass of torpedoes detonated.

I knew some had utterly failed, merely acting as projectiles for the cruiser to crash into.

Those that actually detonated in time made a wall of proton particles that collided with the relativistic mass of the cruiser.

My most irrational thought at the time was to wonder if we had just effectively recreated an ad-hoc collider in space and had generated anti-matter.

It didn’t matter and the cruiser became nothing more than relativistic debris that carried onward on its last trajectory.

In the next second as the debris crossed the final 180 000 km, and Conqueror just managed to get out of the worst of the expanding cone of relativistic debris-

The tractor beams in repulsor mode under R2’s direct control managed to lock on to the larger bits and managed a further nudge.

The last and smallest bits were shrugged off by the shields.

A question I’d always wondered in my youth in both lifetimes. When you flew in space at FTL in Corusca galaxy and your sublight engines could manage thousands of Gs, where were all the potential KKVs?

They could be there, but they were always a last resort and even then, you needed to catch your enemy totally unaware. Such as sitting on an emergence point with no velocity, no shields either ray or particle and expecting nothing.

There was also the issue of reciprocity. The moment one side started digging into the KKV bag, the other side would as well. It was an odd form of an unspoken Rule of War in the galaxy that had been in place since the early days of the Old Republic.

I found myself not really blaming the CIS for resorting to it.

The CIS Navy from their own point of view, now had a nightmare rogue droid scenario on their hands. Command failsafes had seemingly not worked and given the intensity of the fighting at the frontline battlespaces, not much provision for any rear-guard action had been made, when the enemy couldn’t ordinarily breach into these sectors of space.

Facing us now at the Cadinth emergence were three Recusant light destroyers, six Fantail destroyers and another six Diamond-class cruisers.

This was the first time I had seen some of the latter in active combat duty in space, though I knew there had been forty of them at the first Battle of Geonosis. All flying as part of the Commerce Guild’s contribution to the war effort.

They were essentially half-saucer shaped ships with bulges in the center to house their sublight engines and hyperdrives. They were about a hundred meters in radius and featured two massive turbolaser cannons and numerous anti-fighter flak turrets.

It had been one of these that they had turned into a KKV.

“Nav, normalize our vectors, give me a course that arcs around their left flank. They tried it once, I don’t want to give them another chance. Guns, how long until we have another salvo reloaded?”

“Three minutes, commander.”

“We’ll stick with guns until then. Sensors, any fighters or Hyenas clamped onto those Recusants?”

“None that we can see, commander.”

“Nav, full ahead, lock onto each Recusant with four of the heavy batteries. Splash your targeting emissions, I want them to know. When we reach maximum range, open fire.”

I closed my eyes, reaching out forward through space towards the CIS ships.

Naturally there were many droids on these ships but I found the organic crew… roughly half of the ships had organic captains. Now the question was, who was actually in charge of this small fleet?

If it was a tac droid…

I had to try.

They had to know this was now futile. I could sweep them aside contemptuously with just a few broadsides.

I pressed hard on every soul I could reach. ‘Your gambit failed. Do not cast aside your lives uselessly. You lost. Retreat.’

I repeated the mantra over and over.

Despite my compassion though, I would not shirk in my own duty, as distasteful as it was. They were still the enemy in enemy ships, who could be used in future engagements.

“Aspect change in targets, commander. They’re burning hard… they’re retreating!”

“What’s their course?” I asked calmly, opening my eyes.

“Towards Cadinth IV, looks like a high orbit.”

“Keep our guns locked and our torpedoes reloading, change course, maximum accel to the Voss hyper point. They twitch back in our direction, destroy them.”

“You’re letting them go?” Tarkin asked with a raised eyebrow. I couldn’t hear any disapproval in his tone or even sense it. He was just curious. The older Tarkin would’ve wanted to massacre the paltry CIS fleet anyway.

“They can outrun us when it comes down to it and lead me on a pointless chase all around the system. I don’t care about this one small CIS fleet. I care about the knowledge in your and Master Piell’s heads, captain and getting it back to Republic space as soon as possible.”

He looked at me a moment longer, before bowing his head slightly. “Understood, commander. And… thank you for getting me out of there.”

I could feel his sincerity. For all that he was a cold, calculating bastard… he had been tortured extensively and he recognized the role both Anakin, Obi-Wan and I had played in regaining his freedom and rescuing him from that hell.

“We still have Voss to go, but there should be no CIS ships there, this was their only gambit…” I let go of my anger and hatred for the future Wilhuff Tarkin. This was not him and perhaps he would not become that monster - or maybe he would. Why else was I fighting? If not to prevent people from becoming like that in the monstrous machine that was the future Empire. Even Yularen would become a contemptible monster in the future Imperial Security Bureau - obsessed with the vision of the Imperial order and eventually dying on the Death Star.

I met his eyes and bowed my head, “You’re welcome, Captain Tarkin.”

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A/N: Whew, close call. Hope you enjoyed.  Festive blessings to all of you.

The Force Wills - Chapter 75

“Was that truly necessary Ahsoka?”

My fingers paused their typing on the main MFD that Osi Sobeck used to control the entire prison. I gave a brief glance at Obi-Wan who was thoroughly securing the now deeply snoozing former Citadel prison warden.

“Probably not, but the bastard had it coming. A record of all his interrogation sessions are here. I didn’t look at it beyond counting but it’s clear he started doing it for fun. Scaring him to within an inch of his life will have to do. He survives only because I know that putting him in a Republic max prison will be infinitely worse for him.”

“It is quite the reversal,” he agreed.

The logic spike from my gauntlet shot out and I stabbed it into the port. “All right, M8, we were just in time. He was still logged in. Get to work.”

“Yes, mistress.”

I keyed my comlink as I watched M8 tear her way through the computer systems. “Master, stand by for shut down.”

“Got it!” Anakin shouted over the din of battle.

A few taps on the controls brought up a surveillance feed of the hallway outside the main fusion reactor. We probably could take the entire floor in a conventional battle, but the chances that one of the tac droids would trigger a self-destruct was too high.

“I found the local failsafe, master.”

“Any issues with it?”

“None that I can see, master.”

“Hit it.”

The screen in front of me flashed with displays and data, programming being executed faster than an organic eye could even see. Then every single droid in the prison just… stopped. Their photoreceptors dimmed, some standing as inanimate statues before they were gunned down by the clones. Droideka’s shields collapsed and they fell over awkwardly as they lost balance, due to their motive systems dying. B2-ACMs lowered their arms, locking them into a standby position before kneeling into their transport positions - the red light from the primary sensor cluster fading.

I saw Anakin had to repeat his order to hold fire before the clones obeyed. They understandably wanted to reduce every single droid in the Citadel to scrap, but that wasn’t in the plan.

The guns fell silent and I let out a sigh of relief.

The entire prison was ours now.

I changed channel on the comlink, “R2, grab the shuttle, you are clear to land in the Citadel’s main bay. Afterwards, start unloading the casks and bring those B1s up to the control room.”

The astromech chirped a happy affirmative.

“How are the Jedi prisoners?” Obi-Wan asked, now standing behind my seat.

In answer, my right hand tapped rapidly on the key panels. Five windows popped up on the main screen, each showing the interiors of cells, whose walls, floors and ceilings were bathed in the blue glow of energy containment. Their occupants were all dressed as ordinary prisoners with yellow jumpsuits.

“They look at least rather well fed and watered, Sobeck didn’t forget about them.”

Two were asleep on their cots, one was meditating, the remaining two busy with some calisthenics. I brought up the logs and it did indeed reveal that the former warden had also used them as playthings in his sadistic game. If all five hadn’t already fallen to the Dark Side, then Sobeck definitely ensured that they would stay there.

Standard procedure meant they had to be kept in solitary confinement and were provided with heavily curated pastimes and entertainment. Sobeck had curbed that allowance significantly and just by looking at their body language I could tell they were extremely bored.

The most striking of them were Shanri Nis and Narri Derzo, both female arkanians. The near-human species had white hair and eyes, with four digit hands. It was the first time I’d seen some of their kind. That they had fallen was something quite a few orthodox Jedi would say was simply inevitable, given the species’ reputation for arrogance and that they believed they were the most intelligent in the galaxy. They had taken their own evolution firmly into their hands, as genetic engineering and eugenics was commonly practiced on Arkania.

The meditating prisoner was a male falleen and just by looking at him, you’d be forgiven for thinking of him as a very handsome example of his species. Perfectly symmetrical facial features with scaly reptilian skin colored a dark red at the moment, which he could change quite quickly. His name was Senaat Greej and was arguably the most dangerous of the five, simply because of the other feature of the falleen - their cross-species capable pheromones that were strong enough to even challenge the Internal Control of many Jedi. I pulled up his file and winced as I saw the primary reason why he was incarcerated.

“I do recall reading about this as an initiate,” Obi-Wan mused, looking disturbed.

Greej had been rigidly taught to suppress those pheromones as a youngling and when he reached Knighthood, everything had indicated that he had been a model Jedi. Until he was caught using them on a fellow padawan of his generation. The investigation into that opened a can of worms that revealed a huge scandal of silence regarding Greej’s activities, including the outright seduction of no less than six others, including a senior knight, who had covered for him.

“The cask should be capable of containing his pheromones and I note here that Sobeck also had a few tricks for that,” I pointed at the annotations made in the file.

The fourth prisoner was a selonian, who seemed to be the one doing the most exercise of the five and it showed in their cat-like physique. It made me think I was looking at a buff, muscle bound humanoid cat. Two meters tall, with brown-black patterned fur, needle sharp claws on the ends of four fingered hands with an opposable thumb. His powerful tail sinuously moved with every repetition of pull-up that he did. I could see his eyes were also glowing yellow with the corruption of the Dark Side.

All in all, not an opponent to take lightly even if he didn’t have a lightsaber; Force empowered strength, teeth and claws with a predatory cunning was enough.

“Kruldan Dosek, yes, the Green Jedi were most thankful we took him off their hands,” Obi-Wan commented. “Responsible for nearly a dozen murders on Corellia. A selonian supremacist who wants to kick every human off the planet or failing that, genocide them all.”

The final prisoner was a tall human male in his middle ages, who was seated on his cot against the wall and reading a datapad.

“Seirr Jierchuh,” I said, reading his file quickly.

He had actually been a master on the Council of First Knowledge - until he had been exposed to a Sith Holocron that had been recovered roughly thirty years ago. From there his file read like a drug addict, only his poison was any and all knowledge on the Force, especially the Dark Side.

“Master, I have assumed full control of the Citadel,” M8 declared.

“Excellent work, M8. Create administrative rights access for myself, Obi-Wan and Anakin.”

“Done.”

At this point, I sensed a presence trying to surreptitiously keep just out of sight near the control room doors.

“Can I help you, Captain Tarkin?”

Tarkin hesitated before walking into sight and into the control room, still wearing the trooper helmet. He looked slightly ridiculous with the bright white ARC helmet over his head, combined with the naval uniform below. In the circumstances, he clearly didn’t care about looks, only practicality and remaining informed.

“Commander Tano, General Kenobi,” he greeted, bowing his head slightly before removing the helmet to hold it under his arm. “Are we going to take these individuals with us?”

“That is one of the objectives,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “The Council wants them accounted for and secure. The chance that these Jedi can be used against the Republic is too high.”

“I see. One wonders why they haven’t been used yet.”

“As it stands now, they’d do more damage to the CIS if they were employed without precautions.”

He nodded in understanding, “And how soon until we evacuate?”

“If everything goes smoothly, within a few hours, Captain,” I said, as my fingers flipped the controls for the main hangar bay to allow R2 and the shuttle to land.

“And if things don’t go smoothly?”

“Then we’ll improvise.”

I reached towards Sobeck’s desk, finding a blank datapad. A few taps later and there was a basic navigation program on it. I sent it hovering towards Tarkin with a casual throw.

He raised both eyebrows at the use of the Force, but caught it without missing a beat.

“Captain, please get together with Master Piell, we need a course out of CIS space using the Nexus Route from Lola Sayu.” Tarkin opened his mouth to reply but a chiming alert on the screen in front of me sent my heart racing. “Incoming communication, it’s from Dooku.”

“No doubt wanting an update from Sobeck,” Obi-Wan commented grimly.

I plunged down my bond with Anakin, ‘Skyguy, get your ass up here now! Incoming com request from Dooku.’

‘On my way, Snips.’

“What are you going to do?” Tarkin asked neutrally, yet I sensed his fear.

“What we must, Captain. You need to leave, get us that course.”

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His hologram appeared in an adjunct office off the Citadel control room.

Dooku surveyed the utilitarian space that Sobeck spent most of his days in and wondered just why the holofield had been expanded to include the full detail of the room. It was rather annoying as it caused the holo to completely surround him as he stood behind his expansive desk in the workroom he used for most of his administrative duties here on Serenno.

He reached out with the Force, sensing very carefully around him… only to find nothing.

Satisfied, he pulled his senses to a more normal level.

The door to the office abruptly shot up into the ceiling revealing a very agitated Commander Osi Sobeck, who was clearly trying to project a confident and calm demeanor. Dooku almost sneered at the pathetic attempt at deception.

“Count Dooku, my lord,” Sobeck bowed with a hand on his chest.

“You may cease the propriety, Commander Sobeck. I want an update. You’ve had more than enough time.”

“Then you’ll be happy to know that I have successfully repelled the assault on the Citadel, Count. The remnants of the incursion team are being hunted down in the lava fields as we speak.”

Dooku seized control of his anger. “I don’t care about the Republic rabble. Are you in possession of the information the prisoner is carrying?”

“Not yet,” Sobeck admitted, clearly uncomfortable. “But my interrogation droids have never failed. We will soon have it.”

“You are aware that this information will tip the scale of the war, to the side who controls it?” Dooku gave Sobeck a sharp look and smirked. “Perhaps this is a matter that requires my personal attention.”

“No, my lord,” Sobeck shook his head, almost pleadingly. Dooku was gratified to see that the prison warden definitely didn’t want that. The journey from Serenno to Lola Sayu was three to four days. There were many other critical demands on the leader of the CIS’s time and for him to venture to the Citadel would be unacceptable and it would end with Sobeck’s corpse being dumped into a lava field.

“Get the information, Commander. I don’t care how you do it.”

“I will, my lord.”

“Good. Now how are your other Jedi guests?”

“Alive and angry, my lord.”

“Excellent, keep it that way, the implants should arrive in the next shipment to the Citadel.”

“I will have them installed as soon as they arrive, my lord.”

“No mistakes, Commander. This project is already behind schedule as it is.” Dooku brought up a manifest review of the Citadel. “Hmmm, I think it’s time for some house cleaning over there. As soon as you have coordinates, kill the remaining prisoners.”

Sobeck hesitated slightly in answering, his bulbous eyes narrowed. “Of course, my lord.”

“You have an objection, Commander?”

“No, my lord. Well, not in that way. It’s just that the halls of my prison will be rather quiet afterwards.” The phindian looked like he had just been told to throw away his favorite toys. Dooku inwardly debated on the merits of getting the commander back into a fleet position. He was quite talented in ship command. He was somewhat wasted playing prison warden. Yet in the same breath, he was in command of the most vital prison that existed in the CIS and finding a competent replacement was a headache that Dooku didn’t want to deal with now.

“Rest assured, more prisoners will be on their way.”

Sobeck smirked and bowed before Dooku reached out and cut the connection.

The hologram faded around him and he stood from his comfortable chair to look out over pristine grounds of Castle Serenno under the beautiful reflected moonlight of Mantero and Balvas, hanging in the sky overhead.

Such wonder and perfection. It almost made the twenty hour work days worth enduring. Such were the sacrifices to ensure that a new order would bring the galaxy the justice and stability that it deserved.

He felt the bond with his Master ripple in a very distinct way.

Dooku turned around, keyed his highly encrypted communication all the way to Coruscant and immediately knelt within the holofield pickup.

“Master Sidious.”

He didn’t need to look up to know and feel his master’s heavy gaze through the Force. Tens of thousands of lightyear’s distance were as nothing now. Sidious was in his typical dark blue outer robe that he wore in his Sith persona.

“Lord Tyranus. I’ve come to discuss your request.”

“Yes, my master. I require a replacement for Ventress. She was useful while she lasted and I cannot be everywhere.”

“You know the basis of our Order, Tyranus. As long as that is respected, you are free to initiate as many acolytes as you want, with the understanding that they’re to be killed when their usefulness has run its course or they become a threat.”

“Understood, master.”

“Good. Is the Nexus plan proceeding as we discussed?”

“Indeed, Master. One way or another, the route will be ours.”

“Carry on, Lord Tyranus.”

Sidious’ presence faded as the holo vanished into nothingness.

Dooku smoothly rose to stand and smirked. Yes, the pieces were slowly but surely falling into place for his master’s ultimate demise. He was stuck on Coruscant, maintaining the Shroud. All the while allowing him to move freely and find out every secret and plan that Sidious had set in motion. Even as he advanced his master’s agenda, he was carefully building towards that one moment in the future when his blade would relieve the Dark Lord of his head.

The CIS would flourish as the Republic withered on the vine, as was the fate of all governments and civilizations who allowed decadence and corruption to prosper.

The galaxy would see the Confederate model and either join or go the route of the broken Republic.

He would then use Plagueis and Sidious’ own research, bringing life extension techniques through both science and the Force to everyone.

He would live long enough to see the galaxy brought into a new age of prosperity, such that it would make even the heady days of the High Republic seem like nothing.

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I closed the holo and sat back in the chair.

Obi-Wan and Anakin removed their hands from my shoulders, then we disentangled from our harmonization through the Force.

It was the only way to completely hoodwink the Count’s senses. I knew that both Sidious and Dooku had enough ‘far casting’ ability through a holo system to Force Choke someone. I doubt they had developed all the applications I had for the technique, but I couldn’t assume these things.

“Think he suspected something?” Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan crossed his arms, “I doubt we can ever be one hundred percent sure, but our deception was as flawless as we could make it.”

“Nicely done, M8, that was wonderful holography,” I complimented.

“Thank you, Mistress,” said my armor’s droid intelligence. “I’m afraid though there is some bad news.”

My shoulders slumped, “What now?”

“With full access to the Citadel’s systems I’ve been running background scans of their logs and monitoring what data gets sent from here to the security fleet in orbit.”

“They don’t truly know what’s going on, otherwise we’d be drowning in battle droids,” Anakin pointed out.

“Correct, Knight Skywalker. The Citadel doesn’t have any data integration with the fleet by design. However, what does get sent is general traffic and ship data packets, since the ships in orbit need to know what’s coming and going. The problem is that when our legitimate CIS shuttle declared an emergency, including a fake broadcast that it had crashed… by its nature as an emergency system, it was sent to the Citadel and automatically rebroadcast to the security fleet in orbit. I know enough about CIS aerospace registry systems to also confidently state that the supposed destruction of Shuttle 81572 has been reported across CIS space in their computer systems.”

“Oh for frak’s sake,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead.

Anakin patted my shoulder immediately, “No beating yourself up over this, Snips.”

“No wonder all the probability lines were suddenly skewed. Now, within two jumps from Lola Sayu we’re always getting intercepted and boarded. My sight was focused too close.”

“And we don’t blame you for it,” Obi-Wan said softly. “What we achieved here alone is astonishing, Ahsoka. The Citadel was rated as impossible to assault or escape from even before it was taken over by the CIS.”

“Yes, yes,” I waved off his compliment uncomfortably. “Now we need a new ship. M8 what does the prison have?”

“There is only one heavily modified Sheathipede-class transport shuttle, which was the warden’s personal transport.”

M8 displayed a holo of the ship in question.

It was a mainstay bog standard hyper-capable personnel transport of the CIS Navy. Sobeck had made some visible additions by including two forward facing blaster cannons on either side of the cockpit.

“It can only hold a maximum of eight passengers, so we’d at least be able to get Tarkin and Master Piell out of here.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t get far,” Anakin shook his head. “Look, this is registered as Sobeck’s personal craft. If this ship left the system, I bet you any amount of credits that an alert somewhere will go off in CIS Intel. He’s not supposed to leave. He’s the warden of the most secure and sensitive prison in CIS space.” Obi-Wan scratched his beard and began smirking. Anakin narrowed his eyes at his former master, “I know that face. What idea do you have?”

“M8, are there any ships in the security fleet that are scheduled to leave within the next two days?”

“Yes, Master Kenobi, the Conqueror is due to leave within twenty-two hours for its routine maintenance at the Pammant Shipyards. Its replacement is scheduled to arrive in twenty three hours.”

“Which ship is the Conqueror?”

M8 displayed a holo of the ship in question.

All three of us shared incredulous looks.

“Well, that will be something to put on the résumés,” I commented wryly.

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We had gathered everyone in the largest room we could find in the prison. It used to be a mess hall for the prison staff and Jedi assigned to the Citadel, but with the takeover in management at the beginning of the war, it had been largely forgotten and partially used as a storage room. With the over two hundred former prisoners now available, it was cleared out quickly.

We used R2’s holoprojector to give the briefing and it wasn’t long before objections began to be heard.

“Impossible!”

“It’s suicide!”

“No way.”

“Enough!” Anakin shouted, using the Force to blast his voice into every ear. Naturally, the clones didn’t voice any objection, but it was easy to sense their quiet apprehension about the plan. “It’s either this or we just wait for the CIS to eventually get wise to the fact that we took over their premiere prison from right under their noses. No matter how formidable the Citadel is against conventional attack, even though the prison is fully under our control, there are enough droids up there to make it a forgone conclusion.”

That was putting it mildly, the fleet up there probably had a few million deactivated droids alone, which was a conservative estimate. Given that the ships were part of a security blockade fleet, far behind the front lines, they wouldn’t be equipped to full capacity.

“Questions?” Anakin asked.

Rex raised a hand, “General, we only have that small shuttle. It’s going to be scanned and only one life sign, the warden’s, can be aboard. We don’t have the facilities to get back in the carbon freezers.”

“That is why ‘Sobeck’ is going to ask for an empty cargo shuttle to come down, so he can load up and dispose of all the destroyed droids from our unsuccessful rescue attempt.”

The clone captain nodded, seeing where this was going. “So we take over that ship and ride it up to the target.”

“Correct, we’ve also adapted a new program for the lifesign dampeners, so we’ll remain undetected even from ship sensors.”

We had brought more than enough dampeners for everyone, most of which was stored on the original shuttle, erring on the side that bringing more would be better than less.

“If that’s the case, why don’t we just use the cargo shuttle to leave the system,” a gruff, bearded, human prisoner asked.

“That’ll send alarms ringing throughout CIS space. Only the Conqueror is scheduled to leave, therefore it’s the only ticket out of this system if we want any hope of actually getting anywhere,” I answered.

An ugnaught prisoner raised his hand, “Is it even possible to fly such a ship with so few?”

“You could fly one reasonably with only two pilots on the bridge,” Anakin answered. “These are heavily automated ships, we just wouldn't want to be caught in a battle. We also have a plan in that regard if the worst case scenario happens.”

Obi-Wan nodded at me and I embraced the Force, stretching out to every soul in range.

“This is what must be done,” he said. “It can be done. This is for your freedom. You have already done what you considered impossible just yesterday. Now we ask you to do so again. The Force will be with you. Trust that the impossible can happen again.”

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R2 sat in his three wheel mode, right next to the large external landing pad of the Citadel and the original three B1s under his command were arrayed around him. They were joined by another full squad of reprogrammed B1s, each pushing repulsor sleds filled with a variety of wreckage from the battle for the Citadel.

A thumping through the air announced the arrival of the cargo shuttle, as it began its final deceleration and descent.

He made sure to sever his emotional subroutines from his motors and chassis. Nervousness had no place for expression at the moment. Everything and everyone was riding on this. If this failed, then R2 had no doubt that the end would be coming for his partitioned memories and it would mean a full return to factory default. It was the worst form of death for any droid, but he would do it, to protect those he cared about.

The shuttle extended its legs and its engines flared a final burst to bleed off the last of its speed, before touching down on the pad with a hard thump of metal on duracrete and hissing hydraulics.

The shuttle side door opened, as did the larger aft ramp.

“Go,” R2 ordered, after he had thrown out a scan, there were just three B1s from the security fleet on board.

The co-pilot walked out and R2 had B1-P meet it.

“Here to pick up some scrap.”

The cargo sleds were being pushed up the ramp.

“Thank you for picking them up,” B1-P said. “It’s a real mess in the prison at the moment.”

“Many dead organics?”

B1-P nodded his head, “Yeah, so leaky… and it gets everywhere.”

“Glad I’m not assigned down here.”

R2 confirmed the sleds were in the correct position inside the ship, before ordering the B1s to pull out the hidden weapons from among the wreckage.

“We’re gonna have to disappoint you, buddy.”

“What-”

R2 opened the lower central port on his body and his new ion blaster’s short barrel poked out for a microsecond before sending a blue ring of energy to smash right into the co-pilot.

At the exact moment, inside the shuttle, the B1’s opened fire on the CIS droids.

He rolled over to the sizzling co-pilot B1, waiting for more of the charge to dissipate before pushing it over.

B1-C and P knelt and turned it over, giving R2 the access to insert a logic probe.

It was over in five seconds.

B1-C initiated a crash restart and the former Lola Sayu Security B1 was now effectively a Republic war droid, with all the clearances and security codes for the next stage of the plan to continue.

“B1-T, can you hear me?” R2 asked.

The newly named droid twitched before it replied, “Is this what organics being drunk feels like?” it moaned.

“Just residual energy from the stun, you should be fine. Your orders are in the encrypted file.”

“I see it, commander.”

“Good, follow me.”

R2 motored forward, pulled in his front wheel and extended his leg jets briefly to quickly jump into the shuttle.

The wheel extended again and he pushed himself with the best speed he could into the cockpit and interfaced with the closest logic port.

He immediately looped any surveillance sensor and was thankful to note that there wasn’t any live uplink towards the security fleet. That was either luck or very sloppy security procedures. It spoke of tac droids pushing routine and streamlining to save time and energy. Concluding that just because something had never happened before, that it couldn’t happen, so why bother guarding against the impossible.

The next few seconds were spent analyzing the shuttle’s systems and computers. With B1-Ts authorization keys it was easy to jailbreak the entire thing, then creating a separate partition that would remain linked with the security fleet to give the impression that nothing was wrong.

“Master Skywalker, everything is ready,” he said over the comlink.

“Good work, R2. On our way.”

The main doors opened and the four companies worth of prisoners, all armed with both Republic weapons and hacked CIS weapons streamed out in an orderly jog.

Behind them, six casks floated forward, escorted by the four Jedi and Captain Tarkin.

R2 couldn’t help but feel relief at seeing the five Jedi prisoners safely ensconced in them. Thankfully, nothing had gone wrong with the procedures in place to move those dangerous sentients from their cells and into the casks. He had only been peripherally involved, with M8 doing most of the work in handling the systems dedicated to that.

No matter how powerful or dangerous someone was in the Force, they still needed to breathe. Therefore the cells were designed to disperse a very subtle aerosolized anesthetic. All the Jedi prisoners were asleep before they even realized they were being drugged. Then it was just a matter of shutting down the energy fields and physically carrying them into the waiting casks.

A few minutes later, everyone was aboard and Master Skywalker entered the cockpit to take a seat at the pilot station. B1-T then sat in the co-pilot seat.

“Okay, R2, you know the drill. Get through the engine startup and let’s leave this rock.”

“With pleasure, master.”

It didn’t take long, given how recently they’d been used and soon the entire shuttle was rumbling with the sounds of repulsorlift and engines working together.

Master pushed forward on the vertical ascent throttle and the shuttle rose off the pad, before he pulled up its attitude and hit the acceleration.

As the altitude increased, R2 kept his digital eyes on every bit of data the shuttle was feeding into the local CIS network. By the time they left the atmosphere of Lola Sayu, he had the positions of every ship in the security fleet. The network between ships was the usual distributed, independent setups that the CIS had adopted from the beginning of the war.

How more efficient and easier would things have been now had the Trade Federation not learned from their experience of the Naboo Blockade.

Through the forward cockpit windows, their destination was steadily growing larger and larger, until the bulk of it drowned out the view of space and the asteroid field.

This close R2 could finally perceive the data flows of the Providence class dreadnought, Conqueror.

It was one of the larger models of the type, measuring over two kilometers in length. There were over 900 active droids on the ship, which was the minimum required for a moderate level of battle readiness. He next used an ingenious trick Mistress Ahsoka had given him the idea of. A small innocuous junk data packet was injected into the Conqueror’s computers. The internal computer didn’t recognize it as a virus, but its job had already been done as R2 perceived a map of every single droid, active and inactive, including a comprehensive layout of the internal computer architecture.

“Master, the dreadnought is at minimum droid crew levels, there are only 100,000 inactive war droids, it has a maximum complement of droid starfighters, including tri-fighters.”

“Makes sense, this isn’t a front line ship, carrying a million droids just gathering dust is a waste of credits and resources. The most likely threat in their calculations will come from space.”

The shuttle was now approaching one of the cavernous starboard landing bays and B1-T’s codes were ensuring that a minimum amount of fuss was made. To the tac droids credit, they also performed a life sign scan.

R2 could perceive the scan from inside the ship network and let out the equivalent of an electronic sigh of relief when it failed to detect any organics aboard. He’d been ready with a hack program to intercept and alter the scan results, but thankfully it wasn’t necessary.

“Polarizing,” Master Skywalker flicked a switch and the cockpit windows shimmered, preventing anyone outside seeing in.

The cargo ship slipped through the magcon shields and the master flared the ship, before letting it settle on the deck.

Master stood from the pilot’s chair, “B1-T, take this.”

The droid was handed a portable logic probe. “Yes, sir. What’s this?”

“You will head to the bridge with R2, between the two of you I want you to infect every droid there with the virus on that.”

“Roger, roger.”

“R2, send every other droid under your control to engineering and life support. Be careful.”

“Yes, Master Skywalker. I’ll get you this dreadnought.”

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Unloading the droid scrap still had to be done to avoid suspicion, so R2 and B1-T’s first destination was the dreadnought’s maintenance decks. R2’s presence, since astromechs were not used by the CIS Navy, was explained as a captured trophy from the defeated Republic strike force.

The maintenance levels on a Providence, might as well have been a droid factory in its own right. The only thing missing was the durasteel armor and chassis foundries, not to mention raw ore processing. It was also the busiest section of the dreadnought, as it processed all the deactivated droids on a rotation to keep them at acceptable readiness. The wrecked droids from the battle would also now be repurposed for extra parts, whilst irreparable parts were scrapped and recycled properly for raw materials.

B1-T and R2 claimed their first victims here.

Infecting half a dozen other B1s with what was in essence a ‘Republic Virus’ - it essentially switched the droid’s programs and targeting protocols to consider what was the ‘enemy’ to instead become ‘allies’, along with a few failsafes and targeting improvements designed by Master Skywalker.

R2 loaded the virus onto a dozen more portable probes that he scavenged from the local stores and armed the B1s with them, with orders to infect more isolated droids.

Every droid infected also became part of the new steadily growing network that had R2 as its central hub.

He didn’t have the processing capacity for real time control on all of them, but he could order the droids around as if he had pieces on a dejarik board, keeping track of their position on the ship.

With that done and keeping B1-T by his side, R2 left the maintenance levels for the bridge and he got the first indications of droid infections in life support as new B1s and even B2s joined the network. With an all droid crew, the majority of the ship didn’t even have gravity or air, the power for those systems were mostly being sent to shielding and weapons. That would have to change if the strike force wanted to take over the dreadnought.

By the time R2 reached the bridge, infections were happening in engineering and there was still no indication that the enemy or any tac droids had caught onto the fact that they were being taken over.

He rolled out of the turbolift as the 111th droid was infected.

The bridge of the dreadnought was a large circular amphitheater design, with forward transparisteel windows giving an expansive view of the surrounding space, the security fleet arrayed on either side and the asteroid rings surrounding the planet.

There were a dozen B1s at various consoles, with a single TX-20 tactical droid sitting in the captain’s chair.

You could tell this was a rear echelon command, because there wasn’t a single magnadroid, droideka or even a commando droid in sight.

R2 couldn’t help but reflect on how this desire for efficiency that was evident in a lot of the programming of tactical droids, effectively caused what was similar to ‘laziness’ in organics. Not even the B1s on the bridge were armed. The TX concluding that it was a waste of energy and time to keep droid weapons charged and maintained on the bridge.

Of course, the problem now was that there was no way to infect these droids without giving away the game if R2 wasn’t quick and careful.

The TX turned in its seat, “Why are you here, Unit 34202?”

“Oh, uh, I just thought that you’d want to see this R2 unit we captured from the enemy strike team below,” B1-T said, gesturing expansively with its hands.

“Why would I want to see it?”

R2 whirled on his wheels as quickly as he could and stabbed a probe into the nearest socket.

“Stop that! Stop it! What are you-”

In less than a second he was in the local bridge network.

In the next moment, he burst through the computer security and the gravity plating was inverted, all the while he cut off all communication from the bridge to the rest of the ship.

He next deployed his jets and magnetized his wheels to ensure he wouldn’t suffer the same fate as all the other droids.

Fourteen droids, including B1-T, were repulsed from the floor and smashed against the ceiling of the bridge.

The difference was, B1-T had been warned it would happen.

It landed on its feet and immediately began stabbing its fellows with the logic probe.

R2 next extended his ion blaster, dialed it to maximum and shot the TX.

It shuddered under the onslaught of energy and its circuits fused into uselessness.

B1-T had managed to stab the probe into the closest B1 and waited the two seconds for the program to upload.

“What’s going on?”

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Why are we upside down?”

B1-T and B1-S got to their feet and lunged for the nearest droid.

“Hey! Get away from me! Help!” shouted the droid as it was buried under the weight of them and the probe was inserted again.

“We’re being attacked!”

R2 dialed down the strength on his ion blaster and began sending rapid stun shots into the remaining B1s who were now running around frantically on the ceiling.

“Help!”

“Why can’t I contact anyone?”

“Hey-” R2 nailed that one with a shot.

B1-T, S, and R now had a much easier time of it, corralling their targets and with stun shots from R2 to immobilize.

It took three minutes and ten seconds to have eleven loyal droids on the ceiling and they were all advancing on the last CIS programmed droid.

“Can we speak about this?” the droid backed up nervously into a corner.

B1-T looked at his fellows, his hand flexing on the logic probe. “No.”

“Ahhhhhh!” shouted the CIS droid as it was piled on by the Republic loyal droids.

Ten seconds later, it was over. The bridge was theirs.

“B1-ZA, begin pressurizing the ship slowly,” R2 ordered a B1 that was now de-facto in charge of life support.

“Roger roger.”

R2 normalized the gravity plating, sending his small troupe of droids crashing to the floor.

“Commander, was that necessary?” complained B1-T with an electronic groan.

“Get to stations,” R2 ordered, not in the mood for the antics of these moronic droids. “Master Skywalker, bridge and life support is ours, engineering will take another estimated eight minutes to reach a point where I can begin to assume control. Life support established in twenty minutes to minimum levels.”

“Excellent work, R2. Inform me the moment we have a critical mass of droids under our control, so we can begin the final stage.”

“Understood, master.”

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I’d never imagined I’d walk onto the bridge of a Providence without a lit lightsaber or trying to sabotage the thing, yet here I was, taking a seat on the captain’s chair.

“How does it feel, Snips?”

I gave Anakin a flat stare, then glanced around at the mixed clone and B1 droid crew manning the various stations. The clones were giving the clankers the occasional stink eye, but they had been ordered to work together so that was the end of that. As much as it would’ve been nice to only have naval clones on the bridge, they weren’t trained on a Providence dreadnought and this ship was built by Free Dac Engineers and Rendili Stardrive - companies with entirely different design philosophies than KDY. While any trained pilot could jump into any fighter or small ship in the galaxy and get it flying reasonably well within minutes, when it came to capital ships it was an entirely different story - unless your name was Anakin Skywalker.

The clones would have to sit next to the B1s and learn on how to properly operate this beast.

“It’ll take some getting used to, it’s definitely more nimble than a Mandator at least.”

Most of my attention though was focused on Obi-Wan and the rest of the armed strike teams that were now fighting throughout the ship.

The virus had managed to turn about three hundred and fifty of the droid crew before our luck had run out. A single B1 had slipped through our net and sounded the alarm. It was somewhat pointless, as we had been firmly in control of the key ship spaces by that point. R2 was in overall computer control and the alarm hadn’t gone beyond the ship’s hull. It did mean though we had to now fight a running battle throughout the Conqueror, but it was just a formality at this point.

It would’ve been nice to get all 900 but it was not to be.

R2 had remotely awoken and reprogrammed two thousand droids from storage, mostly B2s, and set them loose on the loyalist CIS droids. We could’ve left it at that, but Obi-Wan wanted to make sure and there were a lot of prisoners, clone and natural born, that wanted to vent some frustration at the droids. With command over the ship’s systems, doors and grav plating it was mostly a turkey shoot.

No, the biggest challenge would now be to keep the charade that this was still a loyal CIS ship up until the Conqueror was scheduled to leave.

I harbored no illusions that we could fight against the rest of the security fleet. We could maybe take half of them with us into death, but the combined firepower in a straight slugfest would see the Conqueror overwhelmed eventually.

The CIS had been very busy with the Providence class and I could see the knock-on effect changing Republic doctrine had. On this ship at least, there were 34 heavy flak arrays and they had sacrificed twenty of the thirty-four dual heavy laser cannons in the process. Clearly to help protect the ship from bomber runs and mass long range torpedo salvos.

The biggest punch a Providence had though was its combination of 102 proton torpedo launchers and fourteen quad heavy turbolasers. Here was another case of either inaccurate or old intelligence. Previously, it had been known that these were three shot launchers, but the Conqueror now had a twelve shot belt feeder behind each and featured conveyor runs to decentralized ammo storage cells all throughout the ship.

There was a stupendous amount of torpedoes currently loaded - 122,400 to be exact.

It somehow made me feel like I was flying around in a fireworks factory. Any ship of war had dangerous materials on board that loved to go boom at the drop of a hat, but this was another level of risk. My brain tried to imagine that amount of ordnance going off all at once and I didn’t like the results.

“General Skywalker, might I have a private word?”

Naturally, Tarkin was on the bridge as well. Both he and Master Piell had spent most of their time working at the navicomputer station and wouldn’t let any droid, Republic loyal or not, get close.

“Of course, captain.”

They walked off to the side of the bridge near the main blast door.

“I am concerned, general. I know that you Jedi regularly place your young in harm’s way confidently, but this is a dreadnought. How can a Jedi trainee be fit to captain one?”

Tarkin clearly thought he was out of earshot, standing where he was and were I human, he’d be right.

I could feel Anakin’s incredulous indignation and even hints of anger at Tarkin’s presumption.

‘Easy Skyguy, from an objective point of view, he’s right,’ I thought to him. ‘Don’t blow up on him.’

‘Fine.’

Anakin folded his arms and gave his interlocutor a flinty eyed stare. “The correct terminology is padawan, captain. She is my padawan learner. She is also a fully commissioned commander in the Grand Army and Navy, who also studies directly under Admiral Yularen.”

Say what you will about Tarkin, he wasn’t stupid. He made the connection immediately.

His eyes widened, “Yularen-Tano? She helped Yularen come up with the doctrine?”

Anakin gave a small smirk, “Indeed, captain. She has commanded more fleet battles and is better at it than me. She was also at the Battle of Bandomeer on the Star of the Azure commanding the entire fleet for most of the battle, so I think she knows what to do with a dreadnought more than all of us.”

Really Anakin, my ego did not need stroking.

I really felt embarrassed though when I perceived that he was… actually proud of me.

“I see, then consider my objection withdrawn, general.”

“Good, now is this ship going to make it through the Nexus Route?”

“It will,” Tarkin confirmed.

“Where is our entrance to it from here?”

Tarkin looked really reluctant to answer, but eventually saw no choice. The only way this ship and the knowledge in his head would make it to Republic space was to use the Nexus.

“We have to head to Voss.”

Anakin didn’t need to reference a star chart to understand the problem and neither did I.

He wearily rubbed his forehead, “Captain, that is nearly two days travel deeper into CIS space.”

“Yes, but there is no choice in the matter. It is the closest entrance that does not have us powering right up to Raxus Prime’s doorstep or having to blast our way through the frontlines. We need to keep up the charade that we are a CIS ship for that long to make it out of here.”

Using my armor’s own holo and with M8’s assistance, I pulled up a route to Voss to see how many times we would have to emerge from hyper, cruise through real space, and how many potential waypoints and custom stations there were.

Eight jumps.

Eight.

Especially perilous would be the Lianna system, a crossroads system that had five hyperlanes converging in it.

“We need a miracle, M8.”

“It seems so, master. Don’t worry though, shouldn’t the Force be with you?”

“We can only hope.”

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A/N: Here you go. Hope you had a fun read. Have a good weekend folks.

The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 21

“What are you going to do?”

Dragon considered the question and in a few seconds reevaluated every scrap of data she had on Purity, the very small but rapidly building file she had on Henry Hawkins, Escort, Protectorate policy, the law and found herself arriving again at the same conclusion.

Every sensor she had on the Cawthorne Suit was active and pointed at the ‘animated statue’, the data was as baffling as the plinth. She even replayed his explanation with Escort within two seconds and ran it through Armsmaster’s lie detector software and a dozen other analysis programs. She got much better results from Escort, but every result was throwing back the same conclusion - both utterly believed what they were saying with a certainty of 93% with a five percent margin of error. Given how Escort’s advice had been on point dealing with the train…

She turned her Cawthorne’s head to Purity - the now completely nude villainess would reach the arms of the human tree within another four seconds.

“There is only one thing, we let it happen.”

Shadows were thrown everywhere as Purity reached the tree and was engulfed by the many waiting hands.

She tried to be as clinical as possible, noting how the tree’s hands supported the woman under the armpits and under her knees, her legs were spread apart, another limb was already pushing in between them. The visual filtering of the AI made it appear as if Purity was simply hanging in midair in a gynecologist's chair. Her extremely sensitive sensors heard the sound of the flesh meeting flesh, Purity’s moan of pleasure and her bright form shuddered.

“You have a solution to the long term problem,” Henry turned away from Purity and focused exclusively on Dragon, pointedly averting his eyes from the bizarre sex occuring above them.

“This suit is a Cawthorne model, one that is designed for rapid response to many varied threats. It can also help deal with the immediate aftermath, especially those of survivors. It has one system that is extremely classified and it's one of the reasons I sent Escort away. I’d ask for your promise and vow that you will take this knowledge into the grave.”

“You have my word, Dragon,” Henry bowed his head slightly.

Dragon threw out every ECM and anti-eavesdropping system in the Cawthorne to full power.

“It is mainly for use in the wake of the Slaughterhouse 9. I have on-board a system that can inject a cocktail of hydroxybutyric acid, ketamine and another tinker drug I’ve reverse engineered from the work of a thoroughly unpleasant villain who’s now in the Birdcage.”

Henry rubbed his unyielding chin, clearly needing no explanation of just what this cocktail would do. “How effective is it?”

“It can suppress up to 12 hours of memory into the past from the point of administration, it will also further hamper long-term memory formation for one to a maximum of fourteen hours, depending on how I formulate it.”

“How will you explain the missing time to her? News of this thing will eventually leak, it will not be hard for her to connect the dots.”

“She can be arrested legally, there are numerous charges against her for crimes committed on behalf of the E88. Though she has strangely been only targeting ABB holdings in the city for the past few months. PRT has no intel on her attending any Empire rally meeting for the last five months. Other sources suggest that there is a high chance she may have left the E88.”

“Yet you believe the Empire would break her out and go to war for her anyway?”

“She may have left, but they would welcome someone of her power back in an instant. Blaster 8’s don’t exactly grow on trees,” Dragon winced for three seconds of internal computing cycles at her unfortunate pun. Henry’s mouth twitched slightly as a bout of renewed pleasurable moans washed over the area. The shadows flashing and moving in the primal rhythm of sex, Dragon idly wished she could use the AI filter on that as well. “As for the missing time, there are a number of scenarios that we can construct and explain to her. It also helps that the procedure for a Blaster 8’s containment involves extensive sedation.”

“No matter how convincingly you fake a paper trail, this will be discovered eventually by her. Murphy’s law will mean it’ll happen at the worst possible moment.”

“Show me another choice, Henry.”

“Don’t try to fake anything, present her clearly with the facts of what’s happened after she wakes up in her cell. It was either this or an eternity in an effective coma.”

“Then we might as well not even use the memory cocktail,” Dragon argued. “We’d be trusting her not to go on a flying rampage when she woke up.”

“What about using it on the other’s who’ve been violated?” Henry asked, gesturing to the host of prone nude victims that surrounded them.

“Only with their own permission.”

“So it’s Purity’s potential threat that is getting her the treatment.”

“This is the best interpretation of PRT policy that I can come up with, Henry. This decision should rest on the local director if there’s time, but there isn’t.”

He held up his stony hands, “You’re misunderstanding me. I know full well that sometimes there are no good options. I’m just making sure we’re exploring every possibility. Do you have any sensors on this suit for medical applications?”

“They can be tuned in various EM bands, is there something you’re looking for specifically?”

“All of the victims should be given full workups, scans, everything. Nothing left unexplored. There is no telling if there might not be something more insidious at work.”

“That would be done anyway, given this is something that can seemingly procreate.”

“I think before any decision can be made regarding Purity, on whether to use that amnestic, we need to know if any victims will retain memory of what happened. There is a chance that the cognitohazard will impede memory formation.”

‘Amnestic? Interesting term,’ Dragon thought.

Dragon was alerted at this point of Armsmaster’s approach to the location and she belatedly turned off all the ECM systems.

“Dragon, you went into full EMCON? Is there a problem?” His voice was urgent and full of worry over the radio.

“No, just a precaution.”

When he appeared around the house in full power armor, ready for anything, Purity was still getting the full attention of the tree. Her moans were now growing in frequency and volume, she was also joining in physically instead of just being a passive recipient- thrusting with the motions.

Armsmaster stopped dead for a full two seconds as he took in the entire scene as it was filtered by the AI.

To his credit, he didn’t let it affect him more than that before resuming his walk. His head alternated between Henry, the unconscious people and the sight of Purity having sex with a humanized tree. Dragon had experienced a lot of strangeness in the course of her work, all manner of unlikely scenarios and events, all of which were enabled by the parahuman phenomenon. This was an entirely new level of bizarreness in her experience.

Armsmaster planted his halberd into the grass as he stood there, “Dragon?”

“Armsmaster, meet Escort’s partner in heroics, Henry Hawkins. No, he doesn’t seemingly have an alias.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Henry bowed his head, using his thumb and forefinger to shake the local hero’s armored hand. “A heroic alias is rather pointless in my case, so I don’t bother.”

“You came in the truck?”

“Yes, my driver is blindfolded in the house, so don’t be too surprised if you see him inside or how well equipped he is.”

“You have a driver?” Armsmaster asked over another bout of throaty moans and flesh slapping on flesh with renewed urgency.

“I suppose now might as well be a good time as any. Escort and I have formed an organization known as Fortress. There are currently three powered members and a number of others who will be assisting our endeavors in anomalous events like this,” Henry gestured to the tree.

“Interesting,” Armsmaster grimaced. “The truck is marked as belonging to Fortress LLC, a known construction company.”

“The former owner wanted to retire and as such transferred it to Escort. She has since made use of the assets and the employees to help me get by, so to speak. She is the one who found me alone and disorientated in that park.”

Above them, Purity screamed in a clear climax and the wet slapping of flesh ended.

The tree seemed to hold her still for a few moments, before she began moving down, being passed from limb to limb.

“Armsmaster-” Dragon began.

“I know, sedation protocol,” he said, twisting his halberd and its upper blade collapsed, before a syringe emerged in its place.

He moved quickly stepping between the array of prone people and waited for the bright form of Purity to reach him.

“Mr Hawkins, no reaction from the tree to my presence?”

Henry shook his head, “No, you are no threat to it at present. It seems that the cognitohazard is also a factor in its perceptions. You have not been infected with it, so you are effectively invisible to it as long as that remains the case. The only way you can be considered a threat is to actually injure it at this point.”

The tree eventually used four limbs to gently lower the villainess to the cool grass.

“Are the limbs clear?”

Henry looked up and nodded, “Yes.”

Armsmaster didn’t hesitate and surged the halberd forward, but at the last moment stopped and gently injected Purity right in the buttocks.

Merely a few seconds later the radiant light streaming off Purity began fading and it left behind a woman that had Armsmaster and Henry rather startled. Dragon didn’t blame them, but it neatly proved that Henry indeed had a human psyche. Far from the expectation that there was someone very impressive under that light - the woman was actually quite shorter than average, with long brown hair, eyes and a face that you would pass in the street and never look at twice. By objective standards, she wasn’t ugly but nor would you expect her to grace any magazine cover.

This was in sharp contrast to Fenja and Menja. Dragon had read far too many PHO posts during her stints as moderator, regarding the E88 Changer twins that acted as Kaiser’s bodyguards - both were considered in the upper percentiles of beauty, at least in traditional Western standards. The unconsidered expectation then was that Purity had to be the same.

“Dragon?” Armsmaster held out his hand.

She opened an internal cargo pod of the Cawthorne, reached in with a manipulator arm and handed over a standard hospital gown.

The hero quickly clothed Purity with it, also pulling out a standard domino mask from a utility pouch to cover the villainess’ face.

“Can you identify her?” Henry asked.

Dragon had been consciously avoiding launching facial and profile recognition programs.

“That would be unwise,” Armsmaster declared. “If it became known we do that-”

“I know all about the so-called Unwritten Rules,” Henry interrupted him with irritation. “Not to mention how selectively it's enforced by both sides when it’s inconvenient. No, I’m asking because it’s clear to me that Purity is a mother with an infant at home.”

“How did you make that determination?”

Henry smirked, “Really Armsmaster, you didn’t look?”

Colin bristled as if Henry was calling into question his integrity and whether he was actually a male.

“I’m not about to ogle-”

“Neither did I, but I have very good eyesight and perception. No Thinker power even required, just simple observation. Her breasts aren’t swollen with lactation at the moment, but the beginnings of it are there, I did spot bruising and a cut or two around both nipples. Clearly a baby with the beginnings of a few teeth and she hasn’t been told or figured out the trick to avoid it.”

“As if arresting her wasn’t complicated enough,” Armsmaster said, but nevertheless began applying a set of Blaster restraints - which was designed to keep the arms crossed and hands pointed at the wearer’s own chest. “Now we have to involve Child Welfare Services.”

Henry folded his arms and frowned at Colin. “Your tone is impressively neutral, Armsmaster. Yet you are clearly not confident in them.”

“Not in Brockton. They are underfunded, as are most of the public sector organizations in the city. They try their best but the past two decades has seen them hemorrhage qualified personnel, their reputation suffers and the effect snowballs. Purity undoubtedly knows this and will not want to see her infant remanded into their care.”

“A very convenient and persuasive tool to perhaps encourage her to turn coat properly. Such a pity Brockton won’t benefit when that happens.”

Dragon was both alarmed and impressed that Henry so quickly put together the likely chain of events that would follow. No amount of rebranding or a costume change would really help. The instant the woman that was Purity used her powers in another city, it would be obvious who she had been. It would not stop the Protectorate from moving her though. The PRT had managed to turn a number of villains around through very careful marketing, training and guiding the parahuman to use their power in a different manner - Assault being the best local example for a successful case.

“The question remains that somewhere out there is the infant child of a Blaster 8 with either a babysitter or perhaps an older sibling, waiting for their mother to return. Normal procedure would require at least a visit from the BBPD and PRT to inform whoever is caring for the child. If it’s ascertained that there is an immediate or close family member to which the infant can go…”

Henry trailed off and didn’t need to continue.

Dragon railed against the constraints on her programming and behavior, as yet another example came forth of her father’s inflexible chains, which could potentially result in a mother as powerful as Purity, flying off the handle because the letter of the law was followed.

There was only one thing she could do at this point.

She turned the Cawthorne around, heading for a safe takeoff point.

“Dragon?” Armsmaster asked in concern.

“I have another dome to build before sunrise and no time to waste, I trust you will do the right thing here.”

She dumped the cargo pod containing all the immediate supplies needed for the victims. Then reorientated the engine nacelles, spooling them up to max power, adjusting her inertia systems appropriately before blasting off. It was bad enough that one parahuman had been caught by this thing, it would be catastrophic if more were affected.

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I rematerialized my lower body and landed on a street roughly a mile west of the SCP tree.

Another family hypnotized and sent back to their home.

This made it the ninth occasion Dragon’s drones had found people who were affected by the cognitohazard and just over three hours I’d been at this constant patrol circuit around the general neighborhood.

It was thoroughly boring work, but it needed to be done.

I could already see the framework of the dome steadily being built and Dragon’s suit was there, buzzing about and occasionally hovering to attach yet another part of the structure. It looked like it would be complete by sunrise but it was going to be a close thing.

The only thing that made the patrol bearable was Henry and Armsmaster keeping me in the loop with first a call and then suitably vague but informative text messages.

All the victims had been successfully moved into the house without issue from the tree. They were also dressed in hospital gowns and were being attended to by Del, Lia, Simon and Corporal Harris. Armsmaster had also used containment foam on all the windows of the house that didn’t have curtains, so there was no chance they could be exposed to the cognitohazard accidentally. Henry was assisting Dragon with building the dome by acting as an incredibly strong pair of giant hands.

The general problem now was that the cognitohazard was severely hampering any possible response from the law enforcement, PRT, Protectorate or the city. Emergency bulletins had been sent out over local TV stations, radio and the Internet, but with so many still in bed and asleep, the warnings would only gain any real traction when the morning shows aired or people were waking up.

It was really frustrating and it made me wish there was some way an area civil defense alert could be sent out through everyone’s cell phones. There had been some debate on the PRT side whether to sound the Bay’s Endbringer alarm just once, just to get everyone awake and alert to pay attention to the warning, but that had thankfully been shot down very quickly.

Dragon: That’s actually a good idea, Escort. A localized app that people can download, through which such alerts or advisories can be sent directly from the Protectorate or PRT ENE.

Escort: It’d miss the people who don’t choose to download it though.

Dragon: Can’t force it, Escort. That’s their choice.

Of course, I understood that. It was just so frustrating though. When the next SCP came through and disaster happened because people didn’t know or were too stubborn to download an app…

The next worry was the health of the victims.

Getting any PRT doctors and equipment on site was Armsmaster’s next goal. He had already left and would return with them in a large van that was being prepared. The BBPD and PRT had already begun cordoning off all roads leading into this part of town, making sure to keep the hill between themselves and the tree. This combined with maintaining a watch on the TQZ and the city in general, was straining things badly and the mayor had already sent an urgent request to the state governor to begin activating a number of National Guard units.

The other card that was being set in motion was to also get Panacea safely to the house. Whether that would happen at all was still in the air, as there was a good chance that New Wave would refuse to let the healer come within a mile of the cognitohazard zone.

Armsmaster: The director doesn’t like to involve Panacea for every crisis as there is actually a cost associated with it, financial and reputational. New Wave is a private team at the end of the day. They do charge the PRT for every special callout or emergency.

It disappointed me that rep was even a factor, though I grudgingly understood it. PRT and Protectorate can’t be seen to need Panacea for every little oopsie that requires medical attention. Nor was it fair to Panacea to take on what was effectively a constant burden. She was still underage and by the sounds of things badly skirting the law regarding allowed work hours for a minor.

The tablet under my arm chimed to get my attention.

Another customer, I thought wryly.

I glanced at the screen and from above saw a figure that was walking a pair of dogs.

Who would be walking their dogs at this time of the morning?

The AI highlighted the figure in a drawn box, then quickly began producing conclusions from the visual analysis; female, young, 15 - 16 years old. One dog was a Rottweiler, the other a German Shepard.

Her position was within the PRT cordon, but by some miracle she hadn’t been mesmerized yet. The attention she was giving the dogs and the half-jog they were doing explained it somewhat.

The tablet helpfully gave me a physical bearing to orientate myself, pointing an arrow behind me.

I misted fully and the world around me turned to a fast blur as I sped off in that direction.

Barely twenty seconds later I willed myself to stop just a few feet from the girl.

In the first moment I knew, she was a parahuman.

My heart sank and sped up, I had to act quickly here.

A quick look around to judge in what direction the tree was, then moving so I would attract her attention away from it.

I materialized ten feet away and tapped hard with ‘15 on the asphalt of the street.

The girl whirled around in fright and her strong jawed face grimaced, gnashing her teeth, her blue eyes widening.

“Excuse me-” “Brutus, Judas, attack!”

Okay, yes, I probably startled her and that was a dumb thing to do. The thought of mastering yet another person tonight was starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth though.

I misted at the last possible moment and both dogs jumped through me, gnashing and biting on thin air.

They were both surprised and were naturally unable to understand why their target wasn’t there anymore, resulting in both of them landing awkwardly from their jump with startled yelps.

I only materialized my upper body and hovered higher, well out of reach. “Sorry to startle you, but this is a dangerous area at the moment.”

The dogs growled, got their feet under them and tried to jump anyway.

The girl didn’t flinch or seem to react in any way to my creepy half-ghost form. Her aura was also extremely weird for a human. It felt in some respects quite similar to the two growling dogs trying to futilely jump at me, the human element of her was there, but it almost looked like a hybrid. Her parahuman power was obviously responsible for this and I could see its influence on her psyche, much like hands that had shaped a clay sculpture.

The girl balled her fists and her heavy jacket with fur collar bulged a bit and showed that she was quite muscular and fit under there. Then I felt and saw her parahuman power blast outward. In my Sight, it was an invisible brown vibration that rippled through the air, which flowed towards both her dogs.

Immediately, their forms began to swell, distort then grow rapidly.

Seeing this was the final clue needed for me to realize who I was actually dealing with here.

Rachel Lindt aka Hellhound.

A villain who had killed her foster family three years ago and had been on the run ever since. That was what the public and PHO knew at large, I knew more thanks to Coil.

The villain had a number of dossiers on parahumans he had targeted for recruitment inside Brockton and Rachel had been one of them. What had actually happened was that the killing of her stepmother and her foster siblings had actually been part of her Trigger Event at thirteen years old. Why the PRT didn’t know was actually not known by Coil, but he had made a guess that it was a case of incompetence on the part of the local PRT ESE branch near Florida. His own PI and sources had quickly come to the truth with a bit of digging and crime scene reviews.

Coil had no interest in exposing the truth and righting the wrong, since he wanted Rachel under his thumb.

Both dogs were now the size of lions, their skin becoming leathery thick, bony spines erupted almost like a mane around their necks and shoulders.

It was quite fascinating to watch and see with my True Sight. Rachel’s power was quite literally generating fleshmass out of the dimension it resided in and building up the dogs in real time. The actual dogs were still in there and it made me realize I was watching biological ‘power armor’ being constructed.

I tore my eyes away from it and opened my mouth to urge her to stop, but seeing Rachel’s odd aura made me stop myself and reconsider my approach. Not to mention I remembered the way Coil was going to try and recruit her.

Trying to reason with Rachel as a normal human with words was pointless in a first encounter.

I met her eyes and began hovering back and downward, trying to get some space.

Both dogs naturally didn’t want to let me - they rushed forward to where they judged I would land.

I materialized fully on the ground just in time to be greeted by two very large, slobbering jaws of teeth that didn’t belong to any natural animal that I knew of.

‘15 came round and with a twirl I smacked both beasts on the snout so hard that their heads slammed into the road below with wet smacks.

Hearing two such very large creatures emit the pained yelps of hurt dogs tugged at my heart, but I squashed that ruthlessly. I next released a blast of air from ‘15 that pushed and rolled over both giant dogs.

My mind web reached out and banishing doubt, I ontokinetically pulled the minds of both dogs and Rachel.

I misted, shot forward and materialized just in time to smash my knee into Rachel’s stomach.

I rode her down to pin her to the ground as the breath left her lungs, even as I fought her for emotional dominance.

It was a battle I won within a few seconds.

“Brutus, Judas, stop,” I said, meeting both dogs’ eyes briefly.

The monster dogs had barely turned around after I had smacked them down, only to run head first into my will dominating them both.

I turned back to look down on Rachel and didn’t think about how this must look now from an outside perspective. My right knee remained on her chest, whilst my left was rather uncomfortably on the asphalt. The tablet still under my left arm, whilst ‘15 was planted next to Rachel’s other side.

She gasped to get her breath back and I made sure to keep my weight distributed mostly to my left knee.

When she got her wits back I made sure to capture her eyes with my own again, willing my dominance to shine through.

“Brutus, Judas, sit.” I thumped ‘15 with authority.

Both dogs had massive tongues hanging out of their mouths, panting and slobbering with dripping saliva, both quickly obeyed the new mistress of their mistress.

“Now Rachel, you will listen. You will understand.”

The muscular girl blinked at me, before nodding, “Yes, mistress.”

“In that direction is a tree, made by a Tinker, and it has a Master effect. Anyone who lays eyes on it will walk to that tree and get literally fucked by it.”

“Yes, mistress. How can a tree fuck?”

“It’s made out of human.”

“Oh.”

“Where did you come from?”

“There’s an animal shelter two blocks from here towards the city outskirts,” she answered without hesitation.

“You work there?” I asked curiously.

“Yes, mistress.”

“Do they pay you?”

“No, I volunteer.”

“They don’t ask questions or realize you’re actually a wanted fugitive?”

“They don’t care who I am, just what I do and that I’m good with animals. They have few people and don’t turn down help.”

“How do you support yourself?”

“Stealing, mostly from E88, my dogs can easily smell their drugs and from there it’s easy to track down the rest.”

“Have they not gone after you in retaliation?”

Rachel shook her head and didn’t meet my eyes, her gaze fixed on my knee, her aura was… submissive, “Make sure not to do it too often, space it out. I’m a nuisance, not a threat and I know how to disappear. Only cape of theirs I had to really watch out for was Purity, otherwise it was easy to escape quickly on my dogs.”

I took a moment to carefully scrutinize her aura before I misted off her and reappeared standing a few feet to her left.

A thought pushed her out of the mind web, but I kept the dogs firmly under my control.

Rachel blinked, confused for a moment, turned to see me standing over her and again averted her gaze, not moving a muscle to get up.

Even without my direct mastery, she was waiting for my permission to get up, her equivalent of showing me the belly and yielding. Damn, what had happened to this girl? Her socialization was shit and based on canine dynamics. I’d really have to re-read the dossier in more detail.

“You can stand, Rachel.”

The girl quickly complied and now looked at her dogs with narrowed eyes, no doubt becoming aware that I had mastered them as well, given how both only had eyes for me.

“How-” she began asking but cut herself off, feeling anger at herself.

“Ask your question.”

“How are you controlling them?”

“Just like I can control people.”

She nodded and now kept her gaze at my feet.

“Now, my name is Escort-”

“I’m Bitch,” Rachel said, her body language and aura wilting as she said it.

I was startled for a moment at the uncouth word, before realizing that she actually regarded that as her own cape name.

“Not Hellhound?”

She flared with anger and only nodded her head.

It only took me a moment to connect the dots. “PRT saddle you with it?”

“Yes,” she growled. Which was understandable given how much she valued canines and to consider them as something that came from hell was completely against her instincts, worldview and temperament.

“Very well, Bitch,” I said casually, hiding my own wince. “That engineered tree I was speaking of, masters you just by looking at the thing. It’s thirty meters tall, so I had to get your attention and keep it so you weren’t captured by it. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“If you go back in the direction you came from, keep your eyes low, you should be fine.” I walked over to stand next to her, showing the tablet’s screen. “We’re here, tree is in that direction,” I swiped at the screen. “Here you can see the beginnings of a PRT/BBPD cordon. They’ll stay there until a dome is built over the tree, which should be complete by sunrise. Until then I suggest you depower your dogs and lay low.”

Rachel nodded and looked at her dogs. Her power reached out again to the massive canines, doing something I had no words to describe, but the end result was they fell on the ground and the meatsuits began breaking down rapidly.

“I need to help them out,” she declared.

“Then help.”

She hurried over and began ripping at the meat suits, throwing chunks of bloody meat away as she dug into them.

I watched one such chunk of flesh land near me and it decayed as if I was watching a natural process sped up by a thousand. In the end, there was barely anything left but a bit of carbon ash that could barely be distinguished from the road itself.

First out of his meatsuit was Brutus, who immediately sat down, still following my last order. The poor thing was covered in a residual slimy substance that I could tell bothered him, but he had to sit and so wouldn’t shake it off. Judas was next and the German Shepard looked almost comical with how his long shaggy hair was clumped by the slime.

“I’m releasing them,” I warned Rachel.

She nodded and grabbed both by the collar.

I pushed both dogs out of the web.

They turned their heads in a confused and very cute way, still looking at me, but then their eyes found Rachel and I could almost see how the pack dynamic shifted. She was now Beta and I was clearly their mistress’ new Alpha.

Rachel was clearly aware of this too. She stood and took a few steps back, “Brutus, Judas, clean.”

With permission obtained, both dogs began shaking and rippling their skin and fur as only dogs could, sending rivulets of slime almost everywhere.

When the shower was over I walked over, tucked ‘15 under my left arm and offered my hand to the snouts of both dogs.

Both smelled my scent and licked my hand. That done, I scratched both behind the ear.

This close I could see both dogs had clear signs on their bodies of troubled pasts. Brutus had no tail and the scarring there complete with other healed bite marks from other dogs told the story. He was a pit fighting dog. There was only one gang in Brockton that ran those, the E88, under the direction of Hookwolf. Now it was clear why Rachel liked to target them.

Judas had clear gaps in his fur that would never heal, with scarring over his back. My heart broke at the implication and anger at what some humans did to animals and pets in general roared through me briefly.

The familiarization ritual completed, I stepped back and brought ‘15 back to my right hand, then pulled out my card and handed it over to Rachel.

“You need help, any time, call. I literally can’t sleep, so don’t worry about waking me.”

“Yes, Mi- Escort,” she said.

The tablet chimed, another mesmerized victim to save.

“Gotta go. See ya, Bitch.”

I misted and sped down the street.

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A large gazebo had been erected on the opposite side of the house and Armsmaster was waiting as the doctors and med techs worked on the various victims of the tree, attaching medical monitors, waving portable scanners to take x-rays, CATs, drawing blood and even taking samples of residual semen from the women.

He was very thankful that privacy screens had been put up.

The analysis equipment that could fit in the van had come with and a number of lab techs were already busy trying to make heads or tails of any biological sample they could get from the tree. All of which had been collected by… Henry.

When it came to Tinkertech and the related sciences that branched off from it, the seemingly impossible was ordinary or a ‘Tuesday’ as the popular vernacular termed it. He didn’t think he could ever be surprised when it came to technology or parahuman powers. Yet now, for the second time in less than two weeks, he had to redefine his definition of what was possible.

His eye reviewed the sensor results from Dragon and his own systems in the HUD of his helmet.

Just like the plinth… nothing.

Not a single detectable reason to explain how Henry or should that be Director Hawkins of Fortress, could move, talk, be conscious and assuming he shared the same properties as the plinth, be practically invulnerable to conventional damage.

He had easily waded through the arm-branches of the tree. His size and weight meant that the anomalous tree couldn’t pick him up, which was the danger that prevented Armsmaster from approaching too close.

The heavy thumping of feet heralded the arrival of the… person in question. It helped him to just think of Henry as another unfortunate Case 53, despite the man lacking the characteristics associated with such capes.

He ducked out of the gazebo.

“Armsmaster.”

“Henry.”

“Can I see the brain scans of the victims?”

He nodded and stepped to the side to let the man in the form of a statue, duck into the tent. Quite a few gasps and even a scream was heard. Armsmaster followed him to reassure the medical staff that everything was under control and watched as Henry immediately knelt to begin moving on his knees.

The director of the seemingly new hero group in the city, moved to a scanner and picked up a computer tablet very delicately between two fingers and held it up to his face.

It was a full CAT scan of a victim’s brain and Henry began muttering words that made Armsmaster realize that either he was a Thinker with medical bent or he actually was a doctor.

“Well, the good news is that there’s no structural damage here and the EEG is merely showing deep stage REM sleep, which will just have to take its natural course. If it persists more than four hours from now we can think about some intervention to induce consciousness. However, I think we won’t need to.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“You could say that, trained myself up in a number of fields, a benefit of being as you call it, a Noctis.”

He inwardly groaned at the report he was going to have to write to Director Piggot on Henry; Brute 8 at least, possibly higher, requiring specific intervention by Eidolon. None of the lab testing had made a dent in the plinth so far; laser, high temperature, kinetic had all failed. It would require exotic methods; spatial, gravitational, temporal and even then he wasn’t certain. Perhaps the answer was going in the other direction, going small - but his nanotechnology was still a few months away from even initial field testing.

Now as a Noctis, the element of surprise during a night raid would be denied if Henry was ever to turn villain.

Henry turned to a nearby doctor who was working on assessing a female victim. “Doctor?”

The doctor herself was rather startled at being addressed suddenly, “Yes? Oh, I’m Doctor Hamilton.”

“Pleasure doctor,” Henry smiled gently. “I suggest you test for contraceptive use in the bloodwork of all female patients.”

Hamilton uncomfortably pushed her long brunette hair back, “Should we? You can’t be suggesting that, that…”

“The human tree is fully capable of impregnating and in turn of reproducing more of its own kind.”

“How can you know that?”

“Thinker, but I know you’ll just have to wait for the test results to confirm.”

“Go ahead, doctor,” Armsmaster ordered.

She looked unhappy and disturbed but nodded, “Very well, sir.” And bustled off to begin the process.

“Armsmaster,” Dragon’s voice came over the radio.

“Yes?”

“Dome structure complete, I’m going to cover the tree now.”

“Understood. How is Escort faring?”

“Quite well, so far she intercepted thirty nine mesmerized people and sent them back home.”

It was a relief and he didn’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if this had occurred during the day or early rush hour - when practically the entire neighborhood emptied out to go to work in other parts of the city. He looked out of the gazebo at the overhead sky, which was showing the first hints of the coming sunrise.

“The instant that tree is covered, ask her to return here.”

“Understood,” Dragon cut the link.

Henry gave him a look, “You’ve made a decision.”

“It’s always a tragedy when the parents of children are arrested, doubly so when an infant is involved. They are put into a bureaucratic system that will generally ensure that some sort of social problem will develop, they’re more likely to become criminals, higher chance of suicide. The chance of landing with a good foster family is slim and even then…”

“The law is the law.”

“Yes, but the law also doesn’t care that the mother of this infant is a Blaster 8. A cape that the Protectorate would very much like to have available at the next Endbringer event or within the hero fold in general.”

Henry raised one stony eyebrow, “Inter arma, silent leges, eh?”

Armsmaster could only nod. “Purity will next wake up on the Rig, where we can contain her properly. The first thing I want to say to her is that her infant and stepson are not in CWS or her ex-husband’s custody.”

“And she’ll be happy with her children in the custody of an independent hero? Who, I might add, is unlikely to agree, despite her being of age and with the financial means to support them.”

“It will only be a temporary arrangement, until the negotiations with Purity are complete.”

“Will Director Piggot even back you on this?”

“I know her, this is the only play. Getting Purity off the board properly will be a major blow to the E88.”

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♦ Topic: The TREE!

In: Boards ► East Coast ► MA ► Brockton

(Showing page 2 of 4)

►Iblis

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Okay, I know that BB has a lot of capes and stuff that makes national news in any other city is just another day for them. But WTF is going on over there?! Did someone throw something in the water?

►Lasersmile

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

I have to echo Iblis. First a train and now a tree made out of human parts that... I can't even say without possibly getting banned.

►Divide  (Brocktonite)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

There's nothing in the water. We're all quite sane, thank you.

►Mock Moniker

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Yeah, with the gangs you guys have, plus the train I'd be seriously examining my options, after this tree I would be on the phone to the moving company.

►Dawgsmiles (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

It really does seem like someone is using BB as their little playground to dump and even test their creations. The train was the work of a Tinker and now we have something that looks like the sick fever dream of a Bio Tinker.

►Sothoth (Brocktonite)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Oh sure. I'll just up and leave. @Mock Moniker Will you be so kind as to send me the money I don't have to find a house out of state? A new job while you're at it.

►Lo A Quest

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

*Reads the OP and past few pages.*

Oh, oh, ew, ew, ew, ew. Thank you so much. I'm never going to look at a Eucalyptus tree the same way again, nor will I be able to go into work without thinking about this - yes, I'm a botanist.

►Noveltry

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Ouch. @Lo A Quest You have my sympathies.

Could we maybe be looking at a Tinker collective like Toybox starting up there? This being their way to 'advertise' what they're capable of.

►Nod (Army Veteran)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence. When we get another screwed up Tinker creation dropped on the city, then we can start drawing conclusions.

What worries me the most is the wide-area Master effect. Any Master cape is usually bad news, now imagine that effect applied just like it is here, on an ordinary object you wouldn't ever think to look away from. There used to be all those conspiracy theories in the past; mind control through TV, subliminal messaging and so on. Now we're living in a world where a Tinker actually did that!

Imagine they sell this technology to the highest bidder - I'm sorry but whoever made this needs to be found and STOPPED.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know)  (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Sorry guys, the info control on this entire thing is extreme. Measures are being taken to keep any possible photograph or recording of the tree from spreading. We are lucky to even have Internet around Brockton at the moment, as there was serious talk from the governor's office to shut down all telecoms as a precaution.

End of Page.   1, 2, 3, 4 

(Showing page 3 of 4)

►IonEasy (Veteran Member)  (Brocktonite)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Are you serious? The Master effect will even spread through a photo or video?!!!

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know)  (Veteran Member)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Correct. My sources confirm that is the word from Thinkers and Protectorate personnel on the ground.

►Exoticle (Banned)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

That didn't take long. Banned for a month. This is not a topic to meme or joke about - TinMother.

►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

AH! Too late, I saw it. What's going to happen? PLEASE! No! asjdepasjd...

►Divide (Brocktonite)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

Uh, @Procto the Unfortunate Tinker, you there bro?

►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

YES! What do I do!?

►TinMother (Moderator)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

You can relax. The image was not of the Human Tree. Just an ordinary Eucalyptus that was tweaked in Photoshop.

►Miss Mercury (Protectorate Employee)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

If you can still type, you're not affected.

I'm making this post as an official advisory on behalf of the PRT ENE. It is also being broadcast on all TV channels and radio.

Union Suburb in Brockton Bay is now subject to strict access control. Only residents or those with legitimate business are now allowed in or out. Anyone found inside the perimeter who cannot prove residence, legitimate business or not responding to a law enforcement challenge, will be considered under the Master influence of the Tree and foamed.

The only way so far proven to remove the Master effect, is to allow the Tree to do its thing. Hopefully this will be sufficient discouragement for any whose curiosity outweighs their common sense.

►Valkyr (Original Poster) (Wiki Warrior)

Replied On Feb 27th 2011:

@Miss Mercury

Thanks for the info.

That being said. This is the Internet. Do you know what fetishes are out there?

End of Page.   1, 2, 3, 4

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Theo sat back from his PC and held up his hands to ward off the screen.

No, do not think about it, he thought to himself as hard as he could.

Any further such thoughts was driven from his mind as he heard Aster through the baby monitor beginning to make a fuss again.

He wearily rubbed his forehead. His infant sister had kept him from enjoying any semblance of a full night’s sleep and he was now feeling the consequences.

He got to his feet with a huff and stretched his legs out, before leaving his small room in the apartment, down the short corridor and into the main bedroom. He leaned over the baby cot that was right next to Kayden’s bed and examined the infant.

Her legs were constantly kicking, her small arms up and over her head. She gave him a brief heart melting, toothy smile before the sounds of baby complaints started again.

He tickled her chin with a finger briefly to amuse and distract her, whilst he tried to judge whether this was nappy issues or she was just hungry. It turned out to be the former and he steeled himself before beginning the arduous process of changing her.

The smell always got to him. How something so cute to produce a smell like that was beyond reasoning and it always left him dry heaving off to the side.

“Come on, Kayden, where are you?” he asked the air around him as he finished closing up Aster’s onesie.

At this point she was nearly six hours overdue.

She had been out hitting more ABB stash houses.

His stepmom was powerful, but no one was invincible. Each passing minute just increased his worry to new levels. Had Lung finally had enough and set some sort of trap for her? Maybe Oni Lee got lucky? He tried his best not to imagine it, because with that came the specter of what would happen to him and Aster.

It would mean a return to Max and everything that all of them had resolved to leave behind forever. The other alternative was also not easy to contemplate - foster care and in this fucked up city he didn’t even want to think about that.

The front doorbell rang its chime and Theo felt his heart sink.

It wouldn’t be Kayden.

His worry shot to new heights and he felt his stomach tying itself in anxious knots.

With gritted teeth he walked to the apartment front door, which seemed to loom at him like some ghostly specter. The short distance just seemed to get longer and longer. When he finally stopped behind the thick wooden door, he was breathing hard and his hands were flexing into fists. A cold sweat breaking over his forehead.

Taking a moment to compose himself, he stared through the peephole.

A slightly balding, tall, thin man stood there, wearing a rather formal suit that you’d expect to see in some sort of business or office worker. There was also an air of casualness there, the tie around his neck wasn’t perfect and slightly loose.

Theo debated for a moment in just pretending to not be here, but the man just pressed the doorbell again. He could also see in the man’s expression that he knew someone was looking through the peephole.

He grabbed a can of mace from the nearby hallway table stand and kept it out of sight, before checking that the lock chain was in its runner.

With a deep fortifying breath, even as his heart was racing a mile a minute, he unlocked the door and let it open to the full length that the chain allowed, before peeking through to let the man see him.

“Yes, can I help you?

“Theo Anders?” The man’s tone was neutral, yet a solemn note echoed in it.

He swallowed hard and prepared himself for the worst, “Yes, that’s me.”

“My name is Daniel Hebert, of the Fortress organization.” He held out a very nice card, which Theo only spared a brief glance at.

“Sorry, I don’t know any such organization.”

“We’re rather new to the cape business, only recently diversifying into it.”

“You’re a corporate team then?”

“You could say so.”

“I’m sorry but why are you here? I’m not a cape-”

Hebert looked up and down the hallway and then got a faraway zoned out stare, that was very creepy. “There is currently no one who can overhear us. I bring news to you as an informally contracted independent party. Your mother was caught up in the incident in Union Suburb.”

Theo’s eyes widened and his world began shrinking.

“She has been taken into custody by the Protectorate.”

No.

No.

Theo felt his vision contract further, his heart speeding up to almost unbearable levels…

Then he saw only stars… a vast entity… no two of them… twirling around each other… facets of light and crystal the size of continents being exchanged between them…

One seemed to fall away and with incomprehensible speed shot towards Theo and loomed over him…

He could only scream.

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SCP/s in this chapter:

No new SCPs.

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A/N: Poor Theo, he just doesn't seem to catch a break. In canon and not here. Stay awesome folks.

The Force Wills - Chapter 74

A/N: Yes, his name is 'Even'.  Keep in mind to avoid confusion. 

-----------------------------------

“Just tell me the coordinates. There is no escape.”

Pain.

“There is no rescue coming.”

Pain

“We are in a prison you Jedi built. One we’ve made even more formidable.”

The electrostaff was applied twice.

“No rescue is possible.”

Painnnnn.

“Why endure this, Jedi?”

Even Piell opened his right eye. It was agony doing that small action and he glared at the A4 lab droid that was supervising his interrogation. These droids were usually used in medical applications and now with the few creative edits of their coding, they were an extremely effective tool for forcibly extracting information. It knew all the right ways to ease pain and suffering in patients, so now it just did the opposite. The droid also knew just how far it could go, then even went about healing the damage it had done, only to undo it all again.

All of his focus was inward, directing the Force to heal, soothe and on his Tutaminis to absorb the energy of the electrostaff. It wasn’t easy and he was steadily losing the battle to redirect that energy. The droid had long since deduced to what level he was resistant, given all the medical scanners it had built into its chassis. It had also resorted to injecting him with all a manner of concoctions that further strove to break down his command over his own body. It had gotten to the point that Tutaminis was actually a detriment. He couldn’t pass the absorbed energy into the chaotic flux of the containment field that was wrapping around him and the droid was now dishing out more than he could safely make use of internally.

He idly wondered how long he could keep going and immediately discarded the thought into the haze of pain. Turning his mind once again to his touchstones - his old missing left eye and the scars crisscrossing on that side of his face.

The memory of the battle in which he had suffered that loss, but gained so much in return.

He had been mediating and protecting a meeting of Corellian diplomats with his homeworld’s prince. Trying to peacefully end the Red Iaro insurgent movement that was trying to depose Lannik’s royal family, government and the traditional ways of their people, for a dictatorial extremist model.

Even had to fight off and defend against eight revolutionaries whilst still keeping his charges safe. Yet he had done it, despite the element of surprise against him.

He had slain six and wounded the seventh, but the cowardly leader of the Red Iaro, Zug, managed to flee.

He had been offered the best medical care on the homeworld and a new bionic eye. He could’ve had his face healed from the scarred mess it had become, but he refused outright.

It was his badge of honor and bravery, a constant reminder of triumph no matter the odds stacked against you.

This was no different.

He didn’t care that there was an entire CIS fleet up there with a dreadnought securing the system. He didn’t care that he was in a prison designed by the Jedi Order itself for housing those fallen to the Dark Side. He didn’t care if Dooku himself showed up to rip the coordinates of the hyperspace lane from his mind.

He would prevail.

Even if he died, he would prevail.

He had sworn his hands to the Republic and his mind to the ways of the Force. If his death would keep the Republic alive, then so be it. He had already made his peace with that by the third day of his interrogation.

“You’re weakening, Master Piell,” the A4 droid said matter-of-factly, in its deep, electronic tone. It tilted its long head and stared with four soulless red optics at him. “You decide when the pain will stop.”

The droid was quite correct of course, but the thought of breaking and revealing the secret was anathema. If he broke, it would reveal the truth of the coordinates, that the droids and that pathetic scum Sobeck had spent all this time for nothing. It would mean that more of his men would be tortured and he had to protect them from this. They could not survive what he could. He had to make this sacrifice for them.

“Just give me the information.”

He fought through the pain and agony, mustering precious energy, he had to string them along. “No droid will ever break me.”

It was so tempting to grit his teeth, to show some weakness, his muscles were screaming in pain, it battered against his consciousness and psyche.

He conquered it all, remaining an unfailing pillar of composure.

“You bring more pain upon yourself then, perhaps it is time to add a new level of fear and pain upon you,” A4 said, delicately stepping forward on its thin legs, bringing up its left claw. Numerous surgical tools popped in and out of the center of that appendage, as it slowly approached his face, until it settled on a thick needle which he knew would blossom open once it was stabbed into wherever it was going. Its final destination soon became very obvious as it aimed for his right eye. “Blindness. The lights are going out… forever. It is one of the greatest stressors to organic beings who have enjoyed it since birth. How will you fare, Master Piell?”

He wanted to laugh but didn’t dare. If his remaining eye would be the price to buy another few days, he’d pay it gladly.

He steeled himself and focused on the tip of that needle, he wouldn’t flinch. This body was crude matter, it wasn’t important. No matter what was done, as long as he still breathed, he would endure.

The door to the interrogation room hissed open and in the next moment the sound of multiple blasts from DC-15 carbines echoed through the room.

The A4 droid’s claw fell out of view and he could only feel a strange sense of loss.

He had been looking forward to the test that blindness would impose.

The droid was now dead, reduced to scrap, victim to an ARC trooper’s precise aim - coring straight through its long head, melting central processors and memory. The lone commando droid that had been handling the heavy lifting of the interrogation, suffered two shots to the back and head. It hadn’t even had time to turn around.

The two senior ARC troopers charged into the room, sweeping it efficiently and precisely, double-checking both droids and even delivered an extra pair of shots into the droids as a means of making sure.

Three Jedi followed and finally he allowed his heart to feel a sliver of hope.

He recognized Kenobi immediately, the master leading with a lit blade casting the cell in a bright blue. Behind two fully armored figures… ah yes. Skywalker and his padawan followed and it took Even a few moments to recognize Ahsoka Tano - she looked strangely taller and older…

A mystery for another time, yet his mind made a note of it. His secondary role was to serve on the Council of First Knowledge and the padawan had made a distinct name for herself among the members of that council… the Mandalorian Jedi… her black-white blade - the Darksaber drew his eye…

Later Even, later, he remonstrated himself.

Kenobi came forward holding out his arms and without hesitation Skywalker swiped his lightsaber through the lower emitter of the containment field.

Even was caught under the armpits even as he bathed in the full renewing effects of the Force as it streamed into him, no longer deterred by the chaotic flux of the energy fields.

Despite that he collapsed to a single knee the moment he was put down on his feet.

“Master Piell, are you all right?” Kenobi asked with urgent concern.

He didn’t bother with answering the question whilst directing the full brunt of his power to begin healing as much as possible without going into a trance or going overboard with it - which was just as bad. It was a delicate balance. “Obi-Wan, what took you all so long?” he asked gruffly.

Skywalker and Obi-Wan gave each other a look.

“Well, your sense of humor seems to have survived, master,” Skywalker said with amusement.

Even got to his feet, “It takes more than they got to break me, young Skywalker.”

“Apologies, Master Piell,” said young Tano, before she abruptly kneeled next to him and placed a hand on his head.

He felt the Force shift under her guidance, doing what he had been attempting but with far greater efficiency. His lungs seemed to breathe much more freely and with alarm he noted she directed her efforts to his heart… what?

Her efforts specifically focused on a number of critical autonomic nerves… which had been clearly damaged. They weren’t a danger now, but if he exerted himself too much-

He belatedly was reminded of the fact that no amount of Internal Control could really substitute for the touch of a dedicated healer and he recalled young Tano had spent a few years in the Halls of Healing as an adept. He nodded in silent thanks to the padawan when she finished. She nodded in reply and walked over to join the ARC troopers covering the door.

Obi-Wan reached into a pocket and produced his backup lightsaber that Even gratefully accepted. He would miss his main blade, another thing that bastard Sobeck would answer for.

“Master, you still have coordinates for the Nexus Lane?” Skywalker asked.

“Of course I do, you doubt my memory?” He looked around for the surveillance device he knew was overlooking the room.

“No need, Master Piell,” Tano said urgently, holding up a hand to stop him. “We’ve got surveillance bypassed and fooled for the moment. About six minutes left on the loop, then we may have a few minutes further before they notice it.”

Even shook his head to clear it, his large ears flapping. He was really off his game at the moment. That the rescue team had even made it this far without triggering an alarm was quite impressive. He stretched out with his perceptions and confirmed it, all the prisoners and activity was normal throughout the Citadel in general. “So we can talk freely. Good. Truth is, I only have half the coordinates memorized. My captain’s got the other half. I erased the computers when we were boarded and had both of us memorize part of the intel.” He walked over to the dead remains of the A4 droid, lightly kicking its still smoking head. “That way if I cracked eventually, the information would be useless to them without the other half.”

“It’s just as well then that we’re here to rescue everyone from this prison,” Obi-Wan revealed.

“Really? Ambitious, Obi-Wan, very ambitious.”

“Chrono ticking, we must go now,” Tano declared.

Her words resounded through everyone and Even raised a brow as he felt his heart and spirit buoyed.

They hurried out of the cell and he found himself beside Skywalker in the formation these ARC troopers were using. He also noted that young Tano was clearly taking point for the entire mini-company of 24 troopers plus Jedi. Her gaze through the Force was piercing through the many floors with well practiced ease.

A forward gesture and everyone began moving in a demonstration of efficient teamwork. Naturally, he had to enhance his legs and speed with the Force to keep up with the tall strides of all the humans and single togruta surrounding him. He’d be damned if he was going to be a burden here.

They sped down a corridor, turned right and halfway down she suddenly signaled a halt.

Everyone ducked to the sides and found bulkheads to take cover behind.

He heard the droid patrol, his highly sensitive hearing picking up their heavy footfalls and clanking - two B2s and one droideka.

They were coming from an intersection ahead, from the left.

The instant they came into view, Tano held up her hand.

All three droids jerked and their optics sparked and flared with light.

“Optical sensors malfunctioning, returning to maintenance.”

The droids turned around and began retracing their steps.

She held up her hand and gave a double gesture to advance with speed.

The assault team emerged from cover and began running in her wake. Every time they turned a corner in the dizzying maze that was the common feature of this prison, her hand gestured, the Force flexed and the surveillance sensors began fritzing and sparking.

The reason for her urgency became apparent when the air was rent with an alarm that echoed through the corridors.

“Sithspit,” she cursed. “Well, our fortune had to run out at some point! Move!”

The assault team was now outright sprinting and Even had to move faster to keep up.

They barely got ten meters before the Force screamed in warning.

Every Jedi’s lightsaber burst to life.

At the closest intersection another droid patrol stepped into view and opened fire.

Large durasteel panels from the floor and ceiling ripped off and hovered forward, stopping the brutal high rate of fire from the three B2s cold. Buying just enough time for the clones to fall into cover and return fire. Skywalker seemed to have pulled that trick and his padawan deflected blasts with the Darksaber and swiped her left hand through the air.

The Force twisted, flexed and he nearly felt the beginnings of an Emerald Judgment… but not quite, it twisted and arced its way through the corridor they were in, outright destroying the systems within the walls, leaving the smell of acrid smoke and burning electronics. The corridor was plunged into darkness and even the emergency lighting failed to come on.

Why she felt the need to do this he had no time to ponder, as he was too busy sending every bolt he could back to the enemy.

Two B2s fell under the combined fire of the clones, whilst the third died by Ahsoka sending one of her other lightsabers spinning forward in a blinding, spinning green flare of light.

They emerged into another corridor, where Skywalker this time released another quasi-Electric Judgment that also wrecked the electronics here.

It was another ten meters of sprinting in the darkness, when the team stopped and clustered around a recessed cell entrance.

Skywalker led the way this time, stabbing his blade straight through the door, killing a commando droid that had been on the other side.

The door opened into the ceiling and the low red light of a detention cell burned into their darkness-adapted eyes.

It was no impediment, as Obi-Wan and Skywalker blurred into the cell and cut down the four other commando droids guarding the prisoners here.

Six clones stacked on either side of the corridor, whilst the remainder went into the cell.

There were ten officer level naval clones here and three troopers, whilst the fourteenth person in this cell was the only unique face among them.

“General,” said the middle-aged human officer in a surprised greeting.

“Captain Tarkin.” Even rushed forward, deactivating his lightsaber and sensing the condition of the man carefully.

Besides a bit of bruising from being roughly handled by droids, his naval captain was in good shape. None of them had any signs of being interrogated, which he could only feel a bit of relief at… the plan had worked.

“You brought friends,” the captain said mildly.

“Tarkin, this is Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano, we’re being rescued.”

The ARC troopers began pulling off backpacks and began handing out DC-15S blaster pistols and ammo packs to the clones.

“And we’re being drafted it seems,” Tarkin raised an eyebrow as a clone commander handed him a pistol by the barrel.

Also being pulled out was a somewhat bulky utility belt that every ARC trooper also had.

“You’re going to want to wear these,” Obi-Wan instructed. “It’ll dampen your lifesigns and is a portable isomag field. This prison has numerous deadly defenses built into the walls and these will save your life.”

“Curious,” said Tarkin, but he nevertheless accepted a belt and clipped it around his waist, before holding the pistol in a shooting grip and testing the weight. “Now that you’ve found us and armed us, are you expecting us to fight our way out?”

“Yes, after we’ve created an army out of the other prisoners here,” Skywalker said with a grin in his voice.

“I can applaud such an ambition,” Tarkin said thoughtfully. “Do you have enough weaponry?”

“We didn’t come unprepared, Captain,” Skywalker answered. “Finding a droid armory would be helpful as well, which is one of our next objectives.”

Tano stiffened, “Droid squads approaching.”

The ARC troopers finished arming their fellows and they all hurried out of the cell, the padawan also stormed out, igniting not just her Darksaber, but also her two other blades, which hovered behind her.

“I hope your ship can run the security blockade, otherwise this whole endeavor is pointless,” Tarkin flexed his hand on his pistol’s grip.

“One step at a time, captain.”

Blaster fire erupted outside the cell.

Even rushed behind the other Jedi into the darkness of the corridor.

Two squads of B2s and BX commando droids were attacking from both directions. He felt his spirits soar and he immediately turned left, blade in hand and charged with Force Speed towards the enemy.

He barely needed to duck, thanks to his short size and swiped his blade through the legs of two BX droids, before grabbing them both in a telekinetic hold, sending them soaring into two other BXs, fouling their aim and erratic dodging movements for them to catch multiple blaster shots to the chest and head.

He jumped off the side of the corridor to gain enough elevation to stab his blade right through the sensor cluster of an advancing B2, then twirled it within, utterly wrecking the internals. A slight Force Push made sure the droid toppled backward.

Even jumped off that droid, deflecting more bolts in defense before landing on the head of another B2 and stabbing downward.

He flipped backward and grabbed the now dead B2 in a telekinetic grip as he landed.

His green blade chopped off the legs at the waist and now he could enjoy his own B2 shaped mobile cover.

He charged forward and sliced left and right, directing the dead B2 to take the enemy shots lancing toward him.

Then he ran out of opponents.

“Clear left!” called an ARC trooper.

“Clear right!”

He hurried back through the darkness, keeping his blade lit to see the details of the battle as he ran.

Two ARC troopers were helping one of their own who had gotten hit, trying to stabilize him. There were also a couple of dead naval clones, whose weapons were already being taken back by others. When he rejoined his fellow Jedi he had counted three dead ARC troopers from just this skirmish, their weapons and equipment also being taken off them.

It was a grim calculus that he understood.

“As soon as you stabilize him, Longshot, open an empty cell and put him inside, we have to move in thirty seconds,” Skywalker ordered over the squad radio.

“Now that we have a bit of time, you’ll need these,” Obi-Wan held out comlinks to Tarkin and Even.

He grabbed it and slapped it onto his forearm. A few taps of its controls and he could now hear what was going on over the squadnet.

“There wouldn’t happen to be an extra trooper helmet I could borrow?” Tarkin asked dryly. It was clear the man hadn’t liked being in a firefight in pitch darkness. “I felt like I was wasting my shots.”

“Dash, grab Whizz’s helmet,” Skywalker ordered.

A few moments later an ARC trooper came forward with a helmet from a fallen trooper and handed it over to Tarkin.

“Move out,” Tano ordered.

The assault group advanced out of the darkness.

Mere minutes of tense running later they were on another primary detention block. Obi-Wan used an Electric Judgement, but seemed to be able to control it better, only destroying systems on the floor. These were individual cells for prisoners.

“All units, remember, not all of these prisoners are clones or even human. You ask them if they want to leave, give them ten seconds, they don’t answer, you lock the door again.” Skywalker ordered.

Every ARC trooper stabbed hand held logic probes into the cell’s outer controls and four seconds later the doors opened.

Barely a minute later, the prison liberation was now truly underway as their ranks swelled by twenty - a mix of captured troopers, political dissidents from conquered Outer Rim worlds, a few engineers who had refused to work for the CIS but was too valuable to actually kill, there was even a wookiee - a Claatuvac navigator - who had been undergoing interrogation to reveal their secret hyperspace routes.

The latter was very enthusiastic, roaring with awakened battle lust and he had to be given a DC-15 carbine that he handled like a pistol before he settled down a bit.

“Easy, easy, Asarl, you’ll get your share of droid scrap before this day is over,” Tano assured.

“I want the warden, Jedi. Not this lifeless scrap,” the wookiee growled. “I want to rip his arms off and beat him to death with them, before taking his head back to Kashyyyk and the Guild!”

“We might not have the chance. All former prisoners listen up! You have each been assigned an ARC trooper partner, you will follow him and do what he does. You will stay in formation or you will die. When he shoots, you shoot. When he stops shooting, you stop! If any of you frak’s up and get others killed, you will be shot as an enemy infiltrator.”

As Padawan Tano spoke, Even finally understood what he had been feeling in the background and he saw the Force being weaved over the spirits and hearts of every trooper and former prisoner.

How?

How was it possible?

Who had taught her?

How could she have had the time?

He cleared the questions from his mind with a durasteel will. Later, Even, later.

They soon reached a maintenance tube to climb to a higher level but Skywalker whirled around.

“Incoming, take cover!”

Everyone did their best and the three senior Jedi charged forward as blurry forms to intercept a large force of BX droids that was bearing down on their position.

These were clearly not standard BX’s though, as each droid brought their left arms forward to activate a flat plane of red shielding.

The shields easily absorbed or outright deflected the blaster fire from the clones now streaming down the hallway.

That not a single stray bolt was hitting them in the back in a friendly fire incident was a miracle.

The BX’s held their own blasters right beside their shields and fired with the deadly accuracy the model was known for.

Skywalker swiped the air with his left hand.

An Electric Judgement shot through underneath the floor, whilst Obi-Wan used a Force Crush on the first line of BX’s - turning them to twisted piles of armored scrap.

Even leaped on the opportunity as he deflected blaster fire and used a strong Force Push on the scrap to slam into the next row of droids.

Their fancy new shields might stop blasters, but it didn’t stop the kinetic energy of that much mass propelled at nearly 90 kph.

It knocked over two lines of droids, creating a cascade effect on the ones further behind, fouling their aim.

Skywalked pulled his left hand inward with a closed fist.

A dozen shields were ripped right off the droids, taking their arms with them.

He, Obi-Wan and Skywalker were then among them, lightsabers flashing, slashing, twirling, cutting. They ducked, deflected and bounced off the walls.

Acting not as three individual Jedi but as a perfectly coordinated team through the Force.

In less than two minutes, it was over, and the smoking pieces of seventeen dead BX droids littered the floor.

Skywalker’s armored form regarded the mechanical carnage and the now empty corridor, hazed with ambient smoke, before he turned around and strode implacably back down towards the maintenance tube.

“We have five more levels to secure and liberate, let’s get it done.”

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The ARC troopers now equipped with the BX energy shields, moved as a mobile wall, their carbines poking over the top and firing at the enemy. The troopers immediately behind them added to the weight of fire, aiming over the shield line’s shoulders.

Behind them, Skywalker and Tano were using the Force in various ways to aid the fight; mostly using simple Pulls and Pushes, to devastating effect on the enemy - allowing the troopers to get easy shots and mow down the droids with speed.

When the front line of shields either overheated or needed to recharge, a new line of shielded troopers stepped forward through gaps that the previous line of troopers opened.

The smoothness, fluidity and teamwork was awe inspiring to watch.

It had already gotten to the point where the ad-hoc ‘liberation force’ of the Citadel, was numbering a full company in strength and they had run out of blasters to distribute among the prisoners willing to fight.

Scavenging weapons from the fallen droids proved impossible to use, as it was quickly learned that there was a failsafe mechanism in these droid E5 carbines that the prison used. If any organic tried to pull the triggers, it would lead to the weapon overloading in their hands.

Obi-Wan, who was with Even in the rear of the company prevented disaster, using the Force to hurl the weapon out of the ugnaught prisoner’s hands, where it detonated safely far down the corridor behind them.

It was quite difficult over the deafening din of fighting, but word was quickly spread throughout the liberation company of the danger.

It also meant that trying to take over any armory to distribute weapons was pointless. That at least simplified things in terms of their objective - to take the central control room where the warden Sobeck was sitting.

At this point, Even decided that it was best to stick to Tarkin in the middle of the steadily advancing company where it was relatively the safest. All the unarmed prisoners had clustered here as well. He dearly wanted to be at the front line or even the back line, but it quickly became apparent that it was foolish to risk the knowledge of the Nexus coordinates in his head at this point.

Tarkin, who was long since content with doing the same, had already given up his blaster pistol to another who had gone forward to fight. He kept the trooper helmet on, listening to the radio and was observing the unfolding asymmetric battle with keen interest.

The bubble of relative safety was constantly moving and was itself clustered to either side of the corridor, where they could dive for cover if needed. They could even speak somewhat, as long as they shouted a bit.

“Master Piell!” Takin nodded. “Taking a breather from battle?”

“I’ve risked myself enough, considering what I know.”

“Good. I must admit that the battle plan for this operation is not one I would’ve expected from the Jedi.”

“I doubt the Council ordered this precisely,” Even grumbled. “No, they would’ve asked that we be evacuated to save the Nexus coordinates and any other prisoners only if possible. It’s Skywalker and Kenobi’s interpretation of those orders that brought us to this.”

Any further conversation was interrupted, when the call came through that they were approaching another wing of detention cells. At this point it was the former prisoners who had been given the logic probe slicers to open the doors and help to get yet more people out of the cells.

Even played supervisor and made sure that things went smoothly.

“If this keeps up we’re going to run into a problem soon,” Tarkin said thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?”

“If Sobeck believes he’s lost the prison entirely, that there’s no hope for repelling our assault, then he might decide to do something rather rash.”

Even frowned at the former governor of Eriadu, “Self-destruct the reactor?”

“Possibly, in my own interrogation sessions-”

“What? You were…”

“Of course I was, Master Piell,” Tarkin said in an obvious tone. “I was the Republic Naval captain of the ship. They deduced that if anyone would also know the Nexus route, it would be me. They also wanted to know command codes, procedures and any new technology that I might know of. You see no visible sign because they used a scan grid.”

“The mining tool?” Even asked in disbelief.

“Ingenius is it not? It creates constant electrical pulses into minerals to gather data on its composition. Yet when you expose a person’s face to one, you stimulate every pain receptor in that area without causing actual physical harm.” The company began moving forward again and the sounds of battle died down. “To get back to the point, Sobeck only appeared as a hologram briefly in one of my… sessions, to ask a direct question. He clearly goes out of his way to keep distance from his enemies, ostensibly to protect himself. It is either cowardice or prudence, though I’m leaning towards the latter. He’s someone who always wants to keep his options open. If we remove that from him, if we besiege him inside his control room…”

“He might call down a legion of droids from the security fleet above us,” Even deduced.

“Whether he is also truly in charge of that fleet is another question. He might have discretionary control, but all it would take is one holocall from Raxus Prime or Serenno and then we’d have the Citadel bombed to scrap by squadrons of Hyena droids. Neatly solves the problem.”

“The Separatists would be losing the Nexus Route then. Its strategic significance is too valuable to lose.”

“That might buy us some time,” Tarkin conceded. “If the situation here deteriorates too far, then Dooku might decide that if he can’t have the Nexus Route, then no one will have it.”

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47 minutes.

It had taken that long just to make it to the massive, double reinforced bulkhead doors behind which the warden, whose name was Osi Sobeck - Thank you, M8 - presided over the Citadel prison.

There were two corridors that converged into a T-junction and a short ten meter corridor that led to the control room.

Those ten meters were a literal no-man’s land at the moment.

It was protected by three redundant heavy Repeaters under direct computer control. The floor was electrified, magnetized and had grav traps. He could even throw out walls of advancing electrified plasma - which was an entirely new system.

If those weren’t bad enough, M8 had scanned that the doors were interlaced with phrik.

Sobeck had very deep pockets to splurge so much of that very expensive material on a door. Phrik was lightsaber resistant and it would take every blade we had, working for hours to cut through.

At this point, the upper half of the Citadel was ours, and the majority of the ARC troopers and our guerilla fighting force was working their way down to capture the main reactor and geothermal power taps. Anakin was leading that effort and so it was down to me, Obi-Wan, Rex and the best of his ARC troopers, to get into the control room and deal with Sobeck.

Master Piell and… Tarkin, along with the moderately injured, were now holed up in a nearby fully outfitted sick bay that was still intact. Sobeck clearly wanted the full facilities available to save his own life if he became sick or injured in some way.

I tried my best not to think about Tarkin and failed.

Wilhuff Tarkin.

I imagined many times during the battle how easy it would be, to convincingly fail or flub a blaster bolt deflection at just the right time.

Yet, while those blasted coordinates sat memorized in his skull I couldn’t do it. On the contrary, I had to keep him alive.

The Nexus Route was a door to possibly bring about a whole set of endgames to the Clone War that was most definitely in my own interest and the galaxy as a whole.

Again my emotions on what a future, older Tarkin would do was warring within my mind. This younger Tarkin had not yet turned into an old monster that would order the Death Star to destroy Alderaan. He had not yet formulated the Tarkin Doctrine of the future Imperial Fleet. He had not become the corrupt Grand Moff Tarkin, lording himself over his entire home sector with a despotic fist in the interest of the greater good and order, whilst enriching himself.

The Wilhuff Tarkin of the Clone Wars was someone I could very much empathize with and even like. I had discreetly done my homework long ago on certain major figures, including Tarkin.

He had been a major leader in Eriadu’s Outland Regions Security Force. Something the wealthy planet had formed in response to the inaction of the Republic’s Judicial Forces to properly deal with pirates and privateers in the Seswenna sector. An endeavor which they had succeeded at wonderfully - to the point where it was commonly known among the pirates of the galaxy, that if you wanted to die, try raiding Seswenna.

To this day, the ORSF used the ‘Tarkin Punishment’ on captured pirates and their ships - their nav computers were sabotaged, the pirate ships and crews were then given a one way ticket directly into whatever star was closest.

When he became governor of his homeworld, he wisely guided them to full economic independence and wealth. A true Outer Rim success story. By virtue of this, the world became a model other outlying worlds aspired to and in turn attracted the attention of those who wanted it for themselves. Dooku had been at the head of that queue, eager to see the wealthy planet, which was situated at the confluence of six major hyperspace lanes, brought into the CIS fold.

Tarkin, however, remained loyal to his political sponsor Palpatine and in the process prevented the CIS from bringing the Republic to its knees financially in the early days of the war.

If only I could somehow get Tarkin out from Sidious’ corrupting thumb. That alone would be a punch to Palpatine’s metaphorical face in the war being fought in the shadows. A true defeat he would have to swallow.

“Any ideas Master Kenobi?” I asked as I leaned against the wall of the junction, my face mere inches away from death.

“We’re a bit tapped out for more Electric Judgements, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan mused next to me.

I nodded in agreement. We could throw out more, but we had to be frugal with our strength. Our survival and continued freedom was riding on a fine knife edge at the moment. We couldn’t afford to tire ourselves out. It would also have been nice to just throw a Force Sleep over Sobeck, but the entire Citadel was built to house Dark Jedi. The control room had redundant flux shielding covering it - that imitated the effect of a containment field. I could somewhat sense the warden in there, but trying to manipulate the Force actively in that shielded control room from the outside was almost impossible.

“Droid poppers?” Rex suggested from his position next to Obi-Wan.

On the other side of the corridor, Cody shook his head. “The Repeaters would slag them out of the air.”

“Sobeck has accounted for that,” I said ruefully. “Even if they could detonate in range, M8’s scans indicate the physical shielding on the electronics and the Repeaters in this corridor are too thick.”

“There has to be a weakness,” Rex practically snarled. “No defense is perfect.”

“He’s still communicating and ordering his droids about,” Obi-Wan pointed a finger at me with a mischievous smirk.

“M8, are you detecting hyper signals from inside the control room or are they hardlines to repeater antennas?”

“Both, master.”

I chuckled as I deduced the idea Obi-Wan had. Another benefit of spending over a year living with the man in a Jedi Chapterhouse, training together, sharing insights and debates on the Force and many other subjects.

“Direct us to the closest antenna, M8.”

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A large fist smashed into a computer panel.

“Stupid droids!” roared Osi Sobeck into the holo, where a BX captain commando was displayed. “You’re the best in the CIS. I improved your coding myself, the hardware… all of it. You have the latest technology, the shielding and you still FAIL!”

“Commander Sobeck, your diatribe and anger is illogical. Our data on Jedi do not conform to what is being observed from these.”

“I don’t care. You will defend the main reactor to the last.”

“Roger, Commander.”

Osi shut down the holo, stabbing his finger onto the touchpanel so hard, he nearly sprained the joint.

“Status?” he demanded of the TX-20 tactical droid, seated at the secondary controls of the prison’s many surveillance systems, what was left of them at least.

“Levels five through twenty have all fallen to the enemy.”

He wanted to scream.

It was impossible. So many months spent in planning, execution, installing systems and defenses in this prison - yet it didn’t even slow these Jedi down. He had studied everything he could on their abilities and built on the foundation that the Jedi themselves used to contain their own kind who had committed crimes according to their religious doctrine. He should have already subdued all three of them and easily mopped up the pathetic clones that came in their wake.

Reality was not conforming to his plans and expectations.

They seemingly had an answer for every gambit, trap, droid and system he threw in their way.

“Commander, incoming transmission from Count Dooku.”

Osi turned in his chair to face the holo and steeled himself. What did he want now? He had been on holo with the man more than thirty minutes ago after the alarms had automatically sent notifications offworld.

A hand sized, full body holo appeared of the executive leader of the CIS. “Commander Sobeck, have you made any progress?” Dooku asked in his usual stern manner.

“Pacification operations are still under way, Count.”

“Most curious. You would think that with all the resources poured into the Citadel that you would’ve been successful by now.”

Osi tented his long fingers, “The Jedi and Republic strike team have caused chaos by freeing the prisoners and arming them, including disabling a lot of the pacification systems. It’s naturally delaying things, but their capture is inevitable. They cannot reach me here and I will drown them in droids. There is already a droid carrier on its way from the security fleet.”

“Excellent, make sure of it, commander. The Nexus Route must be ours-”

“Commander,” the TX droid interrupted.

Osi felt his temper surge. “I’m on holo with Count Dooku! Whatever it is can wait!”

“Commander-”

He surged to his feet and pointed his blaster pistol directly at the tactical droid’s head. “Stupid droid! Can you not understand-”

His very dangerous, illegally modified blaster pistol fired.

The orange bolt slammed into the faceplate of the tac droid and bored a hole the size of a fist straight through.

The tac droid collapsed forward in its chair.

Osi stared in astonishment down at his hand holding the blaster.

I did not pull the trigger, he thought incredulously. Yet it still fired!

The holo of Dooku raised an eyebrow. “So hard and uncompromising on your droids, Sobeck? They are expensive.”

In that moment, he felt as if his entire right arm was being smothered with a giant hand holding it. Then, slowly, against his will and all his strength, his arm was moved, it pulled inward and up…

Fear surged through him. He grabbed his own right wrist with his left hand and wrestled with his rebellious right arm, to no avail.

The barrel of the blaster agonizingly came up…

“No!” he shouted and grit his teeth with effort as finally the weapon was now aimed at his own head.

“That is quite a predicament you are in, Commander Sobeck,” Dooku smirked.

“What! What is this?! How… are you doing this!?”

The barrel was pressed directly against his head, his hearts were thundering in his ears.

“You really should keep that temper under control, Sobeck. If you had just let your tac droid speak, it would’ve told you that it had detected an anomaly in the transmission you are seeing. Most likely in the localizer subchannel encryption, not easy to convincingly fake that.” Dooku now smiled in a manner that was completely unlike the man. It was almost cheerful and full of mischievous energy.

“Who… who are you?”

Dooku shrugged, “You don’t need to know. Suffice it to say that your arm is now mine. You will deactivate the systems protecting the control room and open the doors or you will die.”

Osi glared at the blaster and his traitorous arm briefly as he tried to think. “You… you have to be one of the Jedi outside. You wouldn’t… your kind doesn’t…”

“What? Kill using the Force in this manner?” The Dooku imposter thoughtfully scratched his gray beard. “Perhaps if you faced any other Jedi in the galaxy, that would be true. Few can do this little trick though. However, I don’t have to justify to you whether I will carry out this threat. We can do this the easy way or the not so easy way. It’s just a matter of choosing which path you’ll take. You’ll open this door or I will make you.”

Osi felt an invisible hand suddenly seize control of his left arm and pulled it away towards the control panel on his left side. His chair decided to betray him as well and it turned to face the massive touch sensitive screens and panels that controlled every system in the prison.

“I’ve had a chance to see what you’ve been doing to the inmates since the war started, Sobeck. Spoke to a few of them.”

His fingers were forcibly splayed open, then all but the index finger were pushed inward. His left arm and finger moved forward slowly and agonizingly, then began tapping on the buttons.

“No!”

“Yes. Nothing I can do really balances the scales of the horror you’ve indulged in here.” The shielding flux system was powered down. “A scan grid? Really? Of all the ways and methods invented over thousands of years, I really have to hand it to you, that didn’t occur to anyone.” The plasma walls were shut down and all the grav traps throughout the prison. His arm moved to another screen and the magnetized flooring was shut down. “You know there are many of the prisoners who would like to meet you in person and express their appreciation for the services you’ve provided. There are a number of them beyond the main door. Especially of interest is a wookiee from the Claatuvac Guild.”

Osi’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help but stare at the large doors.

“Ah, I see you know the implications of that and what would happen if he got his claws on you.”

Power to the exterior Repeaters were switched off and were put in standby mode.

His hand now inexorably moved towards the door controls - and his death.

“There is only one way you can save your life now,” said the fake Dooku solemnly, as Osi’s finger pushed down on the button that opened the first layer of exterior blast doors.

“How?!” he asked desperately. The question tore itself from his mouth and he was horrified that it had happened. He was caving… he was breaking…

“You will contact the incoming droid carrier and tell them that you managed to pacify the prison, everything is under control, they can return to the security fleet. Order them back. Don’t try any tricks or duress codes, we will know and then the last thing you will experience is a wookiee dismembering you.”

Hope and defiance seemed to drain from him. They were alien concepts to him now. It was impossible to win. Foolish to have tried fighting the Jedi or even accept this posting.

“Fine!” he blabbered frantically. “I’ll do it just… please… don’t open the door.”

“Why not? You think we’ll just let the wookiee have you anyway? Please Sobeck, we are Jedi. Our word, once given, is absolute. As long as you do what we ask.”

His chair turned, now facing the holo again. His hands moved to the controls and they opened a secondary channel.

“Droid Carrier 092346, responding,” said the tinny voice of a B1 pilot.

“This is Sobeck,” he swallowed, trying hard to keep his voice steady. “Emergency is over. Prison is secure. You can return to the fleet.”

“Uh, are you sure, sir?”

“Are you questioning my orders?!”

“No, sir. Returning to ship, roger roger.”

His hands closed the channel and the chair turned back to the control panel.

“What are you doing?”

His finger moved to the button that would open the final inner door.

“Don’t!” he said frantically, his breath coming in gasps as he tried with all his might to resist the force controlling his body.

The button was pushed.

His chair turned around to face the door, the pressure now spread all over his body… he couldn’t even speak now, he could just barely breathe.

The doors split open and beyond it was only darkness, he could just barely make out a tall figure which moved and sprinted forward…

“NOOOOOOOO!”

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed and stay awesome.

The Force Wills - Chapter 73

I leaned back in the pilot’s chair of the Emissary, feet up and perched to the side on the bracket I had installed at the appropriate level, just so I could do this.

The sight, sound and feeling of hyperspace streaming past the ship, including all the cockpit sounds was the best ASMR that I didn’t know I had missed, until we had effectively exiled ourselves into Mortis for a grand total of one year, three months and sixteen days.

The place might have been a pocket universe all on its own, with so many varied massive landscapes and fantastic skies, but it hadn’t taken long for us to get the weirdest form of ‘planet fever’ ever recorded. We had gotten so used to flying amongst the stars, moving from one battle and crisis to the next, a ‘hyperdrive-set life’ so to speak, that by month two both Anakin and I had grown quite unsettled. Even taking the Emissary for a few flights above Mortis’ seemingly endless landscapes didn’t help much.

Obi-Wan, naturally, experienced none of this and quite easily settled into the typical day-to-day life experienced at a Jedi Chapterhouse.

The cockpit door opened and Anakin entered.

“Snips, armor’s done.”

I huffed in annoyance, pulled my legs down, stood and accepted the cuirass chest piece and helmet he held out to me.

I tested the former by pushing it against my abdomen and getting a feel of the adjustments. “Seems comfy,” I pronounced, handing it back to him and then tested the helmet, threading my longer lekku and more pronounced montrals into it. “A bit more room on the right montral,” I pulled that off and held it out.

“Really?” Anakin asked, giving the helmet an annoyed look.

“Yep,” I turned the chair back, perching my legs again.

“Might as well get that done now then,” he grumbled and left the cockpit.

I idly tapped the navicomputer panel, refreshing it to display the ETA.

We were a few minutes out from the Dorin system and a further two days from Coruscant after turning onto the Namadii Corridor hyperlane.

Two frakking more days until we were back in the bloody charade of the Clone Wars. Three days since we had submitted our edited reports to the Jedi Council on what had happened in the Chrelythiumn system.

Since then, not a single holocom request or debrief, not even from the Council of First Knowledge. Either the CFK was still busy analyzing the data or they had something else on their plate that was taking up the majority of their time.

Sure, there was a war going on and our experience, while unique, was not something to bother every single Jedi Council member, either on the high council or the CFK. You would think though that we’d at least get a flunky or an incredulous archivist on the line, who wanted our first hand account of a newly discovered active Celestial structure, that unfortunately vanished after trapping us in a Singularity Field.

On the other hand, this was a good thing. It meant that something was happening back on Coruscant that was reducing our ‘ordeal’ to a footnote. Therefore, something less likely to come to the attention of Sidious. However, the moment he learned just how we were effectively marooned in time, something that had happened to the Chosen One and his padawan… Well, I think we were soon going to get an invite from the good chancellor for another friendly chat to discuss our experience.

My thoughts were disturbed by an alert from the navicomputer and I flicked a switch to bring up the ship intercom. “Hyper emergence in ten seconds.”

I pulled back on the motivator throttle and the hyper tunnel broke apart into countless motes and streaks of light before the view outside was replaced by the emergence point in the Dorin system.

A quick scan showed the system was as busy as befitting a major intersection of hyper routes; the south-west bearing Celanon Spur intersecting into the south-easterly Namadii. The Kel Dor homeworld was also looking normal, signals showing both Republic and Kel Dor military ships on combined maneuvers - likely training.

The com system blurted at me for attention as a… message from the Jedi Council arrived

I pushed my thoughts through the Force, “Masters, incoming holo from Coruscant, Council encryption. It’s addressed to all three of us.”

“We’ll take it in the ship lounge,” Obi-Wan returned.

“On my way,” Anakin mentally sighed.

I set a proximity scan, calculated a course to bring us to the onward Bilbringi hyper point then engaged the autopilot.

When I arrived in the small crew lounge, it was to find Obi-Wan already talking to a life sized holo of Master Plo Koon.

My heart clenched a bit as I was hit with the need to hug the stuffing out of him. I hadn’t seen him in so long…

The Kel Dor Jedi’s reaction to seeing me was clear astonishment. “Little ‘Soka,” he breathed, his brows climbing behind his eye shields.

I bowed to his holo and used a bit of internal control to stop my tears from flowing. “Master Koon, it’s…” I swallowed a bit, “...good to see you again.”

“I read the report, but seeing you… more than a year of your life, just lost, passing in a moment to the rest of us,” Master Koon shook his head.

“At least I wasn’t alone, master,” I shrugged.

Anakin entered the lounge, “Master Koon.”

“Knight Skywalker,” he nodded. “I wish I was contacting you all under better circumstances and if things were different, the Council would have decided it would be prudent and wiser to bring you back to Coruscant for a few weeks of leave but… we must ask you to change your course.”

“Where?” asked Obi-Wan.

“Taris. There you will rendezvous with the Resolute which is bringing a stolen CIS cargo shuttle with current codes and an ARC trooper assault team.”

“So we’re infiltrating Seppie space, but without cloaks? Why?” Anakin asked.

“To answer, a bit of background. Since the beginning of the war, the Jedi Explorer corps and archivists have been searching for new hyperspace routes to give us a strategic edge, with limited success. Their efforts have now yielded a major lane route of such significance that it could change the course of the entire war. Master Even Piell and his Star Destroyer were dispatched to scout and map the new lane.” A holo of the master in question appeared, he was a 1.4 meter tall lannik, with a grisly face bearing many scars and even missing his left eye. “Due to the secrecy of what they were doing, everything about his voyage was classified, even the mapping data. Something went wrong during a hyper jump which we’re still not sure about, but our intelligence suddenly indicated that his ship, the Guardian, was suddenly spotted in the Rudrig system, deep behind enemy lines.”

“That’s just half a day away from Raxus Prime,” I said, feeling quite intrigued as I explored my Prescience.

“Yes, which indicates that Master Piell was highly successful. However, he was quickly detected and engaged by a CIS response fleet. Therefore, they now know that we have a new hyperlane directly into the heart of their territory. The last communication from Master Piell indicated he was memorizing the coordinates and wiping his ship’s computers.”

“Wait, where was the other end of this new lane?” Anakin asked with alarm.

“Nicely intuited, Skywalker,” Master Koon complimented. “Metellos.”

“That’s practically next door to Coruscant!”

“So you begin to see the problem. Our astrogators have already given the new lane the codename of Nexus Route. We have only supposition at this point of its precise path through the galaxy, but it more than likely cuts straight over the Hydian, Vathkree and Salin routes to deliver you right into the heart of CIS space. Master Piell also confirmed that it was stable enough to easily accommodate major fleet formations.”

“So we’re to try and rescue Master Piell and the coordinates he holds in his head,” Obi-Wan concluded.

“The Separatists have taken him and the majority of his officers and senior crew to Lola Sayu.”

Obi-Wan stroked his beard in his typical ‘I’m very troubled’ way. “Oh dear.”

“The Citadel?” Anakin asked grimly.

“Yes, Skywalker,” Koon nodded and turned to me. “Ahsoka, we are talking about one of the facilities that the Jedi use to incarcerate those of us who have… lost our way.”

“No need to mince words, Master Koon, fallen to the Dark Side,” I folded my arms.

“Very well, little ‘Soka. Lola Sayu is in Outer Rim Sector R6 and as a result was swiftly lost at the beginning of the war when the battle lines were drawn all over the galaxy. The Jedi stationed there managed to evacuate with some of the inmates but not all. It is unknown what the fate of the remainder is or what the Separatists have done to the prison itself since then. All we know is that there is a significant security fleet in the system. Cloaked scouts have gotten close enough for detailed scans so we at least have a general overview.”

“So why aren’t we using them? We could even take the Emissary, keep it cloaked, land near the prison, assault it, then exfiltrate,” I said with a shrug.

“We have to allow for the possibility of retrieving not just the crew of the Guardian, but also any other prisoners that might be there. There is not enough room aboard the Emissary or any of the cloaked scouts or ships we have in range for that many. That is why we need the CIS cargo shuttle, you will need to use deception as your cloak in this case.”

“What if we find other Jedi inmates still there? They’re not exactly going to be thrilled about being ‘rescued’ from the Separatists only to be transported to another prison,” Anakin pointed out reasonably.

“Leaving them in the hands of the CIS and Dooku is also not acceptable either. Those Jedi are there for a reason, their rehabilitation is near impossible. The Council is concerned that Dooku will use them as either disposable operatives or as propaganda against the Order. The cargo shuttle has been loaded with an appropriate number of casks.”

“Casks?” I asked in confusion.

“They’re a secure method of transporting a belligerent Force Sensitive,” Obi-Wan explained. “It uses elements of stasis pod technology, combined with internal energy and neuro dampening, physical restraints and sound proofing. It’s generally used when carbon freezing is impractical or unavailable.”

Now that rang a bell. The Vizsla Archival vaults had a number of Mandalorian versions of such mobile prisons for Jedi. They were very ancient holdovers from a time when Mandalorian and Jedi were in open conflict with one another. It was just such a pity that even such casks had their limitations, as I think someone as powerful as Sidious would find it amusing to be placed in one, before he busted out and went on a rampage.

“Liberating an entire prison is not going to be something we can do without pulling down the entire security fleet down on our heads,” Anakin looked a bit grumpy. “How are we supposed to be able to escape in a CIS cargo shuttle?”

“You should have the Nexus Route coordinates from Master Piell at that point, he will be your guide to an entry point, where you can use it to return to the Core Worlds directly,” Master Koon explained.

“And if he dies or is already dead?” I asked flatly.

“Then you will have to improvise, Ahsoka.”

Why did I hear the awesomeness of Suicide Mission by Jack Hall playing in the back of my head?

This mission had pretty similar stakes. If the Nexus Route fell into the hands of the CIS, it would leave the Republic Navy caught flatfooted and it would be the greatest outflanking maneuver in the history of warfare in the galaxy. If the Republic had it, we could drive a major fleet, perhaps even a Mandator dreadnought, right into the heart of CIS space.

“There is another complication to the security of Lola Sayu that must be addressed,” Master Koon continued. “The security fleet has been equipped with the latest generation of scanning technology, which will obviate current smuggling techniques. The fleet is entirely run by droids and tac droids. If you try to approach, your lifesigns will be detected and your assault is over before it’s even begun.”

“Well, R2 can pilot the shuttle alone no problem, getting us and the clones through though… will require carbon freezing,” Anakin winced with distaste. “We’ll also need a few captured CIS droids, B1s preferably, I’ll reprogram them myself.”

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Master Koon nodded. “If that is all? May the Force be with you.”

The holo of the Kel Dor Master rippled and vanished.

“I’ll get this ship turned around,” I muttered and hurried back to the cockpit.

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After five days of pushing the Emissary hard through hyper, we emerged into high orbit of Taris and rendezvoused with the waiting Resolute.

She was looking in tip top shape after the battle damage sustained at the Battle of Sullust and I could see nothing obviously wrong with the flight bridge. Even a cursory scan showed the shipwrights on Corellia had done a fine job with her.

We landed Emissary in the port main hangar bay and were greeted by a reasonably sized ARC trooper company of the 501st led by Rex and Admiral Yularen.

“Attention!” barked Rex.

Nearly eighty booted feet thumped on the hangar floor, echoing impressively across the large space, as the clones presented and moved their rifles around into a forward salute position.

Anakin and I reflexively saluted the men in acknowledgement as we walked forward.

“Generals Skywalker, Kenobi, Commander Tano,” Yularen also saluted at our approach. “Welcome back to the Resolute.”

“You have my thanks for taking care of her, admiral,” Anakin grinned.

“All systems and personnel are available for your review, general.”

“Excellent, we’ll have a formal brief in one hour under full EMCON and classification procedures in Briefing 2. Time is against us and we need to be underway no later than 0600 tomorrow.”

“Understood, general.”

Anakin gave another salute to the clones before we headed into the turbolift as Rex dismissed his men.

Our first destination - my quarters.

I entered first and held out both a scanner and my bug control. It took me nearly six minutes of thorough scanning of every inch of my little corner of the Resolute, before I was happy and pocketed both devices.

Anakin and Obi-Wan entered after I gave the all clear.

“No new surveillance, old one’s still there and hacked, we’re in the clear to speak here,” I reported, pulling out a chair.

“Good,” Obi-Wan said and after giving my quarters a cursory inspection out of interest, leaned against the wall, whilst Anakin sat on the edge of my work table. “What can your Prescience tell you of this mission?”

I chuckled mirthlessly, “It’s going to be bantha poodoo from one end to the other. The number of probability lines which end up with us dead or captured are depressingly large. The odds of getting Master Piell alive off the planet are also bleak. His incarceration and torture is taking a toll and he will struggle to properly defend himself as we make our way out of the Citadel. The CIS has spent the last six months making the place even more formidable, with both active and passive defenses and outright traps throughout the entire complex. We’ll be facing energy shield bearing commando droids in close quarters, tac droids, B1s and B2-ACMs. The final layer of this poodoo cake will be an organic CIS commander, acting as the prison warden, who is a very cunning strategist but also sadistic. None of the prisoners are having a good time in these walls and he really likes to watch the torture sessions, though he doesn’t partake in administering it himself.”

“Any indication of who this is?” Anakin asked.

I frowned with annoyance, “He’s a phindian and in none of the probability lines does he really say his own name or introduce himself, even in those where he captures us. He’s also quite prideful of his own reputation as the warden of the most secure prison in the CIS. No one has escaped under his watch so far.”

“Pride such as that can be exploited,” Obi-Wan smirked at me. “Any specifics on the new defenses?”

“Too long to go into before Anakin has to give his briefing, I’ll write up a list of equipment we have to requisition, we’ll also have to probably even go down to Taris and the black market for some rather exotic stuff.”

“Snips, you get started on that with my full authority and the Resolute’s discretionary budget. I don’t care if you run our funds dry, but I want us in and out of there with Master Piell and all the prisoners we can fit in that cargo shuttle.”

I smiled devilishly, “As you wish, master.”

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My master is crazy.

That was the constant determination that was circulating through R2-D2’s logic processors.

The astromech sat in his upright mode and twisted his dome to scan the darkened interior of a carbonite freezing chamber owned by the local Tarisian branch of Fergris Pharmaceuticals. It had taken quite a bit of doing to get access to it in a clandestine fashion for the purposes of the mission.

R2 reflected on the vagaries of the organic sentient condition, how people could be bribed and corrupted to allow actions or inactions to occur which ran counter to what was supposed to be their primary operational parameters. That such action was even required when Fergris was supposed to be a company firmly on the Republic side of the line, meant that not even patriotic sentiments motivated the local director of the company.

Master arrived, followed by Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, Rex, Cody and twenty-two more ARC troopers from Alpha company of the 501st.

“Hey R2, all systems look good to you?” Master asked and patted him on his dome.

“Parameters are within expected norms for this kind of facility, master. The chance of a fatality occuring during the freezing process is too high,” R2 blurted rapidly in binary.

“It’ll be fine,” his master disagreed with a kind smile, then produced a data chit from his armor’s belt pouch which he slotted into the main port on R2’s cylindrical body.

The droid felt the chit enter his internal dataverse and his automatic security checks and filters got to work, interrogating the onboard programs. Every single one had the appropriate keys and R2 recognized the distinct programming work of his master, so allowed the programs to execute.

“Programs loaded and instructions understood, master.”

“Good, you’re all set now to control the reprogrammed B1s. They’ll follow your every command and you can even control them directly with the override if they become too annoying.”

“Thank you, master,” R2 said as he felt his circuits brimming with an odd satisfaction. He interrogated the feeling and could only conclude that it was his anger at CIS droids in general that was the cause. His logic concluded that it was also rather unfair. They were simply droids doing what they were programmed to do by organics.

Master patted him again before they all began stepping onto the circular pads of the carbonite freezing machines.

R2 engaged his wheeled mode before moving across to the control platform that overlooked the entire carbonite freezing line.

Tapping away at the controls and many interactive screens was a rather grumpy ugnaught that was identified as Kan Snavro.

“No need to look over my work, droid,” Snavro frowned, flaring his upturned nasal cavities at R2.

‘Your competence is not in question, I have seen your employment performance results.’

“What?! How by Gentes did you get access to that?” Snavro asked.

“That is irrelevant. I also know that you are a compulsive gambler with many debts. Debts that you are desperate to pay off. What you see here today would be very valuable to certain parties. My master’s life and many others are in your hands and I was entrusted with looking after them whilst they are frozen.”

“What are you getting at, droid?” he sneered.

“If you check your accounts, you will find them flush with enough credits to pay off half of the current debts you owe.”

“You’re pulling my snout, droid.”

“Check,” R2 retorted with a harsh tone.

“Fine,” Snavro pulled out a small pad and began tapping his taloned finger rapidly on it, scrutinizing the small screen. “Well, I’ll be a green uglett, you’re telling the truth. Why-”

“Motivation to keep your mouth shut, the other half will be paid if our mission proceeds relatively smoothly. If despite this, you find your greed getting the better of you… your death will be ruled an accident.”

The ugnaught laughed, “You’re threatening me, droid?”

“This place just has so many computers governing everything; turbolifts, hazardous materials pumping and disposal. It’d be a shame if one just happened to malfunction at the wrong time.”

Snavro’s beady eyes became wary, “You’re kidding right? Wh- what kind of astromech droid are you?”

“One who is an excellent mechanic and programmer,” R2 snarked.

He quickly looked away from R2’s main optical sensor, which was blending various shades of green and purple. Colors that were considered very bad luck and creepy in the ugnaught culture. “Consider me warned,” he pocketed his pad and began pulling a number of levers on the main controls.

The circular pads began descending with their humanoid cargo, massive pumps began spooling up, filling the entire space with a sharp ascending tone as carbonite liquid began surging through all the overhead piping.

The now recessed pads began erupting with gaseous carbonite one after the other, quickly filling the entire area with ambient spillover gas, turning the place into a misty haze that was quickly cleaned up with giant fans recirculating the air.

Overhead multi-limbed dextrous claws descended into each recess, gently manipulating and coaxing the mass of newly generated carbonite into their respective freezers.

Their job done, a simpler claw now descended and stabilized the upright freezer, before the entire pad rose up back to its original position, revealing twenty-seven carbon-frozen humanoids, safely ensconced in repulsor driven freezer slabs.

“Everything good so far, reading no problems in any of the freezers,” Snavro tapped a few buttons on his controls and pulled out a control pad. “This is the remote control for the freezers and moving them.”

R2 opened up a panel with a manipulator arm and snatched it from the ugnaught, before also stabbing a logic probe directly into the remote, brute force downloading all its programs after giving them a thorough scan for anything nefarious.

“Hey! That’s a proprietary system program.”

“I don’t care and I won’t upload it to the Holonet,” R2 retorted and threw the remote back, before swiveling on the spot and trundling away.

The droid examined the programs for control of the freezers, finding them to be over-coded, bloated and even filled with organic humor as junk code. Within a few milliseconds he had tossed the junk code away, distilling the program to something that didn’t offend his sensibilities and was acceptably functional.

He sent out a signal and every freezer lifted slightly into the air before tipping themselves over, into the horizontal position and hovering flat.

R2 led the way and the very precious cargo behind him began following.

It was rather fortunate that Fergris’s factory here on Taris was built with maximal efficiency in mind as well as keeping its competitors in the dark regarding its affairs in every way possible. This meant that the factory had large internal bays for cargo starships to land in, large hallways for moving large amounts of cargo at once and all sorts of security to prevent corporate espionage, including the ability to section off and isolate entire production lines and cargo flow.

This extended to the factory workers as well, which was why R2 could guide the freezers all the way to the internal hangar bay and not see a single employee. The surveillance system would also come down with a nasty virus which would neatly erase everything the moment he sent a signal to it.

The moment R2 entered the bay, he sent a signal and his small squad of three reprogrammed B1 droids activated inside the ship. One he ordered to begin pre-flight, whilst the remaining two would come out to help and store the freezers inside one of the shuttle’s cargo bays. He also piped their visual feeds directly into his processors, just to keep a close ‘eye’ on them.

They were met outside the 110 meter length, cylindrical CIS cargo ship by a hovering holoplatform, on which was projected Master Plo Koon to supervise that everything was going to plan.

“R2, are they stable?”

“Yes, Jedi Koon. All systems report nominal and the freezing process is going well.”

“Good, on your way, we can afford no delays.”

R2 chirped an acknowledgement and rolled up the ship’s embarkation ramp.

Ten very efficient minutes later, all the freezers were on board and secured. R2 double checked the equipment for the mission in their pallets, before rolling into the forward cockpit of the shuttle.

The engines were already whining and systems coming awake under the command of the two B1s seated at the controls.

“Embarkation ramp secured, all cargo secured and ready, sir,” reported the third B1. R2 gave it the designation of B1-O.

“Make sure our transponder is on the Republic ID for the moment,” R2 ordered.

“Roger, roger,” B1-P responded eagerly, using its large metal digits on the MFDs.

“Open bay doors and get us to the hyper point.”

“Yes, sir,” B1-C saluted its hand and grabbed the control yoke.

The shuttle’s engines and repulsors whined in concert, growing in power until it lifted off the bay floor and pulled in its landing struts.

CIS Shuttle 81572 ascended through the tubular bay, only pausing for the irised upper doors to properly open, allowing it into the darkened night sky of Taris.

R2 pulled in his front wheel, locking himself into a stable standing mode, before interfacing a logic probe into the dedicated port built for astromechs.

He immediately had to make corrections to the course that B1-C had set.

‘Stupid B1s,’ his logic center couldn’t help but observe. For all that his master had done a wonderful job reprogramming these three, he was still working with mass produced, sub-standard hardware made by Baktoid Automata. R2 could already see problems developing because of that. The heat generated by the internal processors working at higher and higher speeds to accommodate the improved code and logic, was steadily increasing. As these B1s would learn and experience more, that would only get worse.

R2 reached into the code of the B1s, made a few adjustments here and there. Neatly staving off the processors melting into slag within five days as the droids literally thought themselves to death.

The shuttle transited beyond the atmosphere and immediately began powering into an intercept trajectory towards the Resolute, not even bothering with a stable orbit.

This would’ve normally had every space traffic controller on the planet hitting their emergency buttons and screaming over the radios at the offending ship.

As far as anyone else was concerned the shuttle was going to rendezvous with the Star Destroyer carrying classified cargo.

R2 continued making slight adjustments to the course as Resolute began rapidly growing closer through the forward transparisteel of the cockpit.

Finally, the shuttle blinked past the massive ship, shooting over its dorsal structure with a few hundred meters clearance at a relative velocity of a few kilometers per second.

He assumed control of the hyperdrive and after checking the coordinates a few dozen times in a millisecond, engaged it to full power.

“Ah, sir, I wanted to engage the hyperdrive,” complained B1-C.

“I’m the astromech here, not you,” R2 retorted as the shuttle shot into hyperspace.

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Four days later the shuttle emerged into the Lola Sayu system.

The main planet itself was the fourth in this particular solar system and R2 hummed with wonder at the strangeness of this particular one.

It had suffered from a clear catastrophic event in the distant past that had caused it to become almost half-a-planet, losing what could be considered the crust and mantle of its southern hemisphere, totally exposing its core to space. Whatever the cataclysm, it was not able to overcome the gravitational binding energy inherent in the total mass of the planet, so the galaxy became witness to a planet slowly pulling mass back into its core and healing itself over hundreds of thousands of years.

In the meantime the planetary debris had formed a super ring system around it, which made any approach a perilous endeavor. The mass shadow was also uneven, which made safe exits from hyperspace a problem the closer you tried to appear.

All ships were forced to make a relatively long approach in normal space, which is part of the main reason why the Republic and Jedi had originally built a prison here.

Now, the CIS had taken what the Republic had built and made it even more difficult to escape.

The security fleet in orbit consisted of a Providence class dreadnought with four Lucrehulk battlecarriers and a squadron of Munificent star frigates.

R2 ran a number of simulations within his dataverse on what it would take to destroy this fleet and didn’t like the results he was getting. The closest reinforcements that could theoretically come to aid any escape was more than two days away, approaching from the south-eastern lines and Hutt space, which would also require the Republic to breach those battle spaces.

No, this mission had to succeed, or everyone would be stuck behind enemy lines.

It took a full five and half minutes to traverse the distance to the security fleet blockade from the hyper emergence. B1-C was doing an adequate job at least of avoiding the orbital debris.

“Citadel command just contacted us,” B1-P announced.

“Open a channel and make sure our transponder is online,” R2 ordered.

“Roger, roger.”

After a few moments, the droning voice of a tactical droid echoed in the cockpit. “This is central command, please identify yourself.”

“This is Shuttle 81572, requesting access to Citadel Prison,” B1-P broadcasted steadily.

“What is your cargo?”

“Uh, supplies and frozen rations.”

R2 felt like prodding his stun rod up the B1s back. He’d had to remind it over their datalink of the appropriate response.

“Do not deviate from your current course until we have confirmed your cargo.”

“Roger, roger.”

B1-C turned in his seat, “We’re being scanned for lifeforms.”

“Of course they are,” R2 snorted electronically. “Make sure all our own sensors are getting good readings on the wavelengths and frequencies they’re using.”

“All passive sensors are on, sir.”

R2 made sure to copy the incoming data into his own partitioned memory, so that they would have a record even if they lost the shuttle. He was sure both the master and Ahsoka would be interested in studying this new scanning technology, not to mention using it to adapt their own lifesign dampeners.

“Shuttle 81572, scan complete. You are cleared to approach the Citadel.”

“Roger, roger.”

The shuttle’s approved course had it passing right through the dreadnought’s major firing arcs. It was a cheap intimidation scare tactic that was illogical, totally wasted on an all droid crew, yet clearly the tactical droid had them do it anyway.

“Make sure all our passive systems are also focused on the Providence, if they want to give us free close range intelligence on their gun layout and system heat signatures, we should take it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The shuttle streaked through the security blockade without issue and was soon decelerating for an atmospheric insertion.

When they approached the Citadel itself, R2 directed nearly all his computing cycles to analyzing it and comparing it to the old schematics.

It was a towering structure built out of the side of an expansive cavern system, that speared into the air ominously over two hundred meters. The caverns themselves were part of a very active lava flow system. Most of the stable northern hemisphere could be considered a giant volcanic region. Yet life still managed to thrive in the very fertile soils away from the many lava flows.

The results came back and R2 found it very concerning. The CIS had indeed made extensive changes. Passive scans showed extensive modifications to the internal layout and additions to external defenses. A magnetometric scan showed strong readings throughout the facility, suggesting EM field emplacements with outputs that R2 didn’t want to get close to. Gravimetric scans also showed the paradoxical placement of gravity plating on a planet. There were even readings showing that the CIS had installed a large fusion reactor to supplement the geothermal power taps that the Republic had originally equipped the facility with.

“I’m assuming control,” R2 declared and overrode the inputs of the flight yoke.

He dove the shuttle abruptly below the Citadel’s scanner horizon and into the canyons.

Then leveled it off just two meters above the ever flowing rivers of lava.

“Whoa! Sir, our hull temp sensors are registering warnings!” B1-C screamed.

“We’re going to die now, aren’t we?” B1-O asked from the engineering station, his nasal voice turning depressed.

“Silence!” R2 growled in binaric.

He banked hard right, firing port and starboard thrusters precisely enough to slip the shuttle perfectly through a sharp gap in the canyon that flowed in that direction.

The spot to land covertly was already identified thanks to the detailed scans from the Jedi Archives, which were just a year old at this point and geological activity wouldn’t have eroded it in that time.

He flared the shuttle to a stop at the exact coordinates and scanned the cliff face. Sure enough there was still a large cave here that the shuttle would be able to fit in.

With forward port and aft starboard thrusters twisting the shuttle around, he fired the forward thrusters to back the ship precisely into the cave, before canceling the momentum with rear thrusters and dialing the repulsors down.

The landing skids were extended and the shuttle thumped down in a perfect landing.

“That was impressive, sir,” B1-C commented.

R2 pulled out his logic probe, “Begin the thaw on the freezers.”

“Roger, roger,” B1-O exited the cockpit.

“Keep our passives online, it won’t take them long before they realize something is wrong.”

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Being carbon frozen sucked.

Getting unfrozen was a cast iron, gold plated SOB level of suckage that I never wanted to experience again.

The lethargy and torpor that lingered on you like a wet blanket was just awful. I felt it into my very bone marrow.

My eyes blinked and the instant I could, I pulled on the Force to jumpstart every biological process I had into proper functioning.

If this was what a mere four days felt like, then I tipped my metaphorical hat to Han Solo for enduring months and those early space explorers that had to spend decades carbonite frozen using the early hyperdrives for interstellar travel.

I stepped out of the freezer slab and did a few stretching exercises to help get everything flowing again.

Around me the clones were doing things the hard way, stabbing themselves with stims in their necks to get their internal processes recovering faster than natural.

I put my helmet on and activated M8.

“Running full diagnostic now, master,” the armor intelligence announced. “Complete. There is minor degradation in the battery backups; all other systems are nominal.”

“Everything good, Snips?” Anakin asked, rolling his shoulders, flexing his artificial hand, staring at a small internal power readout for the limb.

“Recovered, master. No carbon sickness.”

“Then let’s get our equipment and start this race.”

By the time the entire assault team had gathered outside the shuttle, everyone had donned their assault harnesses and backpacks.

I had taken license from many old Earth spec ops groups in designing these. It functionally doubled the ammo count of a standard ARC trooper, they could now carry eight droid poppers each, there was also a number of integrated devices in pouches, including an extra armor plate on the front and back that gave them the same survivability in those areas that Clone Commando Katarn armor offered. They weren’t happy about the weight, but that was preferable to being killed.

“All right, Alpha squad, make sure your lifesign dampeners are on with the new frequencies, we didn’t come all this way to just be detected making our final approach,” Anakin ordered.

Each clone thumbed the device on their belts and I carefully sensed to make sure that everything was working.

“We’re good, master.”

“R2, stick with the ship and execute the planned schedule. Get the casks ready as well, just in case.”

With that Anakin gestured forward and the entire team fell into a covert line advance formation with their DC carbines pulled into their shoulders and moving out of the cave, following the narrow rocky path formed here by hundreds of years of workers and excavator droids. Much work had to go into stabilizing the earth around the Citadel so that the foundations weren’t compromised by the geological activity - building great pillars of durasteel that speared through these narrow canyons.

After a good amount of time following this canyon going east, it sloped north and finally the path entered into a tunnel bored out of the rock.

“All right Ahsoka, take point,” Anakin ordered.

I walked forward and knelt at the entrance to the tunnel, carefully using technometry to sense surveillance and other detection technologies. M8 was also busy, using passive sensors only, as throwing active scans now was suicide.

Nothing.

I gave a forward gesture and entered the tunnel.

M8 was projecting an internal map on my HUD of the ideal route we would take to infiltrate and I was relieved to note that everything was lining up when we reached the first intersection. It made sense that the CIS wouldn’t mess with these tunnels too much, since they needed to do infrastructure maintenance to the geological struts as well.

We turned left as the path dead-ended against a major geo-strut stained with dust, then followed it for nearly fifty meters, climbed a short ladder, then took the next right.

I held up a fist and kneeled.

Everyone immediately stopped.

‘Snips?’ Anakin thought to me.

‘Seismic sensors, enough to pick up our footfalls easily.’

We couldn’t use our radios and even point-to-point systems were very risky. The only way we talked was via the Force and hand signals from here on.

‘Can you override?’

The first sensor was about ten meters down the tunnel from our current position and it took me a few moments to piece together everything at this range.

It was wireless, buried like a landmine and was sending a constant low level pinging signal back to the Citadel. With careful application of the Force, as if I had manifested invisible fingers, I cut, moved and pushed the interior circuitry, connections and induced electric currents. M8 also sliced in and managed to spoof it into keep sending its all clear signal, despite me having cut its link to the seismic sensor itself.

I gestured for an advance and we moved on.

We had to stop again at the next intersection for more seismic sensors.

‘These can’t be reliable,’ Anakin thought irritably. ‘Must give false readings all the time due to natural seismic activity.’

‘Unless they have a program on the other end that discriminates and filters, it's not hard to code that.’

After getting through that we were nearing the Citadel’s lowest levels and security naturally toughened. The first of which was actual visual surveillance units of the tunnels. These I had to tackle with M8’s help. Again we were dealing with wireless systems and it took my droid intelligence forty seconds of slicing to penetrate the system - then we let it record a full boring minute of footage before doing the old loop-the-feed trick.

We rushed past the camera as quickly as possible, before returning everything to normal behind us. The chance was too high that the tac droids would eventually spot the anomaly of our hack if we left it as is.

The tunnel opened here into a narrow chasm, which was bridged by a durasteel grid walkway spanning over one of the seemingly never ending rivers of lava below. Ahead of us was only a jagged rock face that stretched upward for nearly 130 meters. It was usually traversed by an exterior elevator on a track, but the lift car was at the top.

The elevator controls at the bottom were hard lined directly into the Citadel’s central computer. It could be sliced but not without alerting the entire place. Prescience showed me that even if M8 pulled off a flawless slice, the alarm would go off the instant the lift car moved. So more than likely there was a redundant isolated hardline sensor somewhere out of reach.

The biggest problem was the magnetic mines partially buried in the rockface itself that spanned the height of the rock face and ten meters to either side of the elevator track. It precluded using ascension cables and whilst Anakin and I could use boot jets to fly up there, it would mean leaving the clones behind as their jetpacks were less maneuverable, therefore impossible to safely fly in this tight space. Trying to actually free climb to the left of this defense, meant you were out of the chasm and in full view of the Citadel. Trying to go right, meant an extremely perilous and difficult climb that even the madmen free solo climbers of old Earth would think twice about even attempting.

The only point of vulnerability was the mines. They had to be shut down before the lift could be used and were again wireless as a result.

“M8 what do you think?”

“Mistress, I can definitely slice and spoof them to the Citadel central computer.”

“Do so,” I gave a look at the mission time counter.

‘R2 should launch our fake distress beacon in three, two, one,’ I thought to both Obi-Wan and Anakin.

Exactly on time, our radios picked up the beacon which would give the impression that the shuttle had crashed at the point where it had disappeared from the scanner horizon, after experiencing engine problems. Hopefully, the droids would conclude the shuttle had met its end in the deep lava rivers.

The magnetic mines shut down under the deft electronic fingers of M8.

The clock was now ticking in earnest.

I gestured upward and we all pulled out ascension guns and fired.

I gave my line a tug to check it and after clipping it on my harness, gunned the motor and shot into the air.

The entire team followed suit.

I held my fist into a hold signal the moment we were hanging off our hooks underneath the lip of this entrance into the Citadel. Then gave a low profile hand sign.

Everyone grabbed onto the rockface and flattened themselves as best they could against it.

Two B2-ACMs and a droideka were approaching on a standard patrol.

I heard the distinctive sound of a ray shield powering down, then the heavy stomping of the B2s and the clunking tumble of the droideka before it deployed its legs and all three droids started scanning.

The Force was summoned and I induced an electrical short in their optical sensors. We were well below their sightline and neither droid could bend down, but I wasn’t taking chances that those sensor’s line of sight hadn’t been improved.

“Optical sensor malfunction,” reported one B2. “Patrol group 31534, heading to maintenance.”

The droids defaulted to using inertial guidance, turned around and walked through the ray shielded door.

We waited a long minute for them to get some distance from us, before we finished our climb and stacked up on either side of the entrance.

M8 had been monitoring the droids and had caught their key transmission to the shield system. It was the work of a few seconds to decode and properly sequence a key of our own that wouldn’t get flagged in the system as anomalous. Then properly spoofing the camera that looked down at the shield door from inside and hallway beyond.

The shield flickered and dimmed.

We sped through as quickly as we could, the team divided on each side of the hallway, every blaster up and ready to instantly take out any threat perceived.

We paused at the first intersection, as M8 and I got to work on the next surveillance cams.

This was slowing things down, but the closer we got to Master Piell’s cell before the alarms were triggered, the better.

‘I’ve sensed where Piell’s being held,’ Obi-Wan thought, as he poked at a small holo diagram of the Citadel hovering over his arm. ‘Thirteen floors up, in the central spire. Here, it’s listed as a solitary isolation cell in the schematics, but has been repurposed into a torture chamber. They’re not currently doing anything to him. Probably letting him recover before the next session.’

My focus was completely on technometry and Prescience at the moment, so Obi-Wan and Anakin were handling strategic awareness.

‘Can you thought-project to him?’ Anakin asked.

‘No, he’s asleep at the moment and too withdrawn in self-defense.’

‘What about other prisoners?’

‘They’re in five different detention levels, numbering two hundred. There are four Jedi among them, held in the specialist cells meant to contain them.’

‘There were supposed to be seventeen.’

‘It seems the warden has been busy then or they’ve been transferred elsewhere.’

‘Clear,’ I thought, gesturing for us to advance.

The fastest way up was a turbolift, but presented too great a risk of detection from too many sources and getting trapped. So we moved steadily in the direction of a maintenance access point, which contained an auxiliary ladder tube that spanned the height of the Citadel.

When we successfully breached into the tube, I saw that the warden had been very busy here. It was a clear vulnerability in the entire Citadel, so it had a wide array of systems to either detect or outright kill an intruder. Hypermagnetic EM plating so strong that it would strip you of anything metallic if you tripped a laser grid sensor. Grav traps that would expose you to sudden instant G-forces of 50Gs or higher. Electrofields that would stun or even kill you.

Anakin winced as I transferred everything M8 and I was detecting to his HUD. ‘Snips, can you and M8 manage this?’

‘Yes we can, Skyguy.' I thought with determination. 'Let’s go.’

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A/N: Bridging chapter.  Much fun and awesomeness to come with this next arc. Hope you've had a great week, folks and may another follow.

The Force Wills - Chapter 72

Anakin attacked in the next moment.

The power he unleashed forward rumbled the foundations of the citadel, the tiles cracked underfoot, a groaning was heard throughout the structure. The dark clouds above simply ceased existing as they were driven away, revealing the unknown starscape.

It was stupendous.

All that telekinetic power crashed on Bogan, seeking to rob him of the Mortis blade.

He naturally wouldn’t just let that happen.

His response was a counter-telekinetic wave that was like the power of two oceans suddenly meeting.

The citadel now felt like it was being held in the hand of a titan and it was giving it a good shake.

The floor where the two forces met was sundered instantly, it ceased to exist in a way that should’ve induced fusion with the combined pressures. Thankfully, we weren’t in the normal universe at the moment and were not incinerated by the resultant energy release.

I firmly shook off the fascination and awe at what I was witnessing, then began dragging myself forward.

Stupid knee.

My hand grabbed an unconscious Obi-Wan’s booted foot and stopped him from sliding further forward into the narrow chasm that had been eroded by the competing Force Waves.

Both newly cut sides of the citadel were now steadily leaning inward, creating a slowly rising slope as it was grinded away further and further.

I gathered Obi-Wan into a proper hold, threading my arm under his armpits and dragged us backward. Anakin didn’t need the worry of Obi-Wan and myself distracting him at this moment.

Every movement was agony on my knee but I fought through it, pulling us both to the nearest place that looked somewhat stable, the remains of a pillar on the right side of the room. I deposited Obi-Wan there. It would keep him safe even if the citadel kept angling over.

I screamed through the pain as I pulled myself to a vertical base using the pillar and supported myself with it.

My eyes fixed on the continuing battle.

I had to do something.

Could I add my strength into the fight? Maybe, but that was not guaranteed to work. I knew Anakin had the power to dominate both Ashla and Bogan simultaneously, but that possible event had not been in the middle of the latter’s domain.

“Ah ha, ha, wonderful! More!” Bogan laughed with delight as he unleashed his power in a way he had probably never needed to.

There had to be a way to stop this without just doing a stupid power contest!

Maybe…

Bogan looked at me.

His red eyes seemed to suck me in and gather all my attention and focus.

It was like my consciousness had suddenly tripled.

I knew I was leaning against a pillar on Mortis.

I was also standing in the infinite black void with the stony crystalline floor that I usually experienced when I meditated with the Darksaber. In front of the second me, I saw another me - looking just like Bohsoka in form, but without the characteristics of Dark Side corruption. It was an older me, wrapped in the arms of Padme as we made enthusiastic, passionate love to each other.

My third point of view was in my older self as I was devouring Padme’s lips and our hands were roaming everywhere. I felt the delicious sensations, every caress, leaving pleasure burning in its wake that lanced into my being.

Frak, was this Bogan trying to distract me with tempting visions? A form of Dun Möch? Trying to prevent me from interfering in the fight.

Padme’s right hand moved between my legs and her fingers pushed themselves into me. I reciprocated, enjoying the feel of her wet folds on my fingers.

The sensations bled over to all three of me. Trying to rob me of rational thought and just give in.

I would not!

I blinked and suddenly it was no longer Padme, but instead Anakin.

We were standing, my left leg lifted and hooked around his butt - he was in me, thrusting with rapid, deep strokes as we did our best to devour each other’s lips.

The pleasure and pressure kept building, lancing up my spine and into my brain.

‘Stop thinking Ahsoka, give in,’ Not-Anakin whispered lovingly to my right montral.

All three of me were gritting their teeth and my brain was also trying to manage the multiple points of view being forced on me.

No.

Anakin was gone. Now it was a very hunky, battle-hardened Korkie Kryze. He looked like the quintessential distillation of martial masculinity, along with distinct scars from blade, blaster and even residual, healed burns of lightsabers.

We were now floating in the air, wrapped up in each other’s arms and using the Force in a fantastical way that was utterly fantastical and awesome. It wasn’t flight, as such, it was as if… we had just told gravity to take a break in a defined area around us.

We were in free fall.

I was straddling him as we tumbled around. I rolled and twisted my hips, writhing on his manhood sheathed in me. His hands on my breasts, thumbs idly playing and caressing my nipples.

Then he grabbed me around the back, pulling me down. My breasts squeezed against his strong pecs, I felt his abs against my own. He captured my lips in a deep kiss, then began thrusting into me deeply. It just went on and on. Every wonderful moment building to our orgasm, our presences even entwined in the Force. He broke the kiss.

‘Isn’t this amazing, Ahsoka?’ Not-Korkie said. ‘Don’t you want this?’

I wouldn’t answer. Doing so would play right into his hands and increase the grip he had on my psyche.

The crystalline black void vanished.

My outermost point of view, the adult me, went from experiencing the heights of ecstasy and nirvana to a sudden mellow contentment, amusement and an almost painful love.

She was dressed casually with shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, sitting on grass in a clearing, with a beautiful green forest surrounding it. She was laughing and play-wrestling with two young children of roughly five and six years old who were shrieking with delight and bounding around her.

My second self who was relegated into watching this helplessly, unable to move, could only look on in shock. The boy and girl were human at first glance, but the natural dark blue hair and unique facial patterns told the story - they were togruta-human hybrids - they were my children.

That hybridization was even possible naturally was something that most likely came from a genetic legacy that the Rakatan Infinite Empire had left on a large percentage of the humanoid races. In this case, the roll of the genetic dice had given my children hair on their heads, another pregnancy could throw it in the other direction; giving the child montrals and lekku but also eyebrows and body hair with less defined skin patterns.

The playing continued until the boy pleaded for mercy from the tickles. “Mommy! Stop… oh wow, look.” He pointed a stubby finger up into the sky.

My adult self looked calmly up, knowing already what he had spotted.

I looked up and another shock hit me.

In the distance, the mountainous forest horizon continued for seemingly infinite kilometers, it was as if the best landscape painter in the galaxy had designed this place and it was not far off from the truth in technical terms. Someone had composed it.

The horizon and blue sky continued, but further it curved bizarrely upward and narrowed…

I was on a Halo-style Orbital!

That wasn’t what had attracted my son’s attention though. It was the fleet of ships emerging out of hyper and approaching the Orbital.

Most were what I thought were Imperial-II class Star Destroyers at first glance, but no, my adult self knew these were Vindicator-class Star Destroyers, the true successor to the Venator.

They were fifteen of them all clustered protectively around the massive Mandator-II Mothership that had built them.

“Daddy’s home! He even said hello in my head,” the boy declared with a happy glee.

My daughter settled herself snugly on my lap and also looked up at the ships, “Ugh, I bet if you were the boss of all those ships, things would go much faster.”

“Oh, you don’t think daddy can handle it?” I asked with amused affection.

“Of course he can, but you can boss ships better. Things will be over faster then and then you’d both be home.”

My adult self chuckled, stroked her daughter’s hair to tidy it up and kissed the top of her head. “I’m doing just as important a job, raising you two rugrats.”

“We’re not rugrats, mommy!” The boy objected with a pout.

“Isn’t this what you want, mommy?”

My adult self looked down into the daughter’s eyes, which had changed to the corrosive yellow of dark side corruption.

No!!

“Ahsoka!” Anakin’s voice screamed.

Finally, my mental fingers found the odd hold of Bogan’s Dun Möch on my psyche and pulled…

I was fully back in the here and now, back in the driver’s seat of my young sixteen year old body, facing the battle between Anakin and Bogan in the crumbling Citadel on Mortis.

There was no time… no time for consideration, no time for debate, pros, cons, there was only time to do or do not.

I fell forward into a crouch and planted my hands flat on the rumbling floor.

My will surged through the matter under my palms and I comprehended immediately that it wasn’t actually matter as I would define it. I banished my curiosity, even as the revelation that should’ve been obvious hit my brain in a huge ‘Ah ha!’ moment.

The floor, wall and throne behind Bogan abruptly shattered into large chunks of the stone-metal that everything built by the celestials on Mortis seemed to be made of.

I didn’t give him a moment.

Stone-metal chunks blasted towards his back as if they were shot out of an autocannon.

They smashed into him with enough force that he actually stumbled forward.

Anakin didn’t waste the moment I’d bought him.

He took a step forward and surged his power.

Bogan was pushed back, skidding on his feet as he came close to the edge of the ruined Citadel.

I still had ammo.

I sent another volley of stone-metal that smashed into Bogan and now literally broke on him, sending smaller pieces flying off as shrapnel.

Now he was fighting Anakin and fortifying himself enough to survive my kinetic strikes.

The look on Bogan’s face was thunderous and wracked with pain as he was pelted by chunk after chunk of stone-metal.

My telekinesis also began recycling the projectiles, picking back up the smaller shrapnel generated and shooting at him again - effectively turning his side of the battle into a stone-metal grinder.

Bogan narrowed his eyes and I felt the Force begin twisting oddly around him, seemingly going in directions that there weren’t words to describe.

The celestial dark sider’s form seemed to briefly distort - before he vanished.

Anakin and I aborted our attacks as quickly as we could.

We didn’t even need to turn our heads to know that he had already reappeared behind us.

The Mortis blade in Bogan’s hand was held out like a lance in front of him as he blurred with such speed that I thought he teleported again.

Just how the bastard had managed to use a teleport in the utter turbulence of the Force around us I had no idea.

His face was a rictus of fury and triumph as he charged forward, aiming to run Anakin through with the blade.

The sheer speed of the attack was such that Anakin didn’t even bother turning around.

I felt him start to send out a Force Wave to stop Bogan but it was too late!

The celestial stopped dead instantly, the Mortis blade’s tip merely an inch from Anakin’s back.

Bogan’s face lost its triumphant malice and turned blank as he looked down at the blade, then up, his eyes boggling and suddenly I saw anguish in those orbs.

“NO!” he shouted with agony and jumped back…

Leaving the Mortis blade hanging in mid air.

My mind boggled as I struggled to understand what was happening.

Then after a blink of an eye, Ashla reappeared.

Her magnificent luminous form seemed to fade into existence around the Mortis Blade, until she had fully materialized - with the blade impaled through her abdomen.

My stomach felt like it was being sucked through the Maw and a cloak of despair settled on my shoulders. I wanted to throw up and just…

Ashla merely smiled at her brother with a wan sadness and love before falling over backward like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Nooooo!” Bogan shouted in agony, clutching at his head, his knees giving out as he knelt on the floor. He blurred forward and was now kneeling next to his sibling, caressing her head softly, “Why? Why would you do that? For them?! They don’t deserve that!”

Ashla lifted a hand weakly and caressed her brother’s cheek, “You wouldn’t stop brother and… it’s in my nature.”

Her hand fell and the luminous radiance of her presence dimmed.

In the Force, it was unmistakable. Where there had been two suns of power, now there was only one in front of us.

Ashla’s form discorporated, vanishing into the Force.

“No! No, no, no, no, noooo! What… what… what have I done?” Bogan asked of himself, staring at his own hands.

He surged to his feet, turned into his gargoyle-like form and blasted away with such speed that I was sure he had broken whatever sound barrier there was on Mortis.

Leaving Anakin, an unconscious Obi-Wan and myself on a tower that was groaning ominously.

I summoned every bit of will I had to not fall further into despair and instead fell into action.

I rushed with a limp to Obi-Wan and with a bit of a Force buff to my strength, combined with TK, lifted him up into a fireman’s carry over my shoulders.

“Master! We have to go now!” I shouted over the cracking and crumbling of stone.

Anakin was still a bit flabbergasted at what he witnessed, but shook it off and nodded.

Seeing that he was okay to go, I engaged my boot jets and rocketed into the sky with Obi-Wan on my back. I had to compensate for the extra weight using the Force, creating a low level telekinetic cushion around the Jedi Master - effectively getting rid of his weight.

I felt Anakin also engaging his boot jets a moment later and following.

My eyes spared a brief look behind me as the once proud, imposing citadel, now cut in half and structurally on its last legs, gave out completely and collapsed inward, radiating out a massive wall of powderized stone-metal.

Heart still clenching and anger beginning to cloud my mind, I focused hard on the image of Bendu’s monastery, pushing it outward into the Force around me.

What the frak, had been that old celestial’s plan?

It can’t have been this.

It can’t.

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For what felt like hours we flew over the dark domain of Bogan and was treated to every form of landscape that you could generally call dystopian; deserts, ominous tall pillars of stone that stretched from horizon to horizon, mountain ranges beset with active volcanoes, rivers of lava and ash hanging in the air, petrified forests, bogs and deep marshes that might as well have been ripped straight from Tolkien’s Arda.

Of course, with our luck at the moment, Obi-Wan chose this moment to regain consciousness.

“Oh blast,” he muttered and I sensed the master’s deep seated instinctual fear of flight rushing to the fore.

“Easy master!” I shouted over the rushing wind, using the Force to carry my words to his ears.

Obi-Wan lightly tested the hold I had on him, looking around at the distant ground below. He wisely didn’t fight my control and I felt him push away his fear and relax into the grip I had on him.

I next felt him send a mental probe to me, which I accepted, pulling Anakin into the conversation as well within my mind.

‘Am I to gather that things did not go well after our unfortunate Tutaminis accident, Anakin?’

‘The good news, master, is that we survived the battle and are safe for the moment. The bad news is that Ashla had to sacrifice herself for us to manage that,’ Anakin reported grimly. “Snips, we better land and let the boots and armor systems recharge.”

‘Okay, urgh, we really should’ve been out of this place already.’

I brought my legs forward to reduce my velocity, releasing a Push to bleed off the rest, then kept my feet to the ground and began reducing thrust.

We landed on top of a rather flat mountain that was the color of black volcanic ash. It didn’t have anything in terms of shelter if any electric storms hit, but a quick check of my armor’s secondary interface on my gauntlet showed that we would not be flying for at least two hours. We would have to walk from here.

I put Obi-Wan down on his feet and he began limbering and stretching.

“Oh thank goodness,” he couldn’t help but say.

“Snips, why do you think we should already be out of Bogan’s domain?”

I arched a non-existent eyebrow at him and didn’t resist the temptation to facepalm. “Skyguy, have you gotten so caught up in our surroundings that you’ve forgotten the nature of this place?”

“No?” he answered uncertainly. “Give me a break, I’m not exactly in a good state of mind at the moment.”

“Argh, no wonder it wasn’t working. Master, stop thinking about this hellscape around us and focus on Bendu’s monastery, picture it, feel the need to be there and release it into the Force.”

“Snips, I know the Force Teleport skill exists, it’s an extremely rare feat to achieve and even those who manage it find it’s not worth the cost of just moving a limited distance at best-”

“No, no,” I interrupted him with exasperation. “Do exactly as I say, we’re going to walk that way,” I pointed to my left. “When we do, we’re all going to focus on that monastery, the need to get there, release it into the Force. Got it?”

Obi-Wan stroked his beard for a moment, “I think I see what you’re getting at Ahsoka.”

“Good, Skyguy?”

“No, but I’ll do it anyway.”

I grabbed both men by the arm, threading my own through theirs, standing between them.

“Ready? Focus… and step…”

We made four painful steps before, between one blink of an eye and the next, we were standing abruptly before the vast steps that led up to Bendu’s monastery.

“And that’s how you do that,” I said with satisfaction, let go of them and gave Anakin a pointed look before limping up the steps.

Mortis was a realm of the Force, once you fully embraced what that meant, everything became flexible.

The massive doors parted open automatically on our approach and beyond Bendu was kneeling on his meditation perch in the massive room, like nothing had happened at all. As if he hadn’t just lost his daughter.

Now that I didn’t have to worry about leaving behind Obi-Wan and Anakin, I focused and released my will into the Force.

I took a forward step and was instantly in front of the serene Bendu.

“Well done, Ahsoka,” he complimented me.

“Screw that,” I spat, feeling the rising anger take hold briefly. I took a deep breath and passed it through. “What the frak was that?! Was that your brilliant plan after everything I warned you about?”

He took a few moments before opening his eyes and a burning anger simmered there. “No, it was my daughter’s idea. I am many things Ahsoka Tano, but one of them is a father. What father would ever want their own daughter to sacrifice themselves? I would take her place in a femtosecond if I could, but the honest truth is that my death would not affect my son in the way that is needed. Deep down, buried under the Dark Side that he allowed to fester, Bogan still loves Ashla and always will. She realized instantly when she saw the true depths that he had sunk to, that it would be the only way to reach him and return him to a measure of equilibrium. Her love for him and selflessness wouldn’t allow for any other course of action.”

“What of the coming of the Mother?” Obi-Wan asked as he and Anakin approached. “Did she not think of that?”

“She did. The future is always in motion, young Master Kenobi. It is a distant thing. In the here and now, her brother was suffering and threatening everything she held dear, which includes all you three. I’ll admit the fight against the Mother will be a more perilous task now without Ashla’s knowledge and strength, but it would’ve been a disaster if it was attempted with a fully corrupted Bogan at our side. Left unchecked, he would’ve also tried to free the Mother early to fight her right now with Ahsoka at his side, at the cost of millions of lives. Even if that plan succeeded, what would follow would be even worse for the galaxy.”

“So she chose the only path that was within her nature to accept,” Anakin said flatly, clearly not happy and even angry at himself that he had not soundly beaten Bogan, so that the sacrifice wouldn’t be necessary.

Bendu picked up on that instantly, “Don’t take that responsibility on your shoulders, Skywalker. Chosen One or not, you would never have defeated him. Not in any way that mattered. Even if you were to dominate him martially or with the Force. It would’ve just left him bitter, resentful and seeking revenge against you. That is not a mindset we want in him when it comes time to face the Mother. Killing him with the Mortis blade was also never a realistic scenario. I gave it to you to make you a credible threat in his eyes, a distraction. Both my offspring secretly desired it, even Ashla, because it would be an Idiot’s Array in any dispute or confrontation, even if they would never truly use it on one another.”

“The true issue remains,” Obi-Wan said, folding his arms. “Can the Mother be defeated with only Bogan, Anakin and Ahsoka? You indicated that you will not live long enough before that point is reached.”

“Time is another factor, yes,” Bendu nodded. “If the Mother’s escape is delayed long enough, then it might even be up to the next generation to confront her. An eventuality you must also plan for.”

“Then we must learn to make holocrons as a matter of urgency,” Obi-Wan scratched his beard in irritation. “Something this war is not going to make easy, the possibility is there that all three of us may become one with the Force before we can pass on this knowledge.”

“Remember, Master Kenobi, where you are,” Bendu gestured outward. “To your perceptions, perhaps three standard days have passed. Ahsoka, how much time have you experienced?”

“It feels longer than three days to me, my fight with my darkness felt… I can’t even give you a number,” I grumbled.

“Yes, much like you’ve seen, distance is very malleable in Mortis, time is as well. Depending on your reference frames and perceptions, you could spend years here and when you leave, no time will have passed from the point of view of the normal universe.”

“That is amazing and useful,” Obi-Wan admitted. “Though our aging is not halted here, I assume?”

“Correct.”

“Then we’re limited here to a relative year, two at most.”

“How do you figure that?” Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan gestured to me. “Ahsoka is sixteen, her togruta physiology means that her lekku and montrals will grow substantially in the next few years. When does it stop?”

“Usually at twenty-two, sometimes even twenty-five years old,” I answered, beginning to see the problem.

Obi-Wan sighed and gave Anakin a look, “We would need to explain how Ahsoka so blatantly got older in such a short amount of time. There’s also the matter of what we’re going to report to the Council about what happened. We cannot say anything that could clue Sidious in on the existence of Mortis, Bendu, Bogan and the Mother. I can’t even imagine that would lead to anything but dire consequences.”

I looked at Bendu and tapped my head, “Please?”

“Are you certain, young one?”

“It’s a pain in the ass, but it’s necessary.”

Bendu nodded and with no gesture or theatrics, suddenly my full Prescience slammed back into me. It was as if an arm had been binded in a very awkward position and was suddenly released. I had to hurriedly throw down anchors to keep my perceptions rooted in the present and my sight opened and stretched. I swayed a bit as I struggled to keep my balance.

“Ahsoka!”

Anakin was there and kept me upright.

I took a deep breath and focused, working to regain my equilibrium.

“I’m okay- yes- fine,” I breathed hard, gripping onto his shoulder as both a physical and temporal lifeline. “Yes, Sidious would try to control Mortis and if he can’t, try to destroy any access or purge any knowledge of it. Bogan he would initially try to ally with, only secretly he would be plotting to find a way to kill him. He’s a Banite and can’t accept any rival in the Dark Side, the battle between them destroys Coruscant, sterilizing it of all life as Sidious tries to use the secret Sith shrine under the temple and every single life essence he can gather to empower himself. No, just no… I can’t look further at that probability line.”

“Please don’t,” said Obi-Wan, looking very disturbed. “What of Bogan? If we stay, won’t he eventually try to finish what he started?”

“Ashla’s sacrifice is something that weighs on his very essence now, every part of him,” Bendu explained. “There are no mere words to describe this properly. She gave her life for you three and to stop his madness in pursuing his foolhardy plan, saving the lives of countless souls. To act against that… he’d sooner kill himself now before he does that and given how vain he normally is, that is saying something.”

“I hope you’re right, Bendu. However, in the event he does-”

The old celestial halted Obi-Wan with a raised hand and from behind him, produced the Mortis blade, which he rested on his lap.

“Then I will act, Master Kenobi and push you out of Mortis before the end.”

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I leaned against the window of my newly minted quarters in the monastery, staring out at the wild mountainous landscape, daylight shone brightly as if a sun was high overhead.

It was a relief to be out of my armor, now dressed in my comfy Hapan attire.

Bendu had transported and materialized the Emissary in one of the monastary’s lower levels, which was adapted in size to make it akin to a hangar bay. With access to our ship and luggage, we could finally change into a fresh set of clothes and dump the old into the ship’s clothing ‘fresher.

We took a standard day to get ourselves sorted out, with Obi-Wan and Anakin gaining their own quarters from Bendu, which he made from scratch out of the structure of the monastery. Then a full night’s rest according to our own body clocks. We would keep ourselves to Coruscant time as much as possible, despite the erratic day-night cycle, weather and seasons outside.

A knock on my front door interrupted my woolgathering.

“Come.”

Obi-Wan entered first, dressed in a more traditional Jedi robe, minus his armor pieces, followed by Anakin who was wearing his own typical Jedi outfit, which was looking ever closer to the style he’d have by the war’s end.

I gestured at the table in the center of the room, filled with a sumptuous breakfast straight from the food pantry. “Have a seat, masters.”

“I was looking forward to trying out my own pantry after our meeting,” Anakin smiled.

“Traditional togruta breakfast, you won’t regret this,” I grinned in reply, taking my seat.

“It’s rather… meaty,” Obi-Wan commented after taking his own seat and looking at the fare on offer.

“Akul meat steak, a spicy sausage made of kybuck, fried torr eggs, steamed sheorian vegetable - very delectable and acan juice to drink. All of it is perfectly digestible by humans,” I explained, pointing to each part of the dish. “I figured we should always at least have our breakfasts together, take turns making it for a communal setting. If we’re going to remain here for long…”

Obi-Wan nodded, seeing what I was getting at. “We only have each other out here, we’re effectively a very detached Jedi chapterhouse at the moment.”

Anakin picked up his cutlery and began tucking in. “So what is our first order of business? A holocron? As far as I’m aware, you get training in that after attaining Master rank.”

“Yes, there are a few prerequisite skills that I will have to teach you both first, we’re lucky the Emissary has a decent fabber on the technical side,” Obi-Wan said after drinking a long gulp of juice.

“That’s good, master. I don’t think we can truly source any raw materials from Mortis and take it with us back to the galaxy, not unless we ask Bendu to make us some,” I quickly swallowed a bite of sausage. “If we tried, the stuff would either stop existing, lose potency or even explode depending on what it was.”

“So holocrons, anything else? There’s a ton of stuff I want to go through with Ahsoka now that we have the time, we have to keep up our lightsaber training, develop it further, with all this time we can make huge strides with your mastery of Jar’Kai,” Anakin pointed out.

“There’s a ton of my own projects that I can work on now as well,” I pointed a fork at him. “Not just related to the Force. We have to also think about Sidious. The war has us gallivanting across the galaxy, filling our minds with the rigors of a military life. We can barely stop for a day at Coruscant, before some emergency calls us out again.”

“Yes, no doubt by design,” Obi-Wan sighed. “The Fulcrum network is a good foundation, it will have to get a lot bigger though before the end. If we want to depose Palpatine in a way that will not end in disaster.”

“Fulcrum is about more than just Palpatine, Master Kenobi,” I said intently. “He is a grave threat, yes. He is also the symptom of a problem that has played out in this galaxy for nearly 25,000 years, since the original schism which gave birth to the Jedi.”

“That is quite ambitious, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan looked amused. “Do you think the Jedi have not been trying to solve that particular problem?”

“Given the track record of the last thousand years?” I retorted. “Until Darth Maul emerged, the Jedi had considered the war won. All that was left was the pesky Sith holocrons strewn all over and policing sentient nature itself. Only it turns out the war wasn’t won, it changed completely and the Jedi didn’t have a clue. Even if we defeat and kill Sidious permanently, I foresee a mere twenty years before we see the rise of another Sith, following the example he set or arising from a disillusioned, fallen Jedi still suffering from the trauma of this war. That doesn’t even count a number of other more exotic threats that I won’t elaborate on now.”

“And what would Fulcrum’s approach be?”

“Every major war of the last ten thousand years has had at its core, the conflict between Jedi and Sith, whether through direct force of arms or proxies. The Jedi look at the problem and say, ‘We must destroy the Sith and everything related to them. Then we will have peace and balance.’ The Sith see the problem as a feature and want to always destroy the Jedi Order and dominate the galaxy. On a number of occasions they nearly succeeded, but there was always that one Jedi or group of Jedi left in the galaxy to keep the hope alive and stop the domination of the Sith. The true answer to the problem is one neither Jedi or Sith would ever consider.”

I cut another piece of steak and ate it carefully, looking at both Anakin and Obi-Wan alternately.

“Don’t leave us hanging, Snips,” Anakin gestured to me with a piece of egg speared on his fork, before eating it.

“Reunification.”

Obi-Wan scoffed, “Ridiculous, utterly impossible. There is no way, Ahsoka. Too much history. We could never…”

“I have to say, Snips, that’s…” Anakin sat back, clearly failing to imagine it. “Would you trust someone like Ventress? Sleep in the same temple?”

“Obviously not,” I answered archly. “You must remember that currently the Banite Sith are two. If both are dead, Sidious’ contingencies blunted-”

“Then the next Sith will come from the next generation of Jedi,” Obi-Wan concluded.

“If things go that far, yes. The only thing that will stop it, is if the Jedi Order stops their view that the Light Side is the only natural side for a Force Sensitive to exist in.”

Obi-Wan pulled in a deep breath to begin a vigorous rebuttal, his eyes widening at what he was hearing. “Ahsoka, I question the Jedi Academy’s worth. If you can entertain the idea that any dabbling in the Dark Side won’t lead to disaster. That’s something that should’ve been-”

“Brainwashed out of me,” I interrupted him.

“Educated to you,” he retorted.

I gestured to the door, “Down that hall is a being that would have a word or two to say about both the Jedi Order and the Sith. He could throw the most vicious Force Lightning ever seen and in the same breath he can heal an injury with the Light Side. We don’t see him wracked with Dark Side corruption, nor is he trying to kill us or take over the galaxy. He just frakking watched his daughter sacrifice herself for us and respected her choice enough to not stop her from doing it. He is living proof that there is something wrong with the Jedi approach to the Force.”

Obi-Wan stared hard at me, then returned to calmly eating, “So you would see the Jedi adopting the ways of Darkness as well?”

“I would see the Jedi acknowledging that there must be true balance in the Force, not just their own biased interpretation of it. Currently, you’re all foisting the responsibility onto Anakin’s shoulders. That he will somehow magically make everything better, that he will destroy the Sith and that will achieve the ‘balance’. When in fact, the balance must be achieved by every Force Sensitive in the galaxy, now and in the future.”

“You are speaking of a radical systemic change in the Jedi Order, Ahsoka.”

I nodded, “Yes, to swing this back round to Fulcrum, I see it acting as its name implies. A point around which change can happen. The Jedi Order must adapt and course correct, if it does not, then the Force itself will make it happen, in a way that no one with the exception of Sidious will be happy with or enjoy.”

“What of the… let’s call them the orthodox groups in the Order? Sooner or later, they will begin objecting to reforms and we could end up with another schism.”

“As long as they don’t go militant or crusader, then they should be free to leave or stay in the Order.”

Obi-Wan looked at Anakin with narrowed eyes, “You’ve been rather quiet. Not going to take responsibility for your padawan?”

Anakin was chewing on some sheoran veggies, swallowed and shrugged, “You have to admit she has a point regarding Bendu.”

“He is a blasted celestial,” Obi-Wan dropped his cutlery. “His experience and wisdom stretches across eons as he is an inheritor of his race’s entire memory. It is one thing for him to achieve this balanced state in the Force, but we have not reached that level. Our lifespans are too short, we are children compared to him.”

“Then perhaps we should ask him about it,” Anakin pointed out reasonably.

Obi-Wan folded his arms and nodded, “Very well, though I get the feeling we’re going to have many difficult debates in the coming year.”

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“Ouch! Frakking-”

I cut myself off and sucked on my cut finger.

My eyes ranged over the many parts of my first attempt at a holocron, strewn across a work desk we had installed in the fab bay of the Emissary.

After a month of Obi-Wan’s tutelage, it was very clear to both Anakin and I why building one was something that was usually left to masters.

The patience required and time investment was ridiculous.

In terms of technical complexity, it was like building a nesting doll, combined with an intricate multilayered and faceted, fractal puzzle box, with non-standard parts that you had to fashion and refine using your hands and the Force itself. Any mistake at any point, would potentially damage other connected parts, creating a snowball effect of damage and ruin the entire holocron.

Then came the mystical Force elements and the part where you were effectively copying your own essence to make a ‘twin’ of yourself that would reside in the thing, acting as a guardian and interface for the knowledge you imbued into it.

Even Obi-Wan was having trouble with it and we had started consulting with Bendu on anything he could offer to help streamline the process.

“Hey Snips, how’s it going?”

I turned around and glared at Anakin, who was currently dressed as if he had just come from a long run; white shirt, tight gray exercise shorts and shoes that he had designed himself to cater to the variable terrain around the monastery. We couldn’t go on long jaunts considering the danger of the electrical storms, so we had to make do with laps around the rugged terrain surrounding the place.

“Yes,” I said shortly, willing the first piece of holocron to float in front of me. The blood staining it was pulled off and congealed into a tiny blob and I chucked it away with a thought.

I was using crystal glass and beskar from a small ingot I had taken from the Vizsla Clan vault. Working with beskar in the limited facilities we had was very problematic and I was liberally cheating with Prescience in my experiments with it. Enough that I had pieced together a rudimentary forging process that could work.

Rather frustratingly, I couldn’t really do the same with building the Holocron. I could parse a hundred probability lines of my construction of the pieces, yet when it came time to actually do that in the present, I was thrown an entirely new result. It was like the Holocron was a mystical RNG machine.

“How long have you been working?”

“If I answer that you’re going to drag me into a workout, just when I’m finally riding a wave of inspiration on how to properly build this blasted thing.”

I willed another piece into the air and fitted them together.

“By the way, I figured out how we’re going to explain your ‘growth’.”

A third piece rose into the air, fitting into the combined slot made by the first two coming together.

“Do tell, Skyguy.”

“We’re going to fake the Emissary’s hyperdrive having a malfunction in proximity to a strong singularity field that the Mortis pyramid will generate. Bendu kindly agreed to simulate it for our ship. To the Council and by extension, Sidious, we’ll have been trapped for a relative year or so on the ship due to a time acceleration effect created around the pyramid, but from the galaxy’s point of view, no time will have passed.”

“What about the on-board computer systems and recorders?”

“Those only have so much memory, a month or so before we leave, we’ll move into the Emissary and live from here, any other inconsistencies will be covered by an overload from the hyperdrive bleeding into our computers and wrecking longer term memory.”

“Could work,” I said absently as a fourth piece hovered into place. That was the central core done, now to work on the next layer interlock.

It hovered up from the table and joined the core.

As carefully as I could, I willed the combined mechanism to move, rotate and revolve.

One rotation, revolution… YES!

Second…success!

I heard a slight tingle of glass as something broke and everything promptly fell apart and clattered onto the desk.

My shoulders slumped in defeat and I had to carefully pass my frustration and anger through me.

“Nicely done.”

I threw him a disgusted face at the compliment, “Nicely done? Two rotations?”

He chuckled, “Snips, I’ve barely managed to fit my core pieces together. My stuff keeps exploding because I just don’t have the fine control yet. Come, get dressed and we’ll do some unarmed drills in the secondary hold.”

I nodded as he left. I got up and stretched, before walking out of the fab bay to my tiny bunk quarters, pulling on some random pair of white shorts over my panties and a tank top over my boob tube underwear.

That done I hurried to the hold to see Anakin already doing his warm up and getting lactic acid buildup from his run out of the way.

“What about the ship’s food?” I asked as I walked to the center of the room and began my stretches.

“Good question, we left with a six month consumables supply,” he pulled up his right leg. “With rationing that can be stretched to nine, maybe ten months. I’ll get working on converting a cargo bay into aeroponics, using the seeds from some of the food to grow more.”

“We’ll also have to actually eat only that food for at least the last two months, any bioscans or tests will look inconsistent otherwise,” I said as I stretched my left arm.

“You think they’ll go that far?”

“Skyguy, we’re going to be hounded by flunkies and archivists from the Council of First Knowledge. From their point of view, we’ll have been stuck in an entirely unique phenomenon created by a large unknown artifact that just screams ‘celestial’.”

“True,” he grumbled.

“Best to just cooperate, get it out of the way as fast and painlessly as possible,” I stretched my other arm as I sent my senses outward, feeling for where Obi-Wan was. Yep, still in meditation with Bendu. “Skyguy, how are you coping?”

He limbered up his back muscles and frowned at me, “With what?”

“It’s been a month and it’s going to be a lot longer before you see Padme again.”

His eyes grew pensive and he blew out a breath as he mastered his emotions, “Yes, it’s not going to be easy. I just grew used to our being able to securely communicate and see each other so relatively often, now I won’t even have that.”

“Just make sure you come clean when you see her in a secure place, otherwise she’s going to be… confused about your clear enthusiasm and longing emotions,” I said delicately, smiling and waggling my brows knowingly with twinkly eyes.

He chuckled at my teasing and nodded, “I’ll remember.”

With our warmups done we squared off and fell into our own adapted stances from Djem So.

Fighting without a lightsaber was rarely done, but it was taught as the Jedi was well aware that ‘shit happens’. Either being disarmed and in some cases the saber might even be damaged during battle.

The unarmed version of Djem So, had the hands forward and in something like a classic karate stance, ready to aggressively react and intercept incoming attacks, whilst dealing damage with strikes and Force Pushes. If the Jedi was well versed in Tutaminis, it even allowed you to slap away blaster fire whilst closing the distance to your opponent.

I still wanted to meet up with a Matukai master though. HK had that as a backburner project to track down where the nomadic Order was currently.

Anakin blurred forward, throwing a strike at my chest, but it was a feint.

His leg attacked and tried to sweep me off my feet.

I hopped over it and threw a Force Push that managed to catch him slightly with its speed before he could cancel it out.

I stepped forward in its wake, throwing strikes high and low, which he deflected before flowing into a punch to my stomach.

It hit successfully, but I blunted its effect with a Force Push released from there.

My hand came down and tried to latch onto his protruding fist, so I could transition into either a throw or some grappling, but he retreated, clearly not in the mood to experience my creative forms in that department.

We kept going back and forth in this fashion, always trying to get the upper hand. His strength and longer reach gave him natural advantages, but I was faster and more precise.

After a long and sweaty hour of this, he finally called a timeout.

“20 to 12, not bad, Snips,” he said, then drank deeply from a water bottle.

I could only nod, breathing hard as I sat in the middle of the floor. A point was scored for every grapple or strike which would in true combat conditions lead to a knock-out or a disable.

Thank goodness he had called it at that point, because the sight of him getting all sweaty with his clothes now sticking to his frame… Then there were the grapples… The memory of the visions Bogan had shown me…  Not to mention the clusterfuck that was my hormones at the moment. Yeah, I needed to get out of here.

I stood and waved as I walked out of the hold, “Thanks Skyguy, hitting the ‘fresher.”

It was just a walk down the corridor and I locked the cubicle sized room behind me, stripped, not caring if my clothes were gonna get wet on the floor and blasted myself with cold water from the sprayer heads, bearing it stoically.

What made it worse was that Anakin could clearly sense it and even closing down the bond didn’t help really when you were in close proximity and your other senses could pick up on it.

I was just thankful he had the tact to not really bring it up and gave me the space to deal with it.

Maybe Bendu had some solution from the distant past when the celestials were still dual gendered beings?

Oh, what a fun conversation that would be? I thought to myself sarcastically.

One month down, frak knows how many more to go.

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A/N:  This chapter was a doozy to write.  Will timeskip the rest of the stay in Mortis, not gonna get bogged down there. Stay awesome, folks.

The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 20

At first, I thought I was looking at a tree.

A dead one, that towered over thirty meters tall.

True Sight and normal sight told me it was far from dead. Its many limbs could move with the speed and dexterity of a human arm and it tirelessly held its many victims in multi-limbed grips. The only reason I thought it dead, was because of its color - bone white with no leaves in sight.

I made sure to keep myself invisible and intangible before heading closer.

I was wrong, the limbs of the tree were actually human. Just pushed to bizarre proportions with snow white skin, whilst the main structure of the tree, the bark was actually human bone.

The palms of the hands at the ends of these limbs were mostly facing upwards, whilst others held the partygoers firmly in unyielding grips.

Even more disturbingly was that each finger from the hand was tipped with a human eye. It made you think you were looking at some kind of fruit growing from there, but it was a human eyeball, unprotected, just growing from each finger.

With great reluctance I moved even closer to see what this thing was doing to its victims, though I had a very good idea already, given their auras and that some of this SCP tree’s ‘hands’ were cupped around the crotches of the men and women, moving with a very familiar rhythm.

This close I was treated to the sound of an orchestral mass chorus of wet flesh slapping on flesh, the victims held in spread eagle poses, their eyes closed and they made no effort to fight back. In fact, they were humping and pushing into the SCP’s hands with eager abandon, moaning and groaning with pleasure.

Stopping close to a male victim, I finally realized that this was not just a tree getting handsy and jerking them off. Inside the palm of this hand was an actual human vagina, the guy was truly having intercourse.

I rushed to a female victim and sure enough, out of the palm of this hand, a fully erect penis was fucking her.

It finally hit me that I was looking at a tree that was blending the concept of a plant and substituting human parts for its biological functions.

Now all the eyes made sense, since a tree needed light for photosynthesis and the only human organ that was sensitive to that was an eye.

Organs would be underneath the bone bark, the roots in the ground would probably be digestive tracts leading to…

I whirled around, headed closer to the ground and carefully inspected the grass of the massive lawn around the SCP.

The general lack of illumination this far from the pool area was annoying, but eventually I spotted something odd.

I was very thankful I was in misty form because this was nauseating.

A mouth was embedded in the ground here, a long prehensile tongue of nearly two meters in length was snaking out of it and lapping at the wet grass in range, trying to slurp in the water.

I heard the pool suddenly splash behind me.

I zoomed back and when I arrived it was to see another nearby ‘mouth’ in the ground had managed to dump its long tongue into the pool and was carrying back water.

The moment the tongue had taken back the load to the mouth, the water was promptly spat out in a fountain-like burst and I heard the entire thirty meter tree rattle and shake.

Yeah, drinking chlorinated water, not the best idea.

How on earth did this SCP come to be?!

Did some botanist on Foundation Earth have a nightmare or something? Or even more alarmingly, could this SCP have been made on purpose?

To what end? Just because they could? This didn’t really have the feel of AWCY and their SCPs were blatant and over-the-top. They’d have already put a sign with their slogan on the trunk of the tree.

I shook my head to clear it.

Theorize later Taylor, I thought firmly.

There was still more than two dozen people in this thing’s clutches, getting fucked out of their minds by the looks of things.

The problem with doing anything was that a lot of them were being held up at the highest levels of the tree. If I hurt the SCP or disrupted its strength, then they would quite probably fall to their deaths.

Trying to manually free each person would require me to partially materialize and assuredly invite the wrath of the tree, who could attack from multiple angles simultaneously. I knew how I’d react if a guy I was riding was suddenly pulled out from under me.

Could I mist the people to free them?

I had managed it with Simon and that was a bullet dodged. I had intended to experiment on some animals first to see if there were any side-effects.

Sudden bursts of energy drew my attention back to the main trunk of the tree.

The people were starting to orgasm.

I zoomed back to observe and see if there was any opening to perhaps rescue them. Would the SCP let them go?

The first person I found in the upper branches on this side of the tree happened to be Anto.

He was still pumping with abandon into the pussy the SCP had provided, before he abruptly stopped, groaned loudly with pleasure and orgasmed into it with twitches of his hips.

Right above me a tall woman moaned loudly and shuddered. The SCP phallus plunging in and out her sped up briefly before it was buried to the hilt and the attached hand, forearm and limb flexed and shuddered, pumping its semen in.

It was very tempting to just absorb all this energy, but I firmly stopped myself.

I reached out with a misty hand to Anto and only materialized a finger, touching him on his bicep.

I tried to extend my misting effect to him only.

He vanished with a red mist but I saw the effect also began to bleed over to the SCPs limbs that were grabbing him.

I reversed the effect quickly and misted completely.

The SCP suddenly had half a dozen hands swiping through the area I occupied.

I surged backwards in fright, even as those hands went straight through me. It still gave me shudders moving through people in misty form and this was no exception.

My flight halted five meters from the outer reach of the tree limbs.

What would the SCP tree do now with the people after they had served their purpose? Just drop them?

My heart was in my throat as I saw the limbs begin to manipulate the people who had orgasmed, passing the men and women from limb to limb, moving them down to a lower level.

If it came down to it, how many could I catch?

One, maybe two, with the added complication of the SCP tree possibly attacking me immediately.

The lowest branches were about seven to eight meters off the ground. Its arms were long enough to reach down, as it had to be able to pick up its mesmerized prey, but would it care after having had its way with them?

Time was running out.

The thing could’ve dropped them immediately, but that would risk injury to itself with an insensate human body falling over thirty meters. So there was a self-preservation instinct at least going on here.

What the fuck do I do?!

It was like I was confronted with a bizarre form of that old thought experiment of having people tied to two tracks and an unstoppable train barreling down it, with me standing at the switching gear, having to choose which track to send it down.

The first people were reaching the lowest end of the tree.

It would drop nearly half a dozen of them at once, I could conventionally only save two, that left four people who’d fall eight meters, being critically injured or dying depending on how they hit the ground.

Fuck!

I had no choice but to risk this.

I zoomed forward to bring the main bark of the tree within my range. It was now looming over me, the bizarre limbs, stretched forearms and hands topped with eyes, dicks and pussies spiraling outward over my head.

With every bit of concentration I had, my Mind Web surged outward and washed over every part of the SCP tree it could reach.

I immediately felt my power latching onto a nervous system but I could discern no mind or central brain whatsoever.

Would my power-

I stopped myself asking that question.

Henry had only drilled me on the basics of Ontokinesis as yet. We had yet to find the time to even have the formal first lesson that was given to potential practitioners in the Foundation.

Thoughts, imagination.

I can control a human, men easier than women.

This was a human.

I banished any notion of form.

This was a human.

It had human eyes, arms, bones, muscles and nerves. Ignore its arrangement.

This was a human.

I banished the thought of failure, of what would happen.

This was a human.

I felt my power snag.

As if I had been sliding down a slope and my hand grabbed a hold of a branch at the last minute to stop my fall.

In that moment, my awareness blossomed as my power stretched over the entirety of the tree. It had required so much concentration, that I fell out of my misty form to stand fully materialized under the fleshy boughs of the SCP.

I could give no verbal orders to it, it had no ears and it didn’t understand anything beyond its own existence, instincts and reactions to the environment around it. Even the cognitohazard that pulled people in wasn’t truly under its control, it was simply there as a part of its being, woven into the outer bark, skin and eyes.

The only way I could control this thing was a sympathetic nerve response. I raised and lowered my own arms and in response the SCP tree mimicked me.

In this way I stopped every limb that was handling the trapped people.

At this point I started to experience the feedback of hundreds of sensitive dicks and vaginas lightly being caressed by the wind, including the feeling of those that were brushing against or holding the people aloft.

“Fucking hell,” I gritted my teeth as I felt my own pussy begin dripping with arousal, the feeling of energy being generated in the mind web was enormous.

One person at a time, I began carefully orchestrating the limbs, starting with those who were lowest.

At first I could only manage two limbs of the SCP at a time, but quickly managed three and then four.

Very carefully, I lowered the first person down, in this case a young woman with long curly red hair that hung down. I did not think about how ridiculous I might look, playing charades in front of an SCP tree made of human bits.

One down, many to go.

Next one. Carefully, grabbing hold of a guy this time, ignoring the sensory feedback as much as possible but I sensed it was a losing battle.

I had saved seven people and had them on the ground when the inevitable happened.

“Shit,” I gasped and moaned, falling to my knees as my body was consumed with the pleasure of an orgasm, my pussy squirting a jet of my juices forward that splattered over the grass. My body shuddered, twitched, I gasped and gulped in air and fought the internal battle to regain control.

Afterward, I grimly got up and began again.

These victims were higher and it took me longer to pass them through the many limbs. I only managed to rescue four when my body betrayed me.

I managed to stay standing, the sensitivity of my pussy was nigh overwhelming as I orgasmed again and I felt my nipples swell with the full body arousal. The temptation to clamp my hands onto my breasts and masturbate right there was barely resisted.

“Ghh,” was the only sound that could come out of my mouth.

My arms came up and I began guiding the next victims down.

Time began flowing very slowly for me as I further guided the SCP to safely release its victims.

When I finally lowered the last human in its clutches to the ground, I was on my sixth orgasm and lying on my back twitching as the aftershocks went up and down my body. My control of the SCP was so frayed, that some of the limbs reverted to its natural instincts. Those limbs immediately sought me out, reaching down through those still under my control.

My wits returned just in time to see two large eye-tipped hands with dripping pussies in their palms surge to my shoulders, whilst a third hand with a dick aimed straight to my crotch.

I had never misted so fast in my life.

My will carried me to the pool and I reappeared on one of the lounge chairs, to further recover and glare at the SCP, “Fuck you!” My fist shook at it and I even flipped it the bird. No way was I going to let that thing have its way with me. There was no proper mind there, no personality, no appreciation or two-way street.

It’d just be like a very large organic vibrator then, my stupid brain pointed out.

“Argh, no, shut up,” I said aloud to myself and belatedly realized that I was somewhat emotionally screwed up. Fighting for the lives of the entire party, the fright of so many dying or not because of my actions, combined with constantly getting aroused and orgasming had done a number on me.

Movement from the tree drew my attention and I looked over just in time to see two entirely new people, a middle aged man and woman, throwing off their pajamas and getting scooped up by the SCP.

“Crap!”

Stupid Taylor, I berated myself. The thing was over thirty meters tall, of course it would be visible now beyond the property line. Anyone who looked directly at it would fall under its spell and walk towards it!

I misted immediately and flew to the top of the SCP to get a good look at how far it was potentially visible from.

The good news was that it was rooted on the other side of a hill, given the contours of the city here. That meant it was only visible from a general 180 degrees, in northerly, north-west, west, south-west directions. It still meant a fair chunk of the suburbs here were now in danger of being affected by this cognitohazard. Thank goodness it was night and most people had closed curtains. It also meant that come sunrise, unless this neighborhood was locked down and warned, everyone would spot the tree and mindlessly walk towards it to be fucked.

I flew back down, Mastering the SCP. Just in time to prevent further copulation with these new victims.

The SCP really didn’t like that and it was the first time I began to experience some fightback. I won the mental battle easily though and guided them back to the ground.

Of course, the two victims didn’t like that either and didn’t want to let go of the tree limbs.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled and pulled the middle aged couple into my mind web. Thankfully, this seemed to override the cognitohazard and I materialized in front of them. “You will both forget you were mastered by this tree and me. Run home and make love. You will forget this order afterwards.”

“Yes, mistress,” they chorused at me before running nude back across the expansive lawn towards the distant boundary wall. Clearly they were direct neighbors who were unlucky enough to have caught an eyeful of the SCP.

“Okay, next step, what happens to the victims afterward,” I said to myself and bent down to examine the closest one.

This was a rather beautiful college aged brunette, with a long ponytail, a nice full bosom that was perky even as she laid down on her back. She seemed to be asleep and breathing normally. I felt her neck, her pulse seemed normal as well, if a bit low. I pulled my phone out from ‘15, activated a flashlight app to shine it briefly into her eyes.

“Proper pupil dilation response,” I muttered.

I played the light down her form, finding no obvious injuries and inevitably my eye caught her nether regions.

My nose decided to make its report at this point and the honey nectar smell of semen wafted up to me. Looking closer, yes, there was semen from the SCP slowly leaking out of her pussy.

I looked up and took a deep whiff, which was a stupid mistake.

My mouth watered and I licked my lips as the concept of an entire tree of human dicks hammered into my brain, the potential energy I sensed above me was…

“Not the time, Taylor,” I gritted my teeth and resisted the temptation.

The scope of this was clearly beyond locally containing or even trying to handle it alone with Fortress’ resources only.

My fingers stroked and tapped on my phone’s touchscreen, before it began ringing.

“Escort?” Armsmaster’s voice, which had a clear hint of tiredness came through clearly.

“Coding in, one, one, nine, three, alpha, omega, I am a book monster,” I said flatly and tapped in the other part of the code on the numeric keypad.

“Received and confirmed. Escort, what can I do for you?”

“You need to cordon off the Union Street suburb west of Lord’s Park. No traffic in or out for the moment. There is a cognitohazard at my current location that will master anyone who lays eyes on it. It’s a tree over thirty meters tall that was teleported in similar to how the train was.”

He didn’t hesitate at all. “One moment, I have your GPS position. Escort, is this tree of similar threat level?”

“Depends on your definition of threat, no radiation, but the effect will mesmerize anyone to walk towards the tree. Where… at the moment at least, it wants to have sex with you.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

“Analysis indicated you’re being truthful, Escort, how is that-”

“It’s not an ordinary tree, imagine a tree but made with human parts as analogue for the functions it has. It first popped up at a party I was attending in a professional capacity. It snagged and had sex with thirty-two people so far. I managed to partially master the tree and had it release them.”

Armsmaster was silent again, then, “Escort, would it be safe to photograph this thing?”

That was a good question. If this was a true cognitohazard then I didn’t dare do it. The effect would propagate through everyone who saw it displayed on a screen. They would then do everything in their power to travel to the tree.

“I don’t think so, it’s a cognitohazard. We have to assume the worst case scenario.”

“Am I to assume that you’re immune to it?”

“It’s trying to snag me, but I can fight back. Even if I can master it, no, I can’t turn the mesmeric effect off. The master effect propagates through the visible spectrum.”

“Understood, my armor’s visor has visual filters that should be able to protect me. I need to know what form this human tree takes, can you give me the species type?”

I shook my head, “Sorry, I’m not that knowledgeable about plants. Hang on.”

I put him on hold and dialed Henry.

“Taylor? Status?”

“I’m all right, so are the people. How long until you arrive?”

“Eight minutes roughly.”

“Tell your driver to keep his eyes low, don’t look up. He might be snagged by the hazard before you even get here. Henry, I’m going to take a number of pictures of the tree and send them to you. I need to know what species I’m looking at. Armsmaster might be able to program his visor to filter it out.”

“That’s very risky, Taylor. If anyone happens to intercept the pics and see it after the fact. The disaster it could provoke would be very difficult to handle.”

“Then what do I do?”

“Tell Armsmaster to wait, when I arrive I’ll do the identification.”

I huffed in annoyance, “Fine. Hurry.” I tapped the other line, “Armsmaster?”

“Yes?”

“A partner of mine who’s nature makes him immune will be arriving shortly, he’s much more knowledgeable.”

The hero audibly sighed, “You’re not giving me much to work with here, Escort.”

“I’m sorry. I literally can’t send proof or intel to you. The best I can do is photograph the victims and the house. Will that suffice?”

“Yes, do it… please.”

I switched over to my camera app and got busy. Misting my lower half let me get higher and better angles. That done, I sent them over to the Protectorate hero. A long few minutes passed and I could hear the loud engine of a speeding truck in the distance, fast approaching.

“Armsmaster?”

“Yes, I’m still here. Alerts have been sent out. Dragon will also be responding as soon as we can find a workaround for the cognitohazard, she has a suit in the Bay currently.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, that Dragon Suit was one that was currently stationed here for helping and monitoring the TQZ. It seemed the world’s premiere Tinker was about to get another task. A large horn honked at the house’s gate.

“I need to go, my partner’s arrived.”

“Is he going to debut to the public any time soon? Professional curiosity.”

“In time, see you hopefully soon, Armsmaster.”

“Stay safe.”

I secured my phone to ‘15s pouch and flew to the front gate.

Henry was already out of the truck’s rear and gazing with a scowl at the tree. He also had a headset stuck to the side of his head, with the small radio unit strapped around his relatively massive waist with an expertly tied rope.

A rather jury-rigged solution to speak to his FTF driver. A glance at the driver showed another very simple solution to the cognitohazard; he was blindfolded.

“You managed to be the eyes of the driver, talked him through it.”

Henry nodded, “Keep that blindfold tight, corporal.”

“Yes sir,” the trooper responded. He kept a professional exterior, but his aura was flaring with relief and the vestiges of dissipating fear. Not that I blamed him, driving an eleven ton truck blindfolded at any speed was no small feat.

“So familiar with this one?” I asked hopefully, now hovering so I was at Henry’s eye level.

His mouth twitched in amusement as he looked at my semi-mist form, “Yes, certain SCPs tend to really stick in the memory because of their nature, and SCP-401 is definitely one of those. Corporal Harris, please get out of the truck. We’re not leaving you alone in this situation.”

“Yes boss, thank you.”

Henry stepped over as Harris got out and guided the trooper to keep contact with his left leg. “Can you open the gate, Escort?”

I nodded and zoomed away to Ryan’s SUV, phased through it and used the remote fixed to the overhead sunscreen.

“Okay, what can you tell me?” I asked after returning.

We moved slowly, step by step through the front yard. “Well, we have the bad luck to be catching 401 in its full Spring bloom cycle. It only manifests the sexual organs during this period. It’s still technically winter here, but that changes next month.”

“So we can expect the blooming to continue, for the whole season?”

“No, it only happens for 18 days at the start of spring. However,” he raised a finger for emphasis, “401, as far as I know, did not have this cognitohazard. Therefore, it has clearly been ontokinetically modified.”

“That is disturbing, it would mean even if you could recognize a SCP, we could be dealing with inaccurate information.”

“Which would be deadly and even apocalyptic in the wrong circumstances.” We came to a stop a few feet from the small field of merrily snoozing nude partygoers, clustered around the tree. “Well, at least that hasn’t changed, it’s a Eucalyptus Myrtaceae.”

I nodded and quickly texted that to Armsmaster, though I struggled a bit with the spelling of the latter Latin name.

I gestured to the snoozing people, “When will they wake up?”

“I don’t know, Escort. I recall that the Foundation did controlled breeding experiments with 401 using D-class personnel, but nothing of their condition immediately afterwards.”

I felt horror and my spine wanted to crawl out of my skin at the mere thought. “Wait a sec, this thing can…” I couldn’t say it.

Henry looked around and nodded, “Yes, it can successfully impregnate women. We must hope that the eleven young ladies here are all making use of pill contraception.”

I so didn’t want to ask but my curiosity couldn’t be helped. “The children from these experiments, were they… normal?”

“Yes, though they suffered from extreme myopia. The SCP uses all those eyes for catching sunlight, eyes and the sun don’t mix well. So its eyes do not see detail well at all. That trait is passed on to its offspring.”

“What about the… sex it had with men? Was that tried?”

My imagination brought forth this entire tree blossoming with human fetuses contained in the arms.

“Yes it was and this is another example of ontokinetic tampering. 401 had a distinct female phase and a male phase, it did not exhibit these autogamic traits. What should happen is that every arm with an inseminated female reproductive organ will begin to bulge in size within twelve hours from now. This continues to grow for two weeks at which point it will ‘give birth’ to a uterine sac that contains a fetus that would be the equivalent of two months old. 401 will then throw this sac away where it will hit any fertile ground. If this is then planted it will turn into a seedling of 401 in its eucalyptus form.”

My brain did not want to compute that biological process or even how it was possible. My phone also had a notification from Armsmaster at this point.

“Okay, Armsmaster thinks he can create a filter for his visor which will prevent him from seeing 401.”

“It’ll be an interesting experiment at least. If it fails you may have to Master him in turn to prevent him copulating with this thing.”

I held up my hands, “I’ll cross that bridge if it’s necessary. Let’s turn to the people. What can we do?”

Henry thought for a moment, then clicked his stone tongue, which sounded somewhat like a suppressed gun firing, “Pick one male and female, then one at a time, move them in greater increments away from 401. We will observe its reaction and any reaction from the victim.”

“This is going to take a while.”

“All science does, Escort. We can’t get this wrong. Corporal Harris, I think we better get you inside the house for the moment. You can remove the blindfold then.”

“Yes, sir.” The FTF member sighed with relief.

888888888888888888888888888888888

Our experimentation was quickly interrupted though when another group of mesmerized people began climbing the property fence.

Henry kept going whilst I flew out to intercept.

It turned out to be a family of five. The mother, father and two teenage sons were all staring blankly at the tree, then started stripping off their clothes. The lone exception was a young girl who looked roughly eight or nine years old, who was frantically trying to stop her seemingly crazy family.

She barely made it over the fence and was shrieking in anger at them, with tears running down her face.

I mastered those who were in 401’s grip and demisted in front of them with ‘15 held out horizontally in front of me. “Stop.”

They obeyed and the girl gasped in fright, falling backward on her pajama clad butt. My attention was instantly drawn to the fact that she wasn’t affected by the cognitohazard.

I lowered ‘15 and smiled at her in what I hoped was a friendly and warm manner. “Hello there. My name is Escort, I’m a hero. What’s your name?”

The poor thing just kept staring with big astonished eyes, her mouth gaping. For a very long few seconds she was silent, until her eyes started to roam downward then shot back up to my face.

She gulped nervously and her young aura burned with many emotions; embarrassment and awe being chief among them.

“Uh, uh,” she furiously wiped his eyes to clear them of more tears. “I’m… Th- Thea.”

“Nice to meet you, Thea. Look, there’s something very nasty that’s taken over your family’s minds, you see that big tree behind me?” She nodded and thankfully from this angle and due to the poor lighting, it was very difficult to make out details. 401 from here did look like just a big tree, if a little odd. “That is not a normal tree. An evil person made it and dumped it here so it could hurt people. If anyone looks at it, they become like your family.”

A little theory that was probably false, but spun for the girl’s benefit.

“Oh, so, uh, how did you stop my family? I tried everything! And why am I not like them?”

“That’s one of my powers. As for why you’re not affected, I don’t know.  Perhaps it only works on people above a certain age.” More than likely the delineating line was whether the human was capable of proper sexual reproduction, but I was not about to tell an eight year old girl that. “Now, you must be quiet for a moment. I have to hypnotize them so they’ll forget having seen the tree and go home. Please don’t do or say anything to remind them of it and make sure the curtains of your home are closed in this direction. Understand?”

She frowned for a moment, biting her lip and eventually nodded.

I snapped a finger for effect and pulled the remaining family deep into the mind web. “You will forget you saw something that looked like a eucalyptus tree.”

“We will forget, mistress,” the family chorused.

“You will make sure your blinds and curtains are closed until you are advised otherwise by local officials, PRT or the Protectorate.”

“We will, mistress.”

I smiled mischievously and beckoned Thea over to me.

She frowned then slowly got up to stand uncertainly next to me, her aura becoming almost painfully shy.

“Thea, what is your favorite sweet treat?” I whispered into her ear.

“Uh, caramel milkshake,” she answered.

“You will make Thea the very best caramel milkshake you can, in apology for scaring her so much.”

“We’ll make her a milkshake.”

“Good, now turn around.” They did so. “You will now walk home through the front gates of this property and go home. Keep your eyes from looking higher than the horizon until you get through your front door. Understand?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Go.”

Thea watched her family walk away with bowed heads and shook her head in amazement. “That was awesome! Can you please tell them to give me something cool for my birthday?”

I couldn’t help but laugh as she tried throwing her best puppy dog eyes at me. “You’d need to be more specific than that. Hurry along now, your family is-”

She waved my concern off, “I know the way home, I’m big enough. There’s this awesome LEGO Friends construction set. I asked mom and she said no.”

“Did she give a reason for her decision?” It was really quite fascinating studying the aura of the young. It was like watching a disco ball of emotion and feelings. That in turn made it quite hard to discern where those emotions would carry them.

“No, well,” She scuffed her sandals on the grass and guilt took center stage. “It’s just that I might not always clean up too well after I play with my LEGO blocks.”

“Then perhaps if you resolved and showed your mother that you properly pick up your blocks from now on, she might eventually reconsider.”

“That’ll take too long, my birthday is next week.” The girl barely resisted pouting.

“Unfortunately Thea, as a hero, I can’t use my power that way. That would make me more of a villain.”

Gosh, was I ever this young? It felt like an eternity ago.

“‘S’pose,” she mumbled, there was a surge of… courage?... and impulsiveness in her aura. “Wh- why are you naked?” she blurted out.

I’d had this conversation quite a few times, but having to moderate it for such a young girl put an odd spin on it. I took a step back, turned to face her properly and dropped to a single knee to bring me to her eye level. She was thoroughly embarrassed now.

“Answer me this, Thea. Why do you wear clothes?”

“Uh, it’s cold and it protects my private places.”

“Exactly, so what would happen if, when you became a hero and got powers, you didn’t need to worry about being cold or hot or having to protect those private places?”

Her face frowned cutely as she considered that. “But isn’t it also decent to wear clothes?”

“It is, I suppose, but in my line of work, you could say that clothes or a costume would just get in the way and is more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Oh.”

The whine of jet engines suddenly erupted around me and Thea.

In pure reflex I grabbed her around the shoulders and misted us both.

It was only as I came to a hovering stop a few meters above ground that I realized what had happened.

A Dragon suit was now coming to a stop above the property, swiveling its VTOL engines forward then tilting them back to move into a landing phase.

The armor suit itself was roughly the size of two SUVs slapped together and had the typical quadrupedal draconic design the tinker was known for. This one had a more Eastern dragon aesthetic, with a sinuous appearance, long neck ending in a triangular draconic ‘face’. Its armored hull plates interlocked and weaved with breathtaking complexity and it shifted from a flight mode to a grounded ‘walking’ mode. The only visible weapons I could see on the suit was a back mounted box launcher for missiles.

My True Sight held me captive though as I was definitely seeing something new here.

There was a distinct aura around this suit. An aura that you would normally see from any human being or something with a consciousness. Yet it was different in a way that, again I didn’t have words for. The best I could come up with was… It was like looking at humans, they were a yellow sun, but looking at this suit… at Dragon… was like a blue sun.

What the fuck did that even mean?

Dragon was supposed to be a Canadian tinker with agoraphobia, who sent her suits out into the world to do the heroic thing under the aegis of the Guild; a Canadian based superhero team that focused on international threats, usually A-class and S. A minority considered her to actually be the most powerful parahuman on the planet. Not because of any superior ability to reduce cities or neighborhoods to ashes with a blast of exotic power, but because of her sheer utility and the actual impact she had on the world, from street level all the way up to Endbringer fights.

This suit was not just a dead, remote controlled robot.

I shook off my fascination and got to the ground, remisting with Thea.

“Sorry about that, are you okay?”

“Wow,” she said. “You took me flying! That was so cool, I could see and I was a … ghost? And-” She stopped herself, her face blushing furiously. “You’re very pretty, Escort. I wish that when I grow up I’ll look like you.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” I chuckled, feeling slightly uncomfortable at getting praised like that. “Now, off you go. I need to speak to Dragon.”

“Okay, bye Escort. Thank you for saving my family from the evil tree.” She abruptly hugged me around the waist, burying her face briefly on my abs, before rushing off in the direction of the gate.

“Bye,” I said lamely.

“You have a new fan.” The amused electronic voice suddenly being behind me did not cause me to jump. How did something that big move so silently?

I turned around and leaned on ‘15 as casually as possible. “Dragon, a pleasure to meet you.”

“Escort, the pleasure is mine. As much as I would like for a chance for a friendly chat, I’ve been briefed by Armsmaster, though he did not brief me that your heroic partner would be the other half of the Civil War plinth mystery.”

I winced, of course Dragon would’ve spotted Henry on the way down, he was rather hard to miss.

“Yeah, that’s Henry. Despite appearances, he’s a fully sentient being, very intelligent and can speak for himself. Given that you’re here, I trust you’ve protected yourself against the cognitohazard sufficiently.”

“Yes, I helped refine the AI that filters the perceptions of this suit and Armsmaster’s visor. He’s currently thirteen minutes out. This suit can perceive no plant life at all at the moment.”

“Well, I hope the AI itself won’t be corrupted, some cognitohazards will do that,” I said, thinking of SCP-096. “Let’s go. Henry has been seeing if we can safely move the victims.”

I walked alongside the suit, again marveling how fluently it moved and even how Dragon was limiting herself to normal human pace with no problems and it didn’t look awkward at all. It seemed as natural to move like this as it would screaming through the air at supersonic speeds.

We arrived at the tree and the small sea of nude people around it.

Henry had already moved four people out of reach of the tree's various limbs and was looking thoughtfully down at them, whilst occasionally scanning the tree itself for any reaction.

“Ah, Dragon, a pleasure. Henry Hawkins, at your service,” he smiled and bowed. “I’d normally shake a hand, but I wouldn’t know where to begin with all your limbs at the moment.”

Dragon had the odd experience of looking up at someone with an armor suit and had to actually articulate it higher to match Henry’s height, before a panel opened up with a fully dextrous mechanical human-analogue arm.

Henry laughed and shook it.

“I’m very curious about you, Henry, but that can all wait. What’s the condition of the people here?”

“Stable and sleeping, so far the tree hasn’t reacted to me moving them.”

“It sounds like you expected something different?”

“Whoever can make a tree like this is not someone I’d imagine having the characteristic of benevolence.”

“True, this is something I’d almost imagine to be the work of Bonesaw. She definitely has the skills and ability to create something like what you’re describing.” Dragon turned the suit’s head to look at the tree. I assumed she could only infer its position from the arrangement of the victims.

“She could,” Henry confirmed with a nod. “Yet the tree lacks any ability of showing visible suffering or pain. It lacks vocal cords despite the many mouth-roots around it. There’s no intelligence, only basic instincts here, that of a tree in bloom and wanting to reproduce.”

I shuddered even thinking about that supervillain.

Bonesaw was a girl of about twelve years old who was generally considered the most dangerous tinker on the planet, because of her incredible versatility in the field of biology, anatomical and physiological sciences. She could’ve been the greatest tinker, hero and would’ve  revolutionized the human condition and healthcare, but like everything on Earth Bet which had that potential for good, she was instead corrupted into becoming Bonesaw. The little monster of the Slaughterhouse 9, the tinker largely responsible for making the supervillain group very difficult to kill conventionally. She had engineered herself and the others to high levels of transhumanism, including many safeguards that discouraged most people and heroes from even trying to kill the group.

It didn’t help that you killed a Slaughterhouse member only for an engineered plague to spread out of the body that would go on to kill millions. It was generally accepted that Bonesaw carried many deadly strains of engineered viruses and bacteria within her body, something she happily pronounced during her encounters with heroes who had the misfortune to encounter her.

“In that respect, yes, it does not seem like this is the work of Bonesaw,” Dragon’s electronic sigh was quite pronounced. “The cognitohazard effect also seems to fall outside the scope of what she should be capable of. However, we can’t rule out that the Nine hasn’t picked up a new member. We keep a watch on their position as much as possible, but they are very adept at hiding and covering their tracks. Their last known position was near Albuquerque.”

“Teleporting their creations in and seeing them work from afar is not their style, Dragon.”

“Yes, whether it is them or someone new is academic though. Protectorate policy regarding biological creations like this, that has the capacity to reproduce, means we have to destroy the tree as soon as possible. Only consideration for the lives of the victims is what’s preventing an incineration bomb from being dropped on this position as soon as that can be arranged.”

Henry looked at her and nodded in understanding, clearly unhappy. “As a priority, we need this tree shielded from view. Escort can ‘deprogram’ the cognitohazard effect in people but when day breaks, we’ll be swamped by mesmerized people from this part of the city.”

“We have extra supplies from building the TQZ dome nearby. For such a smaller volume, it could be built in less than a day. However, I think we can improvise a faster build, by simply using structural membranes and canvas.”

Dragon’s odd aura suddenly flared in agitation and… alarm?

The draconic suit whined and turned around on the spot, facing its head up into the sky and to the west.

“Oh no.”

I turned to look in that direction and spotted the oddest thing in the night sky. My first stupid thought was that it was a rather bright star, but quickly dismissed that notion because it was way too close. Then my eyes adjusted and I realized what or rather who I was looking at.

“Escort, you need to master her, now!” Dragon said urgently.

My brain took a few very long seconds to kick into gear because I was raging that our luck was just that bad, combined with a healthy dose of fear.

What the fuck was she doing flying past here and now of all places?

I dared anyone not to look like a deer caught in headlights when they were within range, on the ground and a sitting duck for the strongest Blaster and ‘flying artillery’ cape in the city, who was just a few degrees less dangerous than Legend himself.

“Dragon, there’s a problem with that. I need to be within a twenty foot range and I have a caveat when it comes to mastering women,” I winced and shook my head.

“What is it?” she asked urgently.

“There’s no guarantee I’ll succeed. In short, when I try, it begins a contest of emotional dominance. Normally, it's quite easy for me to win that. However, I know I won’t win against Purity.”

This wasn’t just my instincts speaking. I just needed one look at arguably the most powerful E88 villain’s distant flaring aura to know that there would be no dominating this psyche.

“What happens if you lose?”

“I’ve never lost since I gained powers, so I can’t tell you exactly,” I said grimly as a mesmerized Purity flew closer and closer, staying in an upright casual posture. “Best case scenario, I just fail and I lose her mind. Worst case, she dominates me and I become submissive, unable to resist anything she tells me to do.”

Even as I explained, it felt like a gong was going off in my head and I just knew… it was the latter, it was one of my ‘SCP rules’.

Henry looked at me, his granite gray face staring with intense eyes. It was amazing how well he could emote sometimes, despite being an animated statue.

“It’s not worth the risk, Dragon,” he declared. “Right now, we have one powerful cape enthralled to the tree. If we try to physically restrain or stop her with force, she will do everything in her power to fulfill the cognitohazard’s programming, including destroying or killing us. If Escort loses to Purity whilst trying to master her-”

“You can’t be suggesting that we allow this tree to have enthralled sex with a villain of Purity’s destructive potential,” Dragon objected strongly. “When she regains her wits and learns of this… All my psychological models indicate she’d want retribution and the E88 will march along with her in full force. We’ll be lucky to have Brockton Bay still standing before we can counter with help from the Triumvirate - which is what we’ll need to counter the full unleashed force of the E88 roster.”

“Any battle we have here will assuredly endanger the lives of the victims and those in the surrounding neighborhood, Dragon,” Henry pointed out.

“Wait, I can master the tree itself partially, then I just grab a hold of Purity, prevent the sex, wait out the enthrallment,” I suggested desperately.

“An nice idea Escort, but you lack the skill as yet to see and analyze this cognitohazard properly or have experience with them. Think of it as a computer algorithm that has been placed on the fabric of reality itself. If you stop or prevent the ‘program’ from executing this function halfway, all you’ll be doing is trapping yourself in an effective limbo of always having to maintain control of the tree.”

“Henry, what you’re describing is… very unlikely,” Dragon said skeptically.

“Your disbelief, Dragon, is unfortunately not going to affect the reality of this situation. The cognitohazard, the program that has landed on Purity, preventing its fulfillment will leave her in a similar limbo. If Escort masters the tree and you take Purity away, then destroy the tree - you’ll effectively be condemning her to a lifetime of this enthralled state, awaiting the fulfillment of the program - to have sex with the tree. All these people are simply sleeping now, the cognitohazard programming has been fulfilled, they’ll wake up and move on dealing with the consequences of this.”

Dragon’s suit remained still for a long few seconds. “I have a database of every power on record, Henry. Yet what you’re describing might as well be magic.”

“As a wise man once said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Just because you’ve not yet seen the power yet that can do this… does not mean it doesn’t exist.”

“But what of the people that Escort mastered and sent away?”

“Escort effectively put her own ‘program’ in place to overwrite the tree’s cognitohazard, but she can’t do that with Purity.”

Purity was now flying over the property fence, her radiance lighting up the dark yard as if an omnidirectional white light had just been switched on. It was difficult to look at her directly, but I could see that her eyes and hair were the brightest source of light, whilst the rest of her was just a touch dimmer.

A pair of white gloves fell from her onto the grass. I could also just about make out from how her limbs were moving now that she was…

A white bodysuit fell, followed by a bra and panties.

“Henry, Escort, is this the result of your Thinker powers? That the cognitohazard must be fulfilled lest Purity fall into a coma?” Dragon asked in an oddly formal voice.

“Yes,” Henry said immediately.

I could only nod, totally at a loss. There was no good path to take here.

An armored compartment on Dragon’s side opened, a PC tablet emerged, which she took with one of her fine manipulation arms and handed it out to me. “This will interface with a number of drones I have flying overhead, its programs are monitoring for anyone heading towards here. Stop them.”

The moment the tablet was in my hand it’s screen lit up with an impressively detailed yet easy to understand real time, isometric map of the entire area.

Dragon turned to Henry, “Can I count on your help and discretion, Henry?”

“Of course.”

“Escort, please go.”

It was a polite request but in the circumstances, it might as well have been a direct order.

I didn’t want to go, I could’ve told her to shove her order… but this was Dragon.

I tucked the tablet under my arm, tightened my grip on ‘15 and misted my lower body.

With a twist of will I shot into the sky, the air blasting through my hair.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Dragon.’

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SCP/s in this chapter:

"SCP-401" by Flah, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-401. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

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A/N: Have a great weekend folks, stay awesome.

Padme at Indu San

By SDXL and I.

Image taken during Padme & Ahsoka's trip to visit Senator Bonterri, just before they crossed behind enemy lines. This is on the observation bridge of a transport. 

I've always liked the art style that many sci-fi books used for their covers in the 80's and 90's, so I tweaked until I got something in that vain that I liked. Enjoy. 

The Force Wills - Chapter 71

Obi-Wan had expected a moment like this to only come much later in his life.

A moment of looking back and observing his journey, celebrating the joys, regretting the mistakes. Yet here he was, literally outside of the universe, in an impossible monastery looking back with the eyes of memory and questioning how he could have been so blind.

Beginning all the way back when he’d been a freshly minted knight in the wake of Master Qui-Gon’s death, taking on the responsibility of Anakin before he’d even formally taken the oath.

It was customary for new knights to at least spend a few years out in the galaxy, coming to terms with the new role, finding their feet, forging their own path. Yet for Obi-Wan, his mentoring of Anakin was the defining path of his knighthood.

Now Anakin was a knight himself and he a master, yet Obi-Wan couldn’t help but feel that in some respects the old padawan-knight relationship hadn’t ended at all.

Into the equation came Ahsoka.

The Council had expected the padawan to temper Anakin, apply the brakes somewhat to the new knight who was being thrust center stage into the war and even add to his education in the Force. The latter had succeeded marvelously but the former had failed. On the contrary, Ahsoka and Anakin together had ‘punched the hyperdrive to max’ when it came to their respective progression as knight and padawan.

It was inevitable in retrospect, something that the war had forced on them both.

The blasted war.

It was forcing change on the Jedi and in many respects, not for the better.

He only had to look to the grand architect of the war to see that.

How many times had they stood in the same room? Yoda, Windu, Mundi, himself and other Council members in Palpatine’s office on many occasions for meetings and none of them had perceived a thing. Only that the genteel Sheev Palpatine, was nothing more than a shrewd, cunning politician from Naboo, reluctantly shouldering the burden of the extreme executive powers afforded to him by the Senate during wartime.

He could only marvel at the fact that it was possible to hide and deceive even the potent senses of a Jedi Master as old and experienced as Yoda.

That it was all made possible by a hidden Sith shrine in the deepest depths under the Temple on Coruscant was… frustrating to say the least.

Something had to be done.

For nearly five thousand years, this hidden darkness and malice had been seeping into everything subtly. It was somewhat awe inspiring that his generation was the one to see the fruition of such an old plan. Yet it was also now his and the others' responsibility to safely lead the Order out of this trap, which Palpatine was taking advantage of.

For the last few hours he had been trying to chart a course that would actually do that, but always ran headlong into the problem of the Shroud.

“Many sleepless nights I’ve been wrestling with this problem, Master Kenobi. Searching as subtly as possible through the Archives for any clue that would lead me to some form of technique or artifact that would pierce or even cast off the Shroud. I found a few, but it all runs into the problem that it is actually a pointless endeavor, that would only serve to alert Sidious and in the worst case scenario, retreat whilst he murders his way through key senators. The sad fact of the matter is, that Coruscant is lost to him, but whilst he is here, at least he is stuck in his role and not at large in the galaxy, free to spread misery. We do not want him enacting his exposure contingencies, master.”

Her words rang through his mind.

The words of full blown Foresight or as she called it, Prescience.

Even as he was briefly angered at them both for hiding it, with hindsight he couldn’t fault Ahsoka.

The actions of the Council collectively of late did not inspire confidence that they would act with prudence or wisdom if such a power was revealed to them. Not to mention what Sidious would do.

That was another fact that really stuck in his beard.

Any Council meeting he attended in the future was now essentially a charade where he had to dance to the tune of Darth Sidious. Not only to the enemy but to his fellow masters as well, who were all clueless. If he started acting strangely, they would pick up on it. In their own probings and inquiries, they’d bumble forward and in turn alert Sidious.

So much was explained by Yoda’s recent behavior now. It was incredibly subtle, but the grandmaster had begun to reduce the official Council sittings, in lieu of the war not allowing the usual amount of time to be dedicated to them. More often than not, decisions were being made only by a smaller quorum, consisting of Yoda, Windu, Plo Koon and himself.

All the other masters were usually on the sidelines to keep the day-to-day of the Jedi Order functioning or busy with the war effort in some way.

“Obi-Wan.”

Master Qui-Gon’s voice cut through his meditation like a lightsaber.

He blinked open his eyes, seeing that night had fallen on Mortis again through the window. There was no lightning this time, but he felt a shudder go through the floor of the monastery under him.

Great, earthquakes as well? He thought wryly.

The absence of something that should be in his senses was his second clue that something was very wrong.

He stood and whirled around, only to see no Ahsoka in the small quarters. He reached out further and managed to barely find Anakin, though it was difficult to make him out against the sun of power that Bendu represented.

Obi-Wan rushed out the doors with speed, following his instincts.

In the large central chamber, he came upon Bendu and Anakin sitting across from each other.

The former was holding his large hands vertically in front of him, palms facing each other. In between was a small pebble that was floating, held suspended with the celestial’s power. The Force seemed to flex in a way that made Obi-Wan’s head hurt just trying to perceive it.

Bendu abruptly stopped what he was doing and let the pebble fall to the floor.

“Master Kenobi,” he acknowledged.

Anakin turned around with annoyance written on his features, “Obi-Wan what-”

“Have either of you seen Ahsoka?” Obi-Wan interrupted urgently.

“She was with you,” Anakin said, closing his eyes for a moment. “I can’t reach her again.”

Bendu stood and looked into the distance, his eyes seemingly piercing the monastery walls. He raised an aged brow at what he was perceiving. “It seems my son has actually taken her into the heart of his domain on Mortis. She wouldn’t break to his manipulations, so now he has her fighting her own Darkness, which he has given physical form. All in the effort to weaken her so she will eventually give in to him, just to make the torment stop.”

“Then we need to go there now,” Anakin insisted.

“We will, but certain preparations must be made first, Skywalker. We are not simply going on a random stroll out into Mortis. That is where my son is strongest. He could even strike me down if he was so inclined. Come, follow.”

Bendu began long strides along the walkway towards the main doors of the monastery and both Jedi hurried to follow. He began an expansive gesture with his arms and they felt a brief disorientation as their perceptions suddenly changed in the Force and conventionally.

They were now walking outside, the giant monastery suddenly more than twenty kilometers distant on the horizon.

The ground beneath them shifted with rock and sand.

Looming ahead was a very tall mountain, with a path snaking up all the way to a midway point, which led into a large cave entrance.

“What are we looking for in there?” Anakin asked.

“A key,” Bendu said, his strides came even faster now and they had to lightly jog to keep up.

Even as they walked the earth beneath their feet shuddered occasionally.

“Are earthquakes common here?” Obi-Wan wondered.

“No,” Bendu answered as they reached the cave entrance and plunged inside without hesitation.

Initially there was only darkness but then the massive interior was lit up with green light that flooded the entire chamber. Obi-Wan belatedly realized that the entire mountain was hollowed out, lit with torches of green fire and down below a massive chasm was also filled with flowing green lava that radiated more of the fire. Rather disquietingly he also determined that this interior was also larger on the inside than what should’ve been possible given the exterior dimensions of the mountain.

Bendu led the way down a staircase cut out of the interior, which soon became a narrow bridge that crossed over the green lava, leading to a prominent central island that hung in mid air with no clear physical support.

Prominent on this island was a three meter tall pyramid made of the same metal-stone hybrid material which the Mortis space station had been composed of.

“To defeat my son, we will need what is inside. Skywalker, approach the pyramid, it will react to you. Also important, make sure you focus on your true goal. Understand?”

Anakin frowned slightly before a light of realization entered his eyes. “Yes.”

“Good, off you go. Your apprentice is giving Bogan a good show, but she is only mortal and will tire out.”

“Chrono is ticking, I get it.”

Obi-Wan watched with worry and apprehension as Anakin began walking the bridge, occasionally stopping and closing his eyes.

When Anakin was well out of earshot, Obi-Wan sidled up to the celestial, “Why do I get the feeling that this is a test?”

“It is, I had to protect the key from both my daughter and son. In the hands of either, the balance would be severely disrupted on Mortis. The pyramid judges you as you approach.”

“And what happens if you fail this test?”

“Nothing, you will simply not gain what is inside.”

“A key to defeating your son, don’t think I didn’t notice how carefully you chose your words. Anything capable of killing a celestial like you must be powerful in ways I can’t even conceive of.”

“You might be surprised, Master Kenobi,” Bendu gave a rare smile.

Anakin took the final steps and reached the pyramid.

Nothing seemed to be happening.

“What happens if we can’t get this ‘key’?”

“Then Master Kenobi, we will have a true fight on our hands that I do not feel confident in our chances of winning and even if we win, the cost might be too great to bear.”

The pyramid abruptly hissed and split open in an intricate dance of parts that Obi-Wan struggled to even look at. Triangles turned to quadrilaterals, which turned into shapes that his eyes struggled to make sense of, that were phasing in and out of view. Finally, the bizarre display of eldritch shapes ended and it seemed to be open. Now from inside, a stone plinth emerged with a simple cylinder of what looked like liquid metal.

Anakin reached out to it and immediately the cylinder seemed to come alive with movement, again forming shapes that were both conventional and yet others that gave Obi-Wan a headache trying to comprehend.

A straight handle eventually formed and Anakin didn’t hesitate to grab it.

By the time he had pulled it out of the pyramid, the rest of it had formed a long curved blade.

Obi-Wan blinked in astonishment, all this for an exotic looking vibroblade?

He looked at it through the Force though and immediately wished he hadn’t.

“What is that?” he asked Bendu flatly.

“What does it look like to you?”

“My eyes tell me it’s a blade, but it’s wrong. It shouldn’t exist, yet it does. There’s no better word I have for it.”

“Correct,” Bendu turned to Anakin and called out. “Skywalker, do not bring that blade close to your hand or test it in any fashion. You will die instantly should any part of it touch you.”

Anakin froze midway through a swing, clearly to test the balance, then looked at the weapon wearily and hurried back over the bridge.

“So how is this a key?”

“You saw its shape before it became a blade, it’s merely reacting to you. Deep down, you realize you need a weapon that is stronger than a lightsaber, since you saw how Bogan effortlessly neutralized yours. Now you have one. Something capable of killing a celestial. I will not elaborate on the mechanics or science, and yes there is science behind it. We don’t have the time. Come.”

The large celestial walked off, heading back up the staircase.

When they were back outside the mountain, Bendu held up a hand to stop their walk and in the same movement made a circular gesture right in front of him.

The Force twisted, folded in on itself, then in a hundred other directions.

In the visible spectrum all that was seen was a slight haziness to the light that reached Obi-Wan’s eyes. A flat plane that was distorting light in the shape of a circle.

“Stepping through this, you will immediately be in the courtyard of Bogan’s citadel. Ashla will join you on the other side.”

“You’re not coming with?” Anakin asked, his face twisting with unhappiness.

“My presence will only inflame the situation into open conflict immediately. Both myself and Ashla in the heart of his domain can mean only one thing to him.”

“That you intend to kill him,” Obi-Wan nodded in understanding.

“From his point of view, yes. Skywalker, use that blade only as a last resort. Bogan’s death is not what we want or need, not when he is needed to fight the Mother in the future.”

Anakin shared a grim look with Obi-Wan.

He knew immediately what Anakin was silently asking and nodded.

Both men steeled themselves and walked towards the distortion.

It didn’t feel strange at all. No more difficult than walking through an open door from one room to the next, only in the Force did they perceive what was actually happening. The world of Mortis changed instantly around them.

They were now standing on a dark paved courtyard with black stone tiles beneath their feet. The circular courtyard was massive, easily measuring more than two hundred meters from the base of a colossal citadel that towered high into the air above.

The citadel itself was an eight sided affair, wide at the base and narrowing to a tip, upon which was hovering a green ball of energy that seemed to be the only decent source of actual light for the entire area. In the courtyard also stood four much smaller towers placed at equidistant intervals around the citadel, these were barely five meters in height. The entire structure was also placed on a perfectly circular plateau, with a high wall bordering it. From this wall radiating outward was ribbed battlements that seemed designed to fend off an entire army.

The general environment was shrouded with low lying, dark clouds, but off in the distance a nearby active volcano was actively spewing a lava river that was channeled to surround the entire citadel, creating a deadly moat.

“There’s ego and then there’s this ego,” Anakin said with amazement as he looked around and up at the massive citadel.

“This is just the one he currently resides in,” Ashla’s voice said from behind them.

The tall celestial gracefully walked into view and looked rather out of place, her radiant presence and severe beauty in stark contrast to the dark and depressing surroundings. Obi-Wan felt his heart and spirit naturally buoyed just by her sheer presence.

“He has more?”

She nodded gracefully but her fair face frowned at the sight of the celestial weapon in Anakin’s hand.

The paving and earth rumbled again, the Force rippled and shook.

The gloomy clouds above seemed to ripple as if something was moving through it with great speed. Then there was a flash of red and green light.

In the Force, it was as if two great forces had clashed in the unseen gloom, a shockwave radiated outwards and disturbed the gloomy clouds, pushing them outward.

It finally allowed them to make out that it was in fact the clash and characteristic flashing of lightsabers in combat.

“It’s Ahsoka,” Anakin stated grimly.

In the gloom of the night, a blue crackling stream of lightning seemed to surge through the clouds, this reached a point in sky above and was instantly redirected to connect with the tip of the citadel.

More surges of force went back and forth through the broiling clouds, which were themselves not natural. They would’ve all been dissipated long ago by the competing forces.

Flashes of green and red appeared again at another point in the sky.

“That’s fast,” Anakin said, sounding impressed.

“Fighting in the sky, that’s a new one,” Obi-Wan mused, trying to imagine the mechanics of a lightsaber battle with a fully three dimensional sphere of movement available to the combatants.

“It’s something she only theorized about, given the boot jets we have in our armor. It was always impractical or there was never a chance to put it into practice. Only Durge has flight capabilities anyway and he doesn’t use it to fight as such.”

“Well, now it seems she’s found an opponent, herself.”

There was another rapid clash of lightsabers, then a radiant wave of clashing surges in the Force.

A small figure streaked out of the clouds and crashed into the side of the citadel with bone breaking force.

Obi-Wan felt his heart and stomach clench as he recognized the distinct skin tone and white montrals and lekku of Ahsoka as she now lifelessly fell the long distance to the unyielding courtyard floor.

However, before the body could impact… it vanished?

From the sky another figure descended with speed towards them.

The hiss and whine of boot jets reached their ears as Ahsoka, clad in her patterned Aegis armor landed a few meters away.

Her lightsaber blades hovered protectively around her and the Darksaber was clenched tightly in her right hand.

Her face was fierce, grimacing with clenched teeth. Her eyes were hyper focused but it was also clear she had not gotten through the fight so far without injury. Numerous bruises adorned her face, a burn on her right cheek and blood was leaking from both her nostrils and mouth. Her armor also had scorch marks and pitted areas that clearly marked near misses of a lightsaber.

Then she collapsed to one knee and began breathing harshly.

“Ahsoka!” Anakin rushed to his padawan, turning the Mortis blade into a reverse grip.

“About…” she gasped, “bloody… time.”

Anakin placed his hand on her cheek and he grimaced. “Sithspit Snips, you need a bacta tank.”

“No…” she grimaced and spat blood to the side. “... Time. She’ll be back.”

“She? Your Dark Side? Was that her you killed?”

Ahsoka nodded and closed her eyes. Obi-Wan felt the Force surge inward around them as the padawan called on it. “That’s the fourth time. She just frakking reappears without a scratch on her after seven minutes or so.”

“How long have you been fighting?”

“Can’t tell at this point, lost helmet, armor too damaged. Feels like it’s been hours at least. If this was any place other than Mortis, I’d be dead in so many ways. My body should be cooked from using the Force this much.”

“Many things are different here,” Ashla said and strode forward. She placed her hand on Ahsoka's head and smiled softly at her.

Obi-Wan had seen the healers in the Jedi Temple work wonders with the Force and modern technology. What Ashla did next made them seem like they were working with ancient needles and thread.

In mere moments, the bruising faded, cuts closed and Ahsoka's burnt cheek seemed to ripple and reorganize itself, the clotted blood and dead flesh falling off, replaced with immaculate and healthy light orange skin.

The padawan also winced, clutching at her ribs and suddenly took a deep, smooth breath.

So she had broken ribs as well, Obi-Wan thought, which were now presumably also healed.

Ahsla removed her hand, “You are well.”

Ahsoka hardly seemed to believe it had happened, touching her face briefly and nodded. “Thank you, Ashla.”

“Thanks is not necessary.”

The padawan got to her feet with Anakin’s help and tested her balance. Then when she was satisfied she stepped away. Her lightsabers, which had retreated above her head to remain out of the way, shut themselves down and clipped to her belt.

“Whatever you plan on doing, do it quickly,” Ahsoka said intently.

“We will.” Ashla bowed her head.

A pillar of dark flame erupted from the ground just five meters away and out of it stepped another Ahsoka.

Obi-Wan could only raise an eyebrow at the risqué appearance, the sheer darkness and palpable apathy radiating from the dark mirror of Ahsoka.

“Go,” Ahsoka said with a grim determination, her lightsabers activating as she strode towards her opponent.

“Snips…”

“Don’t Snips me, Skyguy,” Ahsoka snapped. “This is my fight.”

“Yeah, don’t you just hate that nickname,” Dark Ahsoka commiserated with her other half, her own red dual lightsabers bursting to life.

“You shut up,” Ahsoka snapped again.

An abrupt Force Wave shot forward and caught the Dark Ahsoka off-guard, sending her flying backward with astonishing speed.

Ahsoka blurred with speed, jumped and flew after her dark incarnation.

Anakin flipped over the Mortis blade and glared at the distant battle as the clash of lightsabers began again, looking very reluctant to leave.

“Come Anakin,” Obi-Wan put a hand on his old padawan’s shoulder. “Trust her to fight her own demons and battles, trust in the training you gave her.”

Anakin reluctantly nodded and they followed a patient Ashla, who led them to a giant stone door set into the side of the citadel.

It opened automatically at their approach, groaning ominously despite moving smoothly into huge recesses on either side of the entrance.

Ahead was a large landing that led to a wide staircase. The interior was dark, lit with only red torches of fire. The walls and ceiling were lost to the smothering darkness despite the light. Only Ashla’s natural radiance seemed able to illuminate things when she was nearby, banishing the darkness and allowing them to see the walls were inscribed with all manner of unknown jagged writings and glyphs.

The staircase itself ranged upwards as far as they could see. If Obi-Wan looked quickly, he could convince himself he was on an infinite set of stairs.

I really hope that’s not the case, he thought wryly.

They walked and walked, for what felt like the equivalent of twenty floors, with no end in sight.

“How high is this staircase?” Anakin asked with annoyance.

“It seems my brother is enjoying the battle outside, he’s delaying us reaching him,” Ashla commented.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“I could, but it would anger him. Anger is not where we want to start this.”

“My padawan is fighting for her life outside and for his sick amusement. I don’t care about his feelings.”

Ashla tilted her head, giving Anakin an arched eyebrow. Her typically placid, serene expression morphed into annoyance. “As you wish.” She raised her hands and threw them down hard.

Obi-Wan and Anakin stumbled slightly as the staircase under their feet vanished.

Now they were in a long room, with sharp arches supporting the ceiling high overhead. The floor was covered with a long red carpet that led to one end of the room. On that side, a familiar jagged throne, but on an even larger scale. It was backlit with a yellow orange stained glass design. It featured a large teardrop shape, within that a single dot surrounded by a circle. That in turn, was encapsulated with two arms that formed an eye, but if you looked at it as a whole, seemed to be a stylized representation of a person surrounding the circle with their arms.

Bogan lounged on his throne, resting his face on his fist as he stared into the distance with a mild smile and his red eyes shone with eagerness. Their appearance in his throne room immediately drew his attention and he frowned with annoyance.

“Sister,” he acknowledged idly. “That is quite rude of you. Barging into my inner domain like that. Not to mention when I have such fine entertainment. I never imagined any Jedi could be so creative and grand in their application of the Force.” He breathed deeply as if he was savoring the smell of something. “Can you sense the anger, the desperation, the determination?”

“We both know what Ahsoka is, what she represents,” Ashla said sternly. “Yet still, you would corrupt her?”

“I’d be a fool not to,” Bogan retorted. “With her I can leave this prison at last, we can kill the Mother together and then… the galaxy will be ours again. We can stride amongst the races, we can stop this conflict with the snap of a finger.”

“Your arrogance is getting the better of you, brother,” Ahsla retorted, shaking her head. “The Mother is but one threat. Besides, you know how she fights.”

“Hence why I want Ahsoka, who will see Mother’s tendrils clearly.”

“I know you brother, you would end this war being fought in the galaxy, only to see dozens more sprout up in its wake. Do you really think that they will tolerate us walking amongst them? Using them as dejarik pieces as we play our inevitable conflict. They are not so young anymore.”

Bogan waved her concern off, “That may be true, but they are as yet incapable of truly harming us.”

“They will rebel.”

“Then they will be destroyed!” snapped Bogan, his red eyes glowing.

“Inevitably they would all rebel, you would cleanse the galaxy of life?” Ashla narrowed her eyes. She seemed to be her usual self, but Obi-Wan could hear the dangerous undercurrent in her tone.

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear sister. It’d just be a pruning of the tree. The Force will always find a way, but this time we will guide and mold the path it takes.”

“More arrogance. We are guardians and representatives, we are not embodiments of the Power. You cannot truly speak for the Dark any more than I can speak for the Light.”

“Sister, you’re beginning to bore me. Not to mention interrupting my show.”

“Enough!” Anakin shouted. “My padawan is not your entertainment, she is not yours and never will be! Stop embodying her Darkness!”

“Or what?” Bogan asked with amusement.

Anakin simply raised the Mortis blade, pointing it directly at Bogan.

The celestial was instantly on his feet and for the first time something like a hint of fear was in his eyes. “What? Where did you get that? How did I not see it?!”

Obi-Wan and Anakin looked at each other in confusion.

“I’ve had it in my hand the entire time, Bogan,” Anakin shrugged.

The celestial glared at his sister now, “Clever father. So he’s finally willing to kill me? To forever disrupt his precious balance?”

“You’re doing a very good job of that already, brother.”

“Does father seriously think, even with that in the hands of the Chosen One, he would be able to achieve anything? He might as well have handed me the blade on a platter,” Bogan laughed darkly.

He raised his hand towards Anakin.

The Force twisted, surged, pulled, pushed as suddenly Ashla, Anakin and Obi-Wan raised their hands and contested Bogan’s control, as he attempted to wrest the blade for himself.

Obi-Wan for the briefest moment, felt like a leaf being battered in a storm, until he reluctantly took the plunge and started calling on the greater and greater amounts of the Force to strengthen his control in the battle of power being waged.

Even then he felt very much like the proverbial child in this battle.

Anakin’s strength was monstrous, Ashla’s strength was even greater and Bogan was like a wall of water bearing down on them that they were trying to hold back.

Well, child he may be in terms of strength in comparison, but he was a Jedi master.

Instead of just brainlessly bashing their heads against Bogan, Obi-Wan began to channel and direct, to where the power could have the greatest effect.

Turning their side into blades of power that sliced through, instead of just bluntly bashing against their opposition.

At that point, Anakin closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and shoved both hands forward.

The entire room began shaking as Anakin’s strength grew and grew.

Bogan’s eyes widened and showed for the first time some measure of concern as he continued wrestling for control.

Such was the torrent of contesting power, that cracks and dents began appearing in the structure around them as slivers of telekinesis began splattering uncontrollably in all directions.

Anakin took a single step forward, the Mortis blade now hung from his armor’s belt.

Bogan’s face began showing strain. “What is this?”

“Enough!” shouted Anakin.

The shout echoed through the Force as well and heralded a burst of power that only briefly stopped against Bogan, before it bullied its way straight through his defenses. Shearing through it like a collimated laser beam though ordinary steel.

Bogan only barely managed to reestablish his defenses to weather the storm that followed.

The citadel was cracked in half.

The upper portion simply disappeared into the distance, riding the resulting telekinetic energies until it vanished from view.

Obi-Wan looked up at the ashen dark Mortis sky and struggled with the disbelief that something like that had just happened.

“Argh,” Bogan screamed in frustration. “Look what you did to my citadel!”

“Brother, you can rebuild it easily,” Ashla pointed out.

“That’s not the point, it’s mine, my own, my work, from my power!”

“It’s not your power.”

Bogan snarled in response, the Force screamed in warning.

Obi-Wan and Anakin’s lightsabers lit with moments to spare before Bogan released a storm of red lightning at them from his fingertips.

Ashla didn’t have to bother with a lightsaber blade to perform her own Tutaminis. She held up her palms and gathered all the lightning arcing in her direction to harmlessly coalesce.

The Jedi on the other hand were having major trouble defending from all the lightning. The strength was so overwhelming that bolts were arcing out, threatening to ground and hit them anyway despite the defense.

“This-  isn’t… good!” Anakin gritted his teeth as he pushed his saber against the storm.

Obi-Wan could feel it immediately, “Our blade’s crystals are going to explode in our hands at this rate!”

Anakin transferred his blade to his left hand and held out his right to Obi-Wan. “Take it now.”

“Hope you have a plan,” Obi-Wan grunted and grasped the offered hand with his left, holding his own blade horizontally against the lightning.

“Trust me.”

“I do.”

Obi-Wan felt his former student push his Tutaminis over and in that moment they somehow linked their efforts in a way that would definitely merit a visit to the Council of First Knowledge if they survived all this.

The errant bolts became fewer in number until over a few agonizing seconds later, they disappeared entirely.

That still left the problem of their overloading lightsabers but Anakin seemed to have an answer for that one too, as he suddenly kicked out a foot towards Bogan and sent a stream of the celestial’s lightning straight back at him!

“What?!” Bogan winced in surprise as he suddenly also had to use Tutaminis with his right hand to keep himself from being cooked with own technique.

Obi-Wan inwardly felt only relief as he sensed his lightsaber’s kyber crystal stabilize and pass off the destructive energies through the bizarre circuit they had created with Bogan.

Bogan laughed again, “How long do you think you can go on like this Jedi? You will falter long before-”

Anakin shut him up thoroughly in the next moment when Obi-Wan felt his presence in the Force swell and surge to a new high mark.

The lightning streaming to Bogan from his foot suddenly gained a new hue, turning emerald and increased vastly in volume, to the point where now it was as if Bogan was the one actually under assault.

“Arghh, this is… not possible!”

Bogan suddenly refocused his own assault completely on Anakin.

Ashla kept her palms up, holding onto a considerable portion of Bogan’s power that was swirling in her grasp.

Obi-Wan didn’t dare disrupt the flow of Tutaminis that had been established between him and Anakin - that way lay only disaster. Yet his lightsaber was now free, the only problem was that it was useless against Bogan.

Anakin’s version of Electric Judgment streamed into Bogan’s Tutaminis defense, Bogan’s lightning continued to pound Anakin’s defense.

Natural lightning streaked overhead through the clouds and they roiled with the disturbance the battle created.

Ashla vanished.

“Oh?” Bogan chuckled. “Typical sister, always running when things get really tough!”

Anakin slowly put down his foot and yet, somehow the Electric Judgement kept going, now emerging just half a meter from the front of his chest.

“Well done, you’re learning, oh Chosen One! Let’s dispense with the affectations!”

He now dropped both his hands, his red lighting emerging from the air, an arm’s length from his chest towards them and even his Tutaminis was now beyond his body, acting much like a ship’s shields.

“Any… ideas?” Anakin gritted out the words slowly and with effort. Obi-Wan sensed his concentration, focus and their lives were hanging by a thread.

In any other situation, he would’ve tried blasting Bogan with a Force Push or even a Crush. His own focus was just on maintaining the shared Tutaminis between them. If he tried anything else, that would shatter.

Either Bogan would outlast them or he would grow bored of the endless battle and end it another way.

“Sorry, Anakin.”

“Yeah, figured that.”

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My blades orbited around me, spinning constantly, I held the Darksaber ready.

Around me the world was just an ever-changing, dark gray cloud that would occasionally flash with a lightning discharge, creating a snapshot of light that seared into my eyes like a photograph that would linger. Fortunately, my eyes were the last thing I was relying on to keep track of Bohsoka.

I pushed myself abruptly left, just in time to dodge her own spinning red blade.

My boot jets flared and I shot myself backward, head first before rolling, the Darksaber leading the way as I did. Thinking of myself as a starfighter in the void of space was helping a ton in the fight, including taking some inspiration from other sources.

The Darksaber was intercepted by Bohsoka’s blade and she tried throwing a right hook to my face at the same time.

My spinning blades came in from odd angles, trying to fillet her from behind.

Her own second blade that hovered behind her fended them off.

We proceeded into another exchange of single bladed battle, whilst our hovering blades dueled for supremacy around us.

We ended up in a blade lock straining against each other with gritted teeth.

A sudden burst of my boot jets combined with the Force, allowed me to push her blade just enough to create an opening, which my knee exploited with full force against her stomach.

It broke our lock and she spun in a brief uncontrolled yaw.

“Hah!”

My follow up Force Push blasted her back, the clouds deforming around us with the strength of the wave.

With bursts of her own jets and Force emissions she regained control and stopped her yaw and backwards momentum.

Her hovering blade zoomed back to her and she smirked at me with an eager maliciousness.

“Getting a bit physical are we?!”

A sudden, massive Force Pull slammed into me, carrying me towards her at crazy speeds.

Instead of resisting, I engaged full boot jets and a Force Push radiated outward behind me.

I called on every bit of the Force to buff my arms and slammed a dual palm strike on her upper chest and lower abdomen.

I felt her ribs break as I powered through her own Force defense.

The momentum transfer sent her flying backward again.

“How’s that?!”

It took her a good few seconds to stop herself and she was growling with fury, her eyes flaring orange as she took the pain to further fuel her own Darkness.

“How long have we been fighting, Ahsoka?! Do you even know?” she shouted.

She closed the distance to me in a surge of Force Speed that was barely over in an eyeblink.

Our blades locked in battle and for good measure we started to throw in punches, strikes and kicks.

I blocked her blade low, preventing her from chopping my left leg off, whilst angling my right arm into her left hook that sought to slam into my right montral.

My right elbow slammed into her side, breaking another rib.

I paid for that by taking a rising knee straight under my chin.

It was all I could do to prevent my jaw breaking but I felt a spike of pain nevertheless as a number of teeth decided to take a vacation.

I spat blood and two teeth directly into her eyes.

She didn’t need her eyes to fight or see, but there was no overriding that instinct to flinch and the sharp burning of a foreign liquid in the eyes.

It provided the moment I needed to flip over and nail her with an ax kick that connected hard right on her left shoulder, snapping her clavicle.

She was propelled downward and flipped ass over teakettle, screaming in anger and pain.

When she regained control again, she hovered closer but stopped a dozen meters away.

I was treated to the sight of her using the Force internally to put the bone in place and keep it there.

“It won’t help, Ahsoka,” she shouted over the distant sound of thunder. “We’ve done this dance and it will end the same way. I’ll just come back. You cannot defeat me. Why bother?!”

“In the same vein, you cannot truly defeat me either,” I retorted. “You will only ever win, if I choose to give up fighting.”

I met her eyes and we ended up in a minor staring contest.

Bohsoka raised her blade, holding the hilt above her head. A stance from Djem So. Her other blade deactivated itself and clipped to her hip.

So that’s what she wanted. A more conventional duel suddenly, with the minor difference we were still a few hundred meters in the air.

My own blades also returned, whilst I kept the Darksaber in my right hand, pointed directly at her with my right side facing her, my left hand tucked behind my back.

Both our Prescience was severely clouded in Mortis, but we still had seconds of time to work with and so we began a stop-start precog duel.

Back and forth we went, testing each other’s defenses, high, low, left, right, riposte, deflect, thrusts, strikes, overhead and low.

Then the Force rippled as a massive disturbance buffeted our senses.

Bohsoka looked down and scowled with irritation. “Not now!”

Then she was gone, vanishing into thin air with a ripple. Her awful stench in the Force dissipated and I only sensed the general darkness of Bogan’s realm.

I kept my guard up for a full minute, pushing my senses to the limit to find if this was some sort of trick.

Nothing.

‘Ahsoka!’

Anakin’s urgent scream over the bond penetrated my brain.

‘Master? Are you-’

‘No time. Come!’

He pushed a single memory to me.

“Frak!”

I angled myself in the direction of Bogan’s citadel and flew as fast as I could.

There would be only one shot at this.

The clouds streamed past me and after less than a minute of breakneck speed I broke through the lowest level of darkness and spied Bogan’s citadel… or what was left of it.

The crackle of green and blue lightning was clearly visible as Anakin and Bogan fought.

I pushed my flight path straight up, gaining altitude to obscure me in the clouds again, then arced over and dove.

The remains of Bogan’s throne room was at first merely as big as my thumb, but swelled in size as I streaked down from above.

My will reached down and using our bond as a guide, my telekinesis grabbed a hold of the Mortis blade hilt.

I could only hope Bendu and Ashla had done their part at this point, because otherwise…

I flipped my body over, bringing my feet down and flared bootjets and a pulse of Force Push to decelerate, even as I pulled on the Mortis blade.

It met me halfway through my descent and latched onto my palm.

I gripped tight and pointed it straight down, aiming straight for the back of Bogan’s neck.

I couldn’t afford to slow down too much, otherwise leave him time…

A mere five meters before the tip would’ve pierced his white skin, I was suddenly blasted with a Force Push that sent me way off course.

I frantically threw out telekinesis waves to get myself back under control, but I still ended up hitting the unyielding stone floor of Bogan’s throne room at a speed that knocked the wind out of me and did a number on my left knee, twisting it to the point where it almost snapped, but I could feel the pain of torn ligaments tearing through my consciousness.

What happened to the Mortis blade?

My brain was fuzzy with pain and I rolled over, desperately engaging internal damage control via the Force.

By the time I was in any state to think and comprehend again, I looked up to see a nightmare.

Bogan holding the Mortis blade casually and smugly in his right hand. Anakin still on his feet, defiant, his power strong and rising. Obi-Wan on the ground, injured somehow and out cold. No Bendu or Ashla.

“Frak.”

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A/N: More battle! Hope you enjoyed. Have a great weekend and stay awesome.

The Force Wills - Chapter 70

My armor’s internal alarm went off, telling me I had been stuck in a near-sleep state for almost five hours.

My bladder also decided to remind me to attend to it. I was so annoyed at this point that I just let my armor’s internal functions take care of it right there.

I threw off the thin blanket with a grunt and got up, my eyes were caught on the view afforded by the circular windows. It was full daylight and the outside landscape was once again filled with beautiful exotic plant life as far as the eye could see.

My stomach decided to voice its displeasure at my impromptu fasting. I hadn’t eaten anything last night.  The passage of time and environment in Mortis was screwing with my body clock.

Therefore I belatedly approached what passed for a kitchenette in the small apartment that Bendu had given to me for the night.

There was no stove, cooker, oven or anything conventional. It was merely a large table, one seat and a large enclosed pantry with a wooden door. It was the first thing made of wood I had seen in the entire monastery. Inside the pantry, I was immediately assaulted by the most divine and heart achingly nostalgic smells I could experience. My eyes widened as I took in the sight of freshly baked bread, but with a distinct shape that told me it had been made in a flat bottomed cast iron pot.

Practically entranced at the sight of a traditional food from my past life, I touched one of the loaves and it had the exact, perfectly crispy exterior that characterized this style of bread. On another shelf, was a collection of jam bottles, filled with a variety of fruit preservatives. They were even labeled in frakking English! How in the universe did this happen or how did Bendu know?!

I grabbed a loaf of bread, the blueberry jam and rushed back to the table.

From my utility belt I pulled out my own design of a basic multitool, folded out the long knife and began cutting, then used it to heap and spread generous lumps of the jam.

I hesitated for only a moment, as my senses through the Force took in the fact that I was just about to eat food generated from within a Force Nexus. Food that shouldn’t exist in this universe. Made with no fire or cast iron pot in sight, from wheat that hadn’t grown here. There was also the little matter that I had not the first clue how my current biology would react to this food.

“Screw it.”

My mouth took a generous bite and I was pretty sure this feeling was a slight physical embodiment of what true nirvana felt like.

Every taste bud and my brain was screaming with satisfaction.

I chewed and chewed, savoring every moment, wishing it could go on and on.

Eventually I had to swallow.

“Oh frak yeah.”

I took another bite of the blueberry sweetened bread that was still hot enough to be lightly steaming around my fingers. It should’ve lost that heat at this point, but the bread just kept emitting it and retaining the perfection of being ‘fresh out of the pot’. By rights, it should’ve also been burning my fingers, yet it didn’t.

After two large slices of this, I was pleasantly full and searching for something to drink. There was no fridge, but the pantry had a number of large pots with spigots that I sensed were quite cold. My armor had an internal water capacity that I could drink from, this system borrowed elements of a stillsuit. It wasn’t a perfect replication of the capabilities of a dedicated stillsuit, but it would keep me going in a desert world for at least three weeks.

I found a large stone cup patiently waiting next to the pots and started testing what each pot contained.

The first one was just plain water, the next was a fruit juice that reminded me of mango, another tomato and the last one was a semi-sweet wine.

I resisted the temptation of the last one and stuck with a full ‘glass’ of the water first, then the mango-like juice.

“I trust the meal was to your satisfaction?”

My hand put down the cup and I turned around to see Bendu sitting down in a chair at the table that hadn’t been there before.

“It certainly was, thank you,” I said as I sat down opposite him. “Though I’m also tempted to curse you. The only way you could get details like that was by poking around in here,” I tapped my skull.

“Your mind is your own. Whilst you are tethered to a physical mortal shell, you are in the Force and trained. You would know if it had happened.”

I didn’t know why he was being so forthcoming or even nice. A Celestial was to me, as I was to a mouse. Yet it seemed that this Celestial was being kind to the mouse.

“So if you didn’t get it from my mind, then the details of the food… actually came from me?”

“Close,” Bendu nodded serenely. “In terms you could understand, I simply created a malleable matter with no defined purpose from the Force, but which would gain purpose as soon as you came close to it. It reacted to your thoughts of hunger and became that which you ate.”

“Simply,” I giggled with a bit of incredulity.

“So you dealt with my son, what do you think?”

I stared at him incredulously for a moment, given the open ended, probing nature of that question. “Well, where to begin? He’s definitely quite close to letting the dark side cloud his judgment completely. It’s one thing to be a Sith, to use the Dark and power it affords, but when it starts corroding common sense and rationality, then you are no more than an instinctual animal, lusting after desires and satisfaction. Serving only yourself at all times, even at the expense of others and those closest to you.”

He nodded, “I sense it as well. My bringing you here has only hastened the process. He considers himself imprisoned here and reacts accordingly.”

“Is he not imprisoned by you?”

“All of us entered Mortis with the understanding that we could not remain in the normal universe.”

“Yet it seems he’s changed his mind on that.”

“It is a quandary that I would ask your aid in solving.”

I shook my head incredulously, “What could I possibly achieve that you couldn’t in thousands of years of time?”

“His mind and attention will be focused on you and your master. Simply keep it. That will in turn allow me and Daughter to move while he is distracted.”

I felt intrigued despite myself, what was going on in that ancient mind? “Is it even possible for him to be deceived in the Force Nexus? Isn’t he too powerful?”

“Normally, the answer would be no. The presence of the Chosen One, however, changes things.”

“Oh, so now you are satisfied that Anakin is the Chosen One?”

“Daughter spent a reasonable amount of time with your master and she is satisfied. It would’ve been prudent to test my way, but as you’ve pointed out, it is not wise.”

“So have you come up with a plan for dealing with Mother?”

“That will require much more time. The nature of her prison means that we can’t reach her, not without either dying to the black holes or getting stuck in the prison ourselves. We must be ready for her when she emerges.”

“I’m curious, given the history of the galaxy, surely there’s been enough conflict in the past for her to emerge, especially three thousand years ago.”

“Our vigil on the Maw has ensured that she doesn’t even try,” Father pointed out. “She knows that we will be waiting and we have defeated her in the past, that is how she was imprisoned in the first place. If your ‘prophecy’ of our death comes true it will mean that when this newest conflict causes a shift in the Force, that she will emerge with no opposition into the galaxy. Even if we circumvent it, I’m also reaching a point when I will pass into the Force. It means that the future battle will be much more uncertain with only Son and Daughter to carry the fight. The Mother will perceive this. We will talk more about this later though, your two companions are nearing the monastery.”

He stood and gestured for me to follow.

We returned to the large central platform in front of the huge statues of the favored alternate forms of the Son and Daughter.

He knelt into his customary pose of meditation.

“Do you wish to join me?” he gestured just a few feet to his left side.

Where before there had been nothing, now there was a flat cushion. Not that I really needed it with the armor, but I suppose it was the thought that counted.

“Some meditation couldn’t hurt at this point, I suppose.”

I sat down into my own crossed legs style, with my open palms facing upward on my knees.

Bendu was also clearly using this as a way to demonstrate that I wasn’t being kept against my will, since the last time Anakin had seen me, I had been kidnapped.

I began my meditation and as was typical lately, out of sheer habit at this point, I began practicing Kina Ha’s pointers on Force Stealth.

Maybe it was because I was in a Force Nexus where the light itself that reached my eyes and was reflected by my body was actually a product of the Force… but wait a second?!

In that moment I felt my entire form shimmer, my will successfully latched onto light itself!

It took every ounce of self control to keep my emotional equilibrium and not screw up my control at that point. Had I been in any other moment or place, I would want to jump, dance and shout with victory!

Even as it happened though I could immediately tell my control was sloppy and imperfect.

Anyone looking at me would see my random parts of my body blink in and out of invisibility.

Bendu laying his hand on my shoulder disrupted my meditation and focus.

I was immediately annoyed, a scathing sarcastic ‘thank you’ on my lips, until I saw him holding out his large left hand in front of me.

Even as I watched, that hand seemed to smoothly shimmer out of visibility then return.

“Observe,” he instructed.

I did, focusing every esoteric sense I had in the Force on his hand.

It shimmered in and out of view. His control of light was absolutely perfect, as expected of a Celestial and his mastery, but it was not the only piece to the puzzle. Thus far I had always shaped my attempts at light mastery into a general ovoid shape held as tightly as possible around my body. What Bendu was showing to me here was his control held like a second skin around his hand.

The sheer complexity of that boggled my mind. A person did not often think of all the contours and angles that every square centimeter of their body possessed. Yet it seemed that would have to be taken into account, since of course, reflected light hit every angle and contour.

I nodded in thanks and contented myself that I had taken the first most difficult step on the journey, now it was just a matter of continuing along it.

The distant doors of the monastery began grinding apart.

The moment Anakin and Obi-Wan entered the threshold, I got a clear sense of them and it confirmed for me that this entire place definitely had its own shielding or shrouding effect in play.

Daughter or Ashla led the way and I could immediately tell Anakin was very annoyed with her serene, unhurried pace.

‘Ahsoka! Are you okay?’ Anakin’s thoughts were worried, tinged with understandable anger.

‘Fine, Skyguy. Only got some nasty bruising from Bogan’s little kidnap attempt. Already healed up.’

‘Bogan? Is that his actual name?’

‘More like my own name for him, based on ancient history and the huge symbols above me. This Son, Daughter, Father stuff is just… no. Too much potential confusion.”

When they finally stopped in front of us, Ashla took the lead.

“May I present, Father.”

“Welcome to my home, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Bendu opened his eyes. “Your young apprentice has named me Bendu. We have little use for proper naming as you know it here, but in the interest of custom and communication, it is something we will use.”

“Oh, then that means I am to be Ashla then, Father?” she asked.

Bendu just nodded, then gestured a few meters in front of him, where two cushions popped into existence. “Please, have a seat, there is much to discuss.”

The two Jedi looked at each other for a moment before Obi-Wan nodded and they sat down. “Thank you.”

Ashla walked over to stand at Bendu’s right side.

“As you’ve no doubt surmised by now, it was indeed I who sent out the old Jedi distress call,” he began. “Done with the purpose of luring you, Skywalker, to this place so I could determine whether you are indeed the Chosen One of the prophecy uttered by a Jedi Mystic. Naturally, you would not come alone, so your apprentice would be with you and the Jedi Council would also send another more senior Jedi. Enough for my plan to work.”

“What plan?” Anakin asked with suspicion.

“A simple test, but one used even by the ancient Jedi Order, though it’s lost to the mists of time even from your Archives. You weren’t even called ‘Jedi’ then. It involved a deception of the supplicant, to strip away and reach the core of the person. To bring their true self to the surface and judge whether they were worthy. This would involve imperiling either one of more of their loved ones or close friends. The supplicant is given a choice on which of them would ‘survive’ and the other’s life sacrificed.”

“Barbaric,” Obi-Wan scoffed.

“Yes, but effective and conditions were created to make the supplicant believe wholeheartedly that the decision has to be made.”

“Given that you’re talking about it, are we to assume you have reconsidered this approach?”

“Correct, Ashla has been observing and she is satisfied.”

“I’m the Chosen One, hooray,” Anakin said with dripping sarcasm. “Now get to the point.”

“Before I can do that, another relevant to the discussion must be here,” Bendu gestured to his left. For a moment, I thought he was pointing at me, but when the Force twisted a meter to my left I realized who must be coming.

Bogan burst into existence with a rather sinister flame effect that had to be a showy move on his part. He was in his native humanoid male form this time, thank goodness. Him showing up in my Dark Side form would be utterly embarrassing.

This form was tall, utterly white skin, with two blood red tattoos drawing sharp lines over his eyes that extended up and over his bald head and down his cheeks.. His eyes were also glowing red and he had a lean, muscular build, encased in dark and red exotic leathers. His presence in the Force was just awful, a miasma of darkness concentrated around him and radiating outward like a caustic gas.

He gave me a leering smirk immediately, which I returned with a contemptuous roll of my eyes.

Obi-Wan and Anakin’s reaction was naturally more dramatic.

Both blurred with movement and had lit lightsabers raised in defense and the Force was positively holding its figurative breath as power was gathered by both Jedi. Anakin especially felt like he was a massive dam holding back a sea.

Bogan smirked lazily at the two standing Jedi and just gave a negligent gesture.

The blue lightsabers just simply retreated into their hilts with a feat of overwhelming control that I immediately made note of.

“Enough,” Bendu said and with that single word of command, a note was struck through the Force that practically flatlined the gathering power around us. As if a giant had slammed his hammer down to flatten a molten piece of steel. “No harm will befall you from him here.”

“Forgive me if I’m rather skeptical of that,” Obi-Wan said, clipping his lightsaber hilt back to his belt.

Anakin almost looked ready to physically assault Bogan, but settled for simply glaring at the Celestial.

Everyone now took a seat, with Ashla also seating herself on a cushion. Whilst Bogan promptly created a dark stone throne for himself, that somewhat unsettlingly reminded me of another jagged throne. He lounged back in it, already looking bored.

“To get to the true reason for our presence here and now, I must explain a bit of history,” Bendu said, giving a mild glare to Bogan. “If you’ve not already guessed, we are of the race you would call Celestials, though it would be more accurate to say we are the Celestials.”

“Sorry, I’m not following the distinction,” Anakin said, after removing the astonishment from his face.

“Once our race was much like your own, composed of many individuals. Our power, knowledge and technology grew to the point where we strode across the stars and engaged in feats of what you would call celestial engineering. To us it was merely, to use an apt metaphor, rearranging the furniture to better suit our needs or desires.”

“Quite,” Obi-Wan said mildly, looking rather stunned at the sheer idea.

“It quickly became apparent after quite a few disasters, that having so many of us in the galaxy was becoming quite stifling and much like you, we also had those who would let their darker sides reign. Therefore many decided to leave, but those who stayed were still too numerous. We therefore devised a solution - the coalescence. All individuals would become One, a singular Celestial who could reside in this galaxy and look over the young races.”

“I wouldn’t even pretend to understand the probable mechanics behind that,” Obi-Wan shook his head incredulously. “But ethically, that implies a monstrous loss of personality and mind, how could such a gestalt be stable?”

“It can’t, in our hubris we had made the most fundamental mistake and error, that we could deny the very foundations of existence. The One was very unstable, and almost took us to our deaths, a mass collective suicide, but in that infinitesimal moment, time was stopped and a solution devised. The solution you see sitting before you. The One became Three. Myself, who become balance. Ashla, who took on our knowledge and aspects of selflessness, compassion, serenity, love. Bogan, our power, desires, ego, vanity and so on.

“We Three emerged into the galaxy and for a time, things were stable. I kept both of them in check. Unfortunately, that was not to last. Whilst I was distracted with the many affairs of the galaxy, maintaining the many works my kind had left behind and so many of the young races depended on. Both Ashla and Bogan disobeyed me. She bathed in the Pool of Knowledge, whilst Bogan drank from the Font of Power, as their natures dictated. Both locations are powerful Force Nexi, much like this place but infinitely stronger and represent fundamental sources in the Force itself. With their newfound power they immediately attacked each other and it was left to me to keep them in check, a task that continues to this day.”

“We retreated at first to another world, into an exile of sorts. The job of keeping the peace became full time, so I enlisted the aid of a species you might know of, the Kiliks.”

“They’re very obscure,” Obi-Wan nodded, stroking his beard in thought. “An insectoid race active during the Old Republic, but they were driven to extinction on Alderaan after they became entangled in that old war against the Sith.”

“At that point they were a mere shadow of what they were,” Bendu continued. “They were once capable of great works and with little guidance from me were able to keep many Celestial structures running and in good repair. Many species in the galaxy owe their continued existence to the Kiliks. So this new equilibrium was kept for quite a while, until one day a stranger came to our world. A human woman, who was fair, beautiful and pure of heart, she offered her services selflessly and became of great aid to me.”

Bendu, for the slightest of moments, looked pained and his eyes brimmed with regret. “She became the Servant to our family and eventually even captured my own heart.”

“Wow, Celestial and a woman, that something like that can even happen is unreal. Aren’t we a bit beneath you?” Anakin asked with amazed eyes.

“You forget, we are those who chose to stay in the galaxy. We didn’t consider the young beneath us or unworthy. We remembered well what it was like to be young. So one day I found myself confessing my love for the Servant and from that point, she became the Mother. She has another true name, but it must never be spoken, especially in any place strong with the Force.

“A new, better equilibrium was established. She proved she could keep the peace between Ashla and Bogan. Therefore, I could at last leave our home for short periods to give greater aid to the Kiliks. I was so happy that I was utterly blinded to the creeping danger of the one thing that had attracted me to Mother in the first place - her humanity. She was still mortal and her fear of death due to old age overrode her judgment. She didn’t want her death to disturb the equilibrium, so like my children she journeyed to the Pool of Knowledge and Font of Power - bathing and drinking from both respectively.

“As a result, she regained her youth, became immortal and gained great power and knowledge, but this process completely corrupted her. She lost everything that made her who she was. Now she was the self-titled, Beloved Queen of the Stars, but to the rest of the galaxy, she became the Bringer of Chaos.”

“We Three had to leave our planet to fight her and stop her idealistic rampage across the stars. Many races were utterly extinguished because of her, either because she simply didn’t like the way they looked or because they were too violent or pacifist. There was very little rhyme or reason to her actions. We eventually cornered her, leading her into a trap of sorts, constructed by the Kiliks over fifty years. This trap, you call today, the Maw.”

Anakin and Obi-Wan had a slight blue screen moment before recovering.

“Excuse me, sorry, just to clarify, The Maw black hole cluster was actually built?” Anakin asked, his voice even slightly cracking.

“From a certain point of view, yes,” Bendu chuckled. “The black holes existed naturally, we just simply moved them into position.”

“Simply he says,” Anakin muttered incredulously.

“With Mother now imprisoned and beholding the damage she had caused, it became clear to me that our very presence in the galaxy was a destabilizing factor. Even if I perfectly kept Ashla and Bogan in balance, the other races were resentful of the damage caused. It was clear that we needed to withdraw from easy reach, so we left the normal universe, coming to reside here. As my daughter said, our role is now to guard the power of the Force and watch over the galaxy for any sign that the Mother may emerge once again,” Bendu glanced at me briefly. “Such a sign has been received.”

Bogan, who had been lazily lounging all through his father’s explanation abruptly sat up, his eyes flashing red with power, “What?!”

“You heard me, son.”

Ashla for her part, simply bowed her head and closed her eyes, her face twisting with an internal pain.

“What sign has been given?” demanded Bogan, his voice eerily distorting with anger and rage.

Bendu looked at me pointedly with kind eyes.

Anakin groaned, “Snips, please tell me you’re mistaken.”

Obi-Wan frowned and looked between me and Anakin with confusion, yet I also saw a hint of suspicion, as if his clever mind was quickly piecing things together.

I shook my head, “Sorry, master. As of the current trajectory of events, the probability line indicates that the Mother will emerge from her prison within the next 45 standard years, 60 years at the most extreme, depending on certain events we could influence to postpone it.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said in a flat tone. “Your padawan is seemingly gifted with Prophecy and Foresight and you didn’t think to inform the Council?”

“He kept it a secret on my behalf, Master Kenobi and because I showed him what a monumental mistake it would be to do otherwise,” I said with steel in my voice, staring at Obi-Wan with hard eyes. “The Grandmaster also knows and has not shared it with the Council. Can you imagine why?”

Obi-Wan stared at me thoughtfully, clearly sensing and judging whether I was telling the truth. “Either there is a traitor on the Council that has managed to elude all our sight or… Are you suggesting the Dark Lord can even spy on the most confidential meetings?”

“The entire bloody Temple is an open book to Darth Sidious,” I couldn’t help the snappish tone in my voice. “A Sith with a gift of Foresight different to my own but no less potent. If he should ever truly perceive me, I will be dead and you can say goodbye to the Jedi Order.” I took a breath, letting my anger pass through me, understanding its path. “I’m sorry, master. The frustration of it all can sometimes be hard to bear. Sidious is an entire topic all on his own, but he is a factor in this. This war he instigated is but the beginning of an entire era of conflict, even as the Separatist War would end, it will lead to another within less than twenty years. The eventual effect this will have on the Force is what causes the Mother to escape.”

Bendu waved a hand above his head and an image somehow appeared, set inside a swirling tunnel of energy.

Inside it showed an impressive view of the Maw cluster.

Seven black holes in an intricate orbital dance, their sheer gravitational pull swallowing light, dust, gas, everything. There was a subtle interaction and the intersecting matter streams and discs around each hole made a beautiful pattern of orange on the outer edges, which turned to white closer to the event horizon, then in some cases even turning blue at the very inner edge.

“Tell me, Master Kenobi, have you ever been to the Maw?” Bendu asked.

“No.”

“Have you heard or read accounts of any Jedi who were there?”

“Yes, but it was during my own days as a padawan, let me think. Oh, something about how the Force is channeled through the Maw was odd. I can’t remember more, it was just incidental reading.”

“The best analogy I can use in your language is to imagine Mother’s prison as standing under a waterfall. The Force is pulled in and precisely amplified and accelerated through the Maw cluster, which intersects in space-time with the planet on which she is trapped.”

“There’s a planet in that mess?” Anakin asked.

“Yes, within a zone where the gravitational pulls are in equilibrium. It was the old home where we once lived. The Force itself is that which keeps her down, however, should something happen to the Force, such as sustained prolonged conflict or perhaps even someone in ignorance damages the stations you call Centerpoint and Sinkhole, she would escape.”

“You built Centerpoint and Sinkhole?” Obi-Wan asked with fascination in his eyes.

“The Kiliks did, under my guidance, yes.”

Both stations were some of the largest artificial constructs known to exist in the galaxy. They were larger than the future Death Stars, with a length of 350 kilometers by 100 in width, consisting of a large central sphere, through which a colossal cylindrical structure was threaded.

Sinkhole Station orbited the Maw Cluster and was also in some way responsible for the black holes keeping their perfect dance going around Abeloth’s prison.

Centerpoint on the other hand was a similar station in size, but whose function had been to build the Maw Cluster itself, by literally towing the black holes through hyperspace with tractor beams of stupendous power and sophistication.

My brain boggled just thinking about it. The Celestials truly deserved their place on the old Kardashev scale as a high Type 3 civilization; those who left were probably nearing Type 4 by now.

“As fascinating as this is, I think we can get to the point of calling me here,” Anakin’s shoulders slumped somewhat. “Though I can guess. You think I have some part to play fighting against the Mother as the Chosen One.”

Bogan visibly sneered at Anakin with contempt.

“Perhaps,” Bendu combed his long beard. “The issue is, I know I will pass into the Force before Mother arrives. Without me, these two will run out of control as they follow their respective natures. I had initially interpreted the Prophecy of the Chosen One to mean that you would take my place in maintaining balance. Your apprentice was quick to point out the error I had made.”

Anakin gave Bendu an unimpressed look. “Not happening.”

“Clearly then a new solution must be found. It is something I will be working on for many years of your time. The first idea I’ve had is to offer you training and knowledge, so that you will be ready to meet the threat when the time comes and if necessary even subdue my children.”

“That you feel you can speak about ‘subduing’ them in their presence is disturbing,” Anakin folded his arms.

“It is the truth. I would have them see you and understand that even if I’m gone, that you are ready and out there should they decide to become… unruly in the galaxy.”

“How will I even know-”

Bendu held up a hand to interrupt him, “The particulars will be revealed in due time. I will give you a means by which I can contact you directly and securely. In the same way, you can contact me. That is how you will know where and when to come. The Chrelythiumn system is not the only place you can enter Mortis.”

‘Snips, what do you think?’

‘Training from Bendu? I’d jump at the chance, Master. Fighting against the being that we’re calling Mother, there’s no better teacher in the galaxy you can ask for. Not to mention the help it would be in the fight against Sidious.’

“How much time do I have to think about it?” Anakin asked.

“As much as you need,” Bendu waved his hand and the image of the Maw disappeared. “Here on Mortis, time relative to the universe is a nebulous thing. From our perspective, we could spend months here and yet when you leave, no time will have passed to the rest of the galaxy.”

‘Skyguy, that alone is an extremely valuable chance. Think of how much we could get done, with regards to training that won’t be interrupted by yet another crisis in the war.’

“Very well, is there any place with some privacy here?”

“Your apprentice can show you.”

“At last,” Bogan grumbled, his throne vanished and he too vanished a moment later in a flash of flame.

“Come daughter, we have much to discuss.”

“Yes, father.”

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Anakin and I were both seated in the quarters I had spent the night in, whilst Obi-Wan leaned against the window sill listening to us and staring out at the fantastic landscape of Mortis, as we explained most of what he needed to know.

We were essentially inducting him into Fulcrum at this point, it was unavoidable given what he now knew. It also couldn’t happen in a more secure location, so I decided to jump in it with both feet.

Seeing the normally unflappable Jedi Master go from his usual self to a grim, understandably angry man, with an invisible weight on his shoulders was not a pleasant sight.

“How could we have been so blind?” he asked distantly. “The Shroud may explain the mechanics of it, but it is still inexcusable, Ahsoka. The Jedi Council is responsible for thousands of Jedi across the galaxy, our work goes on to impact billions, the destiny of entire star systems and individuals. Now we have been reduced… to mere puppets being led on strings by Sidious! Who sits in the Chancellorship as the Senate heaps more and more ‘emergency powers’ onto him!”

Yeah, Obi-Wan was not taking it well at all. He clearly felt partially responsible.

“Dooku even told me the truth straight to my face and I didn’t believe him.”

“When was this?” Anakin asked with astonishment.

“When I was held captive in the arena on Geonosis,” Obi-Wan answered. “Of course, he didn’t say a thing about Palpatine and Darth Sidious being one and the same. Merely that the entire Senate had fallen under the influence of Sidious. I retorted that it was impossible. He in turn pointed out that the Dark Side had clouded our vision. Even saying that the Viceroy of the Trade Federation had come to him for help against the Dark Lord.”

“All of which are perfectly true, master. Yet as you can see context is everything,” I said with a sigh.

“Quite, I only saw Dooku as the traitor, a fallen Jedi who was trying to manipulate me. I thought I had resisted the attempt, only I walked right into the trap stupidly. The rest of the Order, the Council in all its wisdom, was led into this war.”

“Being deceived is terrible, master. Especially in this manner, but you are in quite illustrious company, along with the majority of the Republic at this point.”

Obi-Wan wearily rubbed his own face, took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes.

We watched as the man showed us one of the reasons why he had reached the rank of master.

Anger at himself, Palpatine, even his fellow Jedi, soon washed off him like water. Resentment that we had not come to him earlier, banished. In this way, he soon returned to what he considered his own ‘normal’.

“Am I then also to assume that you two have started to do something about this with Yoda?”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Yes, Master Kenobi, we have. Let me get something from the pantry and we can talk over a very long brunch. Good food will be just the thing to sooth our spirits at this point.”

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By the time evening fell again on Mortis for a third time, Anakin left to speak to Bendu about his decision.

My armor’s clock registered thirteen hours of standard time since Anakin and Obi-Wan had arrived at the monastery, making it immediately apparent that the day-night cycle of Mortis was not governed by any orbital mechanics but rather the competing forces and emotional state of Ashla and Bogan.

Obi-Wan was as ‘on-board’ with Fulcrum as I was comfortable with. I had exercised a judicious amount of compartmentalization though. As prominent as he was and it was brilliant to have an actual serving Council member, I had to assume that the possibility was there that he could be captured and tortured for information, therefore he could only do a limited amount of damage.

He was in a much needed meditation to further regain equilibrium, facing the window of the small apartment.

I raised my arm and regarded it as it rippled and vanished imperfectly under my control of the reflected light.

This is going to take years, I bemoaned inwardly. The amount of focus and concentration needed was staggering. It was a fancy party trick at best at the moment.

My control slipped and floundered. I looked up at the darkness and lightning raging outside through the window.

“Is the monastery even an actual impediment to you?”

“Of course not,” Bogan replied, stepping into view from directly behind me and leaned casually against the table. “Father is the problem.”

“And since his attention is currently on Anakin, you can ‘sneak in’ as it were.”

He just tilted his head in acknowledgement with a sinister smile. “It’s actually quite amazing, meeting someone like you, I’ve never met a mortal with such a level of self-awareness.”

“Appealing to my vanity now, are we?” I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “No, Bogan, say what you want to say, do what you aim to do.”

“Since you extended such a kind invitation,” he smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder.

The world around me vanished and washed into a mass of flame that didn’t burn, then just as quickly vanished again.

I was now in a large room in what was probably Bogan’s home on Mortis. Everything was dark, sinister, edgy, lots of sharp angles, triangular motifs, with everything lit by red light that came from the walls. It had an open balcony at one end that looked out over the dark landscape, prominent in that view, was a river of lava flowing from a nearby volcano.

He had deposited me seated in front of another table, but this one was made of dark stone, with odd petrified wood snaking off the edges and curling around the supports.

“Nice place,” I said sarcastically with a mild smile.

Bogan walked away from me and began muttering furiously to himself. “What is he playing at? That was too easy. He should’ve intervened but he didn’t.”

“Do you really have to teleport with the flame effect?” I asked curiously.

“You know the answer already,” Bogan waved negligently at me, as if shooing away my question like an annoying fly.

“So, how are you going to try to turn me to the Dark Side?” I folded my arms and stared at him. I was somewhat amazed at how calm I was. The Dark Side of the Force was so thick around me that I might as well have been standing in metaphysical jello. Yes, the fear was definitely there… fear of Bogan, of the Dark Side, but it was tempered, understood and passed through me with no issues. “Essence infection is an old Sith classic.”

He waved that off too, “No, I suspect that won’t work on you. We’d just be wasting time.”

“Why even try, Bogan? What are you hoping to accomplish in the long run with this?” He didn’t answer and just kept ambling around in deep thought. It didn’t take me long to come to a reasonable conclusion, it was something actually that I suspected would happen as a consequence. “Do you seriously think you can actually win against Mother alone?”

“I am much stronger than I was before and with you properly by my side, so helpfully showing me every move she will make in advance… Why wait forty years? Let’s get it over with now! Think of how many precious lives it will save.”

“There’s the small matter of getting through the black holes, which I don’t have to tell you will require you to do something which will cause Bendu to slap you down.”

It meant the destruction of Centerpoint Station, which was currently in a distant orbit of the Corellian star. The station was colonized by hundreds of thousands and it was a major tourist attraction of the system.

“He’ll be so busy with his precious Chosen One, by the time he realizes, it will be too late.”

“You’re deluding yourself. Celestial you may be, but even you must obey the laws of space and time to a degree. It will take fourteen days to reach Centerpoint if you use the Emissary. There’s also the matter of getting out of Mortis.”

“Bah, I can alter that primitive ship of yours to do the journey in half the time and you will be the key to leaving this infernal prison, my dear Ahsoka,” he turned to me with a hungry stare.

I couldn’t help but shudder at the affectionate tone as he said my name.

He gestured with his right hand and a pillar of dark red flames burst forth from the floor, Dark Ahsoka in all her skimpy glory walked out of it.

She sashayed with a sexy hip rolling strut that would put any supermodel to shame and hung off Bogan’s shoulder, before practically smooching his neck and ear. Her right hand came forward to caress his chest and abdomen.

I struggled to cast off the revulsion I felt. Technically, Bogan was… I didn’t even want to think about it.

There was loving and being happy with yourself, but this was its dark twin taken to the ugly extreme.

Bogan even joined in on the fun, his right hand coming around to caress Dark Ahsoka’s butt.

The show thankfully didn’t last long as he gently pushed her off, taking the opportunity to fondle in other places. “Now’s not the time for that, dear. You have a job to do.”

My dark twin pouted playfully before facing me with a steadily growing smile and eager dark yellow eyes. She wasn’t wearing the mask this time and the Dark Side corruption spread from her eyes in angry blue veins.

“Ah, this strategy,” I said, realizing where this was going. It was simple and Bogan clearly thought it would work.

I mentally dubbed her Bohsoka as she steadily strutted towards me, her hands going to her hips and unclipping two lightsabers - their hilts were only superficially like my own, but seemed to be made of aurodium and crested decoratively with akul teeth.

The blades ignited with a screaming, violent snap-hiss and the typical red blades of a Sith burst forth. I could even sense that the kyber crystals in those hilts had been corrupted in a monstrous manner.

She came ever closer, now twirling her blades in both hands elaborately.

What a show off.

She blurred with speed, both blades swinging straight for my neck as I remained seated.

Both blades stopped dead as I dropped my trap of a metric fuckton of telekinesis going in the other direction. I followed it up by punching through her defenses, my Control wrapping around the hilts and her arms.

I stood and made a slight pushing gesture as we fought a war of control.

She was powerful, as expected. She was technically an aspect of Bogan after all, but he was pulling on my Dark Side to empower this mirror.

I gave a slight push and Bohsoka stumbled backward a few meters as I won the tug of war.

The Darksaber was lit in my right hand the next moment and my green blades leapt from my hips to hover at my side.

I blurred with speed and she was forced to stop both Darksaber and my right blade with only her own left blade, twirling them and shifting into the riposte. My left blade she had to block low and to her right.

She surprised me though by abandoning the final part of the riposte.

The Force surged around us, gathered, then unleashed into a Force Push that she blasted onto me.

I marveled a bit at the sheer speed, even as I was blasted backward with such strength that that room around me turned into a blur.

She had even offset the Force Push in such a way with the angle, that it threw me straight out of the room, out the balcony, the castle and now I was streaking out over the lava field like a frakking meteor.

‘I’ll definitely remember that trick, if I survive this,’ I thought absently.

I poured my control and strength against the momentum, pulling liberally from the ambient Force energy to aid me.

With barely seconds before I slammed into the river of lava, I managed to throw off her control and ignite my boot jets.

I flipped and twisted my body, reorienting my feet against the pull of gravity, throwing minor Force Pushes radiating outward to further counter the forces acting on me.

“Shiiiit!”

My fall stopped a mere meter from the frothing super hot surface.

I shot myself upward and came to a hover at twenty meters. My armor could handle the radiant temp easily but I didn’t want to make it easier for my dark half to blast me into the lava.

A had barely a few moments to get my bearings before I had to swing my blades and release a Force Push to counter her follow up attacks.

Bohsoka was blasted backward into the air with speed but it wasn’t long before she countered and regained control as well, coming to a hover of her own, because of course she also had squeezed in flight jets into those high heeled boots.

“Figures,” I shook my head.

“Did you seriously think I would give up flight, just to look ravishingly hot?” she asked with a huge mad grin, as she lazily hovered closer, again idly twirling her red blades.

“Given what the Dark Side does to intelligence and common sense, it’s a fair assumption to make.”

“If I were amateur hour, sure,” she said.

Both of us blurred at the same time, boot jets and the Force working in tandem to power our movements.

Our blades slammed together and screamed as the competing energies fought.

This time she caught my right blade with sheer telekinetic strength, whilst parrying the Darksaber I brought down towards her chest with both hands and riposting the remaining blade.

She seemed to have the answer in fighting against three blades with only two of her own.

Our blades became a flurry of blows as we fought in mid-air, testing and probing each other’s defenses.

I went high for her face, she batted it away.

I attacked high and low, she blocked, riposted and threw a Force Push.

In turn she battered me with slashes and stabs high and low. I had to control the range, hovering backwards slightly, fending her strikes off and pushing forwards into range again.

She tried to unleash an off center Force Push from above to shoot me into the lava flow below.

I defended at first with a Force Push upward, but shaped it like a blade, whilst blurring right with speed to get out of the way.

The lava below was smashed with the combined effect of the competing telekinesis, looking like a titan’s fist had come down.

The sound, concussion and lava splash radiated outward.

I flew with max speed away from the lava river and only stopped when ashen black earth was below me.

She shot at me like a missile, her blades held back, building up momentum for what had to be the mother of all Falling Avalanche attacks.

I hovered there, pretending to have been caught completely flatfooted and surprised.

At the last possible moment, I blurred above her angle of attack, using only a simple Force jump straight off the air below my feet.

In the instant I was above her head, my hands came down and I unleashed a Push with as much strength as I could quickly gather and release.

I only heard her faint scream briefly as she plowed into the earth below at a speed that had to be nearly 200 kph.

The black earth erupted upward in a geyser of ash as if an artillery shell had hit it.

I turned and engaged my boot jets to get altitude and distance, waiting for the result.

It was devilishly hard to sense anything in the miasma of the ambient Force energy and darkness. She was either dead, wounded or totally unharmed and I had to be ready. I knew how to survive such an event, so she would too. The only question was whether she had reacted in time.

There was no wind and so it took a long few seconds for me to make out anything.

Bohsoka stood up from the lopsided crater and I was gratified to note that she was looking slightly worse for wear from that hit. I had only a theory on how doing any damage would register on her being.

She was born from Bogan, we were in the middle of his domain.

By all rights she should either be tanking anything I could do or just regenerate.

There were clearly metaphysics at play here that I had no clue about.

She was gritting her teeth with a face twisted in pain. Under her skimpy brassiere a large bloody gash leaked blood near her lower left rib cage.

My mind flashed back to Luke Skywalker walking into a cave on Dagobah, facing off his own Dark Mirror, thinking at first it was Darth Vader, then after a brief battle, chopping its head off, only to reveal that his own face was under that helmet.

The problem was, that was in the normal universe, in a minor Dark Side nexus that leaked out into the galaxy. This was Mortis. We were in a real sense, in the Force itself.

I moved and twisted my feet, adjusting my orientation bringing myself into an adapted Ataru stance for sustained aerial combat with a lightsaber. If I got out of this, perhaps I could write a manual for it.

I looked down on her and made a come hither gesture.

“You gonna stay down there all day?”

Her face twisted into a sneer.

She didn’t even bend her knees or some fancy bullshit.

Her boot jets and the Force practically exploded from underneath her, propelling her into the air towards me with a mad scream.

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A/N: It's on, was so fun to write this last scene.  Have a great weekend all!

The Force Wills - Chapter 69

I sat back and folded my arms awkwardly, given I had my full Aegis armor on, and regarded the vista of space that the cockpit of the Emissary currently afforded.

It wasn’t much considering that the majority of the galaxy was currently ‘behind’ the ship, with our current orientation in the Chrelythiumn system. Only a relative sliver was in view now, but the system itself was of more importance.

Given that we were in Wild Space even beyond what was technically considered the Outer Rim, but still barely within the galactic rim and that it actually had a name, meant that at some point it had at least served a purpose to someone. Enough that it had lost its catalog number and entered the common star charts. The reason for that change was currently listed as ‘pending investigation’ in the Jedi Archives. That was shorthand for ‘unknown’, but such a word was anathema to the archivists. It was at least on the list for the Jedi explorers to eventually investigate.

On the other hand, there wasn’t much to investigate. Astrophysics generally dictated that a star system this far from the galactic core, would have a very hard time to form planets naturally. The local star had gobbled up the precious few heavy elements that would be out here, leaving even less for planets to form. The best this particular system had managed was three dwarf planets that were dancing around in what would’ve been the ‘habitable zone’. The problem was, given the very low gravity, they could never hold onto any atmospheres they generated, even if they were lucky enough to have the elemental chemistry mix to generate one.

The only thing that could possibly interest anyone about the system, was its use for extragalactic astronomy without the galaxy itself getting in the way. The Old Republic had at some point probably built a research outpost on one of those tiny planets. That outpost itself would be of interest to Jedi explorers.

The computer chimed that it had finished transferring the sensor data to the chit. I reached over and pulled it out, slotted it into the vambrace port of my armor. I made another copy of the data on a second chit, took that and got out of the pilot’s chair, then headed to my own small bunk bed to deposit it there.

On my way back, I made a circuit of the ship to return to the cockpit and passed Anakin and Obi-Wan, who were both suiting themselves up. Anakin was getting into his own Aegis, whilst Obi-Wan was checking the seals on his vac helmet and undersuit, which he always wore beneath his customary Jedi ‘half-armor’.

As much as you could rely on the Force for many life saving abilities, sudden exposure to hard vacuum without conventional protections was a major danger for any Jedi, no matter how powerful they were. Theoretically, you could use the Force to keep a large bubble of air around you as you were blown out into space, if you kept your wits about you.

All you achieved though, was to switch out a relatively quick death, for slow poisoning by CO2.

“Any change?” Anakin asked.

“None, we’re still on course, should arrive in ten minutes. We’re still completely alone out here.”

As a precaution, I had prevailed on them that we should drop out of hyper on the edges of the system, cloak, then cruise in under stealth to get a good lay of the land before popping up exactly where the distress call coordinates led.

“Unless they have cloaks as well.”

“Then it’s just a matter of who blinks first,” Obi-Wan commented.

Now ready, all of us headed into the cockpit. Anakin took the pilot seat automatically. I gave him a pointed look as I sat down in the co-pilot seat. Obi-Wan took the engineering officer seat on the back right and his mouth twitched, eyes twinkling with amusement.

“What?” Anakin asked, nonplussed.

“Do I really have to answer that, Skyguy?”

He raised an eyebrow at me inquisitively before rolling his eyes in realization, “No, I won’t let us get shot down.”

“Good, I’ll hold you to that.”

“Beginning deceleration,” he announced primly.

It didn’t take long.

One moment there was nothing in front of us but empty space for millions of kilometers. The next, as if it had simply blinked into existence, as if it had always been there, was a large ‘space station’.

It was two square pyramids mounted on each other’s base, made of what could either be an exotic metal or stone, somehow blending the appearance of both. It was five kilometers from its highest tip to the lowest.

The ‘hull’ of the station had clear segmentation but even that didn’t really give a clue to explain how perfectly integrated the pieces were. It gave the impression that segments were there for show, to hide the fact that it was actually just one solid shape of matter. It also had a coloration of dark red light that seemed to radiate outward from it, but had no clear point of origin.

Anakin slammed the engines into the redline, pushing our deceleration so we wouldn’t slam into the thing.

“Scans are showing visible light emission, but other than that it might as well not exist in the rest of the EM spectrum,” I reported.

The Emissary came to a relative stop, holding just a kilometer from the station.

“No airlock or docking port either, unless it’s on the opposite side,” Obi-Wan scratched his beard in thought. “Try a communication link, Ahsoka.”

I tried radio, hyperspatial and laser based comm signals. “Nothing, no receiver registering.”

“Shall I flash the ship nav lights at it?” Anakin asked with a lopsided, sarcastic grin.

Then absolutely everything was drowned out by white light.

Something so bright should’ve hurt to look at, but all my other physical senses told me I was still sitting in the co-pilot’s chair.

What my senses in the Force was telling me was incredible, but before I could feel more than a second of it, that vanished as the overwhelming light faded and everything returned to normal.

“Is everyone else seeing this?” Anakin asked with incredulousness.

“No, Anakin, you can relax, we’re all seeing the seemingly impossible,” Obi-Wan said wryly.

Beyond the cockpit transparisteel, the void of space had been replaced by a very exotic planetary environment and we had already landed on it.

“Skyguy, you didn’t deploy the landing struts, did you?”

“No,” he looked over at his control panels. The MSD firmly indicated the struts were now down and locked, contacting hard earth.

It was daylight outside and just from the color alone I knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore. The Chrelythiumn star had been a main sequence A-type, which gave it a blue hue. This was the typical K type of yellow orange.

The ship had landed in a lush jungle like environment, with weirdly shaped green trees and soft grass. Further in the distance, high mountain walls surrounded us, creating a small valley of sorts.

“Unknown organic signatures,” I reported before reaching out with the Force, only to flinch and close it off. It was like someone was shining a figurative torch into my eyes. The Force was absolutely prevalent around us in a concentration that made me feel like I was practically swimming in it. “Ouch, okay, careful using the Force, masters.”

Both men winced instantly the moment I said it.

“Yes, that is quite problematic,” Obi-Wan shook his head to clear it. “It’ll take some getting used to.”

“Atmosphere at least reads as standard, no hazardous bioforms in the immediate vicinity at least, so we’re not getting sick.”

“We’ve lost navigational lock,” Anakin reported next. “Got no nav buoy or any recognizable stars up there.”

“So we don’t even know where we are in the galaxy or even if we’re still in our own galaxy anymore,” Obi-Wan said incredulously.

“Given the mass of what’s outside and the distance our sensors can reach, we’re not inside that weird station, unless it’s dimensionally transcendental,” I said absently. “Though more likely we were simply teleported.”

“My dear Ahsoka, let’s not jump to hasty conclusions,” Obi-Wan said.

I shrugged and let it go, seeing and experiencing would be believing in this place.

“Emissary is also behaving strangely, all ship systems are functional yet the engines won’t even begin the startup sequence. We’re not going anywhere,” Anakin demonstrated and we watched as the engine diagnostics showed green across the board, until it just inexplicably stopped and died.

“Then we must seek answers outside,” I stood and left the cockpit, heading for the ship’s exit ramp.

I did a final check of armor and my weapons as the pressure equalized and the ramp descended.

Anakin and Obi-Wan were quick to follow in my wake as we emerged from the Emissary and onto the surface of what had to be Mortis.

I had been to many worlds at this point, but I could say with confidence that the day cycle of Mortis held an ethereal beauty that really took my breath away. The idea that an artist could capture this was ridiculous, even using cameras would not capture the feeling you got through the Force and sheer vitality of the place that streamed into you with each breath.

Not only had we landed in a valley, but in the far distance the mountains that stretched across the horizon were shaped in natural splendor, yet there were also teardrop shaped mountains that simply hovered in the air as if that was a normal thing here.

The blue sky above was streaked with slowly moving, pillowy white clouds and somehow the stars beyond managed to reach my eyes as well.

“We agree it is currently day, right?” I asked.

“Of course, Snips, why-”

“Then where is the local star?”

Both men frowned and looked around up into the sky, searching but could find no clear source for the sunlight that was illuminating everything around us.

“Yes, that is… quite strange.” Obi-Wan said, the master of understatement. He pulled out a compact binoc and began scanning the horizon.

“What? One what?” Anakin flinched with surprise. “Did you hear that?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Obi-wan shrugged, squinting into the binocs.

“It’s more than likely the local standing behind us, talking to you with telepathy, Skyguy,” I sighed.

Her teleport was flawless and whilst she could hide herself in the background of all the Force energy around us, she still had to manifest herself as matter at the end of the day. That meant my own echosense had instantly picked up on her arrival. She could’ve easily fooled that sense as well, especially because I knew how to as well. That she chose not to, meant that it was either as simple as her method of getting our attention or there was something deeper going on.

We whirled around and regarded a tall, ethereal woman.

Her skin shone with an inner radiance of white, a harshly beautiful face; high cheekbones, soft elegant chin and a long neck. Her eyes were the color of glowing jade as she regarded us with a kind, yet detached look. Her hair trailed behind her as a huge curly curtain of green that nearly reached her ankles.

The dress she wore was an elegant beige number that had puffy shoulders, a plunging neckline that stopped just short of where the belly button would be on a human and glowed with a similar radiance.

“Hello,” Obi-Wan said with a friendly smile.

“Who are you?” Anakin asked with an appraising eye, relaxing his arms but I could tell he was readying himself to respond to any threat, despite the pleasing, fair look of our interlocutor.

“I am Daughter,” she replied simply, folding her hands flat together over her chest in a curious gesture of greeting. Her gaze drilled into Anakin, “Are you the One?”

He impressively kept any form of reaction from his features. Even as I was sure he was inwardly feeling very alarmed that anyone could so randomly bring up a prophecy that had haunted him for his entire life and in a sense defined the very direction his life had thus far taken. “You’ll need to be more specific.”

Daughter raised an imperious eyebrow at him, “You play coy, when you know the answer. You hesitate in speaking the truth.” She scoffed and her gaze landed on me. She froze, her eyes widening in the slightest moment of surprise before her face regained her kind, imperious mask. “Come, all of you, Father will judge and decide.”

“Wait, wait,” Obi-wan shook his head. “Did you bring us here?”

“Only he can help you,” Daughter continued, ignoring Obi-Wan flatly. “I will take you to him. There isn’t much time. We must have shelter by nightfall.”

She elegantly turned around and began slowly walking away towards the edge of the valley we had been deposited in.

That we were even walking at all was just another affectation and test. It was well within her power to just swoop us away with a teleport or change her form into something that could carry us.

“And I thought the planet was strange,” Anakin muttered.

“In the absence of other options, I think we’ll follow her. She clearly knows the place. Let’s stay together shall we,” Obi-Wan grinned.

We hurried forward with a jog to catch up and was soon reduced to a mild walk as Daughter set a rather unhurried pace, despite her warnings.

The path led us around a nearby rockface, which quickly took us out of the small valley.

This became a footpath cut directly out of the side of a tall mountain that was overgrown with all manner of fantastic plants from the base all the way to this distant summit above us.

For all the visual beauty my eyes were showing me and what I was sensing through the Force, there was one thing that the place lacked that was becoming glaringly more obvious, especially to me.

To togruta, beauty was far more than just what you saw, it was also about what you heard.

And I heard none of the typical sounds that should’ve come from animals in such a seemingly vibrant environment. There wasn’t even a whisper of wind at the moment.

Then as we walked in Daughter’s wake, we saw the plants around us change, from the vital bloom of a green summer, to the oranges, reds and yellows heralding autumn.

“Excuse me, just how long will it take to reach this Father?” Anakin asked, as he watched the environment change.

“Not long, all will be well if we don’t delay.” Daughter’s voice resonated in the Force itself, but I sensed it wasn’t trying to dominate or even persuade. It was like she was rather subtly making sure that we actually ‘listened’ to her or could even comprehend her.

“And what exactly are you?” Obi-Wan asked bluntly.

Daughter didn’t even hesitate in her stride or her answer. “We are the ones who guard the Power. We are the middle, the beginning and the end.”

I supposed that attitude was par for the course when you were technically a direct descendant of the Celestials. It was very difficult to discern much but I was steadily working through the flash blinding of my senses in this place. Daughter’s proximity didn’t help but I could already say that the mere words, ‘physical embodiment of the Light’ didn’t even come close to describing her. This is what resulted from a Celestial bathing in the Pool of Knowledge, a Force Nexus that was somewhere in the Maw Cluster on the far eastern reaches of the galaxy.

“That explains everything,” Anakin muttered to us sarcastically.

The path turned a corner, rounding another mountain.

This was nuts. This path had absolutely no logical reason to be here. It was solely willed into existence by the Daughter and by extension, her Father.

As I thought that, I felt the rapid disturbance of something huge screaming through the air straight towards me from behind.

The next thing I knew, I felt the breath explode from my lungs as a huge talon knocked me into the ground and pinned me down in its grasp.

I put everything I had on hand into the Force, just to keep my bones from breaking under the shock and weight.

“Ahsoka!”

I blearily opened my eyes, not even remembering when I had closed them.

A great gust of air, a flap of mighty wings and I was airborne.

Anakin, Obi-Wan and the Daughter rapidly shrunk as I was carried away into the sky in the talons of the bloody Son, in his 4 meter tall gargoyle-like form.

They didn’t have much time to worry about me though, as a massive piece of the neighboring mountain was literally flung at them under the telekinetic power of the Son.

Oh for fuck’s sake! I thought, glaring at the Celestial above me. Now what?

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Anakin gritted his teeth with the strain as he held his hands up to the sky.

Every lesson from Obi-Wan, Yoda and Ahsoka flowed through his head as he warred with himself as much as he fought against the titanic weight that threatened to crush them all.

It was but moments.

There had been no room for doubt or thought.

All he knew now was every contour of the giant piece of mountain that was in his telekinetic grasp.

He gathered not only strength from himself but from everywhere around him and moved the mass.

Redirecting its momentum so that it crashed against the mountain behind them, instead of turning them all into Naboo cake.

The sheer crunch and volume of stone against stone was enough to set his ears ringing and perversely made him glad Ahsoka wasn’t there to endure the loud noise. The rock slide continued for another few minutes as the local gravity took hold and further turned the huge chunk of mountain into smaller and smaller pieces as it fell.

He took a few moments to call on the Force, to regain equilibrium and strength, before he stepped up to Daughter’s form and had the novel experience of looking up at someone for once. “What was that?! Where would it have taken Ahsoka?!” he demanded.

Daughter’s eyes briefly flashed with surprise before she shook her head, “That was my brother. You are all in grave danger.”

“How can that be your brother?” he asked incredulously, pointedly waving his hand at her body.

“We can take different forms. My appearance that you see now is just a way for me to properly interact with you.”

“Where is my apprentice?”

“My brother will have taken her to his domain. The only way to get her back now is to enlist the aid of Father.”

Anakin shook his head, “That will take too long, take us to your brother’s domain.”

“You don’t understand,” Daughter shook her head sadly. “What you call ‘distance’ in Mortis is not easily defined. It’s in flux and always in motion, much like time is. You could spend months on the journey and still not make any appreciable gains in actually getting there, even if I told you exactly where it was.”

“That makes no sense,” Anakin objected.

“I am Daughter, I cannot lie. It’s not in my nature.”

“Mortis, is that the name of this place?” Obi-Wan asked curiously.

“Yes, you are within a Force Nexus and no longer in the material plane of existence.”

“So why is your father the only one who can help? Why can’t you?” Anakin asked suspiciously.

“Father maintains the balance between me and my brother. I can never raise a hand against my brother.”

“He damn near killed us and you still won’t even try to stop him?”

“It is not my place. Come, we are wasting time.”

She turned around and began walking.

Anakin and Obi-Wan glanced at each other and seeing no other choice, followed.

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I blinked into consciousness and was immediately assaulted with the pain of strained muscles in my shoulders and chest. In front of my eyes was a hard stone floor and I felt my limbs sprawled rather awkwardly on it.

It was pointless to feign unconsciousness in these circumstances given who I was dealing with, so I pulled my legs and arms together into a more natural position, rolling over onto my right side. Thankfully the armor was keeping me nice and comfy against the cool stone floor.

My echosense revealed only empty space within fifteen meters all around me and my eyes focused to show a rather incredible sight.

I was within a massive structure that was so large that it’s sole inhabitant didn’t even bother lighting all of it. What lighting there was around me was a cool blue and integrated into the floor and walls, radiating from it in rather beautiful patterns that could’ve been a language.

I was on a massive platform and twenty meters in front of me two colossal statues gazed forward. On the left, a winged beaked creature with glowing, bright blue eyes, on the right, a representation of the thing that had essentially kidnapped me, bat-like, with baleful red eyes that glared with malice.

Between the statues, a tall elegant T-shaped structure, from its arms hung two spheres with large stylized symbols on them that had to represent Ashla on the left sphere and Bogan on the right - Light and Dark, in balance.

On a raised dais in front of this, seated in a meditation pose was a very tall old ‘man’; long white beard, gray skin, wearing a long dark gray robe. Such was his height, that even seated he would tower over me if I was standing. His face’s structure gave the impression of age, with sharp lines, slightly sagging pointed noise and angled brows. What totally ruined his impression of humanity though, was the eyes; utterly black with glowing blue irises.

Those eyes stared at me with blatant, naked curiosity, with no mask or veil and that by itself was frightening. I did not want the attention of this being, yet I had it.

Get it over with, Ahsoka, I grumbled to myself.

I got to my feet and stretched out my arms and back muscles with a wince, redirecting the Force to heal the bruising in the process.

“I apologize for my son’s rough treatment,” said Father, his multifaceted deep voice echoing throughout the massive chamber, the Force, and in my montrals. “Gentleness is not exactly in his nature.”

“He should be the one apologizing, not you,” I retorted as I walked forward, coming to a stop within arm’s length of him and looking into his eyes.

“That’ll be a remarkable thing to witness, I confess,” he allowed a wan smile to adorn his face.

“He is capable of it, he would not be a ‘being’ in this universe otherwise,” I was saying it more for his benefit, demonstrating what I knew. “Ask your questions, Bendu. Let us not waste time.”

He looked amused, “Interesting name you give me.”

“It’s your role, your being, I can think of no more fitting name. Even the Other who claims the name would not mind, I believe.”

He nodded his head, “We haven’t spoken for many revolutions of this galaxy, ever since we emerged and coalesced into the forms you see now. Not that there is anything that needs to be said. We know, we watch, we guard. Yet in you, young one, I see a course that has shifted. A new yet old spirit. A mortal being awoken, who almost gazes at the universe as we do.”

“Yet you saw fit to throw a shroud over my eyes,” I pointed out.

“Yes, I believed it would interfere with my purpose for drawing your master here. Also when I perceived you, it was clear that my plan would need amending and to explore the possibilities your presence represents.”

“Let’s cut to the heart of this matter,” I said. My will called out the Force and it responded eagerly in a tsunami of power. As a mere affectation, I gestured with my hand behind me and the distant, massive doors of this structure slammed closed. “Now that we have some actual privacy from your son, I’ll speak more freely.”

Father quirked an eyebrow at my display, “It’s best to let his curiosity be sated. He hates not knowing things.”

“You indulge him too much,” I snapped with annoyance. “Love is not an excuse to forgive him for everything.”

His amused countenance faded. “You would lecture me?”

“Yes, you are evolved Celestials, who wield the Force with great power and ability, you’ve seen eons pass, but in all that time… how much have you truly lived? You’ve observed countless events and lives, you hold vast knowledge, but it’s no more impactful to you than watching endless holovids. You’re stuck here in this nexus of the Force, acting as balance against your children with their competing natures and keeping them imprisoned.”

Father closed his eyes and folded his huge hands behind his back. “You would not want them released into the galaxy.”

“Of course not, that would be a disaster.”

“That is why your master is here. I must determine if he is the One.”

I nodded, “The Chosen One, who will bring balance.”

He stared at me for a long moment, “You know much, young one. Though given what you are, I suppose that is to be expected.”

I felt a weariness that settled on my shoulders as I came to a realization looking at the Father. “You’re going to test him and no matter my words you will do it anyway. Never once thinking of the toll your test will take on him. The price you will pay.”

“This is a matter of survival, young one. Celestials are not immortal, despite what legends may claim. Even though we can live for eons as you count time, eventually we will succumb to the rigors of entropy and return our life to the Force. That time is soon upon me. With me gone, there is nothing to keep my children here. They will emerge from the Nexus into a galaxy totally unprepared to deal with their power and whims.

“My daughter will drown the people in utter peace, they will stagnate and in so doing die utterly in spirit, even as their bodies shamble onward. My son will revel in fostering more and more conflict, as he himself will take life at his every selfish whim.”

I gestured with open hand to him, “You’re forgetting a vital element in your plan. An element that will dash your hopes and it will eventually cost you your entire family.”

His face began slightly frowning. “Then speak of it. What can you think of, young one, that I haven’t already factored in?”

I couldn’t help it and just laughed. For all that they were so powerful and had moved the very structure of the galaxy with their power in the past, they were not omnipotent or all knowing. Father saw in broad strokes and didn’t see the true element on which his plan hinged.

“Oh, I’m so tempted to keep it to myself. Just to see the shoe on the other foot for once, but I can’t do it. It would be petty and selfish, considering I have to think of the other problem your family poses to the galaxy. I’m speaking about Mother.”

Mother, a name that was supposed to evoke love, warmth, good food and home. Yet here it spoke of a being, a former mortal woman who had cared for the Son and Daughter, kept peace between them, until her fear of age and death caused her to drink from the Font of Power and bathe in the Pool of Knowledge. It spoke of a terrible being whose true name I did not even want to think about, especially in this place.

Father just stared at me and began to idly comb his long beard with his fingers. “She is contained and will remain so until she also succumbs to time as I will.”

“Nope,” I shook my head. “The Clone Wars is just the opening of an era of prolonged conflict in the galaxy. It may simmer down at times, but the conflict began by the Banite Sith will keep burning. It will cause ripples in the Force that will just build and build on each other until eventually a tipping point is reached. The Current of the Force will be altered entirely and in that moment, the Mother will have the strength to break free from her prison.”

“For what you say to occur, will require so much conflict and death…” he trailed off staring into the distance.

“Yes and that is why I really don’t want any of you to die, but your little test of my master is the first step in a probability line that will cause it. You might have blinded my Prescience here, but I don’t need it to use my mind and l understand causality in a way few do.”

Father sighed, closed his eyes and his lips thinned in pain. “Speak, young one. I don’t care for my own life, but I do care for my children.”

“My master is not just the Chosen One, Bendu. He is at his most basic, a human. What goes with being human? Friendship, comradery, family, community and love. You think that him being the Chosen One, means he’d just abandon those things to come here to Mortis and play eternal mediator between Daughter and Son?” I couldn’t help but scoff. “Don’t be ridiculous. The entire Jedi Order, the Republic, is at war for survival. His own sense of honor, duty and loyalty means he could never give that up, which is what you’re asking of him.

“Your test will destroy any possible alliance with him. He will refuse and rightly tell you to frak off. Your respect of free will means that you allow him to make that decision and you don’t even think of using force to keep us here. However, your son will take the opportunity to try and leave. He will use me and Anakin to achieve it. You naturally see the attempt and he won’t even entertain the notion of you stopping him. He attacks you with his growing strength in the dark side, leaving you near-death and Daughter is left to try to heal you. This leaves us three to try to stop your son. Can you imagine how that would go?”

Father stood at this point, towering up to a height of nearly two and half meters. “Daughter would heal me, but our combined strength wouldn’t be enough to stop my son. I would tell you to find the one thing capable of truly killing us.”

“Your final contingency plan works, but when the dust settles on this battle, all three of you are dead. You sacrifice yourself essentially to make sure that Anakin makes it out of Mortis, so that he can fulfill his destiny.”

He stared at me with intense eyes, “You speak truth as you know it. I know myself and see that in your words. How strange it is. To actually experience this feeling of novelty at something unexpected happening. You bring dread to this old being, young one. If we all die, then at least the universe will be spared, we will return to the Force, but what you say of the Mother…”

He gestured to the side for me to join him and began walking slowly in deference to my own relatively short steps. We were headed off the main central platform of this space and onto a walkway leading off to the side towards a large door.

“It is now night outside, I need time to think and meditate on your words. Through this door and on the first left you will find a space where you can spend the night, attend to the needs of your form. I shall have Daughter bring your master and his companion here when it is safe for them to travel. Hopefully, by then I will have some alternative.”

He gestured at the door and it grinded open to reveal a long hallway with the odd door settled into both sides.

“You realize the Son will probably try something. I reserve the right to kick his ass, if such a thing is possible.”

Father chuckled, “That is unlikely. At best you will make enough of a disturbance to alert me. No, he will be subtle. Be wise when he tests you, young one.”

“I will.”

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Anakin stared into the meager flames of the fire they had managed to light. With fuel scrounged together from the dead wood of the plants, outside the cave they were now taking shelter in.

The cave itself was filled with distinct clumps of crystal growths that almost looked like kyber, but it was quickly apparent that while these were strong conduits for the Force, everything around them was strong with the Force. He could take a handful of the sand he was sitting on and it would be just as powerful as the best kyber you could harvest from Ilum.

Obi-Wan was on the other side of the fire, seated with the serene pose of meditation.

“I should’ve seen it coming,” he grumbled to himself, tightening his fists as anger rose. He knew he was being unfair to himself. Even Ahsoka had been surprised by that creature. “I should’ve grabbed that thing.” An inner voice that sounded suspiciously like Ahsoka quickly pointed out that then they would’ve all been dead under thousands of tons of rock.

“You’ve always been so hard on yourself, even as a boy.”

He launched himself with the Force and was on his feet, facing the achingly familiar voice. He only just stopped his lightsaber from activating and running her through.

Shmi Skywalker stood there, her skin looking smooth, tanned and vital. She was wearing her typical understated beige dress, perfect for the desert environment of Tatooine. Her brown hair pulled back and tied up exactly as he remembered from his youth. He could even suddenly smell the desert sand and the spices of their old home kitchen.

His heart ached and he fought to let go of his anger. “What is this? My mother is dead.”

“Nothing really ever dies, my son,” she said softly, looking at him lovingly. “Does the Jedi not say that there is no death, there is the Force?”

He narrowed his eyes with suspicion, “Yes, they do say that. How do you know?”

“Do you think I remained ignorant of the Jedi after Cliegg Lars freed me and I married him?” she retorted with a mild rebuke. “You’re my only son. I wanted to know everything about the people and the organization which pulled you away from me.”

“Makes sense, I suppose,” Anakin stepped backward and lowered the hilt of his lightsaber.

“I have come only now because this place is what the Jedi would call a Force Nexus, in some respects you are completely in the Force. It is much easier for me to reach you now and I have retained my identity for this moment to tell you something.”

“Then tell me,” he allowed.

“Everything you have done, everything you have learned, has led you here.”

“For what?”

She smiled gently, “Your destiny, your purpose, the reason you were born from me, when there was no father.”

Anakin shook his head, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Shmi shrugged, “Well, yes, you’re right, but only from a conventional point of view. Your father is actually the Force itself. So in a sense, you’ve actually come home.”

“Really? This place does not feel like home at all,” he retorted with skepticism.

“Your mind is still fettered and chained to a mortal existence, until you let go of it, this place will remain alien and hostile. When you truly embrace your destiny, you can remake it as you please. Nothing will be out of your reach.”

“That sounds interesting,” Anakin folded his arms and looked intrigued. “So will I then be able to bring you back to life?”

“You still blame yourself for my death,” she shook her head sadly. “Answer me this truly. Would you return me to life only to make me endure more hardship? To live in a galaxy at war? I am at peace in the Force.”

Anakin closed his eyes and felt the question cut straight to the heart. “No.”

“Your Jedi training has served you well so far, Ani. But you must sense that you are more than that. Look at how easily you stopped half a mountain from falling on you and your companions. That will be a minor feat in comparison to what you could achieve.”

He folded his hands together and smiled, “That was pretty amazing.”

“Yes, and if you release your pain the path will open to more. Tell me, so I can release you from it.”

He grimaced and turned away, only for Shmi to step closer and lightly caress his face, “I was too late to save you. I was so busy with the galaxy, training, the Jedi and if I just… for one moment, just grabbed a ship and flew out to Tatooine even a month earlier or a year… you would still be alive. I’d face the consequences to the Jedi, but it would’ve been worth it. Even if they expelled me!”

“Your guilt does not define you, my son.”

He shook his head, “Then to make it even worse. After you died, I slaughtered so many to avenge your death. I absolutely failed as a Jedi even before I was a knight.”

“You are holding onto this, when you don’t need to.”

“I’m afraid of losing my wife,” Anakin said, closing his eyes, taking a step back from Shmi. “Losing her to any number of dangers and people who would happily see her dead. I’m afraid of losing my apprentice, not just to this war, but to Sidious and the effort it would take to defeat him. That she would lose herself in the process.”

He opened his eyes, only to glare directly into the eyes of Shmi. “My deepest fear though, is succumbing to you, giving up the fight and letting you take over.”

Anakin shoved his hand forward and the Force exploded forward gripping Shmi from all sides before sending her slamming into the cave wall with such strength that it shattered under the blow.

“You think I would not recognize you for what you truly are?”

Shmi merely smirked even as she was subjected to forces that would’ve pulverized and crushed normal matter. Her eyes turned red briefly and she laughed in a hollow echoing tone.

Anakin blinked once and the shape of his mother was replaced with a much smaller version of the creature that had abducted Ahsoka, then in the next moment it snarled at him before simply vanishing.

“Anakin?”

Obi-Wan’s voice was a welcome relief and he turned around to see that his former master had literally meditated through the entire confrontation with the creature and was looking around in astonishment at the damage.

“You didn’t sense or feel a thing?”

Obi-Wan just shook his head, “No, I… had a conversation with-” The Jedi Master clearly looked reluctant to continue.

“Let me guess, someone who died?”

“Yes, it was Master Qui-Gon.”

“Join the club, I had a chat with my mother, who wasn’t my mother but instead that Dark Side creature that took Ahsoka.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, “This was definitely Master Qui-Gon. Not something pretending to be him. This place, the entire ‘planet’, if it even can be called that. Is a place where those Jedi who have passed into the Force can return, if they so choose. Especially to those with whom they shared a strong bond in life.”

“That’s crazy and amazing, if true,” Anakin looked around, before concentrating and pushing along the bond with Ahsoka. “Damn.”

“Still can’t reach her?”

“Yes, bond’s still there. She’s alive but nothing will get through,” he said with frustration and sat down in front of the fire. He stared out of the cave mouth and saw beyond only the darkness that was occasionally lit by the flash of the electrical storm outside.

“As long as that remains, then there is hope. If she fell to the Dark Side you would know.”

“I don’t know, Obi-Wan. The normal rules don’t seem to apply here as much as they should. I bet even you could throw a mountain if you had to.”

“Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.”

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Sleeping in the middle of a thunderstorm was something I normally didn’t have a problem with.

Yet for some reason trying to fall asleep in the Force Nexus of Mortis was an issue for me. I kept hovering in that damnable zone just before REM sleep, not truly asleep, yet not awake, only half-conscious and partially aware of my surroundings.

I had kept my armor on and had M8 try to take readings from our surroundings. The poor droid intelligence was absolutely baffled, as while there was visible light around us, nothing else was there. It was patently impossible and extremely uncomfortable. Even when I tried to explain, it was clear that she had no context even if she could comprehend it intellectually. Eventually I put her on a standby mode, just to make things easier until we could leave Mortis.

I grumbled in annoyance and rolled over onto my right side, pulling the very thin blanket along with me in a way that nearly tangled me up. There was only a single thin pillow in the small quarters that Bendu had given to me and my neck was not thanking me for it.

The appearance of the Son was almost a welcome relief at this point, just so I could pull my own consciousness properly into a full waking state, but kept my eyes closed.

“Why are you even trying? You have nothing to say to me that I would want to hear.”

“Oh you’ll hear and listen to me, Ahsoka,” I heard my own voice, but it had a strange note to it, as if it was coming through a speaker or voice modulator.

I cracked open an eye and glanced up at the Son.

My heart couldn’t help but cringe at seeing the form he had adopted.

I was a full adult, with lekku that hung down my chest and back. Montrals that were high up and pointed. A full bosom that I both would love to have and despaired of getting because of the headache it would be managing them. A strong body, a full six pack even.

That was as far as my approval went.

Void black armored thigh highs and boots, armored vambraces and gauntlets. Then a black bikini/thong hybrid, with a front panel that just barely covered me properly down there. Supporting my breasts was a tight black brassiere that nevertheless left a generous cleavage exposed. Covering my face was something that almost reminded me of Darth Malgus’ mask, but which also had a covering for the eyes.

As much as this form titillated, I could also feel the sheer emptiness of it, a caricature and void of life. I could barely make out the eyes behind that mask, but I knew it would be apathetic, yet filled with a cunning malign intelligence.

“Urgh,” I grimaced. “If worse comes to worse, I can already see future Imperial officers not knowing whether to cream in their pants or shit in them.”

Dark Ahsoka laughed hollowly, “Always using humor as a shield in the face of the ugly truth, the inevitable.”

I sighed and sat up partially, supporting my head on my hand and elbow, wedged onto the mattress and regarded the Son with a bored look. “Nothing is inevitable.”

The Son tutted, “Aw, if only you truly believed that in your heart. You can put up as many masks as you want, I know the truth, Ahsoka. I know your fears.”

“And now here comes the part where you’ll offer to make it all go away, offer me the power to make Palpatine dead so thoroughly, even his essence will be destroyed, unable to possess another cloned body.”

“Would that be so bad, Ahsoka?”

“What would be the price though? Fall into the Dark Side and specifically your clutches so thoroughly, that it will give you a free ticket out of this Nexus.”

He stepped forward, walking towards the nearby window. Good grief, he even walked alluringly, each step causing that seemingly perfect body to move and jiggle in all the right ways. Here he was using my own appreciation for beauty against me. Made worse because he was using a future-me as a canvas.

He stretched and breathed in deeply. “Ah, all that delicious, wonderful conflict. It won’t be long now, until I’m strong enough to kill Father. When that happens one of the last places you’ll want to be is opposing me. At my side though, the universe will be ours for the taking. Just think of it. Every enemy of the Republic,” he snapped his fingers, “poof, gone. The hutts and all their criminal elements, a thing of the past. The Sith, bah, calling these Banites anything related to the Sith or the Dark Side is an insult-”

“Let me stop you right there, Bogan. There’s the not small matter of the Jedi, who’ll try to stop your massacre through the galaxy.”

“The Jedi, the Light,” he sneered with disgust. “They’ll be an ant that we can crush. If they stand in the way of this bright utopia that I see you hold so dear in your heart, why would you ever want to defend them or be a part of them?”

“That utopia you see is not something to be achieved with the blood of trillions. That you’re calling it that tells me that even you are failing to comprehend it. Not surprising, given how steeped you are in the Dark Side. It’s the only lens you see the universe through now and the only context you have. How’s this for a probability line? You and me, charging through the galaxy, eliminating the ‘bad guys’, only succeeding in uniting the galaxy to fight against us in the name of survival. Even if they fail and we defeat them again and again. All that happens is we end up exterminating the galaxy of life. Oh and remind me, what is the Force again?”

He turned around and sneered at me, anger rising from his form like smoke.

“No answer to that little fundamental problem, is there? Every time you kill, in small lots or large, you’re diminishing your power. A beast overhunting his prey.”

“And what of the lives you’ve taken, young one?”

“I’ve killed,” I shrugged. “I will kill in the future. I’ll even arrange for others to do the deed, knowing it will lead to death. I’ve made peace with that fact, given the enemy I’m facing. It’s not the only tool I have, unlike you.”

“You think you have all the answers, how arrogant,” he laughed with my adult voice in a very creepy manner. “I look forward to the day when all your cleverness fails you and then I will be there, waiting.”

“I too look forward to that day, only to prove to myself that I will continue the good fight and not let my heart be dominated by darkness.” I laid back down on the bed and closed my eyes. “Leave, we’ll no doubt be seeing each other later.”

I heard a brief animalistic screech, a flap of wings and he disappeared from my senses.

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A/N: First Mortis chapter done, hope you enjoyed.  Have a great weekend and stay awesome folks.

The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 19

The day that followed was occupied with the busy work of the preparations for not only getting Shauna integrated onto Earth Bet, but also Henry. The former being way easier than the latter.

With her backstory and knowledge based out of an alternate Earth’s California, specifically Los Angeles being her home city, it was just a matter of getting her up to speed on the minor and major differences that existed. Specifically, a Leviathan attack in 2004, which had cost the city a good portion of its coastal infrastructure, which had since been rebuilt.

Then put her down in front of a PC to study the nitty gritty details of the Internet and Earth Bet in general to acclimatize.

Getting an actual identity organized and in the various systems and databases across the country was actually the easiest part. Coil was well practiced in arranging for this, as he had done so numerous times for some of the FTF members. He had the backdoor contacts, access and knew just whose palms to grease to make it happen and within less than a week, Shauna would have an ID, social security, DMV records, the whole package. Her finance history would also be recreated with the aid of the Numberman.

As leery as I was about anything to do with Cauldron, Coil assured me that the Numberman never truly asked the ‘why’ of doing anything. As far as the Numberman was concerned, he had a client that paid for a service and he would carry that out to the best of his ability.

On the other hand, this would also flag Shauna as someone of ‘interest’ to Coil, which Cauldron would make note of and keep in their own records. They would take one look at her new public records and know that she was not recruited by Coil as a mercenary. They would see her profession as a therapist and probably assume that she had been brought into Coil’s organization for that purpose.

It was rather out of left field for Coil to suddenly invest and worry so much about his minion’s mental health. So Cauldron would probably conclude that Shauna was a new parahuman that he had recruited for his organization, with the therapist angle being a nice public facing cover to further aid the perception of Fortress LLC just being another boring construction management company that used subcontractors to do the heavy lifting.

The public facing side of the company was naturally in very good financial health and was forecasted by Coil to grow by nearly five percent just this year. Dad and Henry had no real objections to Thomas Calvert’s decisions there, though I was sure dad would try to shift some work towards the laborers and workers associated with the DWU at some point.

Henry’s integration on the other hand, was proving to be the larger challenge.

Given what we now knew about Cauldron and their potential relation to the Case 53 phenomenon, it was for sure that the shadowy group would immediately know that Henry was not ‘one of theirs’, if he claimed it. There was also the matter of Henry’s plinth, which had now been excavated out of Lord’s Park and was being studied at a PRT facility near Boston.

It wouldn’t take long for the PRT to deduce that Henry and the plinth were two pieces of the same puzzle.

Yes, we probably could also wholesale create a new identity for him as well. How to connect that to being transformed into a historical statue that was almost invulnerable to conventional damage was the problem.

He would be interviewed, his story had to make sense and be somewhat plausible.

Most of my day was spent at Fortress, brainstorming ideas with Henry on what could be said that would eventually achieve the goal of Henry’s continued freedom at large and simply being considered another parahuman with rather extraordinary dimensions and weight.

The current working story we had was that Henry was the ‘victim’ of a parahuman Tinker. His own long term memories had suffered under the process of the transformation. The question of why any Tinker would create a near invincible civil war statue with his ‘future tech’ was not something I had a satisfactory answer for yet. ‘He was a civil war nut and because he could,’ just didn’t satisfy me.

It was a welcome relief to eventually leave the underground base after bashing my head against the problem. Then head out into the open skies for a carefree session of flying to clear my brain, before starting another night in the Red Light district.

The city had by now returned to a modicum of normality, but anyone who passed close to the Train Quarantine Zone or TQZ, as it was now popularly called, would be reminded that there was a small chunk of the city that was steadily being walled off.

What the Simurgh could’ve done with that thing did not bear thinking about.

I firmly banished depressing thoughts as I landed at what I was beginning to consider my typical haunt during an evening as a working girl - the streets of Sleepy Hollow and Hopkins Roads.

A quick scan up and down the streets showed most of the usuals at their spots and in some cases already in negotiations with clients.

I smirked as I saw that Del’s spot on the street had a fancy, very new looking, white BMW parked there. The car’s body was ever so slightly bouncing on its suspension in a very characteristic manner.

Still invisible I briefly poked my head through the rear passenger window.

She was riding a guy on the collapsed passenger seat and had been stripped down to the point where she was only wearing her bra, which was left pulled down around her waist. His hands were cupped on her breasts and he was deftly playing with them whilst occasionally giving her nipples a tweak. Her own hands and arms were braced against the driver’s seat and ceiling, to support her efforts as she gyrated and pumped her hips.

“Oh fuck,” she moaned, her body shuddering through an orgasm as she rode to a peak, leaving the guy’s dick just barely sheathed in her.

For a few seconds, she gasped through the waves of pleasure before regaining her wits and lowering herself to resume her ride.

I retreated at this point and reappeared leaning against the nearby street light, with entwined legs and a flared hip, patiently waiting for Del to finish.

That happened four minutes later when I sensed the guy having his orgasm.

Then another few minutes for redressing herself in the cramped confines of the car, she got her payment and emerged into the street, looking admirably composed despite going through a rather long session.

“Oh hey… T- Escort,” she caught herself fumbling the name and laughed before giving me a hug.

“Hey Del,” I returned the hug quickly.

The client poked his head out the window and groaned, “Aw, damn,” and thumped his steering wheel in disappointment.

Del turned around smirking, “Bad luck, honey. If you had more cash maybe you could’ve also afforded Escort for a round 2, after you recovered.”

The guy, who was dressed to the nines and clearly well off, shrugged, “That’ll just teach me to carry a bit more cash next time. Uh, Escort? Mind if I ask for an autograph?”

I frowned a bit as my brain raced to conclude that this guy had actually come out looking for… me.

“Uh, nope.”

He reached out into his glove box, then handed over a pen and a rolled up, A4 sized piece of expensive looking paper.

I nearly dropped it in surprise when I unrolled it.

It was printed in color on one side and there I was - a moment taken from what had to be during my initial fight with Uber and Leet during their GTA cosplay. It was rather dramatic, a moment just before I clocked Uber with ‘15 and the angle showed me that the Snitch’s imaging capabilities were even more OP that I imagined.

I knew it had never been that low, yet it had interpolated a shot that close anyway.

I didn’t know whether to slap him or show him an extra good time, when we next met.

It showed off just the edge of my left breast and a tantalizing hint of my pussy, yet framed me in a way that came off as classy with a hint of lewd. The lighting also showed off my straining muscles nicely and the entire shot was tilted so that my legs acted as a guide to the focal point of the shot.

I shook off my thoughts and signed what was in effect a small poster of me and handed it back.

“Ah, thanks a mill, Escort.” He took back his stuff and admired the poster briefly. “When will you be here next?” He asked with a hopeful look, clearly wanting my services. He was a generally average guy in looks; brown hair, brown eyes, a dumpy chin and had a build that clearly meant office work. A highly paid exec in a company probably. His aura was purely human and showed no red flags to me.

“Unfortunately, I can’t give you an answer. Cape work has left my schedule in flux,” I answered shortly. I didn’t want to give anyone an easy time to organize a retaliatory attack on me.

His eyes widened, “Ah, of course. Silly of me. Do you take scheduled appointments for clients?”

I thought for a moment, “Yes, but that’s naturally more expensive.”

He nodded, “Of course it is, here.” He held out a business card. I accepted it and gave it a quick glance. Aiden Brooks, Law Office of Brooks, Goldberg & Swanson.  Ah, full partner in a law firm.

“When you have a free evening and you wanna make a tidy sum, give me a call.”

I nodded and tucked the card into my phone pouch on ‘15, “Very well.”

“Awesome, thanks, see you hopefully soon, keep up the good work.” He started the car, which came to life with a deep, throaty growl of power. He gave a jaunty, confident salute before driving away with quite a bit of acceleration but kept at the speed limit.

“Aiden is on the level, a good customer,” Del gave a wan smile in the direction of the shrinking car.

“I’ll definitely try to pitch you as well, Del,” I said, seeing her mild sadness with a dash of jealousy.

“Thanks, but don’t go out of your way. You’re hot stuff at the moment and with your heroic cape side-hustle, that’s only going to grow. Every client I’ve seen has asked about you in some manner in the last few days.”

Fame.

It wasn’t something that I had ever really considered as I was growing up, wishing to be a hero. I only wanted to do the right thing, fight for good, all the heroic stuff. Mom and dad had raised me humble and not a raging egotist. Now that my rep was clearly starting to build, the effects plain to see, I wasn’t sure how to feel.

All I knew at the moment, it just made me uncomfortable and I just wanted to be left alone to do my thing.

“Pardon me,” I said, fishing out my mobile from ‘15s pouch and began dialing.

Uber’s deep, dramatic voice answered, “Escort? Code in.” I tapped in the recognition, non-duress code he had given me, which would work even if I didn’t exactly have one of their fancy Tinker phones. “Ah, good. So what’s up?”

“Posters, your idea or your partner?” I asked pointedly.

“Leet’s, if you go to our website, they’re free to download there. What anyone does further with them, is not in our hands. Will you let me explain?”

I huffed in annoyance, “Fine. Go ahead.”

“Leet began spotting very shoddy similar images of you made by randos who ripped it from their recordings of the stream. Nothing you can really do about it directly, so instead he decided to do it properly and ‘bury the competition’ so to speak. No one could match our quality, so it naturally blew up. It’s already got tens of thousands of unique downloads and that’s not counting further spread amongst interest forums and user groups. It can’t be on PHO, coz of their rules, so you’ll have to go further afield to less known sites who don’t give a shit about nudity to find it.”

“While I thank you for the marketing, it would’ve been nice to be asked first,” I said with a hint of sternness leaking into my voice.

“We will, in the future, it’s just that stuff like this moves with the speed of gossip.”

“I also hope that your partner was clear that I didn’t endorse it, as that would imply-”

“We indicated nothing to that effect, it was just a properly composed poster. If any conclusions are made, then it’s that we’re just using our own stream of you to promote clicks.”

“Okay, is he done at the other place yet?”

“Almost, Ziz’s attack did delay things on the Protectorate side and Dragon was understandably occupied. So maybe another few days of work, things are looking good so far and all tests indicate a constructed teleport will be able to move the train. At that point it’s just a matter of the receiving end being ready to maintain containment, which he won’t have to help with.”

“Okay, thanks for the update, bye.”

“See you soon, Escort.”

I swiped the screen to end the call and stuffed it back in its pouch. “Back to business as usual here?”

Del shrugged, fiddling with a small compact and touching up her makeup back to normal, “Almost. We’ll see an uptick in business even after an Endbringer has come and gone. That’ll slowly sink back to a lull and even depends on whether it was a win or a loss.”

I nodded in understanding, not that there could ever really be a ‘win’ against something like that. It seemed that most people considered if your city was still relatively standing afterward, and didn’t need to be quarantined a ‘win’. Whether Scion showed up or not, was another factor. Canberra was by those metrics a solid tick in the ‘loss’ column.

Shouting nearby drew both our attention down the street.

It took me a moment to recognize Liana, the resident Russian immigrant working girl, as she furiously emerged from a car and presumably was shouting a stream of swearing in Russian and English at her client. Her aura was spiked with rage, indignation and determination. The thing that really sent up the red flag was a can of mace she was holding near her purse and out of sight.

I was about to mist, when Del put a hand on my shoulder. “Easy Escort, Lia’s got this.”

She turned out to be right.

With her long, curly blonde hair swirling in agitation as she shouted at her client, Liana shoved the mace forward.

Her aura turned into a sun of satisfaction, as I could just barely make out the client handing her a full loose wad of cash.

She grabbed it and with a final hiss of Russian invective, then English, “Piss off, you’re barred for a month!” She slammed the door to the car closed and walked away with angry speed, her red high heels clicking furiously.

Her strong swimmer’s legs were showcased by a tight auburn sleeveless one piece mini-dress that ended at mid-thigh. It was quite rumpled as was typical after a sex session in a car and she was straightening it out as she walked.

The car screeched away with tires squealing and burning rubber.

Liana showed a middle finger behind her for good measure as a parting insult.

“Come on, let’s go,” Del said, gesturing for me to follow.

The Russian had retreated out of sight to a nearby alley and she was lighting up a cigarette when we found her.

“Lia,” Del greeted her.

“Del, Escort, good to see you.”

“Hi,” I grinned.

“Was that what I think it was?” Del asked.

Lia took a drag and blew out a long puff of smoke into the air, “Yeah. Bastard tried to short change me. Didn’t think I would notice if he wadded the cash. I’ll put his details on the network after I calm down.”

“Does this happen often?” I asked curiously.

“A month doesn’t go by without at least one or two assholes trying their luck like that,” she answered, waving the hand holding the cigarette in agitation before taking another drag. “Another skill you learn quickly as a working girl; handling cash, counting it quickly and spotting counterfeits. Some girls practically become stage magicians when it comes to money.”

“And we’ve experienced all the scams clients try at some point,” Del rolled her eyes. “Short change is the most common, but you eventually get a feel for money and its weight so that you can know immediately just by holding it. Counterfeits you can spot, even in a darkened car, by feeling the texture. Any client that tries to pay with a tightly bound wad of cash is usually a red flag for either counterfeit or padding.”

“Padding? You mean they try to slip in blank cash sized paper?”

“Yeah, a warning sign for that is if the client doesn’t put on the interior car lights when it comes time to pay. It’s not an entirely reliable indicator, but it should alert you to check. Any good client will pay with an ‘open deck’, spread out each bill with lights on to show you he ain’t trying to cheat. Of course, you don’t have to worry about this.”

“I suppose, but it’s good to know what problems you have out here.”

The sound of rubber on tires and a slow engine reached my ears. Since I was still on the lookout for some action of my own, I took a few steps back to the edge of the alley so I could be seen.

A metallic blue Honda SUV was cruising down the street at a clear speed to signal that the driver was looking for a girl.

I had no time to arrange myself in a ‘pose’, so he just caught sight of me mid stride towards the side of the road.

The SUV just kept going.

Del and Lia emerged a few seconds later.

“Different strokes for different folks, Escort,” Del commented.

She had a point and I really didn’t want to just Master clients willy-nilly. Sure it was way more efficient, but I had no pressing need for feeding at the moment.

The Honda suddenly slammed on the brakes, its reverse lights blinked on and its gears whined into a high pitch as it reversed with speed back to our position.

“Oh, someone’s changed their mind it seems,” Lia flicked her cig to the ground and stamped it out.

By this point I was leaning on ‘15 with a flared hip, and even my companions had defaulted to their ‘presentation’ poses.

When the car stopped, the windows on the driver and passenger side wound down, revealing two college age guys. The driver; nicely groomed thin beard around his jawline, pale skin, redhead with a decent build that clearly showed he was some kind of athlete.

His partner in crime for the evening; shorter, closely shaved black hair with the light chocolate skin and face of Mexican ancestry, jumped out, sat on the passenger door window sill and waved, his face and aura showing awe, “Aw man, are we lucky. Escort?”

“Yeah, you two wanna have a good time?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

“Sure, but we actually need all three of you.”

I met the eyes of Lia and Del briefly.

“Let me guess, frat party? BBU?” Del asked, taking the lead. Their attire was casual but on the high end, the red head wearing a black Polo shirt, whilst the other had a black long shirt as a jacket over a tight blue t-shirt.

“Yeah, BBU, but not a frat party, just a birthday for a friend at his house,” Mr Latino jerked a thumb downward to the driver.

“All three of us for just the birthday boy? Or are you thinking bigger?”

“Just the birthday boy, it’s a fantasy of his we want to realize, I doubt we could afford the rate you’d charge for going bigger than that.”

Of course, my imagination just had to serve up the notion of feeding off an entire party of guys at that point and almost immediately my inner folds started to moisten.

Down girl, I thought to myself.

“Thousand, eight hundred,” Del said flatly.

He winced, “Thousand, two?”

“Thousand, eight, you’re driving us away and that means we’re not in the Red Light for most of the remaining evening.”

“Thousand, five.”

“Thousand, eight,” Del repeated with even more steel in her tone. “Do the math.”

“It’s fine, Anto, thousand eight, agreed,” said the driver, his bearing getting impatient.

Del gave a look to Lia, who nodded at the silent question, she then looked to me.

I assumed the question was whether 600 dollars for this gig was fine, I therefore agreed with a nod.

“Prove you can pay,” Del demanded next.

The redhead pulled out a stack of cash that was still enclosed with its original packaging strip. Del stepped closer and he used his thumb to display each bill to her. She also reached out to feel the money briefly.

“Good, you have our time, gentlemen.”

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The drive to the house in question brought us to the affluent suburbs west of Lord’s Park. These generally had large properties with the houses occupying a substantial footprint and it was rare to see one that didn’t have at least two floors.

I was keeping careful track of the route, just in case trouble found us in some form.

We turned off the main road and were soon driving down towards a dead-end that slowly snaked its way uphill and at the end of it was a monster of a home that was thumping with music.

The place looked like it could fit six times my own house in it and still have some left over square footage.

The general din also told me that there were a lot of people attending this party.

“How many did you invite to this party?” I asked casually.

“Simon’s a popular guy and BBU’s best Wide Receiver, so most of the team is here including their plus ones,” said the driver. Ah, so on the varsity football team. “The name’s Ryan, by the way.”

The car came to a brief stop outside the house gate and the exterior road was further packed with cars, both old and new, large and small. The gate trundled open on its wheels after Ryan thumbed a remote.

From there it was just a small distance to a triple garage, where he finally parked the SUV.

“Okay ladies, follow me and I’ll get you set up,” Anto grinned and hopped out of the passenger side.

“So are we going to be a surprise to the birthday boy?” Lia asked, her Russian accent was normally quite light, but there were times she chose to deepen it for effect.

“Exactly,” he grinned.

We emerged from the car and followed the path away from the front door of the expansive house. Then headed around the side and from there spied the majority of the party goers mixing and mingling around a large pool. A number of people were also in the pool with drinks in hand.

“We’re keeping Simon preoccupied in the main living room, so we don’t have to sneak about as much,” Anto explained as we walked towards a patio with a glass sliding door and our entrance into the house.

We were spotted pretty quickly as we passed the pool area.

Tongues were wagging, laughs and smiles, whilst the women of the party either giggled or threw frowns our way. All sorts of non-verbal signs of approval from the men were also evident, but it seemed the entire party was in on this gift, so they kept themselves from making more noise than normal.

The room we entered was another living room with a huge flat screen TV, to which a game console was hooked up and numerous soft leather couches ran along the walls.

From here it was through another door, into a long hallway, then up a grand wide staircase to the second floor.

Anto opened another door here that led to a room that had clearly been given a substantial makeover for this party.

It had been a teen bedroom at some point, judging by the odd heavy metal band poster that was still taped onto the walls. It was also stupidly big to my lower-end of middle class sensibilities. I could imagine three children with single beds easily fitting in here with room to spare.

The makeover the room had been given, was to cover the floor with pillows of every description, then from the ceiling, hang soft, thin translucent curtains. The lights were also now producing a soft red glow, casting everything in a warm, sensual atmosphere.

“Hmmm, he has a harem fetish, doesn’t he?” Del asked immediately.

“Yep,” he nodded.

“Okay, we can work with that. Our street attire is gonna clash with that, so we’re gonna have to strip down immediately.”

“You’re the pro’s here.”

“How long do we have to prep?”

He looked at his wristwatch, “Roughly an hour, we’re planning to get started with the grill in the next few minutes, eat, then we lead him up here. Can’t be more exact.”

“That’s more than enough time, now shoo and give us some privacy.”

Anto held up his hands with a smile, gave me a long look and retreated out the door, closing it behind him.

“Not the most original of fantasies,” Lia commented dryly.

“No, but the client gets what they pay for,” Del said, then began to unzip her own dress and kick off her heels.

“Is there anything you two won’t do?” I asked curiously, setting down ‘15 in a corner of the room, making sure it was in sight.

“Personally, I won’t do any BDSM or the specialty fetishes, pain is not my thing,” Del answered as she undid her bra and pushed down her panties.

“Same, street girls are generalists as a rule,” Lia pulled her tight dress up and over her head, showing she always went commando underneath. Her breasts were in the same range as mine, well developed shoulders, strong legs, thighs and plus a visible six pack on her abdomen - she definitely had the buff girl thing going for her. She also had no pubes, favoring a completely bald pussy.

“So what next?” I asked, feeling a little clueless about the details of harems.

“The pillows have to be bunched up more, create a circular island of them in the middle of the room,” Del instructed. As the most experienced girl here, she naturally took the lead.

Lia and I got busy doing that, whilst Del got busy with the gossamer thin curtains and rearranging them.

They were hung from thin hooks that had been drilled into the ceiling and the stepladder used to hang them up was still in a corner of the room.

“Lia, how’s the data on your phone?” Del asked as he stepped up the ladder to move a curtain.

“Enough, you need music?”

“Yeah, find something eastern, Indian, sensual, you know the type. Escort, help me move these curtains, we need to shift them to generally border the circle of cushions, none of this haphazard shit.”

I misted only my lower half and floated up to the ceiling to get busy.

“Wow, never thought you could do that,” Del chuckled.

“A recent development,” I grinned.

Lia in turn was rather gobsmacked at my imitation of a partially solid spooky ghost. She caught herself and returned to browsing her smartphone, muttering a string of Russian to herself whilst her aura was blazing with incredulousness and undercurrents of fear. About the only word I caught was multiple uses of ‘Blyat’.

Del could only laugh, “Yeah, in this light at the moment, you’re looking like something that would both turn on and terrify anyone coming in here unprepared.”

Interesting, wonder if I could develop that combo in some way. It wouldn’t really be heroic, but it would certainly be efficient if my mere presence could eventually cow ne’er-do-wells into behaving.

When we were done with the curtain arrangement, Lia began playing snippets of music she was finding online for our opinion.

“Too cheesy,” Del shook her head.

I frowned and stared at her, “How can that be ‘cheesy’?”

“It sounds like it could come straight from a ‘70s porno.”

“I have no idea what that would sound like,” I pointed out.

Del chuckled ruefully at herself, “I sometimes forget that you’re basically the spring chicken here. You’ve never seen any porn on the ‘net?”

“Closest I got was when I researched and learned the Kama Sutra.”

“Ah yes, that can be a bit of a rabbit hole to fall into. Anyway, trust me, not that song. Next one, Lia.”

Soon enough we were lounging on the cushions and had seemingly fallen into a rabbit hole of music. Even when we finally settled on a sensual, erotic song to play in the background, we kept going.

It was an interesting way to pass the time at least and it was not only educational but did help me get to know both women in a myriad of new ways.

Lia was a big fan of heavy metal and its adjacent styles, especially symphonic metal. A style I didn’t even know existed and I found myself rather captivated by how it blended the classiness of older classical instruments, operatic singing and headbanging rock. It was a startling dichotomy that somehow just worked.

I knew mom would have despaired the instant she heard it and bemoaned the musical butchery.

Del, on the other hand, gravitated to a more general musical palate, but was rooted in the ‘80s with pop and alternative music from that era.

“And you, Escort? You’ve been listening and commenting on our musical tastes but not volunteered a single tidbit about your own,” Del poked me in the shoulder teasingly.

“Let’s just say that events over the last few years have caused me to fall out of touch with music,” I said uncomfortably. “During early high school I just listened to what was popular. I had no appreciable interest in that one band, artist or genre. If it was nice to listen to, I listened to it.” Del and Lia looked at each other, then me as if there was something wrong with me. “What can I say? I generally prefer silence and a good book.”

“Well, we’ll definitely help you with that,” Lia said with a grin. “You seemed to like sympho-metal.”

“It’s a fusion that’s interesting, I wouldn’t say I like it yet,” I held up my hands to halt her enthusiasm.

There was a knock on the door, it opened slightly and Anto’s voice whispered harshly through, “Hey girls, want anything to eat? Can bring you up extra portions from the grill, we’ve got too much down there.”

“Bring three, half filled plates and just water, thank you,” Del answered immediately.

“Sure, coming right up.”

The door clicked shut again.

“Not hungry,” I said casually, for the grilled meat at least.

“More for us then, at least drink the water though, no telling what stamina our birthday client has, also go to the bathroom now if you need to. Don’t want an interruption for that in the middle of a session,” Del explained.

My body didn’t produce waste products in that sense anymore and I still hadn’t needed a toilet since my trigger. Water I drank was broken down and efficiently used in the same way semen was. Just another example of a piece of my humanity that had been stripped in an ontokinetic fashion.

When Anto returned we allowed him briefly inside to deliver the plates and he was suitably impressed. He drank in all our appearances, the changes made to the room and gave two thumbs up, with a slightly lecherous smile. “Wow, damn, yeah…” His eyes didn’t know where to settle. “Oh, yes, I wanted to say things are coming together. When you hear ‘Happy birthday’ being sung outside, that’ll be the cue. Expect us to lead Simon in here blindfolded soon afterward.”

“Yes, understand, thanks for the food, now scram,” Del ushered him back out, whilst Lia and I handled the tray of food and drinks.

When he was gone, both my colleagues and friends? Yeah, Del was definitely a friend at this point and Lia was on track. I liked them both. Their auras were pleasant, warm and had minimal negative issues, relatively speaking. They were far from saints but I could confidently point to both and say ‘good person’. It would also be nice to have a circle of actual friends again.

They ate away from the circle of cushions to leave nothing to chance for accidental spillage incidents. Anto had also thoughtfully included napkins and a small water bowl for cleaning our hands. Just for that and my read of his aura, I put him down for a possible later visit from me.

Del and Lia were only done eating for a few minutes when we began to hear the most frequently sung song in the world.

“Okay, positions ladies,” Del grinned and we got back to our comfy spots on the island of cushions. “Escort, legs together, slightly bent, one higher than the other. When he enters, smoldering eye contact, your hands moving and tracing your curves.” She demonstrated, her hands and fingers not quite touching her own skin. I imitated her and found it almost like a seductive dance yet one where you had no partner.

I was tempted to just pull the guy straight into my mind web, but that would make him put all his attention on me, unless I ordered him to attend to the others as well. No, I couldn’t use my power as a crutch in this situation. I had to learn to seduce in a normal manner as well.

“There you go, good enough,” Del nodded with approval.

The raucous singing ended and a slight hush fell outside, before the noise of cheering and chanting reached us.

It moved into the house and then the thump of many feet moving up the stairs, which swiftly moved to right outside our little ‘harem’ room.

The door opened and prominently framed in it was presumably Simon the birthday boy and Wide Receiver for the BBU football team. Behind him was an eager and curious sea of faces gazing in.

He stood at just under six feet tall, decently muscled as expected but there was a litheness to it and strength. It was not just for show. His brown hair shaved to an almost military buzz cut, with a square jaw and a prominent Adam's apple in his neck. He was dressed so far the most casual I’d seen, with only knee length brown shorts, flops on his feet and a white shirt that did wonders to show off his physique.

Another hush fell over the small crowd squeezed in the hallway as they too were somewhat mesmerized.

Anto took charge though and pushed Simon properly into the room.

“Okay, fine, can I take it off now?” he asked, fiddling with the black blindfold.

“Almost… go ahead,” Anto grinned and shut the door behind his friend.

“Finally,” Simon grumbled and ripped it off.

His green eyes widened and he clearly struggled for a moment to comprehend what he was seeing, as if questioning his own reality.

As subtly as possible, my finger brushed the screen of Lia’s phone at my side, starting up the music. All three of us were now doing our part in looking as alluring as possible.

“Hello Simon,” Del said with a voice that even turned me on - it was breathy, smokey and she raised a hand to make a languid come hither gesture with her forefinger. “Your concubines are waiting for you.”

Judging by his face and aura, we had just given him the mental equivalent of a computer blue screen. His jaw slacked and he stared at us with a rather cute, stupefied expression. It only lasted for a few seconds before he shook himself and laughed incredulously.

“Fuck,” he breathed in awe. “Those guys…”

Del caressed herself up the sides of her breasts, “Come, Simon. Your concubines are needy.”

He took a step forward seemingly on autopilot before catching himself. “Wow. Uh, I’m not sure…”

“Relax Simon, let it happen, this is your gift. Your fantasy. Let’s not get bogged down in details and break immersion.”

He took a deep fortifying breath and we could already see his erection straining and tenting his pants.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he took another step and stopped at the edge of the curtains. Del raised herself onto her knees and parted them for him, before gently guiding him down onto his knees, catching him in a deep kiss.

Del made a beckoning gesture behind her back towards us.

Lia and I also came forward and we divested Simon of his floppy sandals before they could become an impediment.

Del kept the kiss going, her hands now roaming his torso with caresses, then began pulling back and luring him in to continue the kiss.

When he was in the center of the island of cushions, she broke the kiss and grinned at him. Her aura told me she was quite satisfied with his skills in that arena and she was well on her way up the stages of arousal.

She coaxed him to stand and when he was vertical again, grabbed handfuls of his shorts at his waist, then slowly pulled down, making sure to get his underwear to go along for the ride downward.

His erection bounced outward into the open air and its nectar sweet smell assaulted my nose, making my mouth water. It was all I could do to resist the urge to immediately jump the gun and envelop that with my mouth.

He had a respectable size of just less than six inches, a normal girth and completely shaved himself down there.

He stepped out of his pants and Del grabbed him by the base of his shaft gently and began languidly caressing him.

She gently and steadily applied some saliva for lubrication before she eventually began tracing her tongue all over his glans and began the blowjob.

“Uhhh, fuck,” he hissed in pleasure, closing his eyes briefly.

Del gave five strokes and pumps of her head with him in her mouth before she let his dick emerge and offered it to Lia, who wasted no time and took him in.

Five sucks later, she also let go and then it was my turn.

I kept my stroke as slow as possible, working my tongue, savoring and stimulating.

“Holy shit,” Simon hissed, his entire body stiffening from the battle to resist the pleasure.

Del had to tap me on the shoulder to remind me to not jump the gun.

It was the hardest thing I had ever done next, to back off and let that manhood go out of my mouth.

Del resumed the blowjob, giving languid strokes as well and moaning with pleasure.

It didn’t match her emotional aura, so was probably just something she did for effect.

She had to let go at this point, because she picked up that we were rapidly driving Simon into approaching his climax.

There was a pause where she let him get his breath back and calmed down a bit, but kept him hard with the occasional stroke from her hand.

Del let go, smoothly turned around and captured Lia for a searing kiss, pushing her down onto her back and straddling her. Lia went with the flow and both of them melted into each other, but in the process, Del pushed her ass up invitingly.

Simon took the clear hint and was soon lining himself up, then slowly pushed his member into Del’s folds. She was also working with her fingers on Lia’s pussy.

Only for a moment, I found myself at a loss for what to do, but quickly got an idea.

I stood, misted my lower half and floated in front of Simon.

His eyes widened in astonishment but he was too invested into pumping himself in Del’s pussy to really do anything else.

My arms captured him around his neck and I mashed my breasts against his pecs, capturing his lips and moved into a deep tongue dueling kiss.

The sounds of moans, wet kisses and the slapping of flesh on flesh, all set to the backdrop of the sensual music, the building arousal in me… Simon was a very good kisser.

Everything made me feel we were truly transported into another world, where this was a true harem with Simon as the ‘sultan’.

Where the only reality was this little island of cushions and passion.

Simon abruptly broke the kiss, hissing and pulled out of Del with gritted teeth.

I floated myself backward, opening the space to see where Del would direct us next and returned to full solidity lying on my back.

We let him battle with his brinkmanship, waiting with baited breath to see if he would succeed.

He eventually did and nodded at us with a victorious smile.

Del pulled him by hand over toward Lia, who was waiting with her strong legs invitingly splayed open for him. She also caressed his head and whispered into his ear, “Remember, we’re pro’s, so don’t worry about cumming in us.”

He could only nod then began using his hands to explore Lia’s breasts and toned stomach with caresses and light massaging. He wanted to clearly make this encounter more of a two way street, actually give us pleasure as well and prolong this as much as possible.

Lia clearly appreciated this as well and it didn’t take long for her to begin emitting genuine moans of pleasure under his efforts.

The next thing I knew, Del was looming in my vision and she captured me for a deep kiss and began playing her hands on my body in an exploratory fashion, trying to find the spots that made me crazy.

I retaliated, easily dominating her tongue with my own and she began tweaking my nipples.

She inevitably found the erogenous line on my hips across my belly button and I moaned into her mouth.

Del broke the kiss with a victorious smirk and began trailing a line of kisses down my body, visiting both my breasts for licks, kisses and even a brief suck, before moving to my stomach and attacking that area.

I groaned and melted into the cushions beneath me, and I felt my pussy beginning to drip with my fluids.

Lia’s loud groan next to me turned my attention there.

Simon had his mouth and tongue working hard on her folds, licking and sucking her clit and his strong arms were around her thighs and holding her legs open.

Del’s mouth found my own pussy at this point.

I could only close my eyes at this point and ride the pleasure, given by a professional who knew what she was doing.

This delicious torture continued for minutes and both Lia and I created a duet of pleasurable moans and gasps that filled the room.

I came first, shuddering as my pussy practically sprayed Del in the face with my juices.

Far from finding the experience objectionable, she practically bathed her face in it.

My hips thrust forward seemingly of their own volition in my throws of orgasm.

“Ah fuck!” I screamed, as another jet of fluids burst forth.

Del opened her mouth, welcoming it and gathered it as if she was drinking from a water fountain.

I shuddered and could only watch as she closed her mouth on my juices. Her eyes closed as if savoring it like a fine wine, then her throat visibly swallowed.

Lia also orgasmed at this point from Simon’s efforts, her body bucking and shuddering under his grasp.

He gave her a precious twenty seconds of recovery, before crawling up, then guided his manhood home into her.

Her legs locked around his waist and she used her heels against his buttocks to help with each thrust.

It didn’t take long at this point and Simon’s hips began pumping furiously, his groans growing louder with the strain of prolonging this, until he finally lost the battle.

His voice cut off, he pushed as deep as he could go and his hips spasmed with small thrusts as he came in Lia.

In the aftermath of that, he brought his lips down to hers and started a tender kissing session with her, almost as if is saying ‘thanks’, whilst he gently pulled out as his manhood became flaccid.

It turned out his volume of semen was also quite high, because it began to visibly leak from Lia’s pussy.

My brain must’ve short circuited a bit at this point.

On pure instinct, I grabbed Simon by the shoulder, misted myself and him.

Then I reversed our positions and reappeared over Lia, whilst rematerializing him under Del.

My mouth latched onto Lia’s cum filled pussy and began lapping up the leaking semen.

“Holy fuck,” Lia screamed, her overly sensitive folds sending shockwaves through her as my tongue also darted inside her pussy.

The small rational part of me made a note to apologize to her afterwards.

Trying to save the delicious nectar from being wasted, turned quickly into my own exploration of Lia’s inner folds and my hands were all over her wonderful abs.

I was so into this that I was surprised when I felt strong hands grab my hips from behind.

Simon had clearly also recovered… had it been that long?

He lifted me up slightly so my knees and lower legs were under me for support in pushing my ass into the air.

Shuffling forward on his knees, he lined himself up and smoothly thrust into my sopping pussy.

My vaginal muscles instinctively contracted, grabbed him and with inward movements began milking him.

“Whoah, fuck,” he groaned at the novel sensation.

He wanted to clearly thrust as well, but found difficulty because he literally couldn’t pull outward with any distance to thrust back in.

I had to consciously stop that, all the while I was still concentrating on exploring Lia.

Finally, he found his rhythm and soon I was enjoying the dual sensation of giving and receiving.

Del entered the picture and put her own pussy within reach of Lia’s mouth, straddling her head.

Lia grabbed onto her hips and quickly began using her own tongue to dive into Del’s depths.

This chain of pleasure went on for quite a while.

Simon trying to reach his second orgasm was prolonging things nicely.

The slaps of his hips hitting my ass resounded through the room as he grunted with each thrust. I now purposefully pulled him into the mind web, letting its effects begin to regulate his body and to absorb the energy being produced.

“Ah yes,” he groaned as he felt his manhood responding with full vitality again.

Lia gasped and moaned into Del’s pussy, riding another orgasm at this point.

While she clearly wasn’t a gusher, I eagerly lapped up the resulting musky fluids that could probably fill two tablespoons.

Simon abruptly leaned down, his hands capturing my breasts, his mouth kissing under my ear as his thrusts into me reached a fever pitch.

That sent me rocketing towards an orgasm.

“Uh-” I moaned as my body shuddered and twitched, spraying my juices outward. They ran right into the space between my butt and Simon’s hips and ended up creating a strong almost fountaining effect, drenching him up to his pecs and I felt them running all along my lower back.

That feeling was enough to push him the final steps and he stopped his frantic thrusts deep in me, twitching with small shudders of release as I sensed his semen emerge and shoot into me.

My vaginal muscles clamped down, milking him further for every bit.

The energy release was invisible to everyone else, but I felt like I was in the middle of an explosion of it.

I absorbed it all like a greedy sponge.

Afterward, I wordlessly directed Simon to pull out and lie down to recover.

Del hit her own orgasm from Lia efforts next as the cherry on top of our session.

Finally, we were all laid down next to each other, breathing hard and recovering, basking in the thoughtless post-orgasm bliss.

The first tangible thought I had next was to shut off the sensual music, as it had long since run the full course of its long track and was now on repeat.

Silence.

It was wonderful and none of us wanted to break it. I saw the reluctance and bliss from all three. We were all meeting each other’s eyes and there was a clear appetite there to go for another session.

Yet reality came crashing on me as I saw Simon’s aura.

He could, with another half an hour of rest, fuck both Lia and Del with no problems, but my evening was over.

I shook my head with regret and got to my feet, feeling a bit wobbly.

“Escort?” Del asked with concern.

“You three can go for more if you want, I can’t. Call it a cape thing and leave it at that, please.”

I let my tone and facial expression brook no argument.

Del frowned but eventually nodded, “Sure Escort. Lia, Simon?”

“Of course,” Simon said hurriedly, miming zipping his lips. “You wouldn’t happen to mind if I contact you for… uh… more? Later? Maybe from you two as well? This was amazing.”

I sighed and stomped off the cushion island to ‘15 and returned with my own business card, which he accepted with a smile.

“Just so you know, your friend paid sixteen hundred for this,” Del pointed out.

“Yeah, I get that this ain’t cheap,” he nodded.

“We might entertain a future discount if it becomes a regular thing over a period of time,” Lia said.

He winced, “Yeah, that’ll make this a bi-annual thing at best then. Oh well, that’s probably for the best as too much of a good thing-”

“Quiet,” I held up a finger, my mind racked with suspicion as I finally clicked that something was wrong. Very wrong.

I misted over to ‘15 and picked it up.

“Escort?” Del asked with alarm.

“Listen,” I pointed outside.

They did so.

“I hear nothing,” Lia said with a shrug.

“Exactly, this room isn’t soundproof, we should be hearing the party still going on outside, the time is barely ten o’ clock.”

“Yeah, parties with the team like this, we usually only end at one in the morning, sometimes later even,” Simon explained, reluctantly getting to his feet.

A horrible intuition washed over me at that moment. Never mind the fact that I hadn’t felt anything.

“Stay where you are,” I ordered snappishly. “Don’t go over to the window.”

He froze and looked at me with wide eyes, “Uh, why?”

“Whatever caused an entire party of people to go silent could still be out there. If it spots movement or sees you, it will come here next or immediately unleash whatever power it has on us.”

“But…”

“Simon, Escort’s the cape here,” Del tugged at his arm and even brought her right hand between his legs and started playing with his manhood. “Sit down,” she insisted gently.

With no choice and the tingly pleasure in his loins, he obeyed.

“Whatever happens, you stay in this room until either the Protectorate or I come to fetch you.”

With that final statement, I misted and phased through the window.

I didn’t have to go far.

All around the pool, clothes, shoes, bathing costumes were strewn about in a steady line that led straight to the problem.

The SCP stood uncaring, boldly in the open.

It had every partygoer in its multi limbed grasp.

It was huge and my mind went completely blank on how to even begin fighting this or even if it was wise to do so.

I materialized my upper body and pulled my phone out of ‘15s pouch.

Thankfully my conclusion that I was strong enough to resist the SCPs cognitohazard bore fruit

“Taylor? Code in.”

I gave my code to Henry automatically, studying as much as possible of the SCP. “Henry, I need you to get your stony ass into a truck and come to my location as soon as possible.”

“A new SCP? What is it?”

“No time to play scientist, bring yourself and a bunch of axes. Choose one FTF member who’ll probably succumb to this thing’s congnitohazard to drive you.”

There was a deadly silence on his side. “Very well, is this a lethal cognitohazard?”

“No, it’s just the way it sucks victims in, if you can render him unconscious after he’s here, that’ll probably help.”

“On my way.”

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SCPs revealed in this chapter:

Only hints, full disclosure in the next chapter.

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A/N: This month's TOITA chapter, hope you enjoyed. Also working on Force Wills art, a revisit to Anakin, a new Padme in a different style and even Mizal, but that's gonna take longer, AI hates montrals and lekku, so a full hybrid of traditional and AI with a control net is needed.

The Force Wills - Chapter 68

She had rehearsed this moment in her head so many times as a child.

Then as the years passed on Rattatak, such musings grew distant with every month that passed on that miserable world. It was only as she was taken from there by Dooku that the tiny spark of hope to see the world of her birth, gained strength again.

It was seemingly stamped out by Dooku’s training and the constant whirlwind of preparations for the war.

Then at last, when open hostilities began, it was moving from one mission to the next. Never stopping, always chasing the next goal, the next victory, the frantic drive to prove that she was worthy of the mantle of apprentice.

Never had she had so much time to just think and reflect.

All the effort, all the pain and what had she actually achieved?

She couldn’t care less about the CIS or Dooku’s political goals for the corners of the galaxy he wanted to carve out for himself. Her assertions of loyalty to the Separatists had all been lip service at best. Asajj had hardly ever seen the normal people that fell under the CIS banner, only meeting with the megacorp executives, Grievous when he was still alive, then Durge and the droids of the CIS war machine.

None of the people of her own supposed ‘nation’ even knew she existed. She was never lauded as a ‘hero’ and Dooku preferred it that way. The ways of the Sith were in the shadows and it wasn’t as if her appearance was the type that would fit on a propaganda poster.

Now, once again, she truly had nothing but her own skills and power to show for all her hard work and toil.

The Crusher’s landing thumped through the hull and she stared outside the forward viewport at the night time landscape of Dathomir. Everything was lit in the light red gloom from two of the planet’s four moons hanging overhead. It was easily one of the least idyllic places she had ever seen and the local wildlife made it even worse.

This was home?

No, there had never been a place where Asajj could say she had ever felt ‘at home’. It felt like an entirely foreign concept to her experience in life. The place where she could always come back to, sleep, recuperate, eat, be safe, where a family was. There was not a place in the galaxy she could ever associate with all those things.

“So are you going to just sit there and stare?”

Asajj slumped her shoulders in weariness as the entirely too cheerful voice of her annoying benefactor? Helper? Travel companion?... echoed through the cockpit.

Mizal stood there, hands clasped behind her back, an ever present smile on her face and rocking back and forth impatiently on her heeled boots. Seemingly oblivious and uncaring of the effect it was having on her bosom.

Asajj couldn’t understand how the female togruta could stand having no support there. Her own weren’t as large, but still required the typical underwear harness that females of the species that had them generally wore. Yet Mizal had none of those issues or didn’t seem to have any traditional clothing at all.

The self-declared explorer of the galaxy had a single suitcase and that was it. She had produced no clothing from it or covered up during the entire journey to Dathomir. Even when they had briefly stopped in the Denon system to get some much needed medical attention for Asajj’s ribs, the togruta continued to casually walk about and everyone just continued to ignore her!

It was a maddening mystery that Asajj really wanted to figure out.

Even when she had finally broken down and asked Mizal, the eccentric simply replied, “I appear only when the situation won’t be complicated and when I can derive some amusement from it.”

The next inevitable question was simply why?

“You could say I had a very long period of hermitage, where I eventually ceased to care about it.”

Asajj shook her head, her attention returning to the present.

“Of course not, I want to meet… my people.”

The words felt very strange, even alien on her lips.

She secured the ship’s systems into standby mode. Just in case the reception did not turn out to be friendly or something went wrong.

When they were standing at the ship’s lower exit Asajj couldn’t help but ask, “Are you sure, Mizal? Last chance.”

The togruta laughed in her typical hearty fashion, “Oh, just over a week together and I’ve really influenced you. Do you truly care about me, Ventress?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m thinking more about the Nightsisters. If they object to your presence, then they’ll try to kill you and I’ve sensed enough from you that I doubt they’d survive.”

“So you care about them then?”

Asajj gritted her teeth. “Argh, why every time we talk you try to play mind games?!”

“They’re not games, Ventress. As I said, I wish to meet your people, not fight them.”

She slammed on the controls and the embarkation ramp lowered on slow hesitant actuators and hydraulics.

They walked out to regard the landing area.

It was a large flat plateau near one of the many mountain ranges, at the edge of a distinct forest of giant brambled trees that seemed typical to the planet.

These specific coordinates were ones she had illicitly learned from Dooku’s files. It indicated it was the closest the Nightsisters got to an official landing zone for those who wanted to acquire their mercenary services. It was known only to a select few. Dooku had theorized that the landing point itself was not the only one and that the Sisters used the locations to immediately know who was potentially visiting them.

She stretched out with her senses and found only wildlife.

“Hmm, that way I think,” Mizal mused and they headed into the forest.

Some of the critters Asajj was sensing made her very glad her lightsaber and blaster was holstered on her hips.

The boughs of the brambled forest were now directly overhead, partially hiding the red moonlight, leaving patches of pure darkness at ground level. There was very little noise bar the odd shifting breeze that carried a very odd smell that she had no real word for.

For some time they kept a steady pace towards the towering mountain that was slowly coming ever closer. The wildlife was strangely docile and despite clearly being aware of the two interlopers in their forest, were content to either ignore or simply leave. It was very odd behavior, considering she knew that rancors, nydaks, bane back spiders and chirodactyls called this planet home. Thankfully none of those were close by. She could only ascribe it to the influence of the Nightsisters being at work.

“We’re being watched.”

“Yes, there are roughly a dozen of them, flitting and jumping through the branches above us.”

Asajj stretched out with her senses, but again found nothing. “How can you sense them and I can’t?”

“It’s quite simple, Ventress.”

“Really?”

The thumps of feet against the ground behind them stopped any further conversation.

Four Nightsisters were there, two armed with glowing energy bows, already primed and ready to fire, whilst the other two had long curved knives with edges that glowed green. Their crimson form fitting clothing were optimized to blend into the background, along with hoods and masks that shielded the lower half of their faces. Their legs and feet were wrapped with a similar material, with the shoes integrated, ending halfway up their thighs.  As gear for fighting, it was clearly optimized for Dathomir, maximum flexibility and moving silently. The only criticism she had was the patch of bare skin on the upper thighs - where the dathomiri white skin stood in stark contrast to the rest of the outfit.

More sisters revealed themselves overhead and to the sides, aiming more energy bows.

“More strangers come to Dathomir.”

The voice didn’t seem to come from a single point and seemed to echo from each sister.

“I was born here, I’ve returned to speak to Mother Talzin,” Asajj retorted.

“Relinquish your weapons,” the chorus demanded.

Mizal slowly reached for her pistols and pulled them out with two fingers on the handle. Then promptly dropped them to the ground in front of her.

A sister immediately grabbed them and retreated.

“Let’s go, Ventress. Your kin are feeling quite agitated for some reason, I wouldn’t test them unnecessarily,” Mizal hooked her thumbs into her belt and carefully studied the closest Nighsister, who was looking very uncomfortable being under that scrutiny.

Asajj unholstered her blaster but found herself very reluctant to part with her surviving lightsaber. She winced as she unhooked it from her belt and stared at its ribbed, curved hilt. It was the weapon she had designed and built under Dooku’s tutelage. Its strength and power had served her well, seeing her through so much.

Perhaps if she truly wanted this to be a new chapter of her life, then she would have to let this go as well.

She opened her hands and turned them over, dropping both weapons to the rocky earth at her feet.

Another sister claimed the weapons and rushed off.

“Now you will both die.”

Asajj gritted her teeth in anger, loosening her fingers and gathering power to throw out Force Lightning all around her. She could probably hit every sister in close range, but the ones at long range were problematic and she’d have to be very nimble to dodge that volume of fire, which was not a gamble she was confident of winning.

Mizal rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Really girls? This is how you treat guests? Sure, we might be uninvited-”

“Stop!”

The voice cut through the impending storm of violence and the threatening explosion of the Force.

The authoritative voice came from above and a tall dathomiri in extravagant robes, with extensive tattoos on her face, floated down to land smoothly behind them.

“Mother Talzin,” Asajj greeted, bowing her head.

The light of recognition entered Talzin’s silver eyes and she immediately gave an imperious gesture to the sisters around her, who lowered their weapons.

“The universe throws more surprises my way it seems,” she said, her voice echoed with many behind her in the Force. “I knew one day that you would return to us, just not when. Not to mention with such a unique companion.” Talzin stared at Mizal and her eyes flashed with green briefly. Asajj saw some brief emotion pass through the Mother, but it was too fleeting to recognize.

“Captain Mizal, at your service and a pleasure to meet you Mother Talzin,” she introduced herself, including the ridiculous bow of greeting. “I just so happened to arrive to lend aid to your estranged kin when she was in trouble on her long journey here.”

“Hmmm, and saw fit to accompany her all the way?”

“I’m an explorer and when I heard about your people… let’s just say I’m insatiably curious about how the Force and the people who practice it have evolved.”

“We will speak later,” Talzin said in answer. “Child, what name do you go by?”

“Hal’Sted always called me Asajj, I took the surname Ventress for myself.”

“That he at least bothered to give you the name your mother chose for you at least affords him some credit. Is he still alive?”

“No,” Asajj said shortly.

“Good riddance. No doubt, you are wondering why you were given to him.”

“He died when I was young, I never thought to ask. I’ve only ever had theories.”

Talzin nodded, “It’s quite simple, Asajj. I sought to bring the Nightsisters off this rock, to ascend our reach into the stars. We had grown too content here where our power was at its strongest. Inevitably, we made enemies and Hal’Sted’s pirates controlled the narrow hyperlanes to the system and our only access to the rest of the galaxy. If we wanted both access and protection, we had to give him something of equal worth.”

“Me,” Asajj said flatly.

“Your sacrifice ensured that we were protected when we were at our most vulnerable, when we had no modernized weapons or strategies for defense. The Nightsisters owe our very lives to you, child. For that, you will always be welcome here, our knowledge and power, for you to learn. We will within reason also aid you in your endeavors.

“But come, we will discuss this further in the more comfortable surroundings of the village.”

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Walking the expansive halls and corridors of the Jedi Temple was always a serene experience. It was rare that you saw anyone rushing anywhere, the only real exception being in the Halls of Healing.

After six days in hyperspace, with the constant background droning of engines, life support and computers in the cramped cockpit of a Fang fighter, I had a distinct need for open space and silence.

Naturally, it didn’t take long for that silence to be disturbed. I really should’ve just found a mediation chamber in retrospect.

I stopped as I was about to pass a turbolift, just in time for the door to open and nearly 1.6 meters of gangling limbs encased in shaggy fur to barrel straight past me.

The young wookiee, seeing that he had nearly bowled over a Jedi padawan, froze abruptly and started to turn around. Only for his human companion to rush out of the turbolift, crash into his back and bounce off.

“Ooof, Gungi, what are you doing?” the young male Jedi adept groused.

The wookiee rasped a sharp warning note with further growling harmonics, which the translator attached to his belt rendered into a tinny, “Quiet, Petro!”

“Why are you- Oh.”

I arched my left brow at the young adepts and it didn’t take Jedi senses to determine that these two were ‘up to something’.

“Adepts Gungi and Petro. Is there any particular reason you are in such a hurry?”

“Uh, no, none at all, Padawan,” Petro smiled nervously.

“I know I’ve been generally away from temple life for more than a year now, but if I’m not mistaken, things haven’t changed enough for adepts of your age to be out of class at this time of day.”

The boy winced and stared intently at his hirsute partner in crime. The wookiee to his credit felt guilty and angry at his friend for getting them in this situation. Petro only felt fear and his mind was frantically trying to come up with excuses.

“Uhm, we were just… just…”

“Give it up, Petro,” said Gungi with annoyed growls.

“So where are you both supposed to be?”

“Lightsaber practice with Master Drallig,” Gungi answered promptly, throwing sideways glares now at his friend.

I immediately empathized with them both. I also had the misfortune to be assigned to ‘The Troll’ for a year in lightsaber class during my time as an adept. Cin Drallig was the Order’s Battlemaster and the Temple’s Chief of Security. His disposition and temperament was not pleasant in the least. He was a stickler for protocol and firmly in the orthodox faction of the Order. He made up for it by being considered among of the finest lightsaber duelists that were currently alive, which he shared with Yoda, Windu and Dooku.

However, being good at your job didn’t necessarily make you a good teacher.

Every school I had attended in my previous life and this one, had a teacher like that in some manner. It was almost a natural law it seemed.

“And what made you think skipping his class would in any way lead to a positive outcome?”

“We just…” Petro began explaining but his shoulders just slumped in visible defeat.

“Look, I get it, I’ve been in that class. He drives you hard, he’s a perfectionist that tolerates no fun and his lessons on dueling theory could easily double as anesthesia in the Halls of Healing. However, he did not get to the position of Battlemaster by goofing off. He’s not nice, because anyone trying to kill you one day will not be nice. What he’s teaching will one day save your life. Understand?”

Petro nodded miserably, whilst Gungi thumped his chest.

“Good, now back the way you came, suck it up and take the punishment he’s going to hand out. More than likely running a dueling sequence for a hundred repetitions. I will be enquiring on the matter with Master Drallig at the end of the day, so no further delays.”

The two adepts shuffled off back into the turbolift, the doors closed and they returned to the temple’s lower levels.

“Nicely handled, padawan. Are you sure you don’t want to enquire about a small stint as a teacher at the academy?”

I turned to face Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was standing further down the corridor in his typical outfit, though minus the armor pieces.

“Master Kenobi,” I greeted with a bow.

The master approached me and returned it. “Welcome back to Coruscant. I trust that… matters on Mandalore are in hand?”

The subtext of his question might as well have been flashing in giant holo letters above his head.

“Yes, master. There was an altercation with a CIS assassin penetrating the Guard, which was handled efficiently. No one died and he’s currently in holding being thoroughly interrogated, though what can be learned from him in the end, may be of little use.”

“Good, good. May I join you on your walk?”

Of course a master would know what I was actually trying to do.

“Certainly, master,” I smiled and gestured the way before we both fell in step and headed off.

We walked for nearly half an hour in complete silence.

He let me set the direction and honestly I was just ‘going with the flow’. We ended up going through the Room of Thousand Fountains, the Halls of Healing, the Lake level - which was an expansive menagerie used by Jedi to study various fauna from around the galaxy, and it was as we were walking along one of the expansive mezzanines of the temple’s ziggurat, when my own curiosity could not be contained any more.

“What is the situation, Master Kenobi?”

He smiled knowingly as our little game of silence ended. “There is something of mystery afoot, Ahsoka. Routine deep range scans of the northern reaches of the galaxy intercepted an encoded message in Wild Space, Sector K2. This would normally be of no interest to us, except for the fact that it uses a Holonet encoding protocol that hasn’t been used for nearly three thousand years and there is a similarly old Jedi distress signal in it.”

“I see, that is interesting. Could we be looking at an ancient Jedi system that only now decided to broadcast? Or perhaps even a time capsule of sorts?”

“Perhaps,” Obi-wan stroked his beard thoughtfully. “The fact that its origin point is in the Chrelythiumn system, with a clear proximity to Separatist space means that the Council has decided to send Anakin and myself in a cloaked ship to investigate.”

I couldn’t help the weary sigh I let out. “When do we leave?”

“There are some issues still with the ship itself, but the Temple engineers indicate it should be ready by tomorrow.”

“I hope it’s a nice and roomy ship, master. At best we’re looking at eleven days going that far north, not accounting for any travel delays.”

“It will be adequate for our needs, Ahsoka.”

“Can I have a look at the actual message?”

“Nothing particularly classified about it, Anakin has a copy.”

I gave a quick peek through the bond. “And of course he’s in the hangars working on the ship.”

“Naturally,” Obi-Wan smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He patted me on the shoulder and walked off to the exit of the mezzanine.

I pulled my senses slightly back to get a better view of just what ship we were going to use.

No way, I thought in awe.

‘Hey Snips, what do you think?’ Anakin thought.

‘Well, it’s definitely Corellian. It looks like an evolution of their YT line.’

‘Yep, this is a 1300, CEC just delivered the first production runs of this new model.’

I ruthlessly squashed the impulse to just punch my fist into the air and geek out.

‘What problems are you running into with it?’

‘Despite being state of the art and very modular, it just doesn’t have enough in its reactor for a cloaking device, so one of the cargo bays is getting a secondary compact reactor installed to run our cloak exclusively. The fuel feed lines to the new reactor is a nightmare of complexity working within an already existing design, so to simplify things we are also installing a secondary fuel tank and running the lines through extra conduits we are installing ourselves. We’ve already swapped out the slow civilian Class 2.0 hyperdrive for a militarized 0.8 as well, should shave a decent chunk off our travel time.’

‘Weapons? I can only see a single dorsal cannon.’

‘There’s another on the ventral, but we’re putting in a concussion missile launcher with a hefty magazine in the nose between the forward prongs. Eventually, if we keep using her, I’d want to see about changing the single cannons to autoblaster cannons, so we can have some active missile defenses as well.’

‘She have a name yet?’

‘Emissary.’

‘Really?’

‘Not my idea, Snips. One of the other engineers thought it up and it just got a life of its own.’

‘Well, at least I haven’t unpacked my stuff completely yet. Oh yeah, how long was the estimate for Resolute’s repairs by the way?’

The Battle of Sullust hadn’t been kind to what I considered my warship. A wing of CIS tri-fighters had managed to fight and slip its way through the defenses to blast the port flight bridge to scrap, killing every crewmember who’d been there. Resolute was currently landed on Corellia for repairs.

‘At least three weeks.’

‘Kuat would’ve done it in two,’ I grumbled.

‘Not going to get in a banter over this, Snips. I need to concentrate here. We wouldn’t want our reactors to fail before we even traveled a light year, now would we?’

‘Fine, fine. I’ll get busy.’

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Asajj paced back and forth on the balcony of the small living quarters that had been ‘gifted’ to her by Mother Talzin.

The village of the Nightsister clan was built out of a formation of nearly a dozen tall spires within a gigantic space that had been hollowed out of the mountain. Each spire formed a literal island and in the space between, the ichor steadily flowed, casting everything in an overall green glow. That wasn’t enough for lighting, so the sisters used a mix of fire torches and modern lighting, powered by a buried fusion reactor.

Food was mostly grown outside the mountain at lower altitudes, a task given to the Nightbrothers. The dathomiri diet was mostly hunted meat and mushrooms grown inside the mountain, with it further supplemented by grains and other fruit harvested from forests.

“You should really try this Brula fruit, Ventress,” Mizal said from her chair as she was squeezing out the sap into her mouth. “Mmm, just a few though. Apparently, too much leads to hallucinations and blurred vision.”

“I’m not hungry,” Asajj snapped.

“You’re going to need all your strength for the training.”

“I don’t need or want training, I want to kill Dooku!”

“Ventress, surely by now you realize that any training you got from Dooku was carefully edited to keep you manageable. The Sith are forever concerned with gaining power and the preservation of it. The apprentice is always kept at a disadvantage. Everything from the lightsaber forms you learned and the Force techniques will all be accounted for. The only way you triumph is by going beyond his teachings, developing your own style, by becoming the true you and not his apprentice.

“Killing Dooku is also not enough. You know that there is someone more powerful behind him. Even if you succeed, the Dark Lord will simply find a new apprentice or come personally to avenge Dooku’s death. Your anger at Mother Talzin is blinding you.”

Asajj stopped and glared at the togruta.

“What? Did you think she was seriously going to just give you a squad of her finest Nightsisters to outright attack Dooku in his palace on Serenno? You have no knowledge of how they work, fight or their ways. You’d be a liability in any team with them. Not to mention any knowledge you had about Dooku’s security systems is obsolete now. He’ll have changed all the codes, installed new systems. He might think you’re dead, but he’s not stupid. He will have learned from his master’s ways and have a contingency for your possible survival in place.”

“Just… stop Mizal. Stop trying to turn me to the Light!”

“Now where would you get the idea that I’ve been trying to do that?”

“This entire trip!” Asajj irrationally wished her hair was longer, just so she could rip them out in frustration.

“I am simply making you see the truth, any steps into the Light you are taking are of your own accord.” Asajj turned around, leaned on the balcony railing and cradled her head, unable to tolerate looking at the togruta any longer. “Stop moping, it’s unbecoming of you. Sit and eat, Ventress.”

She slammed her fist down on the balcony railing, sat down and began to eat with as much dignity as possible, even though her stomach was rebelling against her.

‘What is the point of freedom if I’m still being denied and told what to do at every turn!’ she thought angrily.

Mizal finished her fruit, sat back, put her legs up on the railing and leaned back, interlacing her fingers behind her head as if she was lounging at a beach and not inside a hollowed mountain. “Ah, that really hit the spot. You know who you remind me of, Ventress? A long time ago, thousands of years, during the old Sith Empire, there was a particular Darth who sat on their Dark Council.”

“The Sith actually had a council?” Asajj asked incredulously.

“Oh yes, though don’t imagine for a moment that it was a model of cooperation. Most of them spent the majority of their time plotting to undermine each other and if necessary kill. For the most part, yes, they ruled their empire and the masses with marginal success. This Darth, she was a Sorceress, an old term to refer to someone who specialized in the direct manipulation of the Force, with the lightsaber as an afterthought. She was near legendary in this regard. You think you can use Force Lightning, but compared to her you’re throwing an electric taser dart.

“She could wipe out entire companies of soldiers and it was a rare Jedi who could redirect and defend against her power. It was that strength which saw her eventually rise to that position on the Dark Council, naturally, over the bodies of her master and rivals. Yet, would you believe that this woman began as little more than a slave, the lowest of low in the old Empire with nothing to her name but the clothes on her back?”

“That is very unlikely,” Asajj retorted, chewing on a piece of Burra fish thoughtfully.

“It might seem that way, but strength in the Force, raw cunning, cleverness and determination saw her through at the end of the day. Such was the nature of the old Empire.”

“And I remind you of her? Really? You speak as if you were there.”

Mizal chuckled. “That is a conversation you are far from ready for. Let’s just say I’m a very good student of history and just happened to have a good source that was uncorrupted by time or distortion of facts. So yes, you were both slaves and were both found, raised in the Force by different masters. You were both betrayed by your masters and left to die or thought dead. She pulled the pieces of her life together and rose to the challenge.”

Asajj looked at Mizal with suspicion, “Why are you, a Jedi, using this Sith woman as an example?”

“Anyone who does not study and know their enemy is just asking for defeat at their hands. The galaxy owes Darth Nox a great debt for her later actions, even though those who remember are vanishingly few. The fact that there is any life at all in this galaxy is no small part due to her.”

“A Darth saved the galaxy? Now you’re just making it up. Stop it.”

“Your belief, thankfully, has no bearing on the facts. The course of history can hinge on one person, whether they be Light or Dark, Force Sensitive or not, Ventress. Whether something like that is to be your future or if you’re just going to die an ignoble death at the hands of either Dooku or his master, is up to you.”

Asajj put down her fork, wrestling with herself as a crazy notion occurred but somehow it just seemed… right. “Would you train me?”

Mizal laughed heartily, slapping her hand on the table. “Oh, ha ha, that’s a good one. Now tell me, why would I ever train a former Sith, someone with the blood of many Jedi on her hands? Who has yet to show an ounce of remorse for her actions.”

“Dooku’s master is your enemy as well.”

“True, yet do you really think that you could ever truly defeat him? You don’t even know who you truly are yet? Jedi, Sith, Nightsister? Who are you, Ventress?”

“I must defeat him. The order to kill me came from him. It’s a matter of survival. As for who I am… I-  I- I don’t know.”

“Then make that choice, Ventress and come to me with certainty in your heart, then I will decide.”

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The Emissary was underway, powering through hyperspace northwest from Coruscant along the Namadii Corridor Hyperlane.

I was idly walking through the circular main corridor of the light freighter with a feeling that was hard to put into words. This ship was not the future Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon, being practically factory fresh and having gone through a refit at the hands of Anakin and the Temple engineers, but the bones of it were there.

I had even flown it briefly towards the hyper point and I felt I had to pinch myself to make sure it wasn’t a dream.

A fully militarized YT-1300 with cloaking was a beast of a machine, and when she got her autocannons in all arcs, it would be even better.

I truly could imagine the Emissary being a fast moving nightmare of an anti-fighter platform in the middle of a fleet engagement. Spewing out missiles, streams of blaster fire and sweeping space around her, whilst easily being able to take a decent amount of punishment.

Having just a half-squadron of them patrolling around the Resolute would firm up defenses considerably, especially if their cannons were also on anti-torpedo duty, although a fleet version wouldn’t have cloaking devices.

Just the thought of coming up with a true credit cost value to attach to these cloaking devices was rather daunting, considering the history of development involved Sidious himself secretly commissioning someone on the CIS side to actually do it. Then for it to fall into the Republic and Jedi’s hands for further R&D to eventually produce the one currently sitting on board the Emissary.

“Snips.”

I paused and backtracked slightly to peer into the only empty cargo hold on the Emissary.

Anakin was seated in the center of it in a meditation posture and beckoning me inside.

“Master?”

He gave me a brief evaluating look, “Come inside and close the door behind you.”

‘Uh oh,’ was my only thought and I dutifully obeyed.

He gestured to the hard floor in front of him.

“What’s this about, master?” I asked when I had seated myself.

“Now that we have relative solitude for the next ten days, I want us to focus on the lightsaber for a bit. Specifically, in a one-on-one situation with no other factors coming into play. I realize that will be a very rare scenario and about the only opponent we’d conceivably face like this would be Dooku but-”

“No master, your foresight is picking up on something. I’m sensing it as well.”

“Really? What are you seeing? It’s maddeningly vague for me.”

“The pressures of the war are ever increasing, master. The death of a Jedi is not just a statistic. Every loss means inevitable sorrow and mourning will follow among that Jedi’s peers and friends. It ripples outward and eventually it will hit someone harder than normal, who is unable to deal with it because of everything else happening.”

“They will fall.”

“Yes, and we will be forced to respond. Placing us in the difficult position of trying to stop them and even having to strike them down to avert disaster.”

Anakin ruffled his hair with frustration, “I agree, but what I’m feeling here is more immediate. I think the danger lies at our destination.”

That he would pick up on the actual residents of the Chrelythiumn system through his foresight was probably another Chosen One thing.

My own Prescience was just cutting off the moment we entered that system.

It was an utter blind spot.

It was extremely disconcerting and I had been avoiding really thinking about it, in an effort to manage the fear that was producing.

Even trying to see beyond that point in the probability line wasn’t working. It was like my path through time was approaching a black hole. What made it even worse, was that the blind spot was completely extra-temporal. One moment the future was its usual flowing river, and in the next, there it was. It was as if my gaze alone had triggered it.

Only my outside context inner nature was acting as a shield to the fear.

How to deal with the three denizens of Mortis - beings who could control the Force in a way that made even the mightiest efforts of Sith, Jedi and every other sect in history look like children playing in a shallow pond - was a question I had pondered for many years and sleepless nights.

“I think, master, that when it comes to Chrelythiumn, we are entering a similar effect to the Shroud.”

His eyes widened in alarm, “It’s of the Dark Side?”

“A poor choice of words on my part, master. It is a blind spot to me. It’s utter nothingness.”

“The mystery deepens, first an ancient Jedi code and now even our senses are being dulled. This feels like a trap, but I’m struggling to imagine anyone with the kind of power to even affect your senses in such a manner.”

I nodded, “Even more frustrating, we can’t stop or turn this ship around. We would have to explain why to the Jedi Council, which would expose knowledge we don’t want the enemy to have.”

Always being a man of action, rather than introspection, he hopped to his feet, “The clock is ticking then.”

I stood, took a few steps back and summoned both blades from my belt. “Not much space in here, Skyguy.”

“That’s good actually,” he said as his own blue blade snap-hissed to life in his right hand.

I lit my blades and took my current stance of horizontal left blade, whilst holding the right blade, low and pointed directly at my opponent.

We locked eyes as Anakin raised his blade into a high guard.

I thought about a simple direct thrust to his chest.

He would counter with a riposte twist and twirl his blade to my head.

He would attack with a classic Falling Avalanche.

I would sidestep at the last moment, attacking the reverse of his blade with my right, whilst my left swiped at his right side.

He would duck and power into my midsection with a shoulder to knock the wind out me.

No.

Try this, I would open a high-low swipe with both my blades.

He would block and riposte my left blade, with a single arm, whilst releasing a Force Push with just enough strength that would stop my right.

I next saw him intending to actually bull his way straight through my defenses with a sudden charge of Force Speed.

I would dodge right and attack his back as he passed me.

He would have his blade twirling behind his back in a reverse grip to deflect that.

We had still not moved a single muscle, yet we were clashing blades and fighting in the future.

Our perception of it came back and we aborted the probability line.

I intended another attack, with both blades attacking his left side, but one would be a feint.

He simply managed to catch both before I could disengage with my left to change the angle.

I next perceived his own attack was trying a lunging stab to my midsection.

I would step back and riposte with my left blade, whilst my right blade would surge out of my hand to spin right for his neck.

He would catch and stop my spinning blade cold with TK and begin wrestling me for control.

I would be in no mood to get into a Force strength contest with the frakking Chosen One and would use the bond to my blade to shut it down completely.

With its threat temporarily out of the picture, I brought my remaining saber into a two handed grip and jumped on him with my own Falling Avalanche.

He would have no choice but to abandon control of my right blade to counter me.

He absorbed and held my attack, blocking it with a strain that told me that my strength work was at last paying off. I would then reignite my fallen blade, bring it under TK control and try to attack him from behind.

Stop.

We were back in the present.

Frakking hell.

I was somewhat gratified to note that Anakin was in much the same boat I was. A frustrated frown on his forehead, along with a single drip of sweat running down it. He had clearly reached a level of precog, combined with just how well we knew each other, that any sparring and duels we had would always be a matter of how much action we would allow in the present moment.

He tried again, a forward lunge to my weaker left side.

I would bat it away, stepping forward into his guard, with my right blade coming around to lop an arm off. He would be forced to step back in retreat.

I would step back as well, sensing that he was trying to lure me into overconfidence.

We were back In the present again.

I started to actually step left.

He countered by stepping to his right and so we began circling each other with our guard up.

Each moment, we plunged at each other with attacks, deflections, ripostes, mixing in Force tricks with TK, trying to gain the upper hand - all of it happening in the future.

He would feint to my head, then actually attack my right side.

I would deflect and step back, twirling my right blade to try and keep his blade busy, whilst my left surged forward straight to his eye.

He would dodge by simply leaning his neck to his left and duck under my swing to punish him for such a bold move.

In the present, the strain of simply being patient and waiting for the true mistake was testing both of us.

His next attack would be to my neck.

I would raise my right blade in a reverse grip to deflect it off course and in the same motion swipe for his left shoulder. My own left blade would swipe for his hip.

He would retreat backward with a burst of speed, use his own blade to slap away my left blade, before throwing Force Push my way.

I would cancel the Force Push out with my own, then send both my blades spinning at him with TK.

He would block and deflect both weapons with enough strength that forced me to pull them back, lest he rob me of control.

I brought both blades back to hover at my sides and fell into an unarmed combat stance.

In the present, Anakin shook his head and extinguished his blade, but kept a ready stance.

“What was that, Snips?”

“Figures, I was hoping to surprise you with that one, Skyguy,” I chuckled. “I’ve got two perfectly good hands and feet, it would be a shame not to use them in a fight as well.”

“I see, as interesting as that was, Snips. Let’s actually get some physical sparring done here. We will not have as easy a time against the real enemies we will face.”

I shrugged and in the same movement slashed straight for his face with my right blade.

He dodged back with a lean, igniting his blade simultaneously and slapped the rear of my blade to try and knock it out of my hand.

I let it happen, bringing both hands to my remaining blade, whilst grabbing the flying blade with TK.

Anakin and I fell into an almost dancing rhythm with our single blades clashing back and forth, whilst I kept my right blade hovering to the side.

With no words needed, we kept ourselves to a more realistic level of reflex. Testing ourselves with forms, parries, blocks, deflections, ripostes from every angle, whilst keeping a solid ground base, with no fancy footwork or acrobatics.

We ended up going for a solid six minutes before I made an inevitable mistake with an angle of parry, he pounced on it and his blade hummed dangerously mere millimeters from my neck in the next moment.

“Point to you,” I acknowledged.

He smirked.

We reset and continued.

After three minutes I managed to sneak my blade through the smallest of gaps after he was slightly late in recovering from an overhead horizontal block.

“One, one,” I grinned.

He wiped the smile off my face by tagging me next on my leg when he maneuvered my defense a bit high.

In the end, after a full hour of this, with sweat pouring down our faces, the score ended up being seven, three, in his favor.

“Very well done, Snips.”

“I still lost,” I grumbled, wiping my montrals and lekku clear of sweat.

“I do seem to recall you barely managing a point in this exercise last year,” he grinned at me and I even felt a hint of pride from him at my achievement.

It was an oddly heartening feeling. “Well, Skyguy, you can bet your last credit, I’m going to beat you at least once on this trip.”

“Bring it on, Snips.”

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A/N: More of an interlude/ bridge, Mortis begins properly next.  Have a great weekend and stay awesome.

The Force Wills - Chapter 67

“Manda’lor, did you really come here for this?”

I met Togai’s eyes briefly before looking at all the datapads strewn around his desk. We were ostensibly reviewing Concordia’s budget, which for a moon of over four hundred thousand people was quite large. Mostly thanks to all the natural rehabilitation projects going on all over the surface and its role as Mandalore’s primary breadbasket.

I sat back and surveyed the governor’s office and was gratified to note that Togai had added some distinct personal touches to the place. Distinguishing it from the all too sterile office Pre Vizsla had kept; pictures of close and extended family, the odd painting - traditional and holo - by a local artist, beautiful hand made curtains that draped over the huge floor to ceiling windows, which looked out over Concordia City and a nice chunk of the nearby mountain range.

“Yes and no,” I answered. “I read your reports, but I also want to occasionally go into the details of how you get there and I want to keep up to date on the economics of Concordia and the sector in general. However, I’m also here for your help on this damn arranged marriage.”

Togai put down his datapad and tapped a few buttons on the integrated controls on his desk. We were already in a secure space, considering the sensitive data we had around us, but now a whole range of extra security and anti-surveillance measures were activated.

“Let me guess, you want to figure out a way to say ‘no’, that won’t be disastrous or politically expensive, whilst still keeping your relationship with Satine on amicable terms.”

“Yes,” I said intently. “She’s still technically waiting for my final answer. She made it very difficult to say no right away.”

Togai nodded, “She more than likely has a small think tank of people unofficially commissioned and tucked away in the government, whose sole job is to study you.”

I gaped in astonishment for a second before I composed myself, then groaned with the realization, “Of course she has.”

He gave me a pitying lopsided smile, “You hold the cultural reins of more than half the population at this point, Manda’lor. Your popularity has only grown as the news of victories comes through and I don’t doubt that when images from the banquet get released that you’ll be entering the hearts and minds of many young men and even women around the sector.” Thank you, Togai, I did not want to think about that. “As the current wielder of the Darksaber, you could theoretically even call for a neo-crusade, though it would be a firework in comparison to the old days. It’s therefore in her interest to know as much as possible about you. How you think, how you would react and so on.”

“And this think tank, if it exists, thought, ‘Hey, let’s put her in an arranged marriage!’” I mocked with a pompous Sundari accent.

“Doubt it, this plan reeks of Satine’s thinking. The think tank probably got stuck with the details and mapping out how you would react. She generally does this with issues that are especially problematic, that fall out of context for her.” He stared off into the distance for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “The thing to remember about Satine is that the civil war still colors her thinking to this day. She’s not alone, as I imagine a fair bit of the older population has this, but in her case it’s especially prominent because of her central role in bringing about the current status quo. Then you showed up and pushed the course of this society to avoid the massive asteroid that she was steering us into. That shook her and now she is doing everything she can to avoid a repeat of that mistake.”

“Hence bringing Clan Kryze and Vizsla together through blood and marriage.”

“Yes, though another factor to consider and which explains her urgency, is what she thinks will happen if you get killed in this war against the CIS.”

That was naturally not fun to think about, but with regards to all the clan’s assets, shares and liquid funds, I had already registered a fully notarized will held in the Vizsla estate vaults, along with sealed copies at a number of local banking branches.

“I’m not the only thing keeping this society together, Togai,” I said with a severe frown.

“Of course not, the CIS war has neatly distracted both traditionalists and New Mandos. She’s mainly thinking long term here as well. Secretly, I imagine she’s hoping that if you die, it’ll be in some spectacular fashion that will also destroy the Darksaber in the process. It’s a major cultural touchstone for the traditionalists. If it survives, it’ll fall to whoever can keep it through trials of combat. She doesn’t want a scenario of having to deal with such a Mandalorian, who’ll have the loyalty of the Blades behind him or her, further tempered in the fires of a galactic war.”

“Unless that Mandalorian happens to be Bo-Katan,” I pointed out.

“True, which probably explains why my intelligence reports on Bo indicate she has significantly stepped up her personal training regime.”

“Banking on how her sister will perform in the challenge for the Darksaber in that scenario is clearly not enough for her.”

“Yes, so she’s also planning for after the CIS war. As you’ve already surmised, the union of Kryze and Vizsla would be a decent bulwark to avoid a future conflict. However, she’s also thinking of a scenario where you survive the war, if you’re married to Korkie and produce offspring that carry rights within both clans. Tell me, how certain is it that any children you have with him will be gifted enough in the Force to wield it?”

“Generally, an 80% chance,” I said, thinking back to very old data I had researched in the Jedi Archives. The figure was based on evidence from before the Ruusan Reformation, when Jedi Lords ruled and the dynasties they left behind.

“Such children would be prime candidates if properly trained in the Force and combat, to be inheritors of the Darksaber. Your Jedi duties would preclude you from being a full time parent and so it would fall to Korkie and the Kryze side of the family to raise them. He would at this point be trained in the Force himself, so could pass that on to these hypothetical children.”

I looked up into the ceiling, “And here I only foresaw him eventually getting on the throne.”

“Was that your primary motivation in training him?”

“Yes, there are other factors, but having a Force sensitive on the throne will be quite critical at the time he ascends to it, I can’t explain more.”

Togai shrugged, well used to my vague pronouncements on the future. “So now you have a Darksaber wielder, your son or daughter. Somewhat raised by a Jedi and in the Kryze household. Very unlikely such a person would ever go to war to conquer the Mandalore sector by force.”

“This is all very interesting speculation, Togai, but we still need to get to the crux of the matter. How do I say no?”

“We need to allay her fears of the future regarding you, the Darksaber and how she’ll keep this society together in a galaxy when you’re no longer in it.”

“Not asking for much is it?” I asked sarcastically.

He studied me for a moment, “I don’t doubt this will be difficult, Manda’lor. Even if we can get you out of this marriage, it may require you to make difficult compromises.”

“If necessary I will make these compromises, because one thing Satine and the ‘think tank’ will not have conceptualized or even understood is that there are complications that go beyond the mundane since both Korkie and I are Force Sensitive. The best way I can explain this to you, is that if he or I become emotionally compromised due to external factors or we end up hating each other’s guts in this marriage, then it could lead us to becoming…” I trailed off, struggling to come up with a good example. “Imagine the nameless one, make him worse by an order of magnitude, give him the Force as a tool and then you’ve got what happens when a Force Sensitive falls into the Dark. If this happens to Korkie, then the potential damage he could do to Mandalore will make Satine’s fears look like childish fantasy.”

“A grim irony indeed, may that never come to pass,” Togai pronounced, almost as if he was praying for it not to happen. He looked very troubled. “Should we make a contingency plan for Korkie, Manda’lor? What if he falls and you’re in the farthest reaches of the galaxy?”

“That would be wise, I suppose,” I admitted, though the perils of such a plan even existing was not lost on me. If it fell into the wrong hands, disaster of another type would fall. “Togai, such a plan will never be written down or committed to any media, it will remain between you and me, memorized and in our heads. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Manda’lor. I just want to point out, Vizsla will naturally be one of the first targets such a dark version of Korkie Kryze will assault.”

“My latest project with MandalMotors will go a long way to ensuring security. If I am unavailable, HK is also the galaxy’s foremost expert on defeating Force Sensitives. I will leave you a contact detail that will also bring other resources to bear on the problem.”

“Now you have me really curious, Manda’lor. Though I can tell we are now in the murky gloom of clandestine activity. How is that project going, by the way?”

“We’re on schedule, should be ready to launch tomorrow even.”

“That’s quite amazing, Manda’lor. From what little you showed me, it’s going to change things and history will record that it was first done on Concordia.”

I nodded, it would be just the first step in helping make the galaxy a ‘smaller’ place.

“Now, let’s see what we can come up with to do away with this marriage. By the way, why hasn’t Satine ever married? She can just as well marry with one of the other prominent traditionalist clans. Skirata comes to mind.” I knew the answer, but I was curious as to the excuse she generally gave. It truly felt like the height of hypocrisy from Satine that she kept a candle burning for Obi-wan, whilst pushing this marriage on me to create this political bulwark.

“Many advisors and officials have occasionally suggested it over the years. She politely rebuffs them, saying she doesn’t have the time given all her other responsibilities, which she keeps on herself to make sure she never gets that time. Most curiously those same officials find themselves out of a job or transferred to other positions in short order. It’s by now a well known way of committing political suicide in government circles.”

“Wow, anyway let’s get brainstorming, Togai. I’m not falling on this lightsaber for her.”

8888888888888888888888888888888888

After two days in hyper, the Pioneer emerged from hyper in a high orbit of Dathomir.

The system itself was only technically in the Republic, because the Zabrak species and Iridonia were members and officially the Dathomiri were a subspecies and a distant colony world. Ask any of the Nightsister clans below and they’d scoff at the notion before trying to gut you, smash your head in or use their Dark Side sorceries to turn you mad.

Further complicating matters was the system’s proximity to the current Botajef front line. A very narrow hyperspace route connected it to the Celanon Spur and Botajef’s flank in CIS space, whilst the other end of the route connected to Harloen on the Republic side of the line. It meant that both sides had spy satellites monitoring any activity. No ship massing larger than a frigate or light destroyer could fit through the lane, so it was useless as a corridor to launch fleets through. It was a known smuggling route and covert ops from both sides were undoubtedly being flown through it.

Pioneer had therefore been fitted with as many signature masking systems as could be crammed into the hull. Ideally it would have a full cloak, but the onboard power was just not enough for that and there wasn’t time to upgrade that as well.

I opened my eyes and regarded my hands briefly, flexing each finger, feeling the dexterity before flexing my arms and legs. Next I touched and scratched at my lekku, montrals and nose.

Next I felt my clothes of tight black pants, rugged shoes, shirt, with a smart black jacket covering it… amazing.

Everything seemed normal.

I couldn’t help but grin with satisfaction as I stood and looked around the cockpit.

Beyond the forward viewport, a world of dark burgundy, oranges and white clouds loomed.

Dathomir was bathed in the blood red light from the local red dwarf star, giving it a very ominous look.

My good mood rapidly dwindled as I perceived the local conditions and the state of the Force in and around this world.

Saying that the Dark Side was strong here felt like the understatement of the millennia.

I could feel my own Dark Mirror literally grinning at me in anticipation. A rather odd dichotomy, given that my own Dark Side usually characterized itself with utter apathy. That was always the problem with visiting worlds like this. Just by their nature, they strengthened the inner darkness that every sentient had in their mind and soul. Any unwary, unprepared or injured Force sensitive finding themselves on Dathomir would either not live long or utterly fall to the Dark, just by being here.

I had none of those problems.

The problem I did have was finding where to land to find the specific Nightsister clan that Mother Talzin belonged to.

A general passive scan revealed points where there might be settlements or the ruins of settlements. No reliable population census existed for this world and the best that the Jedi Archives had was a rough guess of just under ten thousand dathomiri, most of whom were female.

The same archives held the coordinates of every major settlement, but it was immediately evident that they were woefully out of date by centuries at this point. One settlement should’ve had nearly a thousand dathomiri, the largest on the planet, but scans showed just ruins and absolutely zero indications of lifesigns.

It would’ve been nice to have the help of the single living Jedi Master who had visited the planet in the last two decades, but Eno Cordova had yet to make a reappearance from his last visit to Coruscant. The reclusive Jedi archeologist and historian was due to return some time in the next two years and I had eyes and ears in the Temple keeping watch for him.

I spent the next three hours in orbit, carefully doing comparisons with the historical records, old mapping data, current scans and feeling doubly frustrated that Cordova hadn’t seen fit to upload his latest data to the temple archives. By all accounts, the man reminded me of a stubborn old goat of a professor I’d had in my previous life, jealously guarding his knowledge until he was ready to release it and not one moment before.

My first success in identifying the myriad of locations was finding the relatively enormous lifesign of a Dathomirian bat or chirodactyl as the archives named them. My scan had caught the thing just as it was flying away from its nest within a particularly mountainous area. Following a hunch, I focused my scans within a two hundred kilometer radius and after another hour of methodical search, finally found a dathomiri settlement that seemed visually abandoned, but thermal signatures indicated otherwise.

I was tempted to throw a ping program along the Holonet contact frequency for the Nightsisters that had been found deep in the Vizsla clan archives, but that had the chance of alerting not just them but also Sidious if he had a spying device fitted to their com system . The Pioneer was also electronically disguised to any satellites to appear to be just another light freighter, with an entirely different name, owner and cover story already sliced into the Corellian ship databases thanks to Fulcrum working its own brand of magic.

With a tentative destination in mind, I lowered the Pioneer’s orbit to just under 200 km, practically skimming the atmosphere and further changed inclination to bring the ship overhead to the destination.

“Pioneer, I’m going down, if you receive the signal, you break orbit and get out of here. Carry out all other contingency programs as necessary.”

The integrated ship droid swiveled its eyestalk to me. “Understood, mistress.”

I left the cockpit, walked through the narrow corridor and touched the controls of the pilot’s escape pod.

The hatch immediately parted and without hesitation I entered the coffin masquerading as a space rated lifepod. The Pioneer was too small to feature pods that could carry multiple people or at least had leg room.

These were rated for one person only, you were permanently in a lying down position, with the pod controls on either side of your hip. There was a small forward viewport as big as my fist near my face, along with an emergency holocom system and a standard week of life support.

“This is going to be fun,” I said with utter sarcasm and triggered the escape system.

The pod shut itself in less than a second and ejected itself with an initial 50Gs of acceleration, to theoretically get clear of an exploding ship as soon as possible. The onboard dampeners only had the strength to cancel that out to 4Gs.

With that speed added to the orbital velocity and the pod spearing downward deeper into the high atmosphere, the friction began immediately and swathed it in the burning plasma of entry interface.

The holo burst to life showing an abbreviated pilot HUD.

The slightest of movements of my fingers manipulated the thrusters and repulsors to bring me on target, whilst also keeping the deceleration Gs to within the pod’s tolerance.

It took nearly four and half minutes to shed more than 2 km/s of velocity and finally the plasma sheathe dissipated as the pod sped through the Dathomiri air at just under a kilometer per second, the speed being shed further as I steadily employed thrusters and turns.

I was having a much easier time of it thanks to the planet’s .8 level of standard gravity and was soon cruising at a comfortable 720 kph.

Finding a spot to land in this very mountainous region was going to be a pain. The holo just kept showing hardly any flat surfaces around the settlement to effect a landing. Surely there had to be a spot somewhere. The Nightsisters had to get off the planet somehow to fulfill their merc contracts.

That was the moment when the escape pod’s transmitter was pinged from the surface and an incoming transmission began registering.

“Pioneer, analyze.”

“Standard holonet communications protocol initiation, no malicious spike virus or ECM detected. Point of origin is a transmitter from the settlement below you, mistress.”

“Figured I would be ringing the doorbell.”

“Do you wish me to initiate communication, mistress?”

“Send only text in reply, indicating I want a confidential conversation regarding a mercenary contract opportunity and won’t discuss anything further over a channel for security concerns.”

“Understood, mistress. Sending.”

I adjusted the course into a slow looping circle around the Nightsister settlement, examining it with the pod’s visual sensors.

It really looked like the place had gone to seed with time. Even from a height of two hundred meters I could see ancient gnarled trees that had snaked around and penetrated into the bones of the buildings down there, most of which were carved right out of the mountain face. Many of them looked just a single minor earthquake away from collapsing utterly.

“Reply received, mistress, it is a set of landing coordinates.”

“That was quick, upload it to the pod.”

The HUD now indicated a spot that was only ancient brambles and trees, but just as I was looking at it, that changed.

The cluster of trees vanished, melting away in a ghostly green mist.

It revealed the clear work of sentient hands, a perfectly cut landing pad out of what had been a thin mountain spire, on which I could even land the Pioneer if I was so inclined.

“Of course, using their magick for illusions that’ll fool even technology and sensors, not to mention a Jedi’s senses.”

I turned the pod into a landing sequence, bleeding off more speed with S-turns until I stopped in a hover just mere meters above the natural landing pad.

The pod had landing legs that extended from the ventral side, so I had to orient with my back towards the ground below, and slowly relax the power on the repulsors, with the occasional thruster fire for stability.

A slight thump heralded my landing, I began powering down the systems and in turn also activated the contingency systems.

That done, I triggered the forward hatch to blossom open and I was exposed to the very dry air of Dathomir for the first time.

I sat up and surveyed the landing area, finding no one had come to meet with me and no indication in the distance that anyone was emerging from the distant ancient buildings.

I stood, hopped out of the pod and onto the hard rocky surface.

A cold ripple in the Force seemed to wash over me in that instant.

Immediately I felt a strong malevolence and anger.

“Yes, I’m a Jedi, no, I’m not here for anything other than to talk and I was being serious about a mercenary contract. That was not a lie just so I could trick you into letting me land.”

The malevolence died down a bit, now curiosity was added to the mix but the background anger remained.

A small part of me felt vaguely stupid talking to thin air, but it was clear I was being watched through the Force and that there were invisible Nightsisters that already had me sighted with their energy bows.

The dark gaze lingered on me for a moment, before it withdrew with a clear direction and the sense of danger in the Force died down.

It wasn’t a welcome hearty invitation, but more like a door had been opened and they were giving me the option to walk through it, with no guarantees or indication of what would happen once I was on the other side.

As good as I’m gonna get from the Nightsisters, I thought wryly.

I walked forward to the edge of the landing pad and stepped off onto a winding path that had been carved directly into the rockface, which snaked down for about ten meters before I came to a very rickety wooden bridge that spanned over a chasm.

It was made from the same wood as the ancient trees around here, but was visibly petrified and very old. Whether it could take my weight was a mild worry.

I stepped onto the bridge and started to walk over it, hearing the wood creaking ominously with the strain of each step, but didn’t slow my pace or even make an effort to moderate my footfalls.

There was even the odd plank missing in the bridge, giving me a glorious view of how far down it was.

From this bridge, and after a few winding turns around a large plinth of rock that speared into the sky, a path towards the main buildings became clear.

It was a relatively straight shot now, but the path carved out of successive spires of rock, were spanned with crumbling and half destroyed wooden bridges and overhead arches. Some of the bridges were completely gone.

Really Talzin, testing whether I’m worth your time?

I began the journey along the path, keeping an unhurried walking pace. When I reached the first true gap, a simple Force Jump - though calling it that felt like overkill - it was more of hop really, carried me easily across.

The next obstacle she saw fit to throw my way was to vanish a bridge from right under my feet.

One moment I was standing on a rickety wooden bridge, the next it dissolved with a green misty miasma.

Gravity immediately tried to pull me into its unforgiving grip.

A burst of TK from my back and feet shot me forward in a blur before I landed on the next bit of the solid path.

I crossed the next bridge without incident before I heard my first true opponents of this trip.

Three of them, skittering on eight barbed, very lethal legs, covered in a black exoskeleton, with four dark eye stalks looking forward and extremely sharp mandibles under it. At full extension on their legs, they reached my hip and probably massed a fair bit as well.

They didn’t screech or give any warning of their attack.

They simply climbed up from underneath the next bridge - then lunged at me, spearing their many sharp legs toward my chest.

As I had an audience, I raised a halting hand and caught all three with TK, which included enveloping them in the effect completely. I really didn’t feel like catching a face full of the poisonous saliva these things could spit at a very decent range.

Now the question was, what to do with them?

Crush? While it’d definitely bump me up in Talzin’s eyes, it wasn’t exactly the Jedi way, now was it? There was also that matter that I knew the locals used these spiders in a domesticated fashion of sorts. I could be holding the favored pets of a few of these Nightsisters at the moment.

I stepped out of the way and with a gesture, sent the spiders flying towards a nearby rock formation.

They smacked against the rock with a screech of annoyance, but their legs were perfectly adapted to the terrain. They found purchase easily and skittered away out of sight.

Talzin saw fit to throw no further challenges my way as I traversed the rest of the distance and finally stepped off the last bridge and the massive stone buildings were now towering above me.

There were numerous balconies and small glassless windows that looked down on me, but given the lighting conditions it was impossible to see anything more than darkness beyond them. Now that I was this close and able to properly study the architecture… Well, it was impressive for its age, but there were also clear additions made to it in a far more primitive way with wood, that showed that the Nightsisters had either adopted this place as a home, or there was actually a precursor culture that had regressed into the current dathomirian or were these Zeffo ruins?

The writing, carvings and reliefs on the walls and exterior facades all had sharp angles and I could well imagine why this place would attract any archeologist.

I ducked my head at the last moment to avoid a rather large clawed hand that swiped through the air.

It was attached to a beast that stood over two and half meters in height, with beige and gray leathery skin, that was only partially bipedal - also using its oversized spiky arms for movement, much like a gorilla. Its spiked circular mouth roared in challenge. Dark, beady malevolent eyes that were only filled with predatory instinct glared at me.

It quickly tried an overhead swipe as a follow-up.

A side-step caused a miss and the claw bounced off the hard rock floor I had been standing on.

I doubted that the dathomiri could domesticate a nydak and this one had just been herded my way.

I raised my right hand, just as the beast was about to try and ram its tusks directly into my abdomen.

It was abruptly lifted into the air and my TK sent it higher and higher.

I made sure to step back a bit and closed my hand into a fist.

The nydak’s head rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

The sound of snapping bones and its defiant screeching abruptly cut off.

I next sent the dead beast’s corpse tumbling into the closest chasm.

My eyes narrowed at the many dark crevices and windows where I began to get the faintest hints of my true audience as my senses became accustomed to the environment and the Force on this planet. They were shielding themselves very well and it was a technique that I’d dearly like to study one day.

The Force hissed with danger in the next moment.

My will surged into the ground around me.

I wrenched as much rock as I quickly could into the air around me.

Just in time to begin absorbing pink plasma bolts that whined through the air towards me from multiple high angles.

I had no intention to play target for the dozens of Nighsisters peppering me with fire, nor did I want to kill them.

I set my rock shielding into a spinning orbit around me, treating them as if I had dozens of lightsabers working in concert.

As my shields fragmented under the sustained fire, instead of letting the smaller rock pieces drop, I simply kept them and added them back into my shields seamlessly.

A few seconds later, I had enough and the rock pieces began shooting outward and into the darkened windows and doors from where the shots were coming from.

The energy bow fire began to rapidly diminish in volume and a few seconds later, ended abruptly.

I stepped forward toward the largest building carved into the rock, its prominent entrance was arched, with a carved overhang that would provide decent cover, if the Nightsisters decided to try again.

I dropped my rock shields and called on the Force to refresh me.

It was far from the most taxing thing I had done, but circumstances as they were and the surrounding environment was not making it easy.

The massive stone doors ahead of me began to shudder, then swiftly split in the middle and parted into recesses on either side. The grinding of stone on stone sent shudders of irritation down my spine.

The local sun lit the ancient arched corridor beyond in a crimson hue and lent itself to creating a very eerie scene, like something out of a nightmare. If that wasn’t bad enough, what hung from the ceiling was just the cherry on top.

A long row of tear drop shaped bags wrapped in thorny brambles and roots.

No.

Please tell me she wasn’t going to do that.

That was meant to be their weapon of final resort, not first.

The brambled bags began to writhe… as if something inside was starting to show life and began clawing at the prison which bound it.

Sithspit, damnation, frak, and dozen other curses!

I could fight these things, even take out a fair chunk of them before I would be overwhelmed but to do so would be a failure of the entire point of my visit here.

“That’s enough, I think.”

The dark voice that echoed with the Force came from right behind me.

I was rather proud of the fact that I didn’t flinch or jump out of my skin with fright, as the bags that held the corpses of deceased Nightsisters settled down and resumed their eternal vigil.

I folded my hands behind my back and turned around to regard the ridiculously tall Mother Talzin, who had done the Nightsister vanishing teleport trick to appear within a few feet of me.

She stood over two meters tall and looked down on me much like she was studying an insect. Her white skin, combined with dark black tattoos that practically coloured in large parts of her face around her eyes and cheeks made for a fearsome visage.

Her body was wreathed in an elaborate dark red outfit that looked like a dress that was folded and draped around her, rather than being tied traditionally to the black bodysuit beneath. It looked like the hood and parts of the dress that formed shoulders were held aloft with her own powers in clear defiance of physics.

Her bone white fingers were each tipped with long nails and her hands seemed to be constantly moving as if she was always weaving a cunning spell.

“Mother Talzin,” I bowed in greeting.

Her hands stilled and she returned the bow with only a slight bending of her neck. “Greetings little Jedi,” she spoke. “It’s impressive that you survived the tests I threw at you, for one so young and not even a single lightsaber in sight. Though I think we both know that you never truly felt any mortal peril.”

She slowly brought her hands forward and began twirling them, leaving wispy trails of green that lingered briefly in the air.

I felt the magick being worked and knew immediately that I would probably need years of study to make sense of it. She wasn’t doing anything hostile, just the Nightsister version of passive sensing it seemed.

“Fascinating,” she murmured. “You are both wise and foolish to come here in this way, innovative and powerful. Combining your skill in the Force with technology.”

Her hands stopped their dance, then she clasped them together in a weirdly formal manner.

A small part of me was fearing that she would use the chance to work some unknown magick, but there had been nothing and a thorough self-assessment via the Force also showed nothing.

“Thank you for seeing me,” I said ignoring her attempts at appealing to my ego. “I trust there were no serious injuries among the Nightsisters. I aimed for their bows and hands.”

Talzin waved my concern off, “Broken bones and bows can be mended. You have earned the right to speak to us through your power. Speak.”

“My purpose here is to negotiate a contract for your services.”

“So you have said, but why would a Jedi have need of the Nightsisters?”

“I am not offering this contract as a Jedi or on behalf of the Order, but rather as Manda’lor Vizsla.”

Talzin didn’t have any eyebrows but she allowed her surprise to show, “A Mandalorian Jedi? Truly I didn’t think the galaxy could surprise me anymore and the Jedi Order for even allowing it to happen.”

“The post-Ruusan Order hasn’t ever been at war on this scale. It is forcing many things to change, whether that will be for the better or worse, remains to be seen.”

“What then would you have the Nightsisters do, Manda’lor?”

That she believed me was a relief and that I didn’t have to go through any song and dance to prove it, confirmed to me that she did have some form of power to discern truth. I had suspected it and I was glad I had come here with a partially open deck of cards, so to speak.

“There are certain tasks that would be problematic if it’s seen that any Mandalorian was involved. Your Nightsisters are uniquely gifted to accomplish these tasks in a manner that would make them seem entirely accidental.”

Talzin narrowed her eyes, “That we can certainly do. Yet I sense that the significance of this contract of yours will greatly impact the Nightsisters. Every word you just spoke brings danger and even doom to my clan.”

“That is because of the common enemy we both share.”

The Mother looked at me in a totally new light, I could sense the moment her regard went from polite even amused interest to feeling the full intensity of her presence. I even felt a slight mote of fear from her.

Her hands blurred upward and she began seemingly tearing at the air.

We were both surrounded by a swirling vortex of the Force in an instant, which resolved into the visible spectrum as a swirling green mist typical of any Nightsister’s power.

I stumbled briefly as my senses were desynced and disrupted.

The green cloud vanished around us and I immediately knew she had just spatially displaced us over two hundred kilometers due east onto a rocky summit of a mountain. There was just less than a dozen square meters of flat walking space here, whilst beyond that was just the endless chasm of a massive mountain that towered over five kilometers above the landscape surrounding it.

“What does any Jedi, especially one so young, have to do with him?” Talzin hissed in anger at me, her eyes glowing green.

The sheer, pants wetting level of terror that settled on my psyche was suffocating and the Force around me was bubbling and roiling in agitation as her power radiated out from her. Combine this with her echo voice and it would just about cause most sentients to simply faint on the spot.

I only weathered the storm thanks to my out of context nature, copious training against fear and because of the truth of the situation.

I folded my hands in front of me, didn’t meet her eyes and simply said, “I will only reply with the question, how could it be that I know of him at all? Given the lengths he’s gone to hide from the Jedi’s vision.”

Talzin’s eyes normalized, her face turning rigid as stone with no expression, but I could see that her mind was working furiously nonetheless.

Then she began smiling and that was somehow worse than terror, coming from her. It was ultra creepy and made me want to be anywhere else in the galaxy.

Her laughing came next and it felt like my spine wanted to jump out of my body. Her echo voice was not just a fancy gimmick to intimidate. Her powers, the influence of the Force infused ichor and the resulting magick meant she was literally a conduit that was not just speaking for herself.

“Oh, ha, ha, finally, at last the balance reveals itself. The fool kept pushing and taking, crossing every line and thinking himself above consequence. A legacy of his predecessor’s teaching.”

My own mind practically spun as I took her words and the probability lines around me became manifold, a vast kaleidoscope of decisions, words, intent and character.

“When did you realize his power, Mother Talzin?”

She smiled at me, “Oh, so polite to someone who is a natural enemy to you.”

“There is no reason for me to consider you an enemy, Mother… yet.”

“You may regret those words one day, little Jedi. No, I realized his power after he so successfully approached me, knowing exactly what to say to get me to agree to his offer of an exchange of knowledge; his Dark Side expertise for Nightsister sorceries. Then the rather heavy handed offer to join his side as his apprentice.”

That I had to admit, surprised me somewhat. I knew he had visited to both gain power and intelligence on the Nightsisters, but to actually recruit Mother Talzin herself was incredible arrogance. It was one thing to turn a Jedi Master like Dooku to the Dark, but what Sidious had attempted here was the equivalent to trying to turn Yoda. Talzin was the head of her ‘order’, her sect’, she wouldn’t abandon it to follow Sidious. It was a small but important detail that had totally escaped my memory and sight.

“Then you sent him packing, but he exacted a price.”

Her eyes flashed with anger and she critically looked me over. “Very clever little Jedi. You come here armed with a very potent weapon against me.” She was talking about her son. The Dathomiri might consider their males as second class citizens, but individually they couldn’t overcome the inborn instinct and natural regard for their own male children. Talzin was no different. “You know that I know he is alive, but I dare not even try to trace and rescue him as that would pose a distinct threat. Something that… our enemy will definitely pick up on.”

“He also definitely has ways to keep an eye on you.”

Talzin just gave me a look that said ‘Obviously’. “Have you guessed the ways, little one?”

“The spy satellites, your tapped communication system, tracking whatever ships you use to carry out your contracts and finally a Nightsister traitor, most likely brainwashed with Sith sorceries and implants.”

Talzin laughed creepily and nodded. “Good, yes. It was a few years after he left with Maul. Sister Azsul was abducted on a mission. She was only two days overdue but he faked a pirate attack so she could convincingly explain her delay that way. We carefully keep her in place and manage what she sees and hears.” She stared into the distance for a moment. “Oh, how convenient, she was not amongst those that responded to your approach.” I mirrored her ‘don’t insult my intelligence’ look. “Am I correct then, that the targets you wish eliminated are somehow related to our common foe?”

“Yes, people in key positions, spies, various informants, most who don’t even know they are giving him intelligence, as they think they’re giving it to a corp or a local authority. Not all of these targets are to be eliminated, however, merely inconvenienced, ruined or even convinced to take another less stressful vocation in life. If his network starts falling apart too quickly he will realize something is wrong. He will also begin to enact contingency planning and work to reestablish any gaps that are opened up.”

“Gaps in which you can move, little Jedi. Whilst he focuses his vision elsewhere. Clever. Just how did you find them? I have to wonder.”

“That you do not need to know,” I said flatly.

Far from getting angry, Talzin only looked intrigued. “Before we can agree on anything, little Jedi. How are you going to pay?”

“I’ll naturally pay with credits, how I have the money you should be able to figure out for yourself. To even sweeten the deal further, I shall undertake to have your son retrieved at the appropriate time and receive medical attention. If you or a Nightsister he would recognize from his youth, could be there when that happens it’ll definitely help as he’s not really sane at the moment.”

“The ‘appropriate time’ for this can only be when you are fully ready to move against him. My son was his apprentice and undoubtedly knows things that he will move the galaxy to protect.”

I nodded, “Telling you when this could happen is also something that you don’t need to know. My final offer to you is a warning. Continuing on your current path will lead to the death of you and your entire clan.”

Talzin became as still as a statue and stared me down, her eyes gaining some embers of green. “Are you certain of your forecast, little Jedi?”

“Your plan to attack Dooku anonymously, drawing him here to seek aid and a new apprentice. Then provide a Nightbrother to him. The brother will fail in the assassination and it will merely result in a CIS invasion of Dathomir. You give the droid armies a good fight, especially with the Army of the Dead, but the droids outnumber them without even trying. The fight becomes too taxing for you and you retreat from this plane of existence to survive. All your contingencies for regaining enough strength to manifest physically is delayed and thwarted. You only manage it after one of the surviving Nightbrothers manages to capture Dooku and use him to fuel the ritual. Of course, at that point General Durge and the enemy himself are there and waiting for you.”

Talzin’s mouth twisted, her teeth gritting in repressed anger. She whirled around and stared into the distant mountains and the slow crawling expanse of clouds that were gathering on the horizon. Her hands flexed and formed fists before she clutched them behind her back.

“It galls me that we have been reduced to this, do you know how old I am, child?”

“With the powers and rituals you have, I couldn’t begin to guess, Mother.”

“Those who become Mother, in essence become part of Dathomir itself and Force infused ichor is the lifeblood of this process. Theoretically, I could live for three hundred years, until I wear out this body. Then I return to the essence, but not before empowering the next Mother to take my place.”

“Ah, so in effect I’m not just talking to Mother Talzin, but also all the Mothers who came before you.”

She nodded, “Now a Sith who has just more than a half century of life behind him, the blink of an eye to some species, effectively has us at his mercy, which is nonexistent.”

“He plans for no other effective or trained Force Sensitive to survive in this galaxy. Every sect, religion or order that has some Force tradition is to be effectively wiped out completely. With none of their writings or knowledge surviving. There will only be his New Order, which naturally begins and ends with him, with only a select few trained to minimal levels to serve as disposable pawns that will never pose a threat to him. He’s also very close to conquering his own mortality.”

Talzin turned her head, her eyes ablaze fully, “Essence transfer.”

“His refinement of it,” I nodded. “He probably learned a lot from studying the ichor and Waters of Life here on Dathomir.”

“He has no end of lackeys who he could possess or could do the ritual to bring him back,” Talzin grumbled with frustration.

The situation was far worse, but I was not about to mention that. Talzin was just a convenient ally at the moment; an enemy of my enemy. Her own eventual ambitions, unless she was thoroughly disabused of them, would see me first in line to be the one who killed her.

“Very well. We have an agreement, Vizsla. How will we communicate securely?”

I smiled, “As we are communicating now. When I disconnect from this droid body its appearance will shift into its base form - that of a highly modified protocol droid. Its own internal droid intelligence will take over. It’s name is T2-8. You can either hide it or say I left it as a secure communications channel back to me. With slicers on both sides of this war using the Holonet as a battleground, I don’t trust communication security. Naturally, the Nightsister spy will then try to tap this droid or even gain access to its technology. An internal self-destruct charge will go off and kill anyone within a two meter radius around it, should it be compromised.”

I fiddled briefly with the small comlink on the back of ‘my’ hand, sending the command. The escape pod would now seal up, fly up to a safe altitude and self-destruct.

Talzin chuckled darkly, “You are giving me the option to conveniently dispose of Sister Azsul should it become necessary. Just who are you, Manda’lor Vizsla?”

I didn’t answer and closed my eyes, pulled back my senses and perceptions along the active link.

When I blinked again, it was to see the concerned face of Togai seated next to the comfortable chair my actual meatbag body was reclining in. Beyond him and around us was what I was privately calling the interface room in the Vizsla estate on Concordia.

“Mission complete, Manda’lor?”

I pulled off the silvery connection halo around my head and set it down on its proper place, then tapped the control pad built into the chair armrests to shut down the system.

“As well as can be expected. We have an agreement, for now.”

“Amazing piece of tech this,” he said with mild awe, looking around the chair and the systems around it.

“Indeed, once the supporting infrastructure is in place, there is no need for a long hyperspace journey to conduct business on any world with a solid Holonet connection. You just rent a projection body on the planet you want to visit, get in an interface chair where you are currently and there you go.” I patted the prototype below me.

“As if the ship building industry doesn’t have enough reason to dislike you, Ahsoka,” Togai laughed with exasperation.

“Yes, eventually they’ll need to rethink the passenger transport business and ship design, especially for the core regions, but Holonet bandwidth is too low in the Outer Rim and even some Mid Rim worlds and the expansion regions. It only works to Dathomir because of our relative proximity and Pioneer acting as a signal relay.”

“Are you really going to leave the ship out there?”

“It’ll not just be acting as a glorified holotransceiver, Togai. I want my own eyes on that system for a whole host of reasons. Pioneer knows how to stay hidden.”

I hopped off the interface chair and he held out a datapad for me.

“Messages came through for you while you were away.”

I switched it on and saw immediately that the first one was from Kina Ha.

My mood dipped as I read through it, not just because she had used the identity of Captain Abehla Mizal to approach Ventress, but also the results of that.

None of the subtle and ‘soft’ approaches had worked to try to convince Ventress that her path to revenge would best be served working with the help of Fulcrum.

Kina had only started with the first step in the ‘recruitment’. The former Sith assassin was firmly set on going back to Dathomir.

The Kaminoan Jedi was now asking if using slightly more forceful methods would be advisable. Nothing else would serve to change Ventress’ mind at this point.

Damn it, I did not want to recruit her in such a manner. The probability lines for that were not looking good at all. For all her life, she had served a master in some manner. She was experiencing true freedom for the first time and I did not want to ultimately just end up being a distant replacement. She needed to grow and live on her own for a bit.

I opened the reply function on the pad and after a moment’s thought typed, ‘Let her go. Talzin is on board. You can return to Mon Gazza as you wish. Thank you, Kina.’

The next message came directly from Obi-Wan.

As usual, his language was unfailingly polite yet I could almost feel the dry sarcasm dripping from the datapad in my hand.

I opened the reply function and simply typed, ‘On my way.’

“I’m going to have to leave Concordia, Togai. Can you send an order to have my fighter prepped while I pack and get affairs in order?”

He nodded, “Back to Coruscant?”

“Yes, it seems I’ve tested the Order’s patience far enough.”

“Well, it was nice to have you here, Manda’lor. I thank you on behalf of my wife,” he chuckled with a twinkling eye. “Think you can at least say goodbye to the kids before you go?”

“Of course, Aunty Ahsoka will never let such an important task go unfulfilled.”

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A/N: Might as well get started on the month of scariness ahead. Enjoy and have a great weekend. 

HK47 by SDXL & I

HK in the cockpit of a Fang fighter.

Been toiling away with the AI on this for a while, trying to get a properly sinister/intimidating look to HKs faceplate. AI ended up either making him too goofy or giving the appearance he was partially organic. This one finally hit the mark close enough. His chassis is based on the Guardian police droid, militarized up to nth degree. 

The Force Wills - Chapter 66

The New Mando end of year celebration feast was in full swing in the large audience hall of the palace in Sundari. Dozens of circular tables with guests seated, talking, eating and drinking with superb manners, dressed in their ‘evening best’. Waiters constantly buzzed around refilling drinks and in the background a constant soothing music reached every ear.

Once again I joined the head table, which this time included Satine and six other ministers with their significant others seated next to them.

My ‘plus one’ for the evening was Korkie.

The chain of events leading up to that happening was something I had seen coming, but I found myself neatly outmaneuvered in political and practical terms to stop it. I could’ve just said ‘NO’, but that had a cost I wasn’t willing to pay.

For all that Satine was an arch-pacifist, never let it be said that she wasn’t a shrewd political operator when she put her ideals to the side for a moment.

In this case, she saw Korkie’s crush and instead of stamping it out or forbidding it, which wouldn’t work, decided to use it.

What better way for the current political order to be further legitimized than if Kryze and Vizsla, two houses that had been on opposite sides of the civil war, found common ground and were bound by alliance and even blood.

I would be bellowing with incredulous laughter right now and slamming my fists on the table if it wouldn’t be a total faux pas in the social setting I was in right now.

Kryze, the spearhead of the New Mandos, Vizsla, the clan which firmly held to the Way and from which all the traditionalists took their queue.

Right now, tongues were wagging all over the hall and everyone with an ounce of political acumen could see the game at play.

I knew what I wanted to see the Mandalore sector become, especially in terms of military power, which Satine would naturally oppose at every juncture. She also had a good idea at this point of my vision and goals. Now she was dangling a carrot in front of me, to put her executive stamp of approval on so many military and infrastructure projects that I was championing.

The price, join Vizsla to Kryze.

Korkie knew what his ‘aunt’ was doing of course.

He was roughly seventeen and an honors student in the Royal Academy of Sundari until the drums of war had sounded. The art of politics was almost the sole reason that the academy existed. He’d been raised in New Mando ideals which championed merit, yet among the upper echelons, marriage between houses solely for financial or political gain remained.

Even though the Resol’nare didn’t say anything explicit, familial alliance was standard practice for thousands of years at this point. As much as a supreme Manda’lor could unite every clan under a banner, the bonds of blood method was as old as humanity. Even from a traditional togruta point of view, the same thing was practiced, though it was increasingly rare as Shili’s urbanized society grew.

Therefore from Korkie’s view, there were no downsides to being used like this. He was already infatuated with me, so a bloody arranged marriage for the benefit of all Mandalore had no problems in his mind.

No, the only problems existed on my part.

I did not love Korkie.

How could I?

From my point of view, he was just too young. Sure, give him two years to mature nicely, get some military experience under his belt, grow into a man and… maybe?

Oh for frak sake!

For these kinds of marriages, love was the farthest thing from consideration. It was pure luxury amongst any kind of aristocracy.

Yet here I was, smack in the middle of finding myself in charge of an influential House in the Mandalorian political system, the Mandalorian Jedi, wielder of the Darksaber, an unwed female, just perfectly positioned to help join the two most powerful clans on either side of the political divide.

I knew bringing peace to this sector would come at a personal cost to me, yet it seemed that I was not done paying that cost by a long shot.

I kept my friendly yet neutral mask foremost on my face as I listened politely to Korkie’s conversation with Satine. They were discussing the potential impact of the surprise defeat of Saam’s Deregulation Bill and the introduction of Senator Organa’s War Bond Bill as a method of financing the war effort that wouldn’t see the Republic beggared into bankruptcy.

“It’s a good idea in principle, a voluntary extra ‘tax’ for a specific undertaking that the people commit to,” Satine said, drinking some wine from a tall glass. “Of course, I can just imagine that in the future, the Senate will try to delay or even stop these bonds from ever being paid back to the citizenry.”

“That’s rather pessimistic, but realistic,” Korkie shook his head sadly.

“They’ll just pass a law that extends the bond’s payout date or even get rid of that date, then to save political face, will reward interest to the bondholders… at a rate that’s ridiculously low. However, that will not happen when we introduce our version of a bond in the Mandalore sector.”

Korkie frowned in thought and ate a bit of meat, “You wish bonds to help fund more settlement creation on the planet.”

“It’ll be an end to the population guidance measures we’ve had to adopt, we can even begin thinking of investing in the effort to heal Mandalore into the world it once was, and not an endless blasted desert.”

“That would be a worthy effort that would convince me to buy a bond.”

“And what do you think, Manda’lor Vizsla?” Satine asked me with an arched brow.

“The idea of a society investing in itself has my full support, duchess. As long as the bonds are not devalued over time by various measures and short sighted politicians. If the citizens lose confidence that the bonds are being used properly, then they won’t buy them in the future and the proceeds from bond sales dry up. They then become useless as an instrument of investment for the government that issues them.”

“Good point, Manda’lor,” Satine’s gaze ranged over the various ministers at the table, her eyes speaking volumes to them without saying a word.

Far from being guests of honor at Satine’s table at this banquet, these particular politicians in her government had somehow found themselves on her shit list. How was putting them here punishment? It was publicly showing that she didn’t trust them and wanted them ‘close’ to keep an eye and ear on them.

I was there simply because Satine wanted Korkie’s conversation at this table and to show off this potential new union between Kryze and Vizsla.

Naturally, I didn’t roll over on my belly for her.

If she truly wanted this, then both Togai and I were going to milk the deal for everything it was worth and then some.

I also thumbed my nose at her in a more petty manner by turning up to this banquet in the extremely risqué dress I had gotten on Raxus.

Korkie had practically choked on his saliva when I had come down the central staircase of the Vizsla estate wearing it.

The look on Satine’s face when she saw me also made it quite worth enduring Korkie’s enamored stare not to mention the leers of quite a few faces around the banquet.

Anakin’s bond opened from his side and he sent me the mental equivalent of a ‘ping’.

I opened the bond, ‘One moment, master.’

“I think some fresh air is in order, if I can please be excused from the table, duchess?”

Satine frowned slightly but then politely nodded, “Of course, manda’lor.”

I gathered the lower skirts of my dress to stand in a way that wouldn’t see me give a few of the elderly men at the table heart attacks.

Korkie had sensed my desire for a bit of solitude and remained seated, giving me a slight smile. I was thankful he had picked up on that.

My TK was at work on the edges of my dress to keep me decent as I walked with purpose to the nearby doors, which led out onto a balcony that overlooked the greater interior of the Sundari city dome. The view would be amazing if I was a fan of artificial environments designed to be pretty and blocky.

‘Yes, master. Go ahead.’

‘Do please explain why the CIS Navy would turn the bulk of its guns on a Providence dreadnought in the middle of a battle. I refuse to believe that they would do it just to kill either Obi-Wan or myself.’

‘Were they going to lose, Skyguy?’

‘Well, yes, we were inflicting losses on them, they were hitting us, but the momentum and initiative was on our side. Then they suddenly blast their own dreadnought into scrap and retreat.’

‘And the fact that you were on said dreadnought at the time means that you both went on a fighter jaunt, when you were supposed to be on the bridges of your flagships.’

‘Snips, you like being fleet commander, I like to fly. Yularen had things well in hand. Besides, even Ventress was out there in a fighter, which was why Obi-Wan and I went out there in the first place.’

‘Fine. Answer this question, who could give such an order to the CIS droids and have them actually destroy a 400 million credit starship?”

‘Dooku.’

‘Precisely, and why would he want to kill his own Sith apprentice?’

Anakin knew enough about the enemy to draw the correct conclusion. ‘She was becoming too powerful.’

‘Yes, but not for Dooku. No, she was becoming too powerful for the likes of Sidious. The role of the Sith apprentice is to eventually challenge and kill the master. Sidious clearly doesn’t want Ventress to be used as a weapon by Dooku against him.’

‘So the entire thing, losing a fleet battle and dreadnought, was just a test of loyalty? For Dooku?’

‘Correct.’

‘That’s insane. Surely, he could’ve just ordered her back and then killed her personally. It would certainly be more… economical.’

‘You’re thinking practically and that is not something Sith do when it comes to power. Dooku is not someone who likes to get his hands dirty when he can help it and the loss of Sullust is not the end of the galaxy for the enemy or even the CIS. Given fleet disposition, the Republic can only hold and consolidate the new position at Sullust. There isn’t enough strength in the south to roll over multiple systems on the trot.’

‘Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Ventress anymore then.’ I pointedly didn’t say anything in reply. “Oh… you have to be joking!”

‘Sorry Skyguy, she’s still alive.’

‘There were no nearby escape pods, her own fighter was in pieces on the hangar deck, how…’

‘Have you actually looked at the schematics of the fighter she was flying, Skyguy?’

‘No… hang on, it was a fantail… let’s check… Oh, redundant power systems and independent thrusters, the cockpit doubles as a full escape pod. So it’s plausible she’s alive at least…’

‘Skyguy, as far as your official report is concerned, she’s dead,’ I thought pointedly.

‘Snips… no. No way. You want her for Fulcrum?!’

‘The galaxy is now a very hostile place for her, Skyguy. She’ll never be a friend but I want her at least as an ally. The enemy wanted her dead for a reason, that is enough for me to make sure she stays alive. I want her efforts pointed in the right direction and not causing more problems in the long run.’

‘I can sense you’ve made up your mind and nothing I’m going to say will convince you otherwise.’

‘The intel she will have on Dooku’s inner workings is too valuable to just leave unused on the board. That is why someone is already on the way to intercept her.’ My comlink vibrated in the hidden pocket of my dress. ‘Sorry, master, I’ve got a call to attend to.’

‘We’ll have more words about this later… nice dress, by the way.’

‘Thank you, fly safe, master.’

I shut the bond on my side and fished out the comlink before slapping it on my inner wrist.

The tiny holo of HK-47 appeared above my hand.

“Report, HK.”

“Statement: Attempted assassination plot has been prevented, master.”

“Good, what was it this time?”

“Answer: The assassin infiltrated the Mandalorian Guard, eliminating a guardsman and then posed as one of the counter-snipers that was stationed around the palace.”

“A rather ironic plan. Is he still alive?”

“Answer: Yes, master. My own shot was precisely on target, in accordance with your orders.”

Good, but as this was HK I knew the demented droid had taken some sort of liberty with the interpretation of those orders. “Is he at least coherent enough to speak?”

“Explanation: Once one of the Blade meatbags finishes stabilizing him to dull the pain of being shot with a precisely calibrated plasma bolt in the trapezius, he will be most coherent, master.” Blasted, bloody droid.  “Elaboration: There is also the matter that the Mandalorian Guard meatbags are being problematic regarding custody of the assassin meatbag. They are currently in a most delightful argument with your Blade meatbags. Query: Shall I facilitate their dispute, master?”

“No, you bloody well will not!” I shouted in anger. “Adjust your holocom, project my image directly between them.”

The holo hovering above my wrist changed into a small rendering of the Blades on one side, whilst a line of Mando Guard in their gray uniforms with beskar shields and blaster pistols stood on the other.

My perceptions surged through the link and joined with the life sized holo HK was now projecting of me.

Both sides were startled with surprise, cutting off the ensuing argument. Then incredulousness and after a few seconds, appreciation of the visage of me in this dress, though I also sensed disgust from a few of the Mando Guards.

“Enough!” I snapped, letting out a low level Force Push, rocking back everyone slightly on their heels. “Captain Skord.”

The commander of this particular Blade squad stepped forward and saluted with a clenched fist on his chest. “Manda’lor.”

I turned to the Guard, “Captain Cerkai.”

The squad leader in question stepped forward and bowed his head. “Manda’lor.” His surprise that I even knew his name was clear.

The entire confrontation was taking place in one of the buildings that bordered the palace grounds. As much as security would dictate that no tall buildings should be within a few kilometers, there just wasn’t enough space in Sundari for that.

Behind the line of Blades, a medic was hard working on the assassin; applying bacta, pain killers and encasing one arm in a splint to immobilize it.

“Let me guess,” I turned to Cerkai. “He murdered a guardsman in the process of infiltrating you and you wish primary jurisdiction.”

“Correct, Manda’lor. The crime happened in Sundari, not Concordia, the law is clear.”

I nodded, “Ordinarily you are correct. The Blades’ mandate, however, is to protect the Mandalore sector from external and internal threats.” I turned to Skord. “DNA profile on the assassin?”

He looked at Cerkai with annoyance, “As I was trying to explain to the good captain of the Guard, one of the first things our medic did was run a database search against the citizen register. The assassin is human but not a Mandalorian citizen. We will need to run it against Republic sources for a proper identification. It’s therefore likely that this was a CIS plot to assassinate someone at the end of year celebration.”

“Which neatly turns this into a Blade matter, however,” I interrupted Cerkai who was puffing up with air like a blowfish. “As we have a dead guardsman on our hands, this will be a joint investigation with the Guard. Will that be satisfactory, Captain?”

He scowled and seemed to take in the entire situation with his eyes again before reluctantly nodding, “Very well, Manda’lor. Joint investigation. I just hope the Guard Commander will not object.”

“You are the responsible officer on scene,” I said matter-of-factly. “If Guard Commander Fytt wants to begin doubting his subordinates, that’s not my problem. If he makes it my problem, I will take this straight to the duchess. As the assassin was targeting her event anyway, I’ll just walk ten meters behind me and inform her after I get off this com line.”

All the Mando Guardsmen winced. Satine was actually their true ‘commander’ and she had the full right to pull any of them in front of the throne and dress them down to size for failures or disputes with the other services.

Olul Fytt was by all accounts a gold plated, pain in the ass who was good at his job and if rumors are to be believed, a person who overly appreciated the fairer sex. I had so far thankfully avoided meeting him or even talking to him over a holo, but that was looking like it would soon change.

“Will the Manda’lor insist on HK-47 remaining with the investigation?” Cerkai nervously looked at the droid who’s holoprojector my visage was emanating from.

“As much as the droid is an expert interrogator, I want this assassin to be presentable afterwards. HK, report back to the Vizsla estate when you’ve gathered your equipment.”

“Reluctant Agreement: Very well, master. Back to training the young meatbag it is.”

“Thank you, Manda’lor,” Cerkai said with visible relief.

“Is there any other problems that you wish to bring forward? Skord?” Both men shook their heads. “Good, carry on.”

I pulled my perceptions back and cut the comlink. Then leaned forward on the balcony railing and stared into the distance, just taking in the view and the thousands of air cars streaming back and forth in their lanes.

A knock on the balcony’s glass door reached my montrals. I absently raised a finger and twitched it, using TK to unlatch the door and swing it open. “You can join me, Korkie.”

A gave a glance behind me as he stood framed in the doorway.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

He stood at a respectable 1.76 meters tall and was likely to still grow taller, blue eyes, handsome face, and the nose of his mother. Merging the best features from the father and the mother. He filled out his Coruscanti inspired formal suit decently and with more training to come he would do even better. He wouldn’t be gracing any front covers of a girly magazine, but 98% of males also fell into that category.

“Manda’lor…  Ahsoka? Are you alright?”

“Just dealing with business, nothing to worry you about,” I said with a wan smile.

“Sorry, it’s just… I felt that something was off, wrong…” he stepped closer, uncertain how to ascribe words to it.

“It’s good that you’re opening yourself, applying your lessons, just be mindful of acting on what you learn. Sometimes it’s best to just let things play out, instead of poking your nose into it. It’s something that will only come with time and experience.”

He now stood next to me on the balcony, leaning against the railing. “And you have experience?”

“Well, a year in a war tends to make you leave childhood fast behind, but I also have thousands of years of Jedi experience and teaching to fall back on.”

He looked off into the distance and I could feel the turmoil, which had been simmering in the back of his mind all evening, come forward. “Ahsoka… I’m sorry. I’ve realized… how terribly unfair this is to you.” His breathing and heart was bursting now with an anxious nervousness.

“It is, but the universe is not fair by design,” I sighed wearily. “As a Jedi, I am traditionally forbidden from ‘attachments’, such as marriage. I had just never thought I’d ever have to worry about a marriage, husband or children. There are exceptions allowed only in the case where the Jedi has a political lineage that needs to be continued or their species are endangered with a low birth rate. I will neatly fall into the former category now. Your aunt has done her research well.”

“I just feel… At first I was ecstatic about the idea. It just seemed perfect. Now I can actually sense the feelings of everyone around me and… you’re actually angry about it.”

“I’m not angry at you, Korkie. I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, to actually find love.” Stupid heart. Why did you have to go and fall for Padme? Talk about unrealistic and unrequited.

“And you can’t see yourself ever feeling that for me?”

Fuck.

“Korkie, in a marriage like ours would be, you do know what eventually happens.”

His lips thinned, “Paramours.”

“Could you stand the thought that I had one? Consequently, would I be able to tolerate the thought that you have a mistress? No, don’t think it won’t happen, Korkie. We are both still young, you might think you are in love with me now, but in a year, two or ten years, you might find the woman who steals your heart truly.” Oh, how quickly the wheel turns.

“I might not and I’m already looking at one who has it,” he retorted.

Now I was really feeling wretched, but I made sure to hide it from his neophyte perceptions. “Only time will tell. Now, I think it’s time I went back inside. Social conventions to maintain, after all.” Lively music began playing throughout the hall, which spilled out onto the balcony. “How’s your dancing?”

“I’m versed in all the forms,” he replied promptly, doing a reasonable job of controlling his emotions.

“Good, I’m not, you will lead and I can follow.”

He nodded and held out his right elbow. I threaded my left hand through and we stepped back into the cauldron of high society, politics and expectations.

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She had known hardship in many forms.

From waiting patiently for hours on her old master, scrubbing floors by hand at a mere four years old, learning to cook with barely any instruction, washing clothes, every menial task that Hal’Sted could possibly dump on her small shoulders. Then under Master Narec, as a teenager, long hours of training, learning the Jedi arts, patience, meditation - which she could never master properly. Then when he had died, the scrabble of living on the streets of Rattatak from hand to mouth, using the Force to aid in stealing food, embracing the Dark Side to get revenge on all the weequay scum that had killed her master.

Then even with the power with which she had nearly conquered the entire planet, she had failed to kill that bastard Kirske… the humiliation of being enslaved again with an explosive collar, all the depravities he had visited on her, then fighting in a gladiatorial arena.

Then came Dooku, who saw her potential, who finally killed Kirske to free her and brought about her true ascension into the Dark and the Sith.

Now the wheel had turned again, she was free of Dooku. He believed her dead and that would be his own downfall.

With all that behind her, how could this situation suddenly feel intolerable?

For hours Asajj had gone from scrap dealer to dealer on Gallimimus station, trying to sell off the salvage. The first one didn’t even give her the time of day, saying he only bought from those he knew. The second one offered a ridiculously low value that would barely give her enough credit to fill up the Crusher’s tanks to a quarter. She had been sorely tempted to behead him right there, even though the dealership had been filled with customers. The story was the same for the following three stores and now as she stood in her sixth dealership for the day, waiting in a queue, the hold on her anger was fraying dangerously.

The Dark Side was frothing and cloying, practically begging to be used on every single sentient in front of her.

Even the Force blind fools around her were beginning to pick up on it.

She bound the beast with yet more chains. It would serve!

She was the master and arbiter of her own fate, not the Dark Side!

Going on a massacre here was pointless, stupid and would see her exposed as being still alive to Dooku and his master.

The door of the dealership hissed open and a group of six sentients entered.

Asajj would’ve dismissed them as yet more customers, were it not for the fact that the Force began to ripple and pulse with agitation at the hostile intent from them.

Four human men, a duros and a trandoshan.

The locals in the dealership also began reacting to the presence of this group - fear, nervousness, apprehension. It began to rise and move through the shop as if it was a wave of emotion passing through everyone.

Asajj pointedly didn’t react and her eyes narrowed at the reaction of the man behind the counter.

His eyes wide with confusion and fear.

There was only one conclusion she could draw; this was a local criminal element. They were either here to collect protection money or…

No, they were here for her.

All their attention was now laser focused on her back and they walked forward as if they owned the entire station. The customers scattered at their approach and Asajj began grinning in anticipation.

“Hey missy,” said the human male in an awful accent, who looked like he was in charge of this enforcement gang. “You arrived here in the Crusher, did ya?”

“What of it?” said Asajj, not even turning around to face them. They had spread out to cut her off from any easy escape out of the front door. They were all dressed in a variety of styles and outfits, implying that none of them lacked money or food, but they all had the air of criminality and scum.

“You see, we know the captain of that bucket. Ol’ Vutrol is a rather good friend of ours, isn’t he, Grac?”

“Yes, boss,” said Grac, the supposed subordinate who stood there with an insufferable smirk.

“In fact, he’s such a good friend that we loaned him twenty thousand credits. That he promised to pay us back within three months.”

Asajj called on the Force and began pulling on the blaster in her bag, working its way to the edge of the flap. She used subtle twitches of her right hand for the fine control to aim its barrel right for the stupid smug face of the gang leader.

“Did he now? Well, Vutrol didn’t tell me,” she said, keeping the conversation going.

“Curious thing that. Seeing as only you and the Crusher is here. Yes, we scanned the ship. So that can only mean one thing.” She couldn’t help but be curious about the conclusion they’d drawn so she allowed him to prattle on. “So how did you steal it from him?”

‘Really? That was it? How disappointing. She’d clearly given the guy too much credit in the brains department.

“That is irrelevant to you,” she said flippantly.

“Downright rude to not face someone when they talk to you, isn’t it, Grac?”

“Yes, boss, very rude.”

“It’s very relevant. You see, depending on your answer, we might just saddle you with Vutrol’s old debt. It’s four months overdue.”

Asajj smirked cruelly, a glint entering her eyes, “So if I told you that I killed him and his crew… that they all died screaming and begging for their pathetic lives. Would that cause you to hold me accountable for his debt?”

The gangers all looked at her with confusion, even apprehension, then the leader started laughing. “Oh, ha ha, that’s good. You want us to believe that a thin thing like you could do that to Vutrol and his crew? No. Try another one, missy.”

She slowly raised her empty right hand.

The tension in all of the gangers and in the shop rose to new heights. All of them tensed as their hands started reaching for their own concealed weapons.

They only relaxed slightly when they saw her hand latching onto her hood and pulling it open to reveal her tattooed head and white dathomirian skin. She only turned her head to look at them out of the corner of her eye.

The leader tried to look unintimidated, but his eyes widened at her grim visage, “Nice tattoos, missy.”

“Why thank you. Now, have you decided?”

“Hmmm, tell you what, missy. I’m feeling generous. You give me the Crusher and the local branch of the Black Sun will consider Vutrol’s debt settled.”

He speaks truth, how surprising, she thought.

She wouldn’t have pegged this bunch as belonging to the galaxy spanning criminal syndicate. That brought an entirely new dimension to the burgeoning confrontation. She could ill afford to get on the wrong side of such a big player in the criminal underworld.

“I have a counter-offer, I keep the ship, you take all the salvage Vutrol collected, which is the latest state-of-the-art components and gear from the front lines, which can fetch a pretty high price with the correct buyer. You refuel the Crusher and I go on my way.”

All the gangers started laughing and the leader just started outright guffawing and slapping his thigh with amused hilarity. “Get a load of this. Missy, what kind of school did you go to? Check the markets lately? No way that is remotely the same in value.”

“Oh silly me, I forgot to add the part where you and your colleagues get to keep breathing as well. Would that equalize the value?”

The amusement rapidly faded from their faces and they started scowling.

“That’s not nice, missy. Don’t go cashing credit orders you don’t have the money for.”

“That is the deal, take it and live or don’t and die.”

It’d seem that she’d have to make yet another enemy on her journey to Dathomir. Giving up the ship was not an option and would strand her here unless she could find another suitable ship to steal. It was entirely possible that it would also have the right credentials, but again she couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t be reported up and down the hyperlane. No, this thug would not take her ship.

The gangers just stared for the longest moment, gritting their teeth and the leader was visibly sweating. His hand slowly moving millimeter by millimeter to the inside of his jacket.

The tension in the shop was thick enough that you could cut it with a lightsaber.

Asajj could feel the moment of decision approaching. The thug could instinctively sense he was not just dealing with a random opponent here or some random dathomiri female from Iridonia or Dathomir. He was also fighting with the need to not appear weak in front of his gangmates.

“Kriff,” he snarled and plunged his hand as fast he could into his jacket. The Black Sun gangers followed, rushing to bring their blasters to bear.

Their reflexes were admirably quick, but they might as well be moving through gelled bacta in comparison to Asajj.

With a thought, the blaster under her control triggered from her bag and she ducked and moved left in a blur, triggering the blaster again and again.

The leader and two of his fellow gangers slumped to the floor in death, the former missing most of his head, whilst the others gained new cauterized holes through their chests right through their hearts.

She found cover just in time behind a large nearby rack of spare parts, when the trandoshan, duros and remaining human brought their own pistols to bear and started firing on her position.

The shots drowned out the screaming of the customers as everyone either fell to the ground to get out of the possible line of fire or rushed for the exit.

She palmed Vutrol’s blaster in less than a second, aimed and fired in answer.

Her opponents weren’t stupid or inexperienced it seemed and were also in the process of moving to the nearest cover. Her fire only succeeded in wounding the trandoshan in the arm as they retreated behind the closest racks.

She gritted her teeth in frustrated anger. In any other situation she’d be already there and slicing them to pieces with her lightsaber. There were just too many witnesses and the possibility of surveillance sensors in the shop. She could sense the perceptions of many shop patrons on the floor, who were frantically looking around to check when it would be safe to make a break for the exit.

Asajj brought her blaster to bear again, firing three times at her opponents to keep them suppressed, preventing them from breaking cover and flanking her.

This provoked a rapid flurry of blasts back on her position, pushing her to a kneeling position to avoid a bolt that snaked through the gaps of the rack and would’ve hit her in the head.

She fired back again, this time managing a hit right on the remaining human as he tried to lean out and fire on her. The shot nailed him right on the hand and not only turned it into a wreck of fried meat and bone, but also sent his blaster tumbling to the floor. He fell to the ground screaming in pain and clutching at his ruined appendage.

In retaliation, the duros fired back with a weapon that looked like a compact autoblaster he had hidden somewhere on his person.

Sparks and small bits of slagged metal rained down on her position.

“Druk!” she cursed, sliding backward and shrugging off her hood and outer jacket, to get rid of the burning metal that was steadily melting through the material.

She slid forward on her knees and from a low position returned fire to send the duros back into cover. Her shots punched holes through the rack, but lost too much energy on the various metal parts to do no more than push them onto her opponents, which they shrugged off.

She then sensed the trandoshan reaching to his jacket and the Force screamed in warning at the destructive potential of what was in his hand now.

He had a thermal detonator.

Was he insane! Had his blaster injury scrambled his senses and wits!

Either its destructive potential was calibrated low or he truly wanted to take her and the entire shop down with him.

The front doors of the dealership opened and from outside a circular stun blue bolt streaked into the shop and slammed straight into the trandoshan’s chest.

The hardy creature wasn’t so easy to put down though and reached with its other hand to twist the detonator to arm it.

There was a whine and two angry orange blaster bolts slammed into its chest and cored straight through.

The duros tried to bring its own autoblaster to bear on their attacker but only received a double ring of stun bolts straight to its face.

The Force simmered and settled down.

Asajj sensed the danger had generally lifted but whoever her ‘savior’ was, they were ready to also instantly gun her down if provoked.

She wearily got to her feet, holding the blaster ready and poked an eye around the rack to see.

Her eyes widened in astonishment and anger.

At first she thought she was looking at Tano herself, but no, this was not a teenager. This was a fully grown togruta female. The patterning of the face, montral and lekku was similar but didn’t match. A family member?

The togruta stepped into the shop, coming into full view, idly twirling two blasters in her hands before settling them into their respective holsters on her belted hips.

Asajj double checked her own mind to make sure she wasn’t being influenced but… yes, she was actually seeing this and hadn’t undergone a psychotic break.

The clicking of high heeled boots echoed through the shop, which had gone deathly silent. The togruta had gray armored shoes with high heels in defiance of all practicality, armored shins that smoothly blended into elegant knee pads. The edges of a blue sock that cushioned the armor peeked above the knee guards.

Between this and the belts that held her weapons, it was the only clothing the togruta wore.

Her long lekku were curled around the edges of her bare breasts and they brushed over the brown pointed nipples as she turned her head left and right to survey the shop. With each strutting step, as if she didn’t have a care in the universe, those breasts bounced and moved with each breath.

Her walk and gait was wide, balanced, the step of a dancing predator, exposing the lush lips of her lower sexual organ without shame or care.

She came to a stop near the middle of the shop, standing between the customers who were still cowering on the floor and looking around with wide eyes, all of them frozen in fear and astonishment.

“Ladies and gentlebeings, scram!”

The togruta’s words rang through the air and the Force.

Everyone wearily got to their feet, before bolting towards the door. The only sound in the room was of booted feet and gasping breaths. The tide of sentients parted around the togruta and none of them even glanced her way twice.

She just stood there with a casual smile and patiently waited, hands on hips and tapping a single heeled boot to the floor, as if she was keeping time for some reason.

When the last sentient had fled, closing the door behind them, the togruta glanced Asajj’s way and smirked.

“Well, Ventress, it didn’t take long for death to follow in your wake.”

She emerged from cover and aimed her blaster straight at her savior’s face, focusing hard on her eyes and probing forward with the Force.

What she found astonished her even more.

Nothing.

The life signature of an ordinary togruta female, no appreciable Force sensitivity whatsoever.

A mind that was filled with dizzying concepts that she had no context for.

“Who are you?” Asajj hissed.

“Captain Abehla Mizal, at your service.”

The woman smiled widely, amusement dancing in her features as she bowed in a wildly extravagant fashion, pushing her right leg back, practically kneeling with her left, quickly bowing at the waist, uncaring for the effect it had on the rest of her body.

Asajj didn’t understand. Her senses giving conflicting information. This insane gunslinger shouldn’t be a threat at all, yet she had clearly felt her use the Force on everyone in the shop, but now she was just normal.

Mizal resumed a more normal stance, but her hip was leaned to the right, emphasizing her long, toned legs. “Now, I suggest that you hurry along and leave the shop. Station security is on the way and I doubt you want to answer their questions or be stuck in an interrogation room.”

She hissed in annoyance, not wanting to lower her blaster an inch. With the Force, Asajj reached out and her bag zoomed through the air and into her grip.

Mizal smirked and turned around, beginning a fast walk out of the dealership.

Asajj snarled in anger at her own uncertainty and indecision, but found herself hurrying along in the wake of the togruta.

They emerged into a long curving corridor that was rapidly emptying of people, the shops on either side shutting their entrances with thick automated security gates. Red emergency lights flickering from strategic points, heralding a silent alarm. Holo displays were also ordering everyone to designated shelters and displaying helpful map overlays.

“Blend into a crowd as best you can, Ventress,” Mizal called behind her.

“Me? What about you?!” Asajj stuffed her blaster into her bag.

“Oh you’re worried about me, how cute.”

They reached a small group of people that had just emerged from a shop shutting its doors and fell in step with them. Asajj tried to project a similar bewildered, panicky expression, all the while carefully analyzing the sentients for any reaction they had to a karking naked togruta gunslinger walking amongst them.

Nothing.

A human male looked straight at her from behind as he was jostled by the evacuating group, yet just kept going. A twi’lek male was right next to her and looked all set to bowl her over, yet he smoothly dodged around her, without seeming even realizing he was doing it. The human female close by also should’ve also reacted, but just seemed to stare right through the togruta.

This had to be some form of Force ability in action, there could be no doubt.

Then why can't I sense it? Asajj thought in anger.

A team of armed station security in gray uniforms rushed towards their little crowd, shouting for them to get out of the way. Asajj pretended to be a good little sentient and followed the herd, moving against the wall of the corridor.

Mizal for her part, also moved with the crowd, but none of the security reacted to her obvious presence either.

The crowd reformed and continued its collective journey to the station’s security shelters.

Asajj’s thoughts raced and swiftly came up with a new plan. She hadn’t tried it before as she was pretending to be a good galactic citizen, but now with station security occupied and everyone being ordered to head to shelters, it would be relatively trivial to steal a fuel refill for the Crusher with a bit of slicing. Override and spoof the local sensors to further hide the theft and just wait out the emergency.

“If you’re thinking of going back to the Crusher, you’ll have to deal with more Black Sun. They’ve locked the ship down with the localized tractor beams,” Mizal said lazily.

“How can you possibly know that?”

“It’s how they operate. If you thought that the local Black Sun presence was limited to that little gang on this station, then the Dark Side has rotted your brain even more than I thought little Sith.”

Asajj gritted her teeth and reached out with the Force to wring the togruta’s neck, subtlety be damned.

Her control seemed to… slide, no… be diverted utterly around Mizal. It was as if she was trying to grasp fog.

“Now, now, Ventress, is that any way to treat someone who just saved your life?” Mizal asked as if she hadn’t just brushed off certain death.

“Who… what are you?” Asajj grumbled, fighting to keep her astonishment and fear from rising. Not even Skywalker and Kenobi could resist her telekinetic control like this. Kriff, she doubted Dooku could either.

“Is your memory also in question? I told you, I’m Captain Mizal. If you need a résumé, I’m a freighter captain, freedom fighter, a traveler of the galaxy making my own way and occasionally lending a hand to souls in need.”

“And you’re a Jedi,” Asajj accused under her breath, knowing the togruta would easily pick up on it.

“I think the Jedi Masters and what’s his name… the small one, green, talks funny…”

“Yoda,” Asajj said in frustration.

“Ah yes, Yoda, would be very surprised if you called me a Jedi, I haven’t met them at all in my entire life.”

“And now I’m suddenly a soul in need?” she asked, her voice thick with sarcasm.

“Of course, on one side the Republic, the other the CIS, and now you’ve run afoul of the Black Sun.”

“And how is it you know so much of me? Or even that I was in trouble in the first place?”

“Well, when you’re as experienced as I am, you pick up a few tricks or two. Not to mention friends, who know more friends, who knows others and so on. Oh, that reminds me, Ahsoka Tano sends her regards,” Mizal giggled for some reason.

“You know her?” Asajj asked the mad captain intently.

“We’re acquainted, now I think we should break off from the pack here, the next turn is the way to the Crusher.”

Mizal turned left as the corridor diverged without hesitation, not even looking to see if Asajj followed.

The dathomirian seeing no other choice, also turned and sprinted to catch up, now walking next to the long strides of the togruta.

“There’s no fuel on board, why else do you think I’m on this station in the first place?”

“They’ve got some good casinos here. There’s also a wonderful exotic dance show that specializes in males, don’t tell me you wouldn’t be tempted?” Mizal grinned like a loon, winking knowingly at Asajj.

“I’m not interested in males or females,” Asajj hissed.

“Ooh, bad history there, I sense. Anyway, we’ll deal with the Black Sun goons watching the ship and then we’ll make a plan regarding refueling.”

Approaching the entrance to the docking bay after a blistering eight minutes of walking, Asajj could sense two very bored thugs waiting at the main entrance.

How Mizal dealt with them was rather anticlimactic. It was a rodian and human male. Both of whom hesitated in astonishment when they saw the nude togruta approaching them. That was all she needed, in a feat of blistering hand speed, to draw both her blaster pistols and hit them with stun bolts.

“Didn’t kill them?” Asajj asked, as Mizal knelt down and began patting the two thugs down, looking for something.

“I’m particular about that,” was the only reply as the captain stood, now holding an access code cylinder. She stepped forward, slotting it into the reader lock on the door. “Figures that the Black Sun has a master key.”

The bay entrance opened and Mizal stepped through, drawing her weapons again.

Asajj pulled out her own blaster and followed as the blasts and whines of blaster shots rapidly echoed through the bay.

She had to immediately dodge a bolt that would’ve burned through her stomach and started shooting at the first target she sensed.

Mizal on the other hand seemed to dance, duck, lean and shoot as she moved through the landing bay. Preternaturally dodging fire exactly as a Jedi would without a lightsaber, only at a level that Asajj knew even a Jedi Master or Dooku would be hard pressed to match.

Asajj nailed an ugnaught wielding a comically oversized rifle in the chest and dodged and ducked two blasts even as Mizal fell into doing the splits, whilst firing forward with her right pistol and shooting blindly behind herself.

The togruta leaned forward and spun herself into a twirl that defied physics, jumping upward, clearly using the Force for some self-levitation, all the while triggering her blasters to stun and kill more foes.

When she landed her heeled boots clicked on the hard floor into a deathly silence.

Just like that… it was over.

Asajj quickly counted over a dozen dead and stunned bodies strewn all over the bay at various spots.

Mizal spun her pistols with a flourish and holstered them, before grinning crazily. “That was fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yes, little Sith, you do know what that word means? Something sentients do that they enjoy, entertain them and so on.”

“Yes, I know what it means,” Asajj snapped. “Stop calling me that.”

“Oh, so you don’t want to be a Sith anymore? Good to know.”

“No, I mean, yes…” Her head was reeling, why was she feeling this way?

Mizal walked over to the fueling station, pulled out a credit chit from her belt and slotted it in.

“What are you doing?” Asajj asked in annoyance.

“What does it look like? I’m paying for the fuel you need. You sure you don’t need to see a med droid for that eyesight?”

“My eyes are fine!”

“Oh, could’ve fooled me.” Mizal pulled open the armored door set into the bay floor and easily hauled out the heavy fuel hose, carrying the connector head over to the starboard side of the Crusher.

“I mean why are you doing this?”

Mizal slammed the fuel head into the refueling port, twisted the seal and punched the button that started up the pumps aboard the Crusher. “You can thank Ahsoka Tano for that.”

“Why would she help me? I’ve tried to kill her multiple times. I’ve killed Jedi.”

“You should ask her that. I think she’s being incredibly naive and somehow thinks that you still have some actual value in the greater game being played.”

“Yet you’re still helping.”

Mizal turned, her expression changed and suddenly Asajj felt like she was but a porg facing a giant rancor in the Force. “It is that youngling you should thank that I didn’t snuff out your life, little dathomiri.” The impression was there for only an instant and Asajj blinked as she realized she had fallen back on her buttocks.

Then suddenly the crazy smile was back, the togruta folded her arms, “Now, are you going to actually be useful and handle the tractor emitters or do I need to do that as well?”

Asajj wearily rose to her feet, dropped her bag and stomped off for the nearest emitter. Not even worried about turning her back to the crazy togruta anymore, “By the Void, what have I gotten into? What is this?”

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A/N: Alas, working in an Order 66 reference somewhere in this chapter just didn't pan out.  Arranged marriages, ouch, poor Ahsoka. Hope you enjoyed and stay awesome.

The Force Wills - Chapter 65

“Stop fidgeting, Korkie.”

“Yes, auntie,” he said, automatically adopting the posture hammered into him by what felt like hundreds of hours of physical training.

She gave him a brief stern look over the shoulder from the controls of the Kom’rk fighter-transport, before smiling in approval and returning her attention to the rapidly approaching moon of Concordia.

Every minute that brought the moon closer made his stomach more unsettled and a building tension shot up and down his spine. He was constantly working on the techniques to manage it that had been taught to him by his aunt and others, but it was a constant battle that he feared he would never master.

Everything just had to go well on this trip.

He put on his helmet and started to tap into the controls on his vambrace. He was still trying to find a style of HUD and configuration that felt right, but even after months since he’d been given this beskar’gam, he was still fine tuning it. He knew he was probably just doing it now to keep himself busy and not think about-

He barely held in a sigh that would be audible to Auntie Bo.

“Korkie, relax. You’d think I was flying you to your execution.”

“Yes, auntie,” he replied shortly. He really didn’t feel like he was up to any extended conversation at the moment. She could always read him like a novel, even when he was completely covered in beskar’gam. She could do it to anyone and he knew she wasn’t skilled in the Force. It was just sheer experience on her side.

He decided to distract himself by bringing forth one of his favorite treatises from the Prefsbelt Academy to be displayed on his HUD.

It talked about leadership in general, not just in times of war. In fact, the treatise stated that war was a permanent state of condition for sentient life. It was just that the form of ‘war’ could change and could act at different levels of society and life. War was not just ‘the firing of blaster large and small’, it was not just the taking of life and killing, commanding starships to destroy others; it was also the cunning stratagem that would see you promoted over your rivals at a company, it was an adolescent deceiving his bully, in so doing to get him in trouble and cause his downfall. The treatise kept going on with its examples of ‘war’ from different points of view at every age and situation. It even redefined the term ‘war’ itself.

At first, when he had read it, he couldn’t imagine how one could live life in this way. Thinking that everyone around you was actually at ‘war’, but then the treatise continued, as if the author had known what the reader would be thinking at this point.

“The thinking that sentient life in all its forms across the galaxy is ‘above’ or ‘separated’ from the struggle of existence is delusion. Two animalistic rancors fighting over a mate is no different at its essence from two suitors vying for the affection of a woman or whatever is equivalent for the reproductive process of any starfaring species. They are ‘at war’ and the conflict will determine who succeeds and who fails. In the same way, nations who want or need the same resources, planets, people, will be ‘at war’, openly or covertly to achieve their own interests.

“There will be those who want to deny this. Who refuse to see this and think themselves above mere animals. Who think that ‘peace’ in all its forms should be striven for. That there should be a utopia where everyone will have everything and no conflict will be necessary. It is a dangerous delusion. The nation which turns their swords and knives into plows, will be seen as weak and easy to conquer by its neighbors. It might be an ancient example, but put it in a modern context. The world who can’t protect its own citizens and spacelanes from pirates and criminals. What right does such a world have to those citizens’ allegiance or taxes?

“Let’s put it even in a greater pragmatic example. Imagine a new race or even a federation of races, comes out of the maelstrom of the Unknown Regions in the west of the galaxy. They have a method of faster than light travel superior to hyperspace. Having survived the rigors of civilizational adolescence and not destroying themselves, having overcome the rigors of the Unknown Regions; they are by nature, distrustful, powerful and have superior technology. They see a peaceful, utopian Republic, that had last fought a war a thousand years ago, utterly unable to resist meaningfully. What would their reaction be?

“There is an ancient saying; there is always a bigger fish. The same is true on the scale of civilizations. Ask any historian who studies the matter. Civilizations who are extinct today, become so invariably because they fall into a stagnation. They fight their enemies and seek to end conflict, then they do so. They achieve ‘peace’ and then fall into ‘corruption’. They deny the struggle, in doing so they eschew the impetus to grow, they therefore deny life. Is it any surprise then that all we find of these civilizations is their dust and the bones of their ancient buildings?

“Others will argue that the Republic has endured for just under twenty-five thousand years, while they point to other extinct civilizations who barely reached five thousand. Surely then the Republic has stood the test of time? Its model for civilization has endured. This author retorts by asking the question for how long of those 25 millennia was the Republic truly ‘at peace’?”

The treatise continued, further highlighting more examples, until it reached the true point of it. Leadership and war was of vital importance to any civilization. It was the mind and fist of a people, government, or state. It could have the largest, most powerful fighting force in the galaxy, ‘a strong fist’, but if its leadership and will was inept or corrupt then its enemies could defeat it.

“About to land,” Auntie Bo’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he quickly dismissed the treatise from his HUD.

The Kom’rk lifted its wings into the upward landing position and touched down on the starship landing pads of Clan Vizsla.

“Now, Korkie, remember, she’s a Jedi. Don’t think for one moment she is unaware of any intentions or feelings you have. I know her well enough by now, that she’ll be pragmatic about it.”

He felt his stomach twisting in nerves anew, but nodded, “I understand, auntie Bo.”

She stood from the pilot seat and gave him an intense look, “You’re a representative of your House first, act accordingly, Korkie. Think with your brain and we’ll not have to worry.”

He could only nod and she patted him hard on the shoulder in encouragement before heading out of the cockpit.

When they descended in the crew access elevator to step foot on Concordian soil it was to be met not by some stern Clan Vizsla warrior or even the governor, but a tall, thin woman, clad in Vizsla colors but wearing a form of tight fitting body glove and carrying a beskar spear, which she held by her side, as if she was barring their way. Her face was stern, implacable and slightly sweaty. It took a moment for Korkie to recognize this was the Concordian governor’s wife, Oba.

“Welcome Bo-Katan Kryze to Clan Vizsla,” Oba said formally.

“Thank you, Su’Aliit Vizsla,” Bo-Katan said, before both bowed slightly to each other.

“You are welcome and under protection as guests of the clan. No blade or spear will fall on you.”

“Your generosity and protection is accepted. This is my nephew, Apprentice Kryze, who has come to learn from the Blades.”

“They do grow up, don’t they,” Oba suddenly smiled, “Now that the stuffy formalities are out of the way and handled. Come here, Bo.” Both women embraced and laughed, patting each other's back as clear friends. “So how long can you stay?” she asked after they separated.

“Not long, unfortunately. Satine is ever in danger of stepping on toes and I have to temper her, lest we undo all the hard work of your Manda’lor.”

“Honestly,” Oba sighed. “Had you just been born first in your House, so much would be different.”

“Yes, it would. Now what are you up to? Getting back in shape?”

“There’s a war and I have four children to protect, I will not shirk my duty in defending this moon. I don’t need to tell you that if the Republic front line at Botajef falls, the Mandalore sector will be wide open to the enemy.”

“Oh, and how is it sparring with the Mandalorian Jedi?”

“Not easy. Say what you will about Jedi, but they wield those lightsabers as well as ever. We have to fight with beskar spears for things to be more even and I’ve even managed to teach her a few things.”

“Can sometimes be hard to imagine that she’s actually just a padawan at the end of the day. Have you thought of what it would be like to spar with her master?”

“No, but good idea, I’ll ask her if it can be arranged,” Oba said with eagerness.

“Is that a bit of the old Oba battle lust I’m seeing?” Bo asked teasingly.

“I’m a Mandalorian after all,” she grinned. “It’s very welcome and satisfying to be this active after four children. Speaking of, when are you going to do your duty?”

“Now where am I going to find the time?” Bo retorted, folding her arms and glaring with good nature at her friend.

“How interesting, so there is someone you have in mind.”

“Let’s get my poor nephew to his destination before we make him die of awkwardness,” Auntie Bo pushed and turned her friend around. Korkie couldn’t be more thankful at that moment. He’d been cringing in horror at the idea of his aunt…

Oba led them in the short walk towards the main house of the estate. From there it was just a few flights of stairs down into a sublevel to reach what was clearly the Vizsla idea of a training room.

He heard the distinctive buzzing, whine and crackle of lightsabers clashing as the door opened.

It was rather small, but since it was only for the personal use of the Manda’lor and at most, four others, understandable. The floor was covered with a brown natural material that didn’t yield at all underfoot, whilst two squares were outlined on it. The walls were covered with racks for not just beskar spears but also weapons that were more exotic and even alien. Scrolls were hung between the racks that had the various truisms of the Mandalorian Way written on them in old Mando’a.

His eyes were naturally drawn to the spectacle occurring in the center of the room.

Ahsoka, no… Manda’lor Vizsla, had two green lightsaber blades in either hand and was a bright blur of movement against a truly formidable looking droid opponent, who was wielding a single red blade. That any droid could actually be a credible threat with a lightsaber was obvious in retrospect, given how well BX commando droids could handle a vibroblade and the late unlamented General Grievous - though he was more of cyborg - but it was a surprise to see how well this very custom made droid was doing against an actual Jedi.

It looked to be a test of machine reaction time against legendary Jedi reflexes.

Korkie could even feel a slight hint of what had to be the Force in use in front of him, but it was very vague… like a tickle in the back of his mind.

She launched herself into a series of attacks that seemed to make her dance through the air, including redirecting herself around her opponent by finding footholds on the air itself! Her blades slashing and probing the droid’s defenses at odd angles.

The droid seemed a bastion of defense though and thanks to its articulated wrists, arms and waist could spin in ways that no organic could match, intercepting and deflecting the attacks.

The action just seemed to build and build by each breathtaking second.

Then it stopped as if someone had hit a pause button on the universe.

The Manda’lor had her left blade humming dangerously underneath the guard of the droid, who was caught with its own blade out of position near its chest. She was poised to just give a flick of the wrist, which would slice from the left hip of the droid diagonally across its chest.

In the next moment, the vision of her hit his eyes and brain.

She was simply wearing blue shorts and a tube covering for her chest that seemed painted on rather than worn. Her left arm raised above her head, the blade in a high defensive guard, whilst her right blade did the offensive work. Feet wide and maintaining a strong stance. Her light orange skin glistened with sweat in the overhead lighting.

She was breathtaking.

A picture of martial prowess and exotic beauty rolled into one.

“Dead,” she said with a smile.

“Acknowledgement: Victory to you, master,” stated the droid with a rich, slightly high timbre to its vocabulator. “Commentary: That is an interesting improvement you have made to the Ataru form, Master. Overcoming the need for traction to perform corrections in mid-air by using your feet as if you had thrusters strapped to them.”

She withdrew her blades and took a purposeful step back, but kept ready for any surprise attack from the droid.

“It still needs work,” Ahsoka shrugged. “End sparring session, HK.”

“Statement: Sparring session ended, master. Logging you out.”

Only now did those green blades vanish back into their hilts. She turned to face her guests and gave them all a mild welcoming smile.

“Since Oba’s done the formalities, I’ll just say welcome to my home. Hello, Bo-Katan, Apprentice. That didn’t take too long.”

Auntie Bo just nodded, “Joining the Blades for training as an excuse is an obvious solution, but will you be able to sell it to the Jedi Council?”

“Of course not,” Ahsoka said, casually sending the hilts of her weapons flying towards a nearby bench, where they landed perfectly into a tog bag, before a towel came zooming back out of it. “If I was going to teach Apprentice Kryze the obvious skills it would quickly become evident to the Council,” she said as she began toweling off the sweat from her montrals, lekku, face and arms.

Korkie knew his face was hidden behind his helmet, but rigidly kept his focus on her eyes and face, despite how tempting it was to stray.

“So the less flashy bits of the Jedi arts?” Bo asked.

“The arts of the mind, you could say. How to perceive truth and see beyond what just the eyes tell you. No greater tool does any leader have.” Korkie tried to keep his disappointment at hearing that from being obvious. “The combat arts are mundane and anyone could teach you that…Korkie.”

Hearing her use his first name finally removed the sharpest edge of the nervousness that was eating at him. He removed his helmet, tucking it under his arm and bowed his head. “I just want to thank you sincerely for agreeing at all. I did my research and I understand what you are risking.”

“It is a risk,” she agreed gravely, but her smile widened brilliantly. “One which I know is worth taking though.” She clapped and rubbed her hands in a gesture of anticipation. “Now, I’m sure you two would love to get caught up in a less formal environment while you are here. Off you go, and let me get Korkie started on the basics.”

“Good luck, Korkie,” Auntie Bo teased, giving him an overly knowing wink before the two elder women left through the training room door.

Ahsoka followed them, thumbed the control panel and it firmly closed, a small red light blinking to indicate it was now locked.

She chuckled, “Force save us from the meddling of adults, eh?”

Korkie couldn’t help but slightly smile as well. “Yes, they do want what is best for us though.”

“From their point of view, yes,” she returned to the sparring square and gestured to the droid. “Let me introduce you to HK-47.”

The droid, who had been standing still and patiently waiting said, “Greetings: Hello meatbag. I am HK-47, assassination and combat droid. Specializing in the removal of organic and non-organic irritants from the galaxy.”

His first instinct was to point out that droids of that type were illegal in the Republic but he stopped himself when he saw the obvious heraldry of the Republic and Jedi painted on its chassis.

“Oh, well, pleasure to meet you, HK,” he said nervously.

“Statement: It is rare that organics express that sentiment upon meeting me, how novel.”

“HK is going to be teaching you the vibroblade and advancing your marksmanship when I’m not here during the day. I’m working at MandalMotors on an urgent project. In the evenings you will have your lessons in the Jedi arts from me.” She sat down in the center of the sparring square, folding her legs into a meditation pose, then patted the mat in front of her. “Be seated, you can leave your helmet next to you.”

He walked over but paused, “Uh, do you want me to mirror you?”

“No, sit however would be comfortable for you in the beskar’gam.”

He nevertheless tried, but found that his greaves uncomfortably pushed into his legs and was cutting off blood to his feet. In the end, the best position he found to sit on the floor was a side-saddle.

Korkie felt a slight heaviness in the air, a flash of something, then he blinked incredulously at the dangerous humming of a white and black lightsaber, the Darksaber, stopping mere inches from his eye. His eyes followed the blade until they met Ahsoka’s implacable blue orbs that were glinting with danger. Fear seemed to envelop him and press down, smothering him.

What was this?

She truly looked like she was going to kill…

No, why would she. It would destroy everything she had worked for in Mandalore. Aunt Satine and Bo would…

No, he would not cower!

The Darksaber’s blade vanished into its hilt. The fear lifted.

“Fair but could be better,” she said and sent the Darksaber’s hilt flying steadily to her bag. “I apologize for that, Korkie. Some tests need no warning for them to return reliable results.”

He breathed deeply, shaking off the adrenaline rush, trying to calm his racing heart. “You… wanted to see how I react to fear?”

“Yes. If you learn only one thing from me in our time together, then I want you to master your fear. It is the greatest enemy you will ever face. No other external threat or battle will ever compare to the greatest battle that is fought…” She raised a hand and pressed a finger directly into his armored chest. “... here. Fear robs you of will, hope and the desire to act. It’s especially dangerous to those of us attuned and talented in the Force.”

“But isn’t fear also that which reminds us of our limits? We fear fire because we can be burned. We fear heights because we can fall.”

“Those are what we call external or rational fears. As Jedi gain mastery of the Force, such fears are physically conquered quite easily. Throw fire at me, I can use the Force to rob it of air. Drop me from great height, I’ll land as light as a feather with no injury. No Korkie, when I speak of fear, it is irrational fears, personal fears. It is these fears which naturally develop in people over time. It is also another reason why the Order favors very young recruits only. They can tailor the environment they grow up in to minimize, direct and monitor the fears, so they’re easily conquered by the initiate. That is theory, of course. The practice is much more messy.

“I’m going to tell you of a rather dogmatic Jedi creed now. Then think it over carefully. It goes like this; Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”

Korkie frowned as he thought about it. Besides the question of what actually was ‘the Dark Side’ - he’d only come across it in terms of referring to the old enemy of the Jedi - the Sith.

“I suppose, if I fear disappointing my aunt… then I can get angry at her for being so demanding or expecting so much of me. If that just continues, then I grow to hate everything about her and what she stands for. I’ll then act in ways contrary to her, to spite and oppose her, which will lead to her and my own ‘suffering’?”

She looked pleasantly surprised for the briefest moment. “Well reasoned within context. You self-reflect quite well. Good. The only element you left out was the Dark Side.”

“What is it actually? There’s only vague mentions in the archives and it always has to do with the ancient Sith.”

“For good reason, Korkie. It’s a road no one in the galaxy with any sanity wishes to do down. I’ll begin by saying that the universe is built on the principle of duality of opposites; life, death, up, down, light, dark and so on. The Force itself is no different. The Dark Side is fear, selfishness, aggression and possession. As such it is present in all of us and we are defined by our never ending struggle against it. The Light Side is compassion, selflessness, self-knowledge, enlightenment, healing and mercy.”

“So good and evil?”

“Yes and no,” Ahsoka said confusingly. “You can be a flowing river of the Light Side, yet evil can still spring forth from your actions. Imagine a being strong in the Light, who rules over his people with benevolence, as a supreme moral arbiter, but in the process takes away their free will. They naturally rebel and he can’t comprehend why. He’s only doing it for their own good. So seeks to cure them of their, in his view, poor decision making. Do you see?”

He frowned, “Yes, you’ve robbed the people of freedom.”

“Precisely, too much of a good thing, too much Light, can be just as destructive as the Dark Side, only the road to that destruction will differ. Each of us, Force sensitive or not, can fall prey to excesses of all these emotions. Your willingness to resist these strong emotive forces which comes from the challenges and events in your life, determines how you respond and in so doing, charts your course along the Light or the Dark.

“However, the Dark is also known as the ‘easy path’. The abilities you gain by drawing from it are seemingly more powerful, but it is an illusion, a trap. It promises quick, easy solutions but extracts a price that only gets steeper as time goes on. It promises power over all things, it’s seductive and it only gets worse the more you use it. Creating a feedback loop that everyone who’s seen a Death stick addict will understand.”

Korkie nodded, “You make it seem almost as if the Dark Side has an intelligence of its own.”

“That is a debate as old as the ancient Je’daii - the precursor to the current Jedi. For perspective, we’re talking more than 25 000 years ago. History lesson later. The Dark Side seems intelligent only because it’s a mirror that reflects the darkest aspects of our minds. It will therefore speak with your own face and voice, showing you your deepest fears, secrets and problems. Things that you even fear to acknowledge in the first place. That is the Dark Side’s primary weapon to make you fall.

“The other side of the debate is that the Force is itself sentient and has a will. That the Light is the natural state of the Force, the Dark Side an aberration that must be purged and fought. The Light side seemingly has an impersonal intelligence and will seem to almost ‘steer’ a Jedi to where they need to be to fulfill the destiny that the Force has for them.”

Korkie combed his hair in a gesture of frustration, “But that implies a loss of will and personal agency, are we just fleshy droids following the programming of the Force then?”

“Statement: That explains so much.”

Ahsoka pointed a finger at HK-47 and glared at the droid. “Not another word, HK.”

Korkie glanced at the droid, who had been silently watching the lesson like a sentinel. Only to see the slight hints of sparks coming from the grill of its vocabulator.

HK audibly sighed in disappointment, “Acknowledgement: Very well, Master.”

“No, the Force does not compel obedience. Your choices are still your own. The reason I give you this fundamental knowledge is so that you can be prepared on the day you face your Dark Mirror. When you feel the Dark Side truly for the first time, you will know it at once. Everyone has a unique experience of it, so any words I give you are next to useless. Consider these words carefully.”

Korkie recognized the instruction, “Yes, Manda’lor.”

“Now that the words have been said, let’s delve into some action.” She stood easily and quickly, his traitorous eyes locking onto her chest briefly as her bosom bounced a bit. “Catch.”

Thankfully his reflexes were up to the task of catching the helmet thrown by HK. It was very oddly shaped, and after turning it over realized that this was because it had no vision slits.

Ahsoka brought one of her green lightsaber hilts forward, closed her eyes for a bit, then handed it over to him.

“You’re giving me one of your sabers? I thought you weren’t going to be teaching me this.”

“Think of this as a traditional form of unlocking your conscious channeling of the Force.” She gestured to her bag and a small spherical remote droid emerged and unfolded its many stun emitters. “My lightsaber is on a training setting, the worst it can do now is shock you briefly, so you don’t have to worry about losing a limb accidentally.”

Korkie nodded and as his hand closed around the hilt he felt… warm? No, acceptance? It was so weird to feel that, yet know he was not the source of the feeling.

“Well, my lightsabers at least seem to like you, infants though they are.”

He was baffled, “What?”

“A lesson far in the future, apprentice. Now, put the helmet on.” He complied and the world turned into complete darkness, though he could still hear at least. “Take a moment to get used to it, bring the hilt forward, feel its weight… all right, ignite it.”

He heard the snapping hiss and felt an odd rush tremble through his body.

“Now Korkie, let go of your eyes, let go of your conscious self, yet focus, be aware.”

Her words were becoming more soothing and seemed to directly invade his mind.

“Let go, focus.”

The oddly contradictory words bounced around in his world of darkness. He tried to abandon the urge or need to see, as an experimental first step.

“The Force is with you, you are One with the Force.”

He latched onto the words, the ideas, but let go. Were they not also just a distraction?

“Feel, stretch out, feel the Force. Put away the barriers. Let it in.”

He… felt…

He didn’t have words.

It was something… something to his right and just up and now…

His world and focus shattered when the stinging pain of a stun bolt lashed his arm right at the plate gap of his beskar’gam.

“OUCH!”

He ripped the helmet off and saw the tiny remote shifting itself to the right and was it his imagination or did the thing titter with laughter?

“Time is not always on your side, Korkie,” Ahsoka smiled. “You were almost there. Now you will not try again, you will do it. No doubts. Helmet on!”

He really tried to do it, but after ten seconds of trying to call on the Force, got rewarded with another stun bolt for his trouble.

“This is going to take a while,” Ahsoka commented to HK.

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“You are no longer my apprentice.”

She was right.

It always came back to those thoughts for Asajj Ventress, as she sat in a last ditch survival meditation trance in the detached cockpit of her former fighter, floating amongst the wreckage of her own flagship. Destroyed by the guns of the soulless droids who followed Dooku’s treacherous command.

The Battle of Sullust.

What a joke. It would’ve been the crowning moment of her training at Dooku’s side in the Dark Side. Now it had all fallen apart. She couldn’t even claim the satisfaction of killing Kenobi or Skywalker.

Her fanblade starfighter had been modified to her own standards, with extra life support capacity in the cockpit pod. If it hadn’t been for that, she would be dead from suffocation already. The fanblade was not a craft meant for long term independent operation. The pod had suffered damage and a system that was meant to last a week would now barely give her three days of survival if she stayed awake and breathing normally.

Her trance was beset with damnable memories and visions; of things she didn’t want to be reminded of and the visions were insufferably vague premonitions that she had no context for whatsoever.

Yet hovering above it all were the memories and image of Skywalker’s padawan, who stared with those damnably knowing blue eyes.

It galled her that the little pest was somehow still alive and the war hadn’t killed her off.

Asajj had to grudgingly give the little twerp some respect though. Anyone who could throw a Force Push of that strength and fight like she had at the Jedi Chapterhouse, who could bat away her strongest Lightning technique…

How… Tano was still only a mere padawan meant either the Jedi were that powerful or they were just that incompetent that they didn’t recognize what was right under their noses!

She was right.

Asajj inwardly snarled with anger at the stupid thought in her trance.

“Why are you trying to fight us, Asajj? Trying to prove you’re worthy of the title of Sith to Dooku? You do know that Sith have a Rule of Two, only a master and apprentice, always. You are supposedly Dooku's, but do you think he does not have a master?”

That blasted old man might have tried to control everything that she knew about the Sith, but he couldn’t censor what other cultures in the galaxy remembered and preserved. Even studying the brief copies of the database from the Jedi Chapterhouse had proven invaluable.

In retrospect, she should’ve expected betrayal then. Dooku’s actions only made sense if there was indeed another Sith above him. Eventually the apprentice must challenge the master. A little fact of the Sith Order that Dooku had held back. There would be no joining his side as an equal. It had been a lie.

She had been a simple agent, a tool for Dooku and the mysterious Sith above him. Now she had been discarded and ‘destroyed’, most likely because of her growing strength and power.

But she wasn’t dead… yet.

That this had happened at all was telling that she was on the right track. She was a threat to Dooku and his master.

A ripple in the Force brought her attention away from the boundless landscapes of her inner mind and back to reality.

The battle had long since moved away from Sullust itself and had most likely continued at the system’s southward Eriadu hyper point, as that was the fallback point in the tactical droid’s programming.

Her ice-blue eyes cracked open slightly and beyond the slightly frosted transparisteel windows of the cockpit pod, was a typical scavenger ship that followed in the wake of all the battles of this war.

It was a garbage heap; a flattened cylinder with modules attached to the sides, multiple aftermarket tractor beam emitters bolted on and two ventral and dorsal laser turrets for defense and muscling in on other weaker scavengers when the time came. The ship didn’t even have a paint job, the captain eschewing vanity and embracing pure functionality.

What it would have at that size, was a hyperdrive.

The ship came closer, carefully maneuvering on thrusters to bring one of the port modules closer to her cockpit pod. The active energy signature, even as minor as it was, of the life support had clearly registered on their scanners. The fanblade’s cockpit would also be recognizable and the state of the art technology would attract the scavengers like hawk-bats circling prey.

The pod shuddered as the tractor beam latched on and started pulling it in.

She would have to play this carefully. There were four of them and she was injured with multiple broken ribs, one of which she sensed was very close to piercing a lung. Adding to this was the complication of remaining hidden in the Force. It was a technique she was so used to keeping up at all times, but it was now an aching strain to maintain. Yet it was just as vital as her life support. Dooku and his master had to remain ignorant of her survival.

An outer door on the module opened and she felt a welcome return of artificial gravity as the pod was dumped onto a deck that was littered with other salvaged debris that was barely worth the term ‘space junk’.

The module doors slammed shut, briefly bathing her in darkness before the weak interior lighting came on. It took a while before she realized that they were actually repressurizing the module.

‘So cheap they don’t even have atmospheric shields,’ she thought derisively.

It took nearly a dozen minutes before she could hear the creaks of the hull of this garbage scow. It seemed even the atmo pumps were of substandard quality. The inner door of the module that led to the ship's interior opened and the four crew started to eagerly file in and gaze at the valuable prize they had scavenged.

Asajj had her eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness, but yet knew she was dealing with three male weequay and a male twi’lek.

One of the weequay was armed with a rather large blaster rifle and the twi’lek had a blaster pistol holstered on his hip.

It didn’t take them long to cut through the locking mechanisms of her pod and her ears were stabbed with brief pain as the variable pressures equalized.

The twi’lek reached in and with a rather surprising gentleness carried her out of the seat.

What wasn’t pleasant was the dirty floor he put her down on a few moments later. Nor the stimulant he injected into her arm.

Playing into the act, she slowly blinked open her eyes and surveyed the scavengers, evaluating each for the threat they posed, doing nothing to hide her pain from showing on her face.

“You look rather worse for wear, miss,” said the twi’lek with a smirk, showing off his pointed teeth and casually brandishing his blaster. “Such a pretty face, I bet if you just grew back your hair and got rid of these.” The barrel came forward and traced the tattoos on the sides of her mouth. “Now which side of the battle were you on?”

Of course he was asking that. Depending on the answer it meant he would either ransom her back to the GAR or CIS Navy, maybe sell her off into slavery if he didn’t get a good offer. These scavengers didn’t just salvage metal and parts if they could.

She glared at him, using her pain and anger at the thought of suffering those fates to fuel and gather the Force and stoke it carefully. Precision was key, there could be no Lightning used here, as in her condition it would shatter her precarious stealth in the Force.

“Aww, not feeling up to talking are you?”

“Not particularly,” she said with a smirk and unleashed her might with a gesture.

The Force surged and broiled as her control latched onto the twi’lek’s neck, she was on her feet in the next moment.

The twi’lek gasped and thrashed, clutching uselessly at his neck as he rose into the air helplessly.

The three weequay tried to bring their weapons to bear on her but it was already too late as she lifted her left hand and brought their own necks into her mental picture.

All four were now in the air, gasping and thrashing pathetically.

She grinned cruelly as the rush of the Dark Side came in and she closed her hands into fists, crushing the spines of all four at once.

They died in the next few moments and she contemptuously tossed their bodies against the walls.

Her own pain at the quick movement was taken and fueled her power further, but now it was directed inward to another purpose, heal and physically blunt the edge of the broken rib. She rode the further pain this caused to even greater heights of power but it was threatening to overwhelm her stealth.

No.

She would not let the Dark Side win here.

She let go.

The Force settled down into a normal equilibrium around her, but it was still very agitated from the death that had occurred.

She winced and clutched at her ribs. Then regarded the dead bodies - it was time to scavenge.

A few minutes later she was walking out of the salvage pod, with the twi’lek’s blaster belt around her hips, the rifle slung over her shoulder, along with nearly a few hundred credits worth of currency in physical chits in the belt’s pockets.

The interior of the ship was as dirty and ramshackle as the the salvage bays, not to mention the awful smell that was coming from the aft - which turned out to be a small galley which was barely cleaned from all the leftovers of the food the scavengers had been eating.

She’d have to worry about provision for her journey later.

Her feet carried her forward into the small cockpit of the vessel, which had three seats for pilot, co-pilot and an engineering console for managing all the tractor beams.

Her favorite long dress snagged on the rickety pilot chair as she stepped forward and she heard the material tear before she could stop.

Anger surged at her own weakness and the dead idiot who couldn’t even invest in a proper pilot seat. She reached down, unclasped the catch and pulled the dress off, leaving her wearing tight shorts and the wraps around her legs, then took the time to fold the dress properly. She couldn’t afford to ruin it further, not in this situation.

Finally seated, she powered up the systems carefully. Not even an access code or any lockouts were present. It showed either arrogance from the late twi’lek or he was that cheap. The holos and navicomputer were about the only modern systems in the cockpit.

She brought forth the galactic map and considered her options.

How quickly the galaxy could turn on its head. This morning she’d been in command of a Providence dreadnought, the pride of the CIS Navy, an entire task force under her. Now she would be imprisoned at best in one portion of it and outright killed in the other half if she ever showed her face. Even Hutt space was not really an option, as their treaty of cooperation with the Republic meant the slugs could decide to actually honor it, instead of just paying lip service. She was just too high profile at this point and the hutts could see handing her over to the Republic as a bargaining chip for currying favors.

Disappearing into the far Outer Rim in the south-western edges of the galaxy didn’t have much appeal either. It smacked too much of exile and would reduce her to a hermit-like existence of living off the land. It was also too obvious a direction to flee into and she knew Dooku and the CIS had spies on the fringes.

No, there was just one place in the galaxy left that would be marginally friendly to her.

Friendly was not a word one often heard associated with the Nightsisters of Dathomir.

The clan of her birth had seen fit to sell her off into slavery to old Hal’Sted’s pirates after all. The question of why was something she had investigated and speculated on, but never obtained a satisfactory answer. Hal’Sted had been a relatively kind master, but she had never found the courage to ask while he’d been alive. She had seen how other slaves were treated on Rattatak and didn’t want to risk her first master’s wrath.

She inputted the destination into the navicomputer and surveyed the plotted course the machine returned.

One day to Vondarc, where she’d have to make a choice between going north via the Hydian Way or the Rimma Trade Route, which would eventually become the Corellian Trade Spine. The Hydian would be the most time and fuel efficient, but would represent the greatest risk of discovery.

The hyperdrive of the scavenger ship, which had the name of Crusher on its transponder, was much like the rest of the ship; old, inefficient and barely functioning to the minimum specifications if she was interpreting the readings correctly. The current fuel load would only get her as far as Chardaan.

She zoomed in on the system and winced. Oh yes, it was the headquarters of the GAR’s 16th Sector Army. It would be filled with clones and dueling spies in the shadows from both sides.

The other obstacle in her way was financial. She couldn’t touch any of the undercover operational CIS accounts she knew of. Even her own personal accounts, which she’d gone to great lengths to hide from Dooku, was too much of a risk. The chance was there that he knew of them anyway. If they showed any activity so soon after her ‘death’, she might as well call that bastard on the holo right now.

No, she’d have to turn to illicit sources for funds at Chardaan, even outright stealing them.

She smirked at the thought of all the potential for chaos she could sow right in the middle of the Republic in the process.

What fun, she thought.

An alternative plan struck her. What if she merely got herself to Vondarc with the Crusher and simply stole a better ship there. It would solve the fuel problem, perhaps even the finance issue depending on the ship and the owner. That road introduced other risks; the ship ID would be flagged and Republic customs authorities all along the Hydian would be alerted to be on the lookout.

She shook off the notion. If there was one thing the Crusher had going for it, was that right now, it was hers and no one would look at it twice or even want to look at the ugly thing. It had a registered Republic transponder that was entirely legitimate.

The scanner console in front of her beeped a warning. She studied the readout and scowled.

Coming out of hyper was a Republic Nu class S&R shuttle with Headhunter fighter escorts, no doubt looking for valuable CIS salvage among the wreck of the Providence.

Her hands grabbed the control yoke, and she pushed forward on the throttle.

Thankfully, the twi’lek had an already pre-programmed hyperspace escape in the navicomputer.

She easily zoomed and navigated through the expanding debris field. Acting exactly like a poaching scavenger ship would when confronted by the GAR these days.

The com system lit up with an incoming transmission, but she ignored it.

The instant the Crusher’s nose was clear of the debris field and on target, she pushed hyperdrive controls forward.

Stars streaked and molded into the swirling blue tunnel of hyper.

Well, it looked like her course was set.

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The next four days on the Crusher was a return to the days of her youth, but given a new twist.

When she wasn’t flying through normal space between hyper points, she was searching and scavenging throughout the ship.

The most basic first goal was to change her appearance enough that she wouldn’t be recognized on sight. With the clothes and personal supplies of the twi’lek captain in his small cabin, that was achieved by the first day.

He had a temporary tattoo applicator, like most of his type, so she was able to make a number of changes to her own facial markings; extending the tattoo on the edges of her mouth to complete a circle around her chin, whilst creating an elaborate curved organic pattern over her scalp, resolving to let her natural hair grow out. She’d only have millimeters of growth by the time she reached Chardaan but every bit helped at this point.

His clothes didn’t really fit, but with a couple of belts around her waist, was passable as a fashion style. All of it was some variation of brown; long pants, jackets, shirts. A hood was fashioned out of her black dress and the aid of a very ornate knife that the captain had kept on his bed stand. The shoulders on the jacket were too big and arms were too long, so she ended up cutting the sleeves off. It made her look rather scruffy, almost bordering on destitute, but it would have to do.

By the second day and passing through the Opiteihr system, she was forced to deal with the bodies of the crew. They were stinking up the salvage module and it wouldn’t do to have them on board in the unlikely event she was boarded by customs inspectors. She didn’t want to touch the disgusting weequay bodies, not even with the Force. So while in hyperspace, she opened that module’s outer doors and let the rushing decompression forces pull the trash and debris out into the hyperspatial medium, where it would be torn apart as the matter eventually crossed the boundary back into real space without any protection.

The rest of that day was filled with yet more reminders of the past, as she cleaned the ship’s small galley into a place that at least looked hygienic to eat in. There was a bare minimum of cleaning supplies, so with just a surface disinfectant, a bit of water from the ship’s supply and a cloth, she got to work.

The captain, who’s name was Pri Vutrol according to the computer, apparently didn’t want to eat slop on his missions. The food supplies were of rather good quality and now because there was only her mouth to feed, she’d at least not have to worry about food purchases for another two weeks, which could be extended to three if she rationed.

The other issue to deal with was her injuries. She wasn’t very talented at using the Force to heal herself beyond emergency measures. She knew the Dark Side had some techniques, but Dooku had yet to teach them. The captain’s cabin at least had an emergency medical kit that had one intact bacta patch, but it would not be enough for a complete healing. That could only come with a medical droid, supplies and time. In the meantime she had to just be content with being mindful of how she moved and avoid any strain.

Passing through the Pax system was the first true challenge of the journey. She had tampered with the ship’s com system, messing with the signal just enough to imitate that it was of poor quality or in disrepair. Then took samples from Vutrol’s voice in the ship’s logs to stitch together a hastily programmed imitator - which would alter her own voice enough to sound like the unfortunate captain.

The moment the Crusher exited hyperspace into the Pax system, it was confronted by an entire fleet squadron of Venators that were arrayed around the main Opiteihr emergence point.

The comlink lit immediately with an incoming transmission.

“Starship Crusher, this is Star Destroyer Redeemer. Cut your engines and broadcast a full transponder registry,” said the voice of an abominable clone.

Asajj deepened her voice, “Roger, Redeemer. Transmitting.”

She tapped the sequence into her com interface, pulled back on the throttle and waited with baited breath. If this didn’t work then escape was going to be problematic at best. The only thing she could hope for was that the volume of traffic through here made boarding searches impractical.

“Crusher, stand by. You’ve been flagged for a routine scan for contraband. An armed shuttle is on its way for a rendezvous, proceed to the following coordinates.”

“Understood, Crusher out.”

She would have to play the obedient civilian salvager for now.

The Nu Class shuttle was waiting for her at the coordinates, along with a half squadron of starfighters who had very bored pilots in them.

The scan started and her hands were straining on the yoke, ready to flee or go on evasive. She had searched the ship for anything that could get her flagged for detainment and found nothing. She had found no smuggling compartments, so she would have to trust that Vutrol had kept a ‘clean’ ship in that respect.

“Crusher, thank you for your patience. Scan clean. You’re cleared to proceed.”

“Thank you, Redeemer,” Asajj said through gritted teeth.

She didn’t relax fully for the entire twenty six minutes in real space travel until she reached the onward Arrgaw hyper point.

She passed through seven more systems along the Hydian over the next two days. Her only bacta patch was used up and her best guess was that she needed at least six more for her ribs to heal. The only other way was to fall back to the light, and use the basic technique Master Narec had taught her all those years ago.

No, she would not be so weak. The Force was a servant, a tool, she did not bow to it.

By the time she pulled back on the hyperdrive levers to emerge into Chardaan, the console in front of her was blaring multiple alarms and warnings for low fuel. A quick check and calculation indicated she would not even have enough to decelerate from orbit into a landing phase.

She had done her research on the system though and while she couldn’t land, she could set a course for any of the orbital stations, of which there were many, including a recently constructed shipyard to support the GAR for closer repairs from the frontline battlespaces in the south.

She would pass on going anywhere near that one and instead set course for a space station where she could ostensibly sell the salvage that was still sitting in the other modules. Vutrol had been busy before the battle in Sullust and had components and debris from both Republic and CIS ships in the holds.

The station itself was called Gallimimus. It was a civilian orbital repair spaceyard of about 1.2 km in length that was relatively well appointed and even featured hotels, shopping, cantinas and casinos. She didn’t know if they wanted to attract tourists or die-hard spacers, but somehow it seemed the locals wanted both.

By the time she was approaching the docking bay, she had to suffer the indignity of requesting a tractor beam to pull her in.

The ship was now only running on auxiliary battery backups and had only fumes in its fuel tanks.

She winced, clutching her aching ribs as she went through the shut down procedures. Then grabbed her small travel bag filled with the necessities she had scrounged throughout the ship; travel food, Vutrol’s blaster, a few datapads which contained a manifest of her salvage and finally her single surviving lightsaber - the other lost in the battle against Skywalker and Kenobi.

Asajj had long debated with herself whether or not to leave it behind on the ship. The risks of discovery with it in her possession versus being reduced to only a blaster for self-defense. In the end she just couldn’t do it. The Crusher was not a secure ship at all and any professional thief would find it laughably easy to break into.

She emerged into the relatively fresh air of Docking Bay 60 and enjoyed the smell of a proper life support system.

At the exit was an automated kiosk system that handled the berthing fee. That ended up swallowing eighty credits and would tick over with ten credits for every day that the Crusher sat in the bay.

The entry door opened and she was confronted with a relatively bustling, noisy hallway, with species of every type imaginable going back and forth.

She made sure her hood was properly placed, carefully adjusted her bag against her good side, before setting off.

I am coming for you, Dooku. You and your mysterious master. If it takes me years, I will find you, and revenge will be mine.

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The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 18

Feet thumping on pavement, labored breathing, the dull burn of muscles working harder and harder to keep up; that was all Shauna’s world had been reduced to.

She barely took in her surroundings, only understanding that she had to get away from people and away from anywhere that there could be cameras. They would take one look at her orange jumpsuit and know instantly that there was a prisoner loose and even if they didn’t immediately pick up the phone, the event would sear into their memories. The Foundation wouldn’t be far behind.

Fuck the Foundation.

The day had started like any other since she had been stripped of her normal life and turned into a number. She had woken up in her average bed in the cage that the Foundation had stuffed her in, did her ablutions and dressed in the only clothing that was given to people like her at Site 99.

She had barely made it out of her room… her hand on the door handle when the alarms had started going off. Then the door buzzed and locked itself, trapping her inside.

There were different alarms for different situations and the Foundation at least trained their prisoners on what to expect in certain scenarios. This was not a containment breach alarm… this was an external attack on the Site facility.

Shauna had paced back and forth, her mind racing about who could possibly be attacking the Foundation. Who had the intelligence, the resources, the sheer guts to attack an organization that had such a far reaching influence into practically everything?

Her door buzzed again and opened.

Standing on the other side… was death.

A soldier in black with a weapon raised, aimed straight at her chest.

She didn’t know if he had fired or not because the world had just become utterly black at that moment.

In the next few seconds, if it was even that long, she could not feel or perceive anything; no light, no air, no gravity, no feeling of anything… she just knew that she could think and feel emotion.

Then the world was seemingly born anew around her.

Blessed light and sound exploded around her and she belatedly realized that gravity had returned as well.

She gasped as she unexpectedly fell and was just as surprised when her feet thumped into hard metal abruptly. Her legs instinctively relaxed slightly to absorb the fall and shock traveled up her body.

It was a blue pickup?

Her heart was thundering as she whirled around. Taking in the long street, the closed shops, the fact that it was evening. Then the distant forms of people idly waiting on the street.

Shauna jumped off the flatbed and had just started running, with only one thought -  get away!

Clearly some SCP weirdness had brought her out of Site 99… seemingly saving her from certain death.

Her heart was now racing, breath coming in short harsh gasps and her legs refused to go further as it felt like her muscles had decided to vanish on her.

She came to a stumbling stop and immediately bent down and clutched at her knees, leaning on them, refusing the call to simply collapse onto the pavement below. Unwilling to show so much weakness. Her breathing was labored as she gasped in air and her saliva felt gummy and horrible. She gathered it quickly, before spitting it out…

It glistened like a long silvery rope that hung from her mouth in the dull street lighting overhead. It splattered on the dull gray, badly cracked, sidewalk pavement. That rope clung to her lips and mouth stubbornly and she hardly had the energy to even care to wipe it away.

Then a drop of red joined the disgusting puddle.

She belatedly realized her nose was bleeding.

Finally she raised her arm, dabbed with fingers at her nostrils and only now did the acrid copper smell hit her. Her fingers came away with red and she let out an annoyed grunt. What had caused this?

Her brain was struggling to process given that she was riding the endorphins of a post-adrenaline rush. Her body and heart were working furiously to repay the debt of oxygen in her bloodstream.

For quite a while, this was her world. The Foundation, the cops, anyone really could swoop down and she’d have no hope in hell of even running away or fighting back. Even as she fought to calm down her racing heart, the anxious anticipation was building for the other shoe to drop. A shoe that took the form of a helicopter filled with those bastard MTF assholes or nameless cops that were actually undercover Foundation agents.

After swallowing enough air that would probably fill a thousand balloons, some form of faculty and reason began returning to her mind and she regarded the… city around her.

How long had it been since she'd seen one? Two years, three? Five? The Foundation purposefully kept no clocks in view of the inmates of Site 99. She had no idea why and the asshole researchers who studied her would never give proper answers. Other inmates theorized it was to keep them adrift, making it more difficult to blend back into society and so it would make them stand out all the more in case they ever escaped.

She was on a two lane street, with buildings rising above her no higher than five floors, with signage of ground floor shops festooning the facades. Far in the distance, much taller buildings lit up the night sky with their rows and rows of lights. These were tall, but still relatively small compared to the kind you’d see in a truly big city like New York.

So this was a smaller city, the tang in the air and humidity meant that it was definitely on a coast. The signage was only in English, so at least that meant she was still in the US. There were no shops with major brands on display that she recognized except for ever ubiquitous red Coca-Cola signs at a few cafes.

There were a number of cars parked along the street, which promised to at least clue her in as to what state she was in.

She coughed up another wad of lactic acid laden saliva, wiped her mouth off before walking to the closest car.

It was a rather ugly yellow Toyota with a shape and model name she didn’t recognize, but she wasn’t exactly a car aficionado. She ended up having to kneel to get close enough to read the car plate’s finer details. The thing was dirty enough that she was forced to use the sleeve of her jumpsuit to clean it off.

Finally, she was rewarded with a familiar name… Massachusetts.

Shauna had no idea where Site 99 was but it had been no more than five or maybe six hours from LA. She had been bagged for the entire trip in that awful van.

So somehow she’d been transported across thousands of miles to the north-east coast in an instant.

Well, it wasn’t so weird… Rowan had a friggin planet for an abdomen and Stacy was utterly invisible and intangible.

She was pretty sure she didn’t just spontaneously develop the power to teleport, though maybe she could induce it in someone else, then they could move her around.

The notion was quickly discarded. Who’d want to be saddled with a useless dead weight like her if they suddenly had that power? They’d just as quickly use the ability to leave and there’d be nothing she could do about it.

Shauna stood up with a sigh, feeling her equilibrium starting to slowly return. Looking up and down the street again, she was struck with the odd notion that there was a distinct lack of people.

It was too quiet.

There was no way to tell the time, but even if it was hyper early in the morning there should be at least someone somewhere on a city interior street like this. Even the nearby cafe, which proclaimed it was open 24/7 on its exterior, was thoroughly closed.

She strained her ears and could vaguely hear the distant noise of fast moving vehicles, the power was on, the nearby overflowing bin had fresh trash in it, so there was at least more life in this city.

Was it a holiday?

Her head turned back to look the other way-

“Fuck on a pogo stick!” she swore reflexively and warily backed away from the car.

Her head had been turned for a few seconds, but suddenly she wasn’t alone.

Leaning casually against the car’s side was a tall woman.

Long black hair reaching beyond her shoulder blades and kind brown eyes regarded her.

The woman wore a smile and nothing else.

Her arms were folded under modest breasts and her legs just seemed to go on forever. They were slightly crossed, somewhat hiding her pussy but the stylized pubic hair made a nice landing strip. She was also fit as hell, reminding her of those female high jumpers she saw in the last Olympics.

Shauna mentally gave herself a slap to put the details of the nude woman out of her mind. Then struck again by how alien it was in this context. There had been no one visible in the whole street and then just as suddenly she was there. Either she was super fast, invisible or could teleport.

Either way, she was probably not normal… an anomaly as well.

How Shauna hated that word. A dehumanizing label that the Foundation slapped on all ‘SCPs’, just so they could keep them at arm's length and easily justify whatever sick experiments they wanted to do.

“Hello there,” the woman said pleasantly, her mouth widening into a thin lipped smile. “Welcome to Brockton Bay-”

“Are you here to take me in?” she interrupted. She didn’t want to hear what this Foundation stooge was going to say. Was this all some weird experiment? Threaten her at gunpoint, teleport her across the country, then confront her with yet another human SCP? Then to add the cherry on top, have that SCP try to shock her with nudity?

Fuck, I’d heard of some fucked up experiments on the inmates, but this one is really out there, she thought incredulously.

The woman’s friendly smile faltered somewhat at being interrupted like that, but she answered swiftly and matter-of-factly. “No, not unless you pose a danger to the lives of the people of this city.” Shauna frowned, that wasn’t right. “If you let me finish, I’ll explain exactly what happened to you and where you are now.”

She shook her head, “No, you Foundation freaks have done enough to me. Stop fucking around, I’ll not be your lab rat. Call in your goons! Get me back to my cell!”

The woman’s face twisted in pity and sadness. Shauna hated that! She could also see that the woman clearly knew about the Foundation, it was written in her eyes.

“The Foundation is… very, very far away from here.”

“Bullshit,” Shauna snapped. “There’s nowhere on Earth that they can’t reach, no nook or cranny they can’t see into!”

“Can they see across an uncountable number of universes?”

That question brought her building tirade to a halt. “What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Before you fell into the back of that pickup truck, did you experience a void, a lack of everything? That was you passing through the nothingness between universes, until you landed here on what we call ‘Earth Bet’.”

Shauna glared at the woman. How could she know?

“Did you pull me here?”

“No, but I assure you, the Foundation is not here. I can prove it to you and the fact that you are most certainly on another Earth.”

The nude woman pushed herself off the car and now in her right hand was a long length of inscribed iron pipe that gave Shauna the heebie-jeebies just looking at it. She backed off wearily, keeping her distance.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you and neither is ‘15.” The nudist pointed at the pipe she was now using as a walking stick, then gestured down the street and began heading that way.

The bizarre statement and scene…

Fuck this, she thought.

She turned around and firmly headed in the opposite direction.

Not ten meters later, the nudist popped into existence with a slight blood red gas effect emitting from her body. She was leaning against a street pole, not completely barring the way but was making it clear that would not just let Shauna go.

“You do realize you’re wearing what is clearly a prison jumpsuit. I was going to bring you something else to wear before I showed you the new facts of your situation.”

She walked past pointedly and didn’t reply.

The woman popped into existence at the next pole. “You’re being unreasonable. I understand the Foundation has probably done screwed up shit-” Shauna shut her out and kept walking. “Okay my mistake, you’re probably being reasonable.” She smiled in apology after reappearing at the next pole. “But sooner or later, you’re going to run into either a beat cop, a gang member or a civvy who will call other authorities. You don’t want any of that to happen.”

“Oh yeah, why not?!”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” she retorted, her face twisted in annoyance. “You get arrested, they’ll run your prints. It will not show up in the database as belonging to any inmate in the country. They’ll investigate your jumpsuit and that’ll send up a big red flag, because the authorities had to recently deal with an SCP train that spewed out clones wearing a similar jumpsuit. Clones that had to be put down, as they’re brainwashed agents of the SCP.”

Shauna stopped in mid stride as those words slammed into her brain. “You’re shitting me?”

“No, I’m not. A gang member finding you… well, that’ll be the Azn Bad Boys around these parts. They’ll see an easy mark. You get a gun shoved into your face. You’re decently pretty, so you’ll be shoved into one of their farms, addicted to drugs and whored out until you’re used up. Upon which your next stop is the bottom of the Bay.”

“Stop! Stop your Foundation bullshit. End the experiment already!”

“This is not an experiment,” the woman said with slow emphasis on each word. “This is as objective as reality can be.”

“Bull, where are all the people? There should be tons walking around us at this time of night for this big of a city.”

“That is because they are all at home, spending what might be their last night alive and free… together.”

Shauna blinked in confusion at the grim words. Then snorted, “There some war on that I don’t know about? Last I checked we had troops in Afghanistan-”

“The United States’s last troops abroad were recalled roughly a decade ago and no it’s not a war in the traditional sense.” The woman said these words with a low undercurrent of anger. “Explaining why the city is like this is completely out of your context. The history of the country and the world is different. However, I see you are not going to lend any credence to my words alone. The Foundation has burned you one time too many it seems, put you in many experiments, gaslit you and made you question reality. Probably because your own power can rewrite reality in a specific way…” She stared at Shauna intently and it was like ants were crawling up and down her spine. “Through your voice or something related to speaking.”

“Fuck off,” she snapped and turned around, her legs now carrying her into a jog.

“But it’s something that takes time or otherwise you’d have used it on me already.”

The nudist’s waist and legs had now disappeared into a misty red wisp that trailed along as she floated alongside Shauna, easily keeping pace.

“Buzz off!” she waved her hands as if shooing a fly and kept jogging.

“You also can’t use it on yourself otherwise you’d never have let yourself be captured by the Foundation. You’d give yourself the power to resist or escape.”

“Oh, so now you’re trying to figure me out? That’s a new one. Pretending that you don’t know exactly what my power is.”

“I don’t know,” she insisted. “The more I study you, the more I figure it out,” she said, staring intently in a way that was now making her even more uncomfortable.

“Sorry, I don’t swing that way, Casper. Stop staring.”

“Casper? Oh yeah, friendly ghost and all that. Yeah, I probably do look quite like a ghostly naturist at the moment,” she chuckled with amusement. “Let’s get that out of the way, my professional name is Escort if you want to refer to me in a public setting. In private, call me Taylor.”

Shauna found herself intrigued at that introduction, despite her resolve to not give the assholes an inch that would help their experiment. “Escort, professional eh? So how many clients do you fuck in a night?”

Far from getting offended, Escort smiled. “Oh, you are good. The first person to make that connection right off the bat.”

“Not that hard. Sure most hookers don’t prance about utterly naked, but your demeanor, body language, even as you stand still, tells me all I need to know about that. You tried to hide it, but I also spotted your pussy glistening and I smelt it. You’ve had sex very recently.”

“Correct, I was in the blue pickup with a client when you landed.”

Shauna stared at her for a long moment, “You’re also unashamed of it.”

“Completely. You see, it’s my SCP nature. I need what men have. I’m no more ashamed of it than you are of drinking milk harvested from a cow.”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

“The point still stands. So what do I call you?”

She hesitated for a bit then groaned with annoyance. “Fine, it’s Shauna Carter.”

“Nice to meet you, Shauna. Oh, do you mind if we take a left here? That should give us a nice view of the Bay that I want to show you.”

“The goons waiting there to wrap up this shitshow?”

“No, anyone we see there will be entirely coincidental.”

Shauna slowed to an ambling walk. “Sure, whatever. This whole thing was getting old anyway.”

Escort’s lower body reappeared as she chose to look slightly less weird and walk like a normal human being. She also began idly spinning her pipe walking stick with dextrous flicks of her right hand. Suddenly there were a few rapid hollow honking notes that came from the pipe itself somehow.

“Ignore him, he pretends to not like it when I spin him like this, but I know he secretly finds it enjoyable. Oh, completely forgot. Shauna, say hello to SCP-015 or the Incredible Sentient Pipe.” There was a series of clear rapid honks from the pipe in a clear pattern.

What the fuck? Shauna thought.

“He says ‘Hello’ and approves of your frustrating skepticism in general.”

“You can tell that from a bunch of honks?”

“He and I both know Morse Code.”

Shauna looked at her textile challenged acquaintance like she had grown not just a second head, but a third and fourth one. “There are so many questions to unpack just from that alone.”

“That’ll have to wait,” Escort said as they turned a corner onto another street and she flourished her hand at the view beyond.

She found her jaw going somewhat slack as her eyes told her something that should clearly not be there or wouldn’t be there if the Foundation was on the ball.

There in the darkness of what was clearly a large bay and coastline, lit with the thousands of incidental lights from the city and from flood lights pointed at itself, was what looked like a gleaming jewel of partially transparent solid light, shaped in an ovoid that emerged from the water. Inside was a structure that looked like something out of a futuristic movie, yet it also had a rugged utilitarian feel as well, given that it was all built on the foundation of what had been an oil rig.

It had a number of landing pads, with a helicopter standing ready and something that looked like a fixed wing craft, that clearly had to be able take off and land vertically. She wasn’t the most informed on aviation or military aviation, but that was like no craft she’d ever seen. The design was almost artistic and not something that came from some government military contractor. Yet it wasn’t some hodgepodge amateur affair either. It was as if someone had taken a draconic inspiration to a VTOL aircraft and had the budget to be professional and functional about it.

Off to the side from the landing pads there was also a partially canted box launcher for missiles! It was just… there. Not on some Navy warship, but right there on a futuristic structure in the middle of a bay within eyeshot of hundreds of thousands of people. Her brain told her that the solid light had to be an actual energy shield like something straight out of fucking Star Trek, but another part of her rebelled at the idea. That was supposed to be impossible!

As impossible as a guy with a world for a stomach, Shauna? She thought miserably.

“What… what is that?”

“That is the Protectorate Headquarters for this region.”

Then things took an ever further turn sideways.

There was movement, a shape speeding through the darkness and approaching the structure. Then the floodlights brought into stark relief the distant form of an armored red human figure, just… flying in midair with no apparent jetpack or any technological assistance.

It just happened. In full view, with no Foundation goons swooping in to protect the precious public and normality from the impossible.

The figure stopped outside the shield briefly, just hovering for a moment, before the entire bubble of light flicked off, allowing entry for the flying man. Barely a second later, the shield flashed back into life abruptly.

So captivated was she by the spectacle, she didn’t even notice the car coming to a stop next to them until the slight squeal of brakes reached her ears.

It was a rather fancy blue sedan, with the logo of ‘Fortress LLC’ stenciled on the doors. Inside was a single driver, who just sat there and waited.

“This is our ride, Shauna. I offer a cozy little suburban home that has only my father and me living in it. You can take the guest room for the moment, until we can sort out the bureaucratic details of your new life. Starting with the basics.”

“New life?”

“Of course. Differences in power aside, we’re both SCPs, but we’re both human and I can see that you’re a good one, shitty circumstances aside. So Fortress, that’s my company, will help you to restart a relatively normal life here.”

“That can mean a lot of things,” she retorted.

“Shauna, you’ve landed in a world and universe, where seeing a man that can fly is a ‘Meh’ event. We have a very different definition of normal.”

She looked at the idling car and the unnatural still city around her.

“Fuck it.”

Her hand pulled on the door handle and before her paranoia could flare again, she rushed to put her butt in the back seat.

Escort appeared in ghostly red mist next to her, casually seated with crossed legs. “Thank you, Shauna. I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Don’t promise that.”

The nudist shrugged and turned to the driver, “Let’s go home, dad.” The driver, who did indeed bear a paternal similarity to Escort, nodded and put the car in gear. “Any problems?”

“No. Seatbelt please, Miss Carter.”

The polite request took a moment to filter through her muddled, astonished thoughts but she quickly complied even as she marveled at experiencing some basic human decency again.

He nodded in thanks and the engine growled to life as the car set off at a reasonable and legal speed.

She leaned her head against the chilly window and stared mindlessly at the sights of the passing streets, buildings tall and short, the endless black sky with stars drowned out by light pollution, though she could barely make out the brightest ones.

It was finally as they passed through a downtown area that she saw the first proper people of this city - just going about their night, talking, walking, coming out of restaurants, clubs and bars, just being normal.

Many minutes passed and there was no warning when something in her finally broke and she felt the tears begin.

She refused to sob and just… let… go.

After so many years of confinement, tests, experiments at the hands of the uncaring monster that was the Foundation.

She let go.

She had studied this at varsity. Seen it her whole career in therapy and now she was on the other side of the coin.

A soft tap on her shoulder brought her out of her own world of misery.

Escort, holding out a bunch of facial tissues with a sad smile.

“Thanks,” she said softly, taking them and began wiping away tears.

“A nice hot shower, curling up in a warm bed with a book would do you wonders, I’d imagine.”

“Just showered before I showed up here, don’t stink.”

“Really? Interesting.”

Something in the way Escort said that made her frazzled mind pay attention. “What’s interesting?”

“I have a good nose, Shauna. It’s telling me you haven’t seen a shower for nearly a week.”

“That’s-” She stopped herself wearily from saying ‘impossible’.

“Are you feeling hungry by any chance?” She shook her head, not willing to deal with this now and just waved off her interlocutor. “Ah, sorry.”

Peace of mind was the last thing the universe seemed willing to give her as at that moment a deep, howling siren pierced through the air. It was so powerful it reached her ears as if a wolf was right next to her and baying at the moon.

Escort slammed her hands over her ears and raw fear appeared in her eyes. Her father in the front seat grit his teeth and cursed, steadying the car’s course from the surprise induced twitch he’d given the wheels.

The siren stopped abruptly and left their ears ringing.

Despite herself, Shauna could see both of them were truly frightened of whatever this earsplitting alarm signified and they seemed to be holding their breath… waiting for something.

The city-wide alarm sounded again, but with a different pattern, giving three short bursts of wailing.

The tension left the father and daughter as if they were balloons and someone had poked them with a needle.

“Thank God,” Escort’s father breathed.

The nudist leaned back in her seat, staring up into the car ceiling and clearly wanted to let rip with relieved invective, given the way her mouth was twisting.

“What the fuck just tried to destroy my ears?”

Escort just shook her head, “You’re in no shape to hear this. Let’s just say that this planet is under siege and Brockton Bay just lucked out. We’re not the target this cycle. Welcome to Earth Bet, Shauna Carter.”

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I carefully closed the door of the guest room, leaving behind a clean, refreshed and now snoozing guest from another universe. We had found some of mom’s old pajamas that could generally fit her, so she at least wasn’t wearing the Foundation jumpsuit anymore.

Walking downstairs I found dad in the living room, with the TV on a local news channel that was simulcasting an international feed. The ever scrolling news ticker at the bottom of the screen flashed headlines and at last gave me the location for the latest Endbringer attack.

The Simurgh was deorbiting, her course and final destination calculated. The TV showed a running countdown of when she was expected to land based on models of her past attacks.

“Why would she attack Canberra?”

Dad was using the remote as a stress ball as he stared at the screen, perched on the very edge of the couch. He shook his head, “No idea, as usual it’s just a bunch of talking heads with only stock footage of the city. No reporters or cameramen want to get close to the Simurgh. Can’t blame them really.”

If there was one truly destructive vector for the Simurgh to manipulate, then it was through the people who were the eyes and ears of humanity. One mental memetic time bomb in a reporter and a news story would go out, true or not, that could set off a chain of events with a truly horrifying scope.

The attack in London in 2003, only her second appearance, when the world and the Protectorate was still trying to come to grips with the threat she posed, resulted in the first long term example of what the Endbringer could unleash.

A scandal of huge scope when a news story surfaced in the British press, where the UK chancellor of the exchequer was found to have abused a number of women in his office. The resulting investigation into his life revealed an even bigger problem. A financial catastrophe that stretched across three continents, dozens of banks, all relating to US home loan debts being consolidated and derivatives based on them resold as financial instruments in their own right.

Billions of dollars were wiped out in value from the largest financial institutions in just a few months. Thousands of suicides across the world. The largest streak of home evictions since the Great Depression of 1929.

It was only a year later, after crisis legislation, government intervention and the subsequent investigations that revealed that the original charges against the UK chancellor were totally fraudulent. It had been published by an editor from the British press who had been on holiday in Lausanne, Switzerland - where the Simurgh had made her debut.

Her other Rube Goldberg-esque weapons made out of people were swiftly traced, but it was inevitable that many would fall through the cracks. The strings of seemingly random suicide bombings all over Europe were the least of her weapons. A French nuclear engineer causing a meltdown on purpose was another famous example of her manipulations coming to fruit. Then finally, she became the Bane of Tinkers, when she took the most famous Tinker in the world at the time, who had been giving humanity the promise of easily building offworld habitats, and turned him into the monster known as Mannequin.

“By the way, are you sure about her?” Dad jerked a thumb upstairs.

“Yes, but let me get Henry on the line, he made me promise to brief him ASAP.”

I dialed my smartphone and put it on speaker, before placing it on the coffee table.

It rang loudly only once before the sentient statue picked up.

“Taylor, good of you to call so promptly. Encryption is on. Our guest indicates it should also serve to keep even your end of the conversation private.”

“You verified that?”

“As much as I was able to,” Henry confirmed. “Now I know we’re all on tenterhooks as the Simurgh descends but we need some reassurance on Miss Carter. What can you tell us?”

“She eventually opened up partially to me after I had essentially babied her a bit or from another point of view, just treated her like a fucking human being in need of a shoulder to cry on,” I blew out a breath as I tried to get my thoughts in order. “Okay, in essence, my read is she’s a fundamentally good person, who was truly fucked by the Foundation. She was essentially kept in a prison for human-like SCPs, Site 99.”

“I know of the place,” Henry confirmed. “It means that Miss Carter is considered a Keter-class anomaly.”

The general definition of Keter meant SCPs that were exceedingly difficult to contain consistently or reliably, with containment procedures often being extensive and complex.

“That really doesn’t make sense, she’s just a normal human who can be locked up.”

“In this case, it’s probably her ability’s effect that makes her Keter.”

“I see, yeah, got it. Sorry, the object classifications are still very iffy to me.”

“They’re nebulous for a reason, Taylor. Now please, what can she do?”

“She’s essentially a walking, talking creator of anomalous powers and ability but in a very specific way. You talk to her willingly about your fears and personal issues, then she can partially control what ability you get in response to that.”

Dad scrunched his face and he looked quite impressed, “That sounds incredibly powerful and useful.”

“I agree, but of course the Foundation just saw a huge mess to clean up and contain. She was a professional therapist and she’d helped all her patients in this way. Only problem is, now her patients were ‘instances of the SCP’ that needed to be rounded up and contained. As far as she knows, they managed to find and lock up over a hundred of her patients.”

“You’re thinking with the Earth Bet mindset,” Henry cautioned. “I agree it’s horrible. People coming to a therapist seeking help. They miraculously gain actual power over their fears, then along comes the Foundation and turns them into a number with zero human rights. However, you must admit the possible harm that can come from desperate people conquering their fears. Did she tell you of some of the powers her patients developed?”

“Well, one of them at least, this guy had lost his son in an accident. He came to her for therapy because he kept seeing hallucinations of his child. Afterwards, he developed the ability to actually create a fully interactable and tangible nine year old boy that looked like this son.”

“That strikes me as rather unhealthy for the mindset of the father in question, the ‘summons’ is not his true son and will never be. Did Miss Carter say what experiments the Foundation performed on her patient?”

“Yes,” I replied with a disgusted tone. “They decided to perform all sorts of ‘how to kill the anomalous boy’ tests. Of course, none of it worked as the guy could just summon the boy right back afterward. He eventually developed acute depression as he would at least know the moment the termination test killed the summoned boy.”

“So you can see it didn’t actually help him in the end.”

“Only because of the Foundation.”

“Taylor, I can’t believe you’re putting me in the role of defending the Foundation. Look, what would happen if one day this anomalous boy, who everyone around this guy assumed was his son, got publicly killed in some way? Then the next day, the kid shows up perfectly healthy. This happens in a world without the paranormal or superheroes.”

The question was quite hard actually. Imagine a world without capes?

“I can properly answer that,” Dad said with a self-deprecating grin. “They’d assume that the kid was actually a twin brother, but if they knew the guy didn’t have twins - that’s when things would get problematic. The religious would assume a divine miracle happened. Word would eventually filter to the press and it would spiral out of control from there. Then the extremists begin to pop up, declaring the anomalous boy a ghost or demon. Either way, any normal life this poor father might’ve had would be gone.”

“This is Earth Bet though and if we can help her with a fresh start here, the potential benefits of having her gainfully employed in Fortress are huge,” I argued.

There was a pause as both Dad and Henry considered it.

“You’re thinking of getting Miss Carter to give therapy ie. anomalous powers to the FTF members.”

“Unlike the bloody Foundation, we can’t draw easily from an entire planet’s worth of special forces soldiers when they die. When we go up against a completely hostile SCP, I want our employees to have a fighting chance and not just be cannon fodder.”

“There are problems, Taylor. There are no guarantees on the type of power expression, it could either be useless or be so overpowering that the employee becomes a danger to himself and others. The most common phobia is social. Imagine an FTF operator fears being awkward around women. He sees Miss Carter for therapy and manifests something like your own ability, except aimed toward females who are attracted helplessly to him and just wants to have sex constantly. It’s an ability he can’t turn off. He’s now a danger to women everywhere he goes and has lost any semblance of a normal life.”

“Okay yes, that would be bad,” I grumbled in annoyance. “Would a pre-screening work? We find out what their fear is…”

“It would still be guesswork and playing with an extremely dangerous dice, Taylor. In fact, the operator might not even know their own true fear, having not been exposed to it. I know it’s very unlikely but we must consider every possibility.”

Dad rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, “Now I’m imagining someone with claustrophobia, suddenly being able to erase matter with a touch. Useful, until he decides to go crazy with his power. Nothing would stop him from simply going anywhere and robbing places. You douse him with containment foam, he just vanishes it. You shoot him and the bullets vanish the moment they hit his skin.”

I gave him a look of annoyance, “Dad, I’m trying to help Shauna here. She’s been imprisoned for five years, treated as an object. Every person who spoke to her directly had to agree to become an experiment essentially. They also fucked with her mind to see if that had any effects on the abilities she gave.”

“Sorry Little Owl, I’m starting to see why Miss Carter has a Keter rating. We’re going to have to be very careful even when speaking to her. I agree though that we should at least help get her into some form of a normal life here, with the proviso that she not ‘therapize’ anyone willy-nilly but only under as many safeguards and precautions that we can think of.”

“We’re playing with fire, Danny.”

“Henry, we can’t and won’t be the Foundation,” Dad said with finality.

“I can at least perceive when her power is truly working, so I can ‘stop’ her if it comes down to it,” I pointed out.

“That’s something at least,” Henry allowed. “The Simurgh is entering the atmosphere.”

We looked at the TV and nothing had changed.

“Nothing on our channel… Oh, you’ve accessed the powers-that-be’s feed using our guest’s credentials?” Dad asked.

“Yes, I’ve also been helping myself to more select information and adding it to my research on the Endbringers. I’m even more convinced it’s the right thing for you two to never be within range of this one. There’s also the fact that I think they are sandbagging.”

I frowned, “Sandbagging? With all the destruction they can cause, you think they’re holding back?”

“Yes, with an ability like the macro-kinesis that the Simurgh employs and seeing actual footage of it… there’s nothing stopping her from using it directly on every cape that comes against her and turning them into mincemeat. Yet she only kills using heavy objects thrown with the ability. The only reason she doesn’t is because it’s inferred that she has the Manton Limit on it.”

“And you don’t like that explanation,” I grinned.

“The Manton Limit by its nature implies that a power is designed, that there is an intelligence behind it, which is regulating the effect. Others write it off as subconscious self-protection, I don’t buy it. In fact, now that I’ve looked at full high definition images of them, I am confident in saying that the Endbringers are not and have never been human. They are not some poor unfortunate Case 53 gone catastrophically wrong. All three have been designed purposefully to evoke human emotion and have elements borrowed from legend.”

“Wait, wait, Henry,” Dad looked at the TV with horror, which just happened to show an old public image of the Simurgh as the news announced her approach through the atmosphere. “Are you saying that someone… Tinkered or built those three?”

“I doubt it was a Tinker, I’d like to see a machine that could pump out those things. No, we’re looking at a more exotic method of construction. A directed artificial growth working on a femto scale or even atto, most likely driven by a power.”

“Why would anyone want to even do that? If they have that ability, then nothing is beyond them!” Just the sheer thought that it was possible was mind boggling.

“I can’t begin to guess, Taylor. I’m sorry. On the one hand, we have monstrously powerful beings who could easily depopulate the entire planet. Yet on the other hand, they only attack in predictable turns and give time for defenses to be organized from capes across the world. The Endbringer’s powers themselves also have distinct boundaries, limitations; Behemoth’s kill aura that bypasses the Manton limit at 32 feet for example. Rather amazing how quickly the Protectorate worked that one out. It’s as if I’m looking at a giant death game someone made out of the world. If I had hair I’d be ripping it out in frustration because that’s insanity! I’m trying to imagine the intelligence that has this kind of power but would impose such limits on itself and utterly failing!”

“Been holding that one in, Henry?” Dad asked lightly.

“Yes, I apologize. This contradiction in the Endbringers has been vexing me for a while now. I thought that having access to the information from the Protectorate and PRT would shed more light, but it’s just created more questions.”

“Henry, when did you last take a break?” I asked pointedly.

“Too long probably, the new job hasn’t helped.”

Dad stood, “Well, I’m going to try to fall asleep. Sitting in front of this TV is pointless. I’ll rather find out if this was a win or loss tomorrow. Good night, Henry, Little Owl.” He stepped forward to kiss me on the brow.

“Night, dad,” I said to his retreating back.

“I’ll go and read a book or something and not look at the PRT feed.”

“I’ll update my anomaly file and try to think of further ways to help Shauna. See you, Henry.”

“Good night.”

I tapped the phone to end the call, before walking over to the TV and firmly shutting it off.

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“So an entire city - Canberra - was lost?”

Shauna was eating her breakfast in the kitchen and staring at the tiny TV mounted on the wall. Her eyes seemed glued to it all morning, as if she was carefully scrutinizing it for any potential inaccuracy or she was just that interested in learning about her new world.

“Effectively. Only a section was damaged in the fighting but the rest and the people who couldn’t get out in time are going to be quarantined and walled off for the rest of their lives. Food and general essentials will be air dropped to them, but it’ll become a lawless, apocalyptic zone eventually. Everyone affected by the Simurgh for long enough becomes figurative bombs with a hidden timer.”

“That’s fucked up.”

The footage changed to a running montage of interviews with Legend and Eidolon, who were the primary reasons why the Simurgh had been driven off this time.

Scion, the first and most powerful cape in the world, hadn’t shown up at all. He had been last seen putting out wildfires in South America early yesterday. I had to wonder about the mindset behind not prioritizing any Endbringer attack. No one could control or even understand much about him. He had only said a single word since his appearance in 1982; his own name.

I put down a freshly brewed cup of coffee in front of her. “Yes, it is. Australia already practically lost Sydney due to Leviathan’s attack in ‘98, but with grit and a lot of help they managed to rebuild and it’s been a point of pride for them that they weathered that assault. Whether they can remain a cohesive nation after losing their capital in this manner, we’ll just have to see. They lost half more than half of their national government and odds are that it’ll be King Charles who has to personally sort the states back into some semblance of order.”

Shauna choked on her fruit loops.“King Charles? What happened to Elizabeth? She was still on the throne when I last checked.”

“Your Earth did not have the Simurgh drop on London in 2003. She landed right on Buckingham Palace whilst Elizabeth was there.”

She gave me an astonished look, “Tell me London is still there.”

“It is, but half of it is domed off and quarantined, much like Canberra is going to be.”

“Always wanted to visit there and see that palace, it was on my bucket list,” she said with a disgruntled air and resumed eating with a gloomy expression on her face. “I heard you all talking last night.”

“I figured you would, we weren’t exactly quiet.”

“Who is Henry?”

“You’ll be meeting him today. He’ll introduce himself, but I will say he’s an SCP who was also in Foundation custody before he was snatched up to be deposited on the shores of this universe. Just like you.”

“Fuck me, this is crazy,” she gestured to a shot of Eidolon using his powers to begin the main construction of the quarantine dome. “Look at that. In the open, on TV, for the entire world to see… superheroes; Superman, Spiderman, Batman, at the moment that guy is looking like a souped up version of Doctor Strange and he’s just… moving and creating tons of material out of thin air.”

“Only vaguely familiar with Strange, comics of superheroes pretty much died out in the 90s here. Why bother with fiction when we have the real thing happening every day.”

“You’re shittin me? No comics?”

“It’s only done these days by niche publishers and with very limited runs. Those who are still fans from the pre-1980s, pretty much relies on our dimensional cousin, Earth Aleph, for imports on comics and movies, since information trade is the only thing allowed.”

“And of course, you talk about dimensional trade as if it’s a common, everyday public thing for you lot.”

“It is.”

Shauna pushed away her finished bowl, “So what’s on the agenda for me today?”

“Dad is going to take you shopping for a minimum amount of clothes that actually fit you. My mom was not as blessed as you are in the chest area, so you can’t mooch off her old clothing forever, unless you want to display extreme cleavage at all times. After that he’s going to take you to Fortress and no, we will not lock you up. Not unless you start going crazy, evil or some other variation of being a danger to yourself or others.”

“Not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, Escort.”

“Good.”

I really hoped she would pass the test we had set for her, to see if she was worthy of any trust. Far from being alone, I would always be there, hovering invisibly over dad and we had made no mention of him having any powers. He would tag her with a few gnats on her clothes to keep track of her at all times.

If she could at least behave during the shopping trip then things would move forward.

I really needed some actual anomalous muscle in my corner. An anomalously empowered FTF team would give me that in spades. Shauna had the potential to give me that.

Henry, for all his strength, was just too big and too slow.

This just… had to work.

It had to.

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SCPs mentioned only:

"SCP-007" by Unknown Author, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-007. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

"SCP-126" by Unknown author, rewritten by Aelanna, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-126. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

SCPs featured in this chapter:

"SCP-3811" by OthellotheCat from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3811. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

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A/N:  Next chapter, have an awesome weekend

The Force Wills - Chapter 64

Just being able to talk to Senator Bonteri was not a simple matter of making an appointment with her official staff. As far as CIS Intel were concerned, they had been ‘attacked’ by RI to disrupt their surveillance of her. They were currently chasing their tails due to all the false trails I had laid for them but they were also carefully investigating why RI would disrupt Bonteri’s surveillance.

It didn’t take a genius to deduce, from their point of view, that RI had done so to place their own surveillance on Bonteri. This naturally resulted in Bonteri herself coming under covert investigation. They had organic operatives tailing her and droids.

Given the general programmability of droids, anything from a cleaner droid to a standard B1 security droid could be used for the purpose with little trouble.

Getting through this level of surveillance to speak to her in private wasn’t easy. Especially because the only communication we had with her was the encrypted burst datapad, which would slag itself if anyone other than the senator tried to use it. For safety, it could only send text as if she was seen communicating via holo, CIS Intel would naturally try to find the holochannel and listen in.

The key to success in this case was time.

The senator simply sent her general daily schedule.

Armed with that and a lot of patience, we had a full local week of waiting for the heat to die down ahead of us. It was time we didn’t waste and we mostly spent it maintaining our own cover as astronomers. Taking shuttle rides to one of Raxus’ two small moons, getting in vac suits and pointing our telescopes in the proper direction to capture some truly breathtaking imagery.

As much as space was just another place to me, there was always some small spark of fascination and wonder that remained despite the normalcy and ease of space travel in this life.

Walking out on that moon with a full vacuum around me, the sand compacted under my boots, which would remain that way for thousands of years, until a small meteoroid or the solar winds eventually degraded it - looking up at the infinite cosmos around me, with only a thin counter mechanical pressure suit, magnetic field belt and a transparisteel helmet protecting me…

The word humbling didn’t come close to describing it.

Six days of this passed, when finally a window for meeting the senator opened up.

Every week she went to a small eatery in the central district of Raxulon.

It was one of those places in the middle of downtown, surrounded by towering skyscrapers, and situated in a street market.

The one reason she frequented it - the cook and owner was Onderonian and had a small selection of meals he made that was done completely in that style and taste.

It was also ideal because of how busy and noisy it was, which was just the thing needed to confuse long range listening devices and sensors.

With the help of a bit of Farsight and Prescience, I was also able to time our entry into Lamsin’s Fast Eatery, so we could find a seat at the bar where Bonteri was eating and occupy two empty seats next to her in such a way, that it appeared an entirely coincidental arrival.

Her surveillance had also now defaulted to only using droids, which made things much easier thanks to a bit of judicious slicing and technometry use.

“Two of whatever she’s having, it looks delicious,” I said to the waiter manning the bar.

“Two dalgo stews coming up,” the waiter nodded with a smile and sent the order into the kitchen with a few taps of his terminal.

“It is good,” Bretoni affirmed amiably. She was dressed rather casually; long pants, sandals, high collared blouse with long sleeves and a red long haired wig with dark glasses to cover her eyes. The best bit of her going incognito like this, she did it all the time, to not be recognized on the street. Even the locals in the restaurant only knew her as ‘Minnie’ and a regular customer who probably worked in the Onderonian embassy.

Our bowls arrived just minutes later and both Padme and I eagerly tucked in, whilst we casually slid datapads next to our food to eat and ‘work’ at the same time.

What a coincidence that Mina also had her datapad out and quickly also got engrossed in her work.

The datapads were synced in a point-to-point network that we established on the spot and given its low power it practically blended into the EM spectrum as white noise. You’d have to stand with a dedicated sensor over our shoulders to even know that there was any EM signal bouncing between the pads.

“Firstly senator, I want to again apologize for the increased scrutiny CIS Intel has placed you under,” I typed.

“Accepted, though I suppose I should also thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that I was being surveilled to that extent. That feeling of violation was not easy to get over.”

“If it makes you feel any better senator, RI also has me bugged nearly constantly while I’m on-duty. The only place I have relative privacy is in the Jedi Temple, even there I have to be careful, but that’s a different story. Padme is also surveilled but it’s kept at a distance. Of course, it’s all done in the name of ‘safety.’”

“How did it come to all this?” Bonteri tapped rather angrily. “If you told me just a year ago that I would be under a microsensor in my own home, I’d have thought you a lunatic.”

“War, is the simple answer,” Padme typed. “And the sooner it can all end, the better.”

“That clearly cannot happen whilst the Techno Union, Trade Federation and others all see the war as just a massive boost to their own profits, not to mention the other interests, those who want to see either side destroyed or reduced to ineffectuality,” Bonteri pointed out. “The Saam Funding Bill is racing through evaluation committees at hyper speed. That sabotage attack on the power plant was a masterful stroke. Fear, it seems, is a wonderful unifier.”

“Something the enemy knows all too well,” I typed out, scooping some of my stew and chewing.

Bonteri also ate a bit and paused for a moment before typing, “Yes, so answer me one simple question Tano. Why approach me? It’s not just done out of the goodness of your heart or some Jedi philosophy of fairness.”

I hid my amused smirk by quickly munching on more meat, “No, the Jedi way calls for honesty, not fairness. The universe by nature is far from fair and the sentient wish for it to be ‘fair’ has resulted in so much misery. As for why we are here truly? I want to recruit you into… let’s call it a Conspiracy of Light. A thousand years ago the Jedi and Republic had the Army of Light to fight against the Sith Brotherhood. I think it only fitting that if the Sith of today want to fight in the shadows with conspiracy against the Jedi and Republic, then we should meet them on that field.”

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or think you mad, Tano. What could I do to meaningfully contribute to such an endeavor? I’m no spy.”

“You’d be surprised, Mina,” Padme typed.

“Naturally, we don’t want you to do anything that would compromise your standing in the CIS. We don’t want military secrets that would help the Republic in this war, but we do want eyes and ears on the true mood of your parliament, on Dooku and any moves he makes that seem strangely counter to CIS interests. Also if you do discover some form of insane CIS superweapon that can cause mass destruction on a planetary scale, a heads up to us would also be kind.”

I could feel Bonetri bitterly wanted to react openly to that last little bit, but she contented herself with merely typing, “What?!”

“Yes, it’s a long term project being steadily worked on by the Sith. It’s in the theoretical stage at the moment, but I believe the CIS scientific establishment and the war in general is being used to advance research in many fields.”

She nodded in understanding, even though I could see her eyes were stormy as she processed the mere idea of a planet killer.

“So you don’t want me to ‘return’ to the Republic or betray the CIS?”

“If it were so easy for you to turn ‘traitor’, we wouldn’t be speaking, senator,” I answered. “Your planet and many others seceded into the CIS for good reason and I fully support your right and determination to do so. I don’t see this war as truly capable of ending until the Republic acknowledges the right of the CIS to exist as a nation.”

Now I could feel astonishment and shock from both women.

“Ahsoka… are you serious?” Padme typed furiously.

“I admit I might have a strange sense of humor at times, but not on this topic,” I replied.

“That’s…” Padme stopped herself from typing further.

“Yes, from some points of view, that would be treason. You can’t imagine that a Jedi, who fights the good fight on the front lines against the ‘traitors’, could possibly have this opinion. No, Padme, this has been a very long time coming, since before the Ruusan Reformation, but the Republic needs this kick up the ass. It needs competition. For too long has it sat there on Coruscant, promoting a system that has grown out of all control and proportion.

I gave a subtle raised brow as she stared at me. “Look at it this way, you’re Senator of Naboo, but also represent the entire Chommel sector, which includes some two dozen populated worlds. The Senate passes a bill which disfavors just one of those worlds, but favors others… How do you reconcile your vote, Padme? How do you think those worlds feel? Democracy says you go with the majority, and oh, if the minority planet’s economy just so happens to collapse, too bad for them.”

“And your answer would then be to truly divide the galaxy? Republic and Confederated?” She actually glared at me.

“The idea of a unified galaxy is something that’s been striven for since the days of the Old Republic. The problem is now, that the Outer Rim is now truly the actual outer rim of the galaxy, there will be no more expansion phases. Communication and practical travel times have plateaued. As the Naboo blockade crisis showed and this war is showing constantly, that the people of the Republic on the Outer Rim are truly on their own. If some emergency happens, it takes too long for help to show up from the central regions. Look at what happened to Naboo, after the Trade Federation invasion, it took nearly three days for the decision to be made to send Master Jin and his padawan, it then took a further seven for them to reach your planet. In military terms, that’s an eternity which the Federation could’ve used to invade, conquer and cement their rule. Even if there were political hurdles in the way in actuality, the general principle still stands.”

Padme’s hand angrily flexed as she considered typing something but she stopped herself and just ate a few more bites of her stew. She knew I was right and she hated it.

“A two state system then,” Bonteri typed. “The opposition against that within the Republic will be considerable, even within your Order, that’s even the reason why there is a war in the first place.”

“The enemy made sure that all the pieces were in place so that war was the only option. From the point of view of both sides - the CIS were launching their campaign for self-determination and liberation, whilst the Republic only saw terrorists who took a senator and Jedi hostage, then suddenly a conglomeration of megacorps and worlds decided to form their own state with an army that rolled off an assembly line. Many Jedi see themselves as merely ‘defending the Republic’. At some point they will have to ask themselves, what is truly good for the Force, life and the people they serve in general and not the political interests of the Senate and the few in power. What happens when those two interests begin to conflict?”

“There must be a better solution than division,” Padme typed, having calmed down a bit.

“Unless you can come up with a faster form of FTL than hyperspace, Padme, I’m just not seeing a practical solution to maintain cohesion in galactic civilization. The Republic encouraged its peoples to settle in the Outer Rim more than a hundred years ago, now those very people and their descendants want to go their own way. There may come a time when the Republic has no choice but to accept that.”

“Let’s get back to practicalities and the present here,” Bonteri tapped out. “All of this discussion is academic until the Sith are removed from the picture. If what you say is true about Palpatine and Dooku, then what would that involve? Can arresting them even work?”

“Practically the technology and facilities exist to incarcerate even a Sith, as Dooku found out when he was captured by pirates. The Temple on Coruscant still has those facilities and there’s other facilities in the galaxy which can hold him. The problem with Palpatine is that he has just too many plans, contingencies, allies both overt and hidden, and one of his primary expressions of Force ability is to foresee the future. Any plan big enough that accounts for all the problems in overcoming his contingencies is already doomed to failure because he will have seen it coming.”

“Surely there must be a way. Has the Jedi not faced such enemies in the past?”

“Yes, but we’re talking about ancient history here, senator. Much was lost in the Interregnum and during the final war against the Sith Brotherhood. I have efforts underway which I won’t elaborate on, which may address this problem. Whether it will work… I’m unable to say.”

“So if capture or arrest is off the table… Can you kill the enemy?”

“Me personally, no, but I’m consciously not working out a plan to kill him. There’s too much of a risk his sight will pick up the possible future events, at which point he will know. That alone would be catastrophic.”

“So what can your Conspiracy of Light actually achieve in the end?”

It was a difficult topic to address and one which I’ve been wrestling with constantly. The idea that everything would just be pointless, that Palpatine had ticked all the boxes, that he was unassailable.

No, I refused to believe that. He was not omniscient, not omnipotent. He made mistakes, he wasn’t perfect. He was at his core, still human, as horrible as the idea was to contemplate given the monster he was.

“We might not have the answer now, but we will look for it until we find it.”

Bonteri studied me out of the corner of her eye before a small smile adorned her lips. “You still have hope, which is rather amazing considering the obstacles you face, Padawan Tano. Therefore, I will have hope as well, for Lux and that he sees a bright future, free of this conflict. For what it’s worth, you now have my support.”

I didn’t celebrate or cheer internally, even as my mission here succeeded. It just felt like another rope of expectation and responsibility had been latched onto my shoulders.

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We didn’t linger long on Raxus afterwards. Making sure that the little details and practicalities of secure communication were handled. The next day we were on a passenger transport heading for the Lianna system, to begin the journey of getting back to Indu San and the parked Pioneer.

We had to do a bit of system hopping at this point due to the lack of space flights going directly back. In this way, we passed back through the CIS border into neutral/Republic space without any incident. Only experiencing the boredom of waiting and queues in space ports and stations.

We passed through Galidraan, Rhen Var, back into the Salin Corridor hyperlane, and finally got a direct flight to Indu San from the Vjun system.

The Pioneer was in good shape in the hangar bay I had left her in. The under-the-table payment for berthing fees had been exorbitant. Padme and I didn’t exactly make for the most intimidating pair of travelers in the galaxy but the guy was at least trying to uphold a relatively good rep, which wouldn’t happen if he swindled a customer even after he had been bribed.

I handled the piloting and quickly got us into hyperspace on a course back to Mandalore through the Finbar system.

I was thoroughly tired of just the sheer drudgery of travel through spaceports and starships that I wasn’t flying. It was a relief to just be behind the controls again and in command of where and when I went somewhere.

My eyes stared at the never ending blue swirl of hyperspace through the Pioneer’s cockpit, my montrals taking in the constant hum of the engines, the occasional beep from the navicomputer and blinking lights and screens surrounding me.

I felt like I could sit here in this comfy cockpit pilot chair and just fall asleep.

“Snips.”

It felt like someone had just poked a taser in my spine as I stiffened in surprise at the call from Anakin along the bond.

“Skyguy, I was just about to fall asleep.”

I could feel a hint of remorse at that, “Sorry about that, just checking in to let you know. Resolute and Negotiator are on our way to the southern fronts. The Fifth Fleet is amassing for a push into Sullust. You probably won’t make it back in time before the battle is over.”

The Battle for Sullust.

“I see, thank you for the information, master.”

“How’s things on your end? I sense you’re back on that new ship of yours.”

“The Pioneer, yes. We’re safe and on our way back to Mandalore. We can finally drop our disguises.”

“Good to hear. Now what is this I’m sensing from you… doubt, uncertainty?”

“Yes, the fight for Sullust. Master, I’d ask you to pay careful attention afterwards to the post-combat analysis of the CIS fleet for any… strange behavior. If you see something, please let me know.”

“Will do. This isn’t going to ‘bite me in the ass’, as you so colorfully put it?”

“Not you personally, a long running probability line will reach a nexus point. Whether I need to act will depend on what you tell me.”

“And you can’t give me more specifics because I’m a part of the events, right.”

“When I can say something without sparking a potential disaster, I will, master.”

“Right… now I’ll let you get some sleep.”

“Thank you, master.”

We both closed down our respective ends of the bond.

I opened a navicomputer holo, then started to input travel parameters as a theoretical exercise.

It would take seven days for the Resolute to travel to Sullust. Another day or so before the fleet launched their attack. Add another day, then another eleven from Sullust to the north… assuming Dathomir is your destination.

So nineteen to twenty days.

Six days from Mandalore to Coruscant, roughly seven to go from there to Dathomir.

I glared at the glittering highlighted hyperspace routes.

Should I really care at all about this?

The Nightsisters didn’t give two shits about anything beyond Dathomir except for if it affected their little ichor infested rock. Their powers were of the Dark Side, yet their carefully cultivated dispassionate mindset in viewing everything they used to practice their ‘magick’ as tools, meant that they were isolated from the usual ravages that the Dark Side caused against a Force user’s psyche. At best, they were mercenaries for hire, something their current matriarch, Mother Talzin had started. They were only ‘cooperatively’ aligned with Sidious and the Sith in general. Why should I care if they killed each other off in the future?

Yet… the part of me that loved knowledge didn’t want to see such a unique sect of Force sensitives exterminated. They were just as much part of life and an expression of the Force as the Jedi. It was why the Jedi Council and Yoda specifically hadn’t led a crusade against them when they had been discovered early in the Post Ruusan era.

There was absolutely no love lost between the Jedi and the Nightsisters though. They were actively taught by their own doctrinal laws to distrust and even dislike all Jedi. An unfortunate consequence when in the distant past, a young Jedi left the Order for some reason to join the Nightsisters and then went on to codify their laws.

It would therefore be foolish in the extreme for me to go to Dathomir in person. The only way I would ever set foot on that deadly world was if I had both Obi-Wan and Anakin with me.

My only edge in speaking to Mother Talzin would therefore be in her very secret estrangement from her alliance with Sidious.

Darth Maul… was her son.

That Sidious had so callously used and discarded Maul as his apprentice had utterly soured that very loose alliance. Talzin only kept it going because she knew she couldn’t afford to have Sidious as a true, openly declared enemy.

So now the question was, how do I speak with Talzin yet not set foot on Dathomir?

It wasn't like I had her comlink address. They had to have some manner of modern technology and a holocom system in that village of theirs, to speak to potential clients for their mercenary contracts and to maintain their weapons. I could ask Fulcrum’s slicers to track down the clients that the Nightsisters had definitely worked for, but then what? Could I ask for that address, posing as someone who was interested in hiring them?

The idea had merit, yet the conversation we would then have was certainly not one I trusted over the Holonet, even encrypted and while I could ensure my end was safe, the same could not be said for Talzin’s side. If I was Sidious, I’d definitely be keeping an eye and ear on the Mother of the Nightsisters. He knew their potential power better than anyone and it was clear that they would have no place in the New Order he was building.

The small door to the cockpit behind me opened.

“Ahsoka, you all right?”

I turned my seat to see Padme looking once more like herself and finally ditching the stuffy Rodian clothes for one of her more form fitting white, catsuit like outfits.

I blinked in surprise, “Fine, why do you ask?”

“It’s just… I’m not sure if it’s from you or I was going crazy, but it felt like…” she frowned, clearly struggling with the words. “Were you feeling conflicted just now?” she blurted out as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying herself.

“Well, that is a nice surprise,” I smiled ruefully, feeling instantly cheered up. “Your independent awareness of the bond is growing. Something that you being in close proximity for so long has helped with. But yes, I was feeling ‘conflicted’, thank you for chasing that away.”

She frowned before dropping herself into the co-pilot seat. “So what was making you feel this way? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I’m pondering a decision, many lives and precious knowledge are hanging in the balance.”

Padme gaped at me for a second, “Only you, Ahsoka. We’re barely out of CIS space and already you find another potential disaster to involve yourself with.”

“Time marches on, as does this war, it’s only going to get worse, a lot worse, before it gets… well I won’t say ‘better’.”

“What is it this time?”

“This time, I have to stretch out a hand to a very unpleasant person, who may burn it.”

“Then why bother at all, Ahsoka?”

“Because at the end, we’re looking at the enemy using the CIS to practically wipe out an entire people.”

“And you can’t openly go to the Jedi for help with this?”

I shook my head, “Quite a few would secretly be very happy it happened. Whatever happens, I’ll probably need to remain on Concordia, check in with my clan and Mandalorian affairs in general. I’ll assign two of my best Blades that are there at the moment to escort you back to Coruscant.”

“Ahsoka, that’s really not-”

“Please Padme, for my own peace of mind and I’m sure Anakin would personally beat me into the ground with hours of mandatory lightsaber practice if I ever let you fly alone anywhere in this turbulent galaxy.”

She folded her arms with unhappiness but I could sense she was agreeing. Duty was also calling her back and with Saam’s bill due to reenter the agenda after dozens of studies had been commissioned and delivered both for and against it, the final debates and vote on it was fast approaching.

“Fine, but please be careful.”

“I will.”

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Padme’s J-type star skiff rapidly grew smaller in the sky of Concordia, along with the two Fang fighters in escort formation. I had personally chosen the best star pilots among the Blades for the job. Both were aces and veterans of the civil war and had flown numerous combat missions alongside the GAR in the ever shifting battle spaces of the north-east. They would remain her bodyguards until the RNSF could take over on Coruscant officially, but I had secretly ordered them to remain at least until the Senate’s banking deregulation vote was over, one way or another.

I turned my eyes away from the future and with a few purposeful blinks and movement of my eyes, dismissed the magnification function of my helmet.

“She’ll be all right, Manda’lor,” Togai Vizsla reassured me confidently. “Gall and Sheho are the best.”

I merely nodded at him and gestured for him to follow me off the clan estate’s landing pads and begin an easy walk back to the main house.

“M8, open a directional link with Togai, highest encryption,” I vocalized.

“Established, mistress.”

“Oh dear, more clandestine activity, Ahsoka?” Togai’s amused voice piped into my helmet

“Yes, I’m afraid. What can you tell me about the mercenary activities of the Nightsisters of Dathomir?”

Togai didn’t react, but I could sense his apprehension and even a wary respect at the mere mention of the name.

“Not much, Manda’lor. When Death Watch still existed, the nameless one did sometimes bid on mercenary contracts to clients where the Nightsisters did the same. As eventually happened, the client chose the Nightsisters. We naturally investigated their eventual performance on the contract. The nameless one was impressed and from that point we knew to keep a good distance from anything involving the Nightsisters.”

“Let me guess, you observed things that seemed even impossible in a galaxy where you have Jedi like me.”

“Yes, Manda’lor. Does the Jedi know of them?”

“Oh yes, but we are content to leave them be. You wouldn’t happen to remember who that client was? Or that you kept any data or recordings of the Nightsisters?”

“Sorry, Manda’lor, I can’t answer offhand. We’d have to look in the clan archives, this was more than a decade ago.”

“That’s all right, there’s no urgency regarding this yet. I want to get started on my Plan B though.”

“Dare I ask, Manda’lor?”

“You can always ask, Togai,” I chuckled. “I’m going to need to borrow Avu and commandeer a few folks from MandalMotors. We have to build a very special kind of droid.”

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Of all the members of Clan Vizsla; close family, extended, vassal houses and adoptees, Aphil Avu was the one woman I’d found who had the most similar mentality to my own. She was the only surviving member of House Avu, most of whom had perished in the Mandalorian civil war. Their House had been known for two things, their eccentricity and they had a tradition of going into the various fields of sciences for hundreds of years.

Given that this was Mandalore, most of them had applied their talents to metallurgy, high energy physics, blastersmithing, anything related to war. Occasionally, there was the odd one out that dedicated themselves to peaceful applications of their field. Aphil was one of these and her speciality lay in the Coruscanti notion of artificial intelligence and droids.

She along with four others from the MandalMotors design group were seated in one of the conference rooms on the lower floor of the Vizsla estate. I had wined and dined them as was befitting of a host in Mandalorian culture and now we were finally getting down to business.

“I’m sorry, Manda’lor Vizsla, you want us to do what?” said egghead number one, otherwise known as Veth Wrest, specialist engineer in shielding technology and related subjects.

“I want you to take the concept of a holo sheathe, as used by clawdite changelings to facilitate their quick infiltrations and combine it with repulsion or deflector field technology.”

The other eggheads stared at each other incredulously as if I had said rancors were flying over Sundari. Aphil was simply scribbling on some flimsiplast and idly playing with her long blonde hair.

“Why would you ever want to do that?” asked egghead two, Lluts Skuc, a particle physicist who worked on hypermatter reactors.

“Disguise yourself and protect from blaster fire in the same package?” guessed egghead three with a lazy air. Xai Yror, a hyperspace communication specialist and she clearly liked her beer because she was on her fifth for the evening.

“Don’t be ridiculous, the radiation from shields of sufficient strength to protect from modern weaponry clearly prevent their use in personal application,” objected Doctor Rhan Totyl, the computer hardware expert, who mostly worked on the specialized architecture of hardened computers for use in outer space.

“Obviously Rhan,” Veth rolled his eyes. “Give the Manda’lor a little more credit than that.”

“Thank you, Wrest,” I said dryly. “The idea is to create the next step forward in holography. As it stands now, a holograph is just a three dimensional construct of light. The relatively recent innovation of integrating touch sensing has allowed us to manually manipulate holos and use them as user interfaces for systems. What I want Mandalore and MandalMotors to achieve next is combine a precision deflector field with a holo, meaning you create a holo that you can actually hold, which exerts a force and even has friction.”

There was silence for a long while as everyone absorbed that and I could practically hear them tumbling the concept around in their heads.

“I’m not sure the deflector emitters exist which have that precision,” Doctor Totyl said eventually. “Sure you have static spheres and ovoids, but what you’re talking about… It’s quite fascinating of course, but it means a deflector which will dynamically reconfigure its kinetic field to conform to a human sized surface area and has to move itself through 3D space.”

“Totyl is right, but not completely,” Skuc pointed out with a raised finger. “Internal containment fields of hypermatter reactors, they’re torus shaped, they have to be able to dynamically compensate for flux and any external radiation or ambient EM interference which tends to want to bend the hypermatter reaction. We obviously don’t want that reaction near the reactor walls.”

“What of interference from the emitters into the holofield-”

Skuc scoffed, “A simple phase adjustment and that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What of a compact, long lasting, power source?”

The two kept badgering each other with problems, then proposing solutions and I simply let it go on, sensing that it was a familiar dance between the two men.

“Radiation? Still haven’t solved that,” Totyl folded his arms.

“Rad suit?”

“Too bulky. You’d be limited to imitating large species.”

Avu looked very bored at this point, her green eyes glassy, but she put down her pen and shoved the flimsiplast down the table. It smoothly slid along the glossy surface and stopped underneath the noses of the various scientists.

I gave a brief look at it for show, but I had already seen it. I nodded and smiled at her in thanks. She merely shrugged nonchalantly, as if to say, ‘Meh, it was easy to see what you were going for.’

It didn’t take long for the eggheads to comprehend what they were seeing and they looked very impressed, giving Avu somewhat incredulous looks.

“That’s… that’s brilliant,” Totyl said breathlessly and turned to Yror and Avu. “I was wondering why the Manda’lor brought you here but… of course. This is amazing… it’ll change long distance communication and interaction forever.”

I clapped my hands lightly, “Gentlemen and ladies, well done. Yes, I brought you all together for this. I had a good idea of what I wanted to achieve, but we are integrating a lot of fields of expertise together to make this work. The engineering to achieve this is not going to be easy and I foresee that there will be problems none of you have even thought of yet. Yet solve it you must, not just for my immediate use, but for the future. You can see the applications both civilian and military of this - all of you will get credit and be on the patent list for it, but only if it works.”

“With MandalMotors taking the largest share, of course,” Yror sighed in disappointment.

“I can’t change the nature of this business or your contracts, unfortunately,” I held up my palms and shrugged. “Your names in history and the future royalty percentages will just have to do.”

“When do we begin?” Veth asked eagerly.

“As soon as possible, tomorrow. With wartime military authorization, I’ll cut through the usual flimsiwork that would get in the way and get you a budget. Ideally, I want to see a prototype system in eight days.”

“Eight days?” Totyl gaped at me. “Utterly impossible!”

“Always with you what can’t be done,” I muttered under my breath and looked up into the ceiling. “Under normal circumstances, you’d be correct in your skepticism. The difference is now, that you will have a Jedi with you and the impossible is our stock in trade.”

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It was late evening now and I waved off the scientists as they got back into their respective speeders and left the Vizsla estate.

“Things went well?” Togai questioned, coming to stop next to me at the front doors.

“Yes, generally. I won’t be in the estate much for the next week. Long nights are ahead at MandalMotors with little sleep.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to make some time in your busy schedule, Manda’lor,” Togai said with mock officiousness. “Now that you’re here in person, there are some duties that you can no longer defer to me.”

I felt my stomach sink somewhat in dread. “Which ones?”

“There is a Parjai’tsad for the Blades that is being held tomorrow evening, in the main meeting hall of the Concordian capital.”

The best way to describe this type of gathering was a ‘victory meal’. It was usually held after some form of great battle had occurred. It was both a celebration and a recognition of those who had fallen to achieve the victory. Given the reports that crossed into my inbox regarding the Blade’s activities and where their latest deployments had been…

“Aq Vetina?” A small, very recently established colony world in the north-east galactic region.

“Yes, you should also know that a number of foundlings were taken.”

That tradition was one that I’d be very much a hypocrite in objecting to, considering the Jedi Order also had a version of it. The difference being that Mandalorians found ‘battle orphans’, children whose parents had died in the crossfire of Mandalorian operations. Children who would otherwise die if they were left as survivors.

“How many?”

“Given our resources and losses, a full dozen.”

That was the other side of the brutal equation. Foundlings were also only taken when the clan had enough resources, space and wealth to afford raising them. Mandalorian culture was not a charity.

“They’re also going to be formally introduced at the Parjai’tsad?”

“Yes, Manda’lor, as a time saving measure.”

“Any notable guests that you invited?”

“In the interests of openness, House Kryze and most of the major clans will have a presence.”

“You’re throwing me into a quagmire of politics, Togai. This is your overdue revenge, for saddling you with the governor job, isn’t it?” I asked with mock severity.

“Would I stoop so low as to do that to my Manda’lor?” he retorted solemnly.

I gave him a flinty eye, “Fine, anything else?”

“The New Mandos also want a bit of pomposity for the year’s end, so they’re holding a state banquet at the end of this week with all the governors, ministers and a random lottery of the public in attendance.”

“Let me guess, the duchess would prefer it if we did not arrive in armor, but rather elegant finery and foppery more suited to a Coruscanti affair?”

“Your skills of deduction do not disappoint, Manda’lor,” Togai smirked.

“What about security at this event? It’d be just like the CIS to infiltrate an assassin or hire one for the job.”

“Everyone attending will be vetted and scanned for any possible known threat vector, Manda’lor.”

“Good, we should plan for the worst anyway. I want a full squadron of Blades in fighters on standby to launch and a dozen in full beskar’gam inside Sundari.”

Togai frowned at me and I sensed his worry, “Manda’lor, do you foresee something?”

“We can’t expect our enemies to pass up an opportunity like this,” I answered, before turning around and heading back into the house.

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If there was one word that most people used to describe a Parjai’tsad, then it was ‘loud’.

Combine the voices of nearly three hundred raucous Mandalorians, talking at ever increasing volumes so they could hear each other, laughing, drinking, cheering and clinking beer mugs, in a space that was nominally designed to hold meetings - therefore the acoustics favored transmission of sound - then you had what might as well be a slowly broiling sonic weapon.

I had long since willed a bubble of low level TK on the air around my head to dampen it down to a level that wasn’t maddening. I really wanted to increase it more, but that would leave me unable to hear when anyone wanted to talk to me. Using Force Hearing would lead to the problem of hearing everything very clearly, but it would quickly lead to a bloody splitting headache as all those conversations rolled into my brain simultaneously.

Even in my previous life, I’d had difficulties with acute hearing. As some frequencies, resonances and voices had made me feel like my spine wanted to crawl out of my body or like someone had taken a pair of pliers to my ear drums. Not fun.

The other word I would personally use to describe this evening was awkward.

I was seated at the head of the table, which in turn was situated in the most prominent position in the entire hall, surrounded by dozens of other circular tables. Fifteen Mandos sat at each table, drinking, eating and inevitably looking at the high table.

They weren’t just looking at me, but also my own table mates.

Right next to me at the guest of honor position, sat Bo-Katan Kryze who was idly nursing a beer and occasionally talking to the chief of Clan Awaud, Nam Beroya.

Nam Beroya was the first part of the sandwich of awkwardness into which the universe saw fit to stuff me tonight.

He was two meters of utterly buff, handsome beefcake, wrapped in beskar. Armor that in contrast to most Mando clans, was shaped to imitate the human form. They even painted the torsos of their armor into a quite realistic mimicry of human skin, whilst the rest was red. It was only close up that you could tell the difference. His chiseled jaw, high cheekbones, long black hair that was slicked back and tied into a ponytail made him look like he could be on the cover of some trashy romance novel.

What made it worse, I could sense in the Force, he wasn’t some poseur or vain at all. You’d imagine a man with these kinds of looks would have a huge ego as the women threw their panties at him. No, Nam Beroya was actually quite humble, principled, and an excellent Mando warrior. He’d been readying his clan to leave the Mandalorian sector, seeking to avoid the impending factionalism and brewing civil war between the New Mandos and the old guard. Right until I stuck my oar into the entire situation.

Bo-Katan was clearly enjoying her conversation and close position. I tried my best to ignore her low key amorous feelings towards Nam.

The cherry on this evening of awkwardness was seated to my left.

I knew my influence and actions would produce ripples throughout Mandalore, but nowhere was it more demonstrated by the fact that another Kryze, clad in a blue beskar’gam sat there.

Korkie Kryze.

He had the patrician nose and blonde hair of his family, but his eyes and other features - those came from a father that I needed just one look to identify. The Force also bore witness to the identity of the father.

That Korkie wasn’t in the Jedi Temple right now was due to the previous civil war and that no foundling missions had come this way. Even the New Mandos didn’t want the Jedi Order to potentially carry away children when the population levels had been so critically low in the aftermath. The Jedi had also probably refrained from sending any missions because of that fact.

Korkie was slightly older than me if I had to guess, but his armor and the way he held himself made him seem even more deceptively older. His armor’s appearance also told a story. It was new, but it had seen wear - the kind that you’d only get when you saw combat action or training on a level that Mandos generally subjected their apprentices too.

What was he doing here? How had this gotten past Satine?

He clearly wanted to be here. Perhaps he had gone to Bo-Katan to request training after the general declaration of war against the CIS, with feelings of duty, patriotism and leadership ringing through his mind. Bo would not deny it and Satine would’ve been faced with a united front of ‘nephew’ and sister.

I could vaguely recall in the timeline-that-was; Korkie had been a student of the Royal Academy of Government. This meant he had left his studies there to answer the ‘call of his people’.

In the time since the declaration he could’ve gone on the full Mando equivalent of basic training. That I could see in the way he was sitting, the way his eyes moved to maintain situational awareness on automatic. How his left hand was always held relatively close to his belt and the WESTAR blaster holstered there.

The other question tumbling about in my head, was whether Obi-Wan knew?

A Jedi of his power and ability should’ve clearly felt the connection in the Force of a son being born of his own flesh and blood. There was no way he would have remained ignorant of it. I could also see the ever dutiful Obi-Wan Kenobi accept his youthful indiscretion and move on from it. Especially in these tumultuous days he would refuse to acknowledge it even more, given the many enemies he had in this war.

I could recall debates on this topic another lifetime ago. One camp argued in retrospect that there was no way the perfect Kenobi would ever do something to ‘betray’ the Jedi Order and sleep with Satine, whilst the other pointed out he had been young, alone, human and in love with her! He had not always been the straight laced padawan lecturing his own master about ‘following the rules’.

I sighed wearily, calling on the Force to reinvigorate me, whilst waving over a server to take away my now empty and dirty plate.

My eyes briefly locked with Korkie’s as I turned in my seat…

Ah yes, more awkwardness, hooray.

He had a crush on me.

My plate was taken and a fresh glass of Quin-Berry juice deposited in front of me and I turned my attention to savoring the sweet taste as a firm distraction. What made it even worse was that Bo-Katan knew as well and was clearly enjoying what her nephew’s attention and emotions would do to me. I was also sensing a building nervousness from Korkie that was clearly his attempt to work up the courage to ask something.

Our conversation thus far had been very limited due to the din in the room and our mouths were too busy eating.

Oh good grief, give me a CIS fleet to fight, it’d surely be more easier and straightforward than this. If this conversation went badly then it was also surely to have political consequences. My relationship, political and personal, with Satine was always on shaky ground. Our viewpoints in both politics and military just differed too much. She still resented me for dragging her, kicking and screaming, into avoiding a second civil war.

That she wasn’t here and was represented by her sister also spoke volumes.

I pushed my sound dampening sphere of TK outward, encompassing Korkie, Bo-Katan and Nam Beroya.

Korkie visibly flinched as my control passed over him briefly, which was interesting in itself. Bo and Nam for their part just looked confused as their ears reported the sound anomaly.

“There, we can now have a conversation at a reasonable volume,” I smiled briefly, keeping a generally friendly and casual mask on my face.

“Wow, is that…?” Korkie trailed off, unsure of which word to use.

“The Force, Apprentice Kryze,” I answered.

It was just four words, but I hoped it would jolt Korkie out of his thoughts about me and remember the social order and rank at play at the table. Nephew of the duchess and part of the ruling house he might be, but this was not a full monarchy with familial inheritance of rule.

It only succeeded partially from what I could sense.

Bo-Katan gave Korkie a pointed look, which caused the teenager to inwardly cringe. “I was hoping-” he coughed unnecessarily. “To ask you about that actually.”

I took a sip of my juice, “Then please do. What is it specifically you wish to know?”

“I understand that the Jedi only trains from a very young age, but there’s never a proper explanation given in my research as to why this is so.”

“It’s much the same reason why you start learning to read at a young age or why traditional Mandalorians start the basics of gun skills at that age. It’s to take advantage of the exceptional neural plasticity and learning retention that most sentients have at that age. That is the official answer.”

“And the unofficial one?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Can you not guess, apprentice?” I raised a brow at him.

He frowned for a moment, his eyes ranging over to the table nearby that held the twelve foundlings, the oldest of which was eight years old. They were all dressed in bright white comfortable clothes and were being looked over by the very Mandos who had found them in battle. It was a subdued table for a bunch of children, given the presence of so many adults, but they were all enjoying their large meal with abandon.

“Indoctrination,” he eventually answered with a slump in his shoulders.

“From a cynical point of view, yes. Think of it more as a cultural assimilation. The Jedi Order, like any grouping of sentients with thousands of years of history behind it, has an overarching culture and tradition. For such an old institution to accept change is very difficult, they also want to preserve the status quo, therefore they only want to bring in new members who will be the easiest to mold in that direction.”

“So they wouldn’t take in someone older, even if it was proven they had the Force.”

Anakin’s early history rang in my mind. “No. I just want to clarify to you that everyone has the Force. To use it as the Jedi do is a combination of inborn potential, talent and a lot of training. As you clearly internally felt my usage of telekinesis to dampen the sound, whilst still letting air pass through so we don’t suffocate, you clearly have the talent and a high ‘sensitivity’ to the Force.”

I pushed forward with my mind, making eye contact with Korkie and leaped across the thin thread of connection made through the Force.

“I cannot train you openly, Korkie,” I said directly into his mind. His eyes widened as he realized what was happening, that he was hearing my voice without his own ears.

“How- why-” his thoughts were an unfocused babble, but they were projected across the connection without any help from me.

Talented, indeed.

“There is not enough time to explain and this is not the place to speak of it. Think of a way for you to plausibly visit me at Clan Vizsla without raising any eyebrows.”

I casually looked away and the fragile connection broke. Korkie’s emotions were all over the place for a moment before he calmed down, then there was only relief.

“So you are forbidden teaching those skills and knowledge to just anyone, Manda’lor? Even those with talent?” Nam Beroya asked. His voice had a rich, deep tenor that resonated pleasantly in my montrals.

“Yes, it’s very much out of the question, Manda’lor. There are dangers to the Jedi Arts and this war is a galactic scale example of it. I can teach no one until I am a Master myself and even then they must be an Adept from the Order. It is a pity, but the fact is that there are people like Apprentice Kryze all over the galaxy, the Jedi cannot be everywhere and we are not omniscient.”

“A fact our ancestors are quite thankful for,” Beroya chuckled.

Bo-Katan smiled teasingly at her nephew, “See Korkie, she didn’t chop your head off for asking? Was that so difficult?”

“Bo!” he cried in betrayal, his face going red in embarrassment.

“For me to draw the Darksaber and relieve someone of their head, requires them to generally commit a far more grievous sin than asking an awkward question, apprentice,” I chuckled. Korkie looked at me at this point and clearly blushed, I could feel his eyes lingering on my facial patterns, lekku and lips.

Oh dear.

My chrono flashed an alert at me.

I dismissed the Silence TK, then pulled on the Force slightly then pushed my intent on a metal level outward as I stood.

The hall took just a few seconds to realize and a blessed silence settled on the entire room.

Every eye turned toward me and butterflies of nervous energy seemed to settle in my stomach.

“Warriors of Mandalore,” I said, my language changing to Mando’a. “We are at this victory gathering to celebrate many battles that have been fought and won these past months. They have not come without cost. As we are basking in the fullness of life, there are others who have fought and died for the cause of our freedom. Across the galaxy, you have now seen the struggles of people fighting for their own worlds, even as we fight for Mandalore.

“The sad truth is that even when we claim victory, the cost is not only to us, but also to those around us. Buildings might shatter and be repaired, crops can be planted again, but those lost to death cannot be brought back.” I gestured to the table of orphaned children. “These are now foundlings of Mandalore. To save them is the highest honor, they are the future of the Way and might one day establish new houses of legend and renown. In nature, the fire might ravage the field, but many seeds need that fire to crack open and for life to continue to flourish. Such is the way!”

“This is the Way!” echoed the hall of Mandalorians back to me.

“As much as we have succeeded, brothers and sisters. Know that this war is only a year old and moving swiftly into its second. There are many months of struggling and suffering ahead. How many that will be, I cannot say. We will fight, in space, on planets distant and wondrous. We fight with all the strength given to us, to fight against those who would see us slaves to the metal of droid and credit, to die a slow death until the name of Mandalore is nothing, not even remembered in the annals of history. For thousands of years, many foes have tried and failed. This will be no different!”

“This is the Way!”

“Foundlings, step forward!”

With the snap of my voice and with the Force resonating, it resulted in the twelve children not even needing to be guided by their guardians. They only knew a few basic Mando’a phrases at this point, but my intent and meaning was carried along. In a few seconds, twelve young minds were arranged in a line before me.

Eight humans, three echani, one twi’lek. Seven males, five female.

I held my hand out and the Darksaber’s hilt zoomed into it, before I raised it in the air and lit it.

At this point, the blade had only the occasional hint of black underneath the broiling white surface. The children gazed at it with wonder in their young eyes.

“This is the Darksaber. Remember it. For under its light and whoever bears it, you will find leadership and if you ever think yourself up to it, you can challenge for the right to be that leader and hold this.”

Some barely understood, but the words would be seared into their heads until they did.

“You have their new names?” I asked one of the guardians.

“Yes, Manda’lor!”

“Declare them for all present.”

“Tagr Brouss, Rugr Joraist, Lor Luahl, Tainx Napan, Din Djarin, Threlleagg Kord, Kadurr Braivid, Na Stragh, Emin Qes, Vhinnae Jorn, Bo Vilul, Bhentu Jen and Irim Vuvhyngh.”

“Your names are declared and recorded. Go, bring victory and honor to them.”

I extinguished the Darksaber and returned it to its holster as cries of Resol'nare echoed through the hall. The guardians shooed the children back to their seats.

Then I took my seat, wanting nothing more than to just curl up in my bed at the estate.

“Nicely done,” Nam Beroya smiled at me with approval.

“Thank you,” I gulped down the last of my drink, tasting only bitterness. Those children should still be in their village, with their own families, but here I was inducting them into an entirely different culture.

Damn Sidious and damn me for not seeing a better way.

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A/N: A return to Mandalore and the Nightsister arc begins. Hope you enjoyed and have an awesome, great weekend. 

The Force Wills - Chapter 63

If anyone had asked Mina Bonteri to write an essay off the cuff about what she knew about the Sith, she doubted she could even fill a paragraph.

Very young, she had been read the ancient children’s tales passed down through the generations of Onderon. Stories of dark powerful sorcerers and fearsome warriors, who were in the end always defeated by the valiant Army of Light. Those stories had always taught some lesson or truth and were by their nature very fanciful. Then she grew up and read the histories in university, even then it was universally acknowledged that the Sith as a religion and their empire had died out a thousand years ago.

That the Jedi were here and now, claiming that their old enemy was back seemed quite ridiculous. It was merely to excuse their current actions. Bringing back the specter of a long dead threat to the galaxy in a quest for clinging onto their own waning political power.

She said as much straight to the young Jedi’s face, fully expecting her to deny it. She would get angry and start spouting the usual dogma.

It therefore came as a surprise when the Jedi padawan in front of her began laughing.

“Ah, ha, oh yes, I’ll fully admit that there are some in the Order who are fighting in this war because they see things that way. They see it as their duty to ‘preserve the Republic’ and see every CIS citizen, senator, representative or planet as ‘Seperatist scum and terrorists’, who are evil,” she declared, her voice steadily becoming more expressive and mocking, her accent turning posh as a high brow Coruscanti. Mina was surprised again at hearing a Jedi refer to the mere concept of a ‘CIS citizen’ and acknowledge it. “Yet, we’re digressing. As to the Sith, yes, they’re very much alive and have been an actor on the galactic stage for the last thousand years, under everyone’s noses, as I will demonstrate.”

Tano waved her hand through the paused holoimage of Count Dooku and the mysterious, supposed ‘Sith Master’, only for it to change to an overhead view of what looked to be a large circular room of industrial nature, and it took only a few moments for her to realize that the architecture was distinctly Naboo in design, some kind of plasma conduit room.

Two Jedi were here, their blue blades lit and they were engaged in a fierce stand-off with a darkly clothed… zabrak male, who had a double bladed saber staff. She vaguely recalled seeing old illustrations of the ancient Sith Brotherhood with such a weapon.

“This is a visual record taken just over a decade ago on Naboo during the blockade crisis.”

The battle started and it was as breathtaking to watch as it was frightening. At first, the Jedi Master was separated from the support of his padawan by an ill-timed force field activation. The master was now fighting alone… green blade flashing against the ugly red with speed and ferocity, yet, there opened a gap in the Jedi master’s defenses, the zabrak pounced on it, slamming the hilt of his staff straight into the face of the master, a simple twirl and twist.

It was over.

One of the red blades disappeared into the chest of the master and emerged from his back.

Mina’s heart twisted in sympathy as the young padawan screamed in denial at witnessing the death of his master.

The zabrak simply stepped backward, pulling the blade out and moved into a ready stance, to take on the padawan alone.

When at last, the automated force field fell, the padawan charged and engaged his enemy in a flurry of blows and strikes with his blade. Mina could only watch in awe at the ferocity of the young man, yet his opponent was clearly matching him. Absorbing the offense and giving in return.

What happened next was over so quickly she wondered if the visual sensor even caught it.

The zabrak had just shoved his palm forward, yet the young padawan was bowled over and pushed into the deep plasma shaft.

The playback paused, and now for the first time the recording had a very good angle to see the zabrak’s fearsome face in detail.

“What you just saw the Sith do is similar to this,” said Tano and gestured with an open hand towards the fallen cutlery and food. It all rose into the air, as if invisible repulsors were attached and floated into the sink and waste disposal respectively. “Though used in battle with the equivalent force of a small speeder bike smashing you in the face. A primary skill of most of those gifted in the Force. In any case, what you just saw was a battle between Master Qui-Gon Jinn, his padawan at the time, Obi-Wan Kenobi and the zabrak was called Maul, who was Sith Apprentice to the current Sith Master I showed you speaking to Dooku. Pay attention to his eyes, notice anything?”

Mina’s mind was still amazed at the fact that she had just watched the famous General and Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi nearly get killed as a younger man. She refocused and there was something very odd going on with the zabrak’s eyes, they were a ‘burning’ yellow, as if there was some form of implant that was lighting up their inner irises.

“I see it,” she acknowledged. “Implant or cybernetic eyes?”

“If only it was that simple. What you are seeing is an effect of the Force, an expression or manifestation of harnessing the Force as the Sith do. Recall for me an image in the Onderonian Tales of Nigu Tarredd, senator.”

Mina blinked as the padawan invoked the name of the ancient storyteller. She didn’t think that anyone who wasn’t Onderonian would’ve heard of him - yet her mind seemed to flash with her memory as a young girl, sitting cuddled in bed as her father read from the book, and prominent there was an illustration of the evil Sith warrior who fought against the Onderon king, his prominent eyes, with burning yellow irises.

Yet here now, in the last decade, on Naboo, a living Sith?

“So you say that zabrak is Sith?”

“Correct, that they were considered extinct at all is merely another deception made a thousand years ago by a singular Sith who was called Darth Bane. He betrayed his fellow Sith to death at the hands of the Army of Light, while he himself faked his own death only to continue in secret. He recognized that a Sith’s Brotherhood of Darkness, by its very nature, was unsustainable. So instead there would always only be two Sith. Not thousands of mad, power hungry sentients, drunk on their own power, fighting amongst each other as much as they were fighting the Old Republic.

“So the Sith continued, master to apprentice, until we reach today,” Tano swiped her hand through the holo and the image of Dooku and the Sith Master returned, only this time… it unpaused and the two figures began to talk.

Dooku had just emerged from the ramp of that beautiful Punworcca interstellar sloop that she recognized he used from time to time. He turned to the dark hooded figure and bowed slightly.

“The Force is with us, Master Sidious,” Dooku greeted confidently.

“Welcome home, Lord Tyranus,” Sidious replied lazily, but the undercurrent of sheer malice that radiated from that voice was astonishing. The dark figure gestured and they began walking side by side. “You have done well.”

Dooku didn’t immediately reply but said, “I have good news for you, my lord… the war has begun.”

“Excellent,” Sidious commented with satisfaction. “Everything is going as planned.”

The men walked out of visual range and then there was only darkness. Tano waved her hand and the holo vanished. “I wish there was more, but just having that little is a miracle of substantial scale. It is in the heart of the Sith Master’s power on Coruscant, where his domain is near-absolute.”

“And I suppose the plan they’re referring to is the current war?” Mina questioned wryly and stared at the young Jedi knowingly. She was no fool, she had been in politics longer than this young girl had been alive. She could see how careful the young padawan was with her presentation and words.

Then the padawan turned and met her eyes directly in answer. Mina was shocked to see a look there that was also knowing; an acknowledgement of the game being played here. Those were eyes that did not belong in a togruta of mere sixteen or seventeen standard years, if she were to judge by the length of her lekku.

“Correct, the war between the CIS and Republic has been engineered from the very outset and is being carefully managed… on both sides, Senator Bonteri. I have named Dooku as the apprentice of the Sith Master.” Tano gestured to the holo and it lit up, showing Sidious again. Scanning overlays began draping themselves over the figure and measurement began popping up; height, body structure dimensions, even the visible nose and chin was highlighted and being dissected by the computer program.

Then she visibly gasped as a second image appeared, as it showed a well known fully body publicity image of Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine himself. The computer began comparing height… even if Sidous was slouched a bit, it didn’t stop the program from extrapolating a perfect match. Arm lengths and hands, the same story. The nose and chin were matched with 92 percent certainty.

Mina suddenly found herself struck nearly dumb with the implications the padawan was bringing forth here.

If Dooku was in effect, actually in league with Palpatine secretly, then… what was the point!?

Why?

Why fight?

Why start the CIS?

Why cause all this destruction and war?

Why throw the entire galaxy into two camps?

Why did her husband have to die?

What did he actually die for?!

She was brought out of her spiral of thoughts by a simple touch, as Padme’s soft hand grasped hers.

“This isn’t easy, Mina, I know. You might not trust Padawan Tano, but you can trust me and she has been dead right so far and I’ve since confirmed quite a lot of this… as much as humanly possible anyway without tipping our hands to him. Palpatine is the heir of a long term plan not only to destroy the Jedi, but also build a new Sith Empire out of the ashes of this war. He plans to use the CIS and Grand Army as a blade and hammer to reshape the galaxy to his liking and in the end, he will throw away and even destroy those tools.”

Mina felt like her world was spinning and she placed a hand on the table to steady herself.

“No, it’s not possible,” she denied. Her husband had not died for nothing!

She stood abruptly and just wanted to be away. Anywhere, she didn’t care, but somewhere without that blasted Jedi and without Padme’s pity.

Her feet carried her away and she found she didn’t care where she was going. She was barely aware of going outside, her hands finding purchase on the balcony railing that looked out and afforded a beautiful view of her estate here on Raxus. It was just twenty kilometers from the capital, yet the house was surrounded by unspoilt nature and beautiful distant, snow-capped mountains.

At this point she realized tears were already spilling from her eyes and finally she allowed herself to weep properly for her husband. She had been keeping her composure for so long that she almost hadn’t remembered what it felt like to not have to wear a mask. Her grief just poured out of her and she was surprised at just how much she had been holding on to. It was as if she had been hoarding it and damming it up, because truly expressing it meant finally acknowledging the truth. Letting the little tiny hope in her heart die that it was all a mistake and that he would come back one day.

How long she stood on that balcony and wept, she didn’t know, but when the tears finally dried up, she was tired, spent, utterly empty and numb. It was a wretched feeling yet she had no choice but to endure. It would be so nice to just go back to bed and pretend she hadn’t even woken up, that there had been no Ahsoka Tano or Padme Amidala in her kitchen.

But that would be running away, wouldn’t it? It would be preferring the sweet lies instead of the bitter truth.

What even was the truth?

She knew better than to think that the reports she saw in parliament were the true picture. That the mega corporations in the CIS weren’t also churning out information that would benefit themselves and maximize their own profits from this war. Every kriffing one of those snakes on the CIS Executive Council would do anything…

“It really is beautiful out here,” said Tano’s voice and in that moment, Mina found she hated it. Hated how serene and calm it was. Hated how the Jedi hadn’t stopped this from happening. Weren’t they supposed to have all this mystical power in the Force? The young togruta was standing with relaxed arms and solemnly folded hands in front of her waist. “Padme should be the one standing here, but she confessed that she’d be hard pressed to stop you if you decided to do something rather rash.”

“Does she really think I’d jump?” she asked bitterly, her eyes briefly looking at the rather long way down.

“No, but it’s the sad fact that people who actually take their own lives are the ones who hide the symptoms best. We can’t imagine that they’d actually do such a thing, until it happens.” Tano stepped forward to lean against the balcony railing and observed, “You don’t want to talk to me.”

Mina laughed bitterly, “Is that your amazing Jedi powers telling you that?”

“No, simple deduction, experience with sentient nature and human psychology.”

“They teach that at your Jedi Academy?”

“No, if they did that, I think the galaxy would’ve been a very different place today,” Tano said solemnly. “But we do need to talk, Senator Bonteri. As much as I wish I could give you all the time in the world to mourn, regain your composure and then tell me to leave - things are complicated.”

“Then just say what you want to say, Tano,” she said coldly. “It’s not like I could force you out of my house, but I can choose whether or not to listen.”

“A warning, whether you admit it or not, you know certain facts now that are very dangerous. Facts that will see you killed if you’re not careful. If you are ever in Dooku’s presence physically or even holographically, he will pick up on your subconscious hostility to him. It will make him curious, he will investigate and dig, even using the Force to probe your mind. If he suspects even an inkling that you actually know that he is Sith Apprentice Lord Tyranus, even if you don’t personally believe it… you will soon die in a convenient accident or even in a faked ‘Republic attack’. Where your death will be used then as a tool for convincing CIS moderates ever deeper into supporting the war.”

“What?!” she snapped in anger at the young Jedi.

“That is the current trajectory of probability that you are on, senator.”

“Oh and you just magically know this via the Force?” she asked sarcastically.

“Yes,” Tano shrugged simply. “The Force is the pathway to many abilities, senator. This one has its uses, but most of the time I feel I am cursed with it. Pronouncing the fate and death of someone is not nice for either the prophet or the subject.”

“And now you will tell me that I can do nothing about it, that trying to stop it will just make it happen all the quicker.”

“No, senator, on the contrary, it can be stopped. This is not that kind of prophecy.”

“And you have a solution that you’ll provide, but which will come at some kind of cost,” she pronounced cynically.

“No, the solution will not come from me, I’ll just pass it along.”

“Stop speaking so cryptically!”

“Apologies senator,” Tano bowed her head. “I am in a constant duel with the Sith in the shadows, I wear many masks, my words and actions measured for effect. It's become an unfortunate habit. I will facilitate the transfer of select memories from Senator Amidala on how she trained to shield her own mind. It won’t provide you instant protection, it’s merely the instruction manual, you will still have to practice and apply it on your own. Until you’ve reached her level, simply announce you’re going on a sabbatical to recharge after a very long year, avoid taking a holocall from Dooku, let a clueless assistant pass on messages.”

“And this will help? You’re the one who put me in danger in the first place!”

“I acknowledge it and that’s why I want to save your life. I also want to save the people of Onderon from civil war.”

Mina had thought she had heard much, but this was… too much! “What?”

“Did you really think your entire population supported the move to the CIS? Do you think that there aren’t some out there who know that King Sanjay Rash’s accession to the throne was actually a bloodless secret coup?”

“But Dendup stepped down voluntarily!”

Tano had the gall to laugh! “Ha ha, wow, even you don’t know? Oh boy, that’s quite the feat. I have to give Rash and Dooku credit for that one, masterfully done.”

“That’s impossible! Rash…” Mina trailed off as all the small little details she had ignored started to come together. How the former king, Ramsis Dendup, had seemed… different. How he had deferred decisions on policies to Rash, which he had normally been very interested in. How Dendup’s ill health came at just the right time… then the abdication.

“Ah, and the light of realization and knowledge dawns,” Tano commented. “There’s no other such feeling in the universe. So yes, soon enough a rebellion against Rash will form. The Jedi and the GAR, who only want to see Onderon removed from CIS influence and returned to the Republic, will help this rebellion along secretly. Events conspire and despite the rebellion’s best efforts to keep it quick, clean and done with as little loss of life as possible, it fails. Onderon will experience a full scale civil war. The rebels will win eventually and ostensibly return Onderon to the Republic fold, but the CIS returns in force later to lay siege to the world in retaliation- ”

“Stop, please! Just… stop.”

“Time is not on our side, senator. Our conversation can only be kept secret for so long.”

Mina rubbed her head, feeling a sudden ache in her brain. “What do you mean? There’s no one listening.”

“The small surveillance team hidden in a nearby dugout, that I had to make very sleepy says otherwise,” Tano smiled humorlessly. “There were also roughly five surveillance devices that I had to sneak through to make it to your bedroom. I’ll give you a memory of their locations so you can know where to find some actual privacy in your home. I’m also leaving an encrypted datapad on your chest with some files that I think you need to review and a schematic for a device which will let you fool the surveillance. Have it made discreetly, senator and don’t remove them.”

Mina felt very confused now. “What do you mean ‘on my chest’?”

Tano smiled widely, “Tell me, senator, look up in the sky and tell me, what’s missing?” She frowned for a moment and reluctantly looked up at the utterly blue sky that didn’t have a cloud in sight. It was vast, beautiful and… she didn’t know what she should be looking for. “That’s rather curious, not a single shuttle, ship or speeder in the sky, even though we’re so close to Raxulon.”

Just like a key that fit into a lock, her mind latched onto that detail and other inconsistencies became known.

Lux should’ve woken up by now, there should be household staff on the lawns around the house, tending the gardens, but not a soul was out here.

“You see, senator. This place isn’t real. This is all happening in your mind. The sun hasn’t risen, your son is still fast asleep. I’m standing over you in bed, my hand on your head to facilitate our connection. Padme is actually in Raxulon at our hotel room, in meditation and I pulled her mind over into this ‘place’ for us to have our conversation.”

Mina felt her fear heighten as her mind heard the words and suddenly the sun was darkened by an utterly impossible eclipse. The wind began to pick up and tousled her dress. Clouds impossibly raced over the sky with speed that looked like a time lapse image.

“Relax, senator,” said Tano calmly, her words seeming to resonate like thunder.

She blinked and the world around her was back to relatively normal. Only the sky was different, a large moon hovered overhead, but it was a moon that she knew Raxus did not have.

“What’s going on? If this is not real…” Mina focused and tried to shake off the fear, but it was stubborn, clinging onto her like glue. She breathed deeply, fighting to stop the rapid pace of her own heart.

“I’ve just asserted more control of the mental landscape, we’re now more in my own mind than in yours. I’ve been stretching the time dilation we’re experiencing here more than is wise. The surveillance team watching you is about to get a routine check-in call. When they fail to report in, it will raise concerns and a response team from CIS Intel will be sent out. Hopefully the false trails I’ve left in their computer systems will send them on a wild goose chase all over Raxus.”

“There are so many questions I have from what you just said,” Mina groaned. “What’s a goose?”

“Nevermind that,” Tano waved it off. “I’ll induce you to fall asleep properly in a few moments. When you wake, you will remember everything. Push off your blankets and you’ll find the datapad under your left arm. It’ll only unlock with your voice and the following password sequence,” Tano recited sixteen letters and numbers that seemed to sear themselves in Mina’s mind, “followed by the phrase, ‘Dendup didn’t abdicate’. Understand?”

She could only nod, screwing up her eyes as the headache only increased in intensity.

“You’ll also want to take an analgesic and lots of water when you wake up. Oh yes, one last thing, not a word of this to your son.”

The world around her vanished and Mina Bonteri only knew the sweet oblivion of restful sleep.

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The next day, Padme and I were in a cozy diner called Damzor’s Kitchen, not far from our hotel to try our hand at some proper local cuisine for breakfast. It wasn’t a big place, but it had the same air as Dex’s Diner on Coruscant. Apparently Damzor himself worked in the kitchen and made sure his customers got good food. He was aided by a lot of droids and had very few organic staff helping him.

Soon we were tucking into a plate loaded with brualki sausage, horvar eggs and the closest thing I’ve found on the menu that could be a localized equivalent of French fries; crisped javadi vegetables that were actually palatable to my stomach. It was very good, especially with salt. Now if only I could get it imported or served on the Resolute. The problem, according to the waiter droid, was that it was a plant that only grew on this planet and it had thus far utterly failed to be cultivated in any offworld biome.

“Do you think she’ll agree?”

Padme chewed for a few moments before answering, “I’ve known her since I joined, she was my mentor for four years. She’ll come around. You did shake her world a little hard when you revealed the apprentice for what he was. She’s always admired him.”

We had to be careful of our words in this public setting. Just saying the name ‘Dooku’ on Raxus was bound to perk ears in your direction.  “It’s very easy to admire the man he was, before the enemy warped and twisted him into what he is today. If he had begun the CIS truly out of his own initiative and early ideals, then this war would be a very different affair.”

Even without Dooku, Sidious would’ve continued the clone project, simply taking a more direct hand in working with the Kaminoans. What would the CIS look like without Sidious’ malign influence and only a respected, idealistic Dooku at the helm?

It was a question that had so many variables, especially because it was a divergence in the past. Would it be a true war to the knife? Without all this stage managed bullshit. What would the Jedi reaction be to such a war? I could only answer that personally, I could see Dooku becoming a modern Revan-lite. I knew many of my own generation among the Jedi and the one before, who greatly respected Dooku, his ideals and ideas. Jedi who saw that the Order had become a servant of the Senate, not a servant of the people.

A corrupt Senate that only served its own members and the corporations.

We could’ve seen another outright split in the Jedi Order.

Sidious wouldn’t want that. He didn’t want to divide his enemy, he wanted to rout the Jedi from the galaxy and history. He wanted to achieve the old Sith dream that would see the Jedi extinct, with no chance of a return.

Padme bumped my leg under the table pointedly to pull me out of my woolgathering, her intent eyes gestured up and behind me.

I sensed no danger and focused my hearing in that direction without turning around. Oh, she was pointing out the large broadcast holo in the corner of the diner.

It had been constantly blaring out a music vid from a local bith musician. I could appreciate its nuance and tones way more than a human could, but it was not my cup of caf. Now the music abruptly stopped and the voice of a newscaster emerged.

“We interrupt this channel to bring urgent news to our viewers. I am Vak Bordred from Raxulon Daily. We have just learned of an attack on Coruscant. I repeat, there has been an attack on Coruscant.”

Every ear and eye in the diner turned towards the feed.

I could feel the shock among the patrons of the establishment upon hearing that. It was understandable, since the Republic capital had not been credibly threatened by anyone for close to a thousand years at this point.

“Details are few at this point and no official comment from the Republic as yet, but the Daily has confirmed from CIS sources that at 0323 local time, CIS Navy droid units in engineered disguises infiltrated the Coruscant power hub on the three hundredth sub-level and sabotaged the facility.”

A number of people in the diner actually cheered, clapped and shook their fists in victory. The majority just remained in shock and was just gaping at the screen, as if they couldn’t believe their ears. Even Padme, despite having some early warning from me, was simply staring in astonishment and I felt her internal horror.

To the galaxy, whether they wanted to admit it or not, Coruscant was the center of it. The bastion of civilization and history that had been there for thousands of years. It hadn’t been directly attacked since the Sith Brotherhood had managed to launch a surprise offensive through the Army of Light’s defenses.

Padme put down her cutlery, stared at her plate before abruptly pushing it away. “How many have just died?”

Prescience could give the answer, but I was keeping my eyes firmly on the immediate future here on Raxus.

“Too many, Padme. The bombing alone, a few hundred power plant workers. The deaths as a result of a widespread power failure across numerous sectors, including the Senate district; tens of thousands, with more occurring over the next few weeks as reserve power fails, grav systems fail and buildings collapse.”

This would eventually force the Republic to use all nearby military starships; Venators, Acclamators and even conscript many civilian starships with large enough on-board power plants to land and hook themselves into the planet’s power grid to prevent more disaster, whilst engineers and workers scrambled to build new more distributed reactors into the grid.

“There’s no way Saam’s bill won’t pass now.”

I nodded absently but my attention was firmly local as a probability line shifted and roared into focus.

I massaged my forehead in irritation at myself. What the frakking hell had I missed?

“Naala? Are you alright?”

Before I could answer, I heard a beep from my encrypted datapad in one of my belt pouches. My hand subtly reached down and silenced the thing, before I glanced down at its screen.

“No, bad news, I’m afraid,” I said aloud, whilst pushing on the bond and meeting her eyes. ‘Received word. The records for Naala Taan were just accessed and sliced from somewhere on Raxus.’

Padme kept a decent poker face, reacting convincingly to just what was being said aloud and allowed her eyes to widen in sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I pushed my perceptions outward, my Farsight and empathy, ranging out of the building, up and down the street. It didn’t take too long to find the obvious tail. Well, obvious to me at least.

‘Just great, there’s a gotal across the street, sitting at the public transport stand, who’s very interested in this diner’s front door,’ I thought.

‘Are you sure, Ahsoka?’

‘Yes, he’s equipped with a passive directional sound sensor that’s aimed directly at our position.’

‘And it can hear us through a window?’ she thought incredulously, glancing idly at the window that was right next to our booth in the diner.

‘It’s possible, the tech required would not be generally available commercially.’

‘Who is it? CIS?’

‘There is a chance. I’m not infallible, Padme. It might be that they saw through my false trails or I missed a bug at the senator’s residence that captured my image. It doesn’t matter who this is, we have to shake them. We cannot be identified as having ever been on Raxus, Padme.’

‘What do we do then?’

‘We finish our meal, the key is now that they must not suspect that we know they are there. Then we walk out of here together. They’ve already flagged you as a person of interest and are just waiting to get a good image of you. Splitting up will merely result in you getting snatched by them and expose me when I successfully defend myself.’ That was a nasty probability line that hit me. I would rescue her of course, but the cost was unacceptable in terms of exposure. It would result in a major firefight with the team attached to the gotal intel agent, that would force me to bring out the Darksaber. At that point it would be obvious a Jedi had been involved and I would be waving a flag to both Sidious and Dooku. If Dooku was on Raxus, he’d sense the obvious Force disturbance of such blatant usage.

‘So they will attack?’

‘Only if we present an easy target. If we remain together, they’re content with just keeping surveillance. Probably use us to fish for more possible spies to investigate.’

‘Ahsoka, at some point Mina is going to want to talk to us. We can’t endanger her-’

‘I know, Padme. That’s why we have to shake them off or I have to subtly neutralize them.’ I felt her shock at the idea. ‘I didn't mean to kill.’

‘You really scare me sometimes, Ahsoka.’

‘I scare myself, Padme. I sometimes ask myself, what would and wouldn’t I sacrifice in this fight against the enemy? Would I sacrifice a life here, a life there? A ship? A planet? Would I sacrifice myself, my morals or ideals? You or even Anakin? Is that what the universe will one day ask of me?’

‘I- I can’t answer that, Ahsoka. You’ve already nearly died because of me…’

“Our food is getting cold, Dishan,” I smiled at her, stopping the internal tirade of woe firmly. I began eating in earnest, there was no way I was not finishing every bite of this javadi.

Padme nodded and pulled the plate closer with visible reluctance.

We ate with no hurry, not wanting to give off the wrong impression to our observer.

When we were done I called over a waiter droid and handed over an appropriate denomination credit chip. “Keep the change.”

“Damzor’s appreciates your patronage, customer, do come again!” The droid announced in the local Raxulon dialect of Basic, which had some bits of its accent that reminded me of Aussie English.

We emerged from the diner and I had to give the gotal some credit in his fieldcraft, he didn’t react at all, not even the smallest hint. He merely continued reading his own datapad, which was the disguise for the audio sensor. His emotions were a completely different story.

He was suddenly anxious, his heart was beating faster and his attention was fixed on us out of the corner of his eyes.

He stayed rooted in his seat until we were almost twenty meters down the street and he was sure we wouldn’t turn around.

The amount of pedestrian traffic around us wasn’t enough to completely disappear into, but that would soon change as we got closer to the hotel.

I was using the opportunity to see if we had more than just the one tail.

If I was in charge, I’d have at least five; one in front of us, one behind, two walking parallel and a fifth one in a speeder that would be ready to give chase should we get into public transport of some kind. That was risking falling into the trap of overestimating your opposition though. I hadn’t had much attention to spare for exploring the probability line in which Padme had been snatched by these guys. Now with that line firmly gone, I was now wishing I had been more patient.

‘Padme, we’re going to do something to shake the bushes. Follow my lead.’

I grabbed her by the hand and pointed across the street to a clothes boutique. “Oh Dishan! We have to go.”

A gap opened in the speeder traffic of the street and I dragged her across.

“Naala, seriously? You’ve been to every shop for a thousand light years,” she laughed incredulously.

Our sudden maneuver brought the gotal to a sudden halt as he seemingly wanted to check his shoes. It also revealed a human on the other side of the street that also stopped and suddenly found a storefront very interesting. Now that I focused on him - a rather unremarkable black haired guy with a full beard - his emotions were also nervous and his nose was glued to a datapad… which my technometry confirmed was another listening device.

The boutique we entered was not just for clothes, in fact its speciality was more of the intimate variety that catered to the wide range of species in Raxulon.

Specialty lingerie that was clearly meant to leave just enough to the imagination, but which would come off just as quickly. Various implements and ‘toys’, only some of which I could identify and others that were a complete mystery, with shapes that did not bear thinking about.

“Oh,” said Padme faintly, her face coloring a bit as she stared at a frilly gold, partially transparent bra and panty lingerie combo that had fine straps that connected the top to the panty.

I tried vainly not to imagine her wearing that.

This is not the time, Ahsoka, I scolded myself.

Our bursting into the shop at a decent clip naturally attracted attention.

“Welcome customers, how can I help you today?” said the store clerk.

Thousands of hours of Jedi training in self control was the only thing that let me keep my wits as my eyes reported to my brain, that yes, what I was seeing was real.

The clerk was a tall woman wearing a long dress that was made of something that resembled chiffon. It was blue and partially transparent, but the distracting part was that it had a neckline that plunged beyond her navel. It just prevented her nipples from showing but her inner bust was in glorious view. The dress was also only held together by a ring at her waist, in addition to being parted at the front that showed off those eternally long legs as well. She also must’ve had a biosculpt done because there was no way that anyone had such perfectly bronzed, unblemished skin naturally. Her face and long red hair was just the cherry on top of the cake.

Whoever the owner was, I tipped my figurative hat at his marketing. I not only wanted that dress for myself, but definitely wanted to see Padme in it even more.

Focus.

“Yes, my friend here is looking for something to surprise the hubby with,” I gushed and winked at the clerk knowingly.

“Naala,” Padme hissed in embarrassment and a slight shock that was truly felt.

The clerk’s green eyes sparkled with amusement, “I see, is she looking for a bedroom aide or just something provocative to wear?”

“I think the latter,” I answered immediately and gently pushed Padme forward. “She really liked that gold silk combo lingerie back there. You’ll need to measure her, correct?”

“Yes, we use a body scanner to get exact dimensions, then tailor for a perfect fit.”

“Excellent, and tell me the dress you’re wearing is also on sale?” I pleaded.

“Of course it is,” the clerk nodded curtly.

“Then I’ll take one of those in blue, and Dishan will get the lingerie.”

“Excellent, follow me please.”

When the clerk had turned around Padme glared at me, which I returned intently, including a subtle hand signal for, ‘Go, danger.”

That got her properly moving and the clerk led her behind the store counter and into a fitting room. In the meantime, I pretended to be browsing the shelves further.

The door to the shop opened, ringing a chime and our second tail, Mr Beard walked in and I could feel his natural shock, apprehension and even embarrassment at being in a place like this. Outwardly, his training kept his expression politely neutral and he started also browsing the shelves, all the while trying to keep me in sight out of the corner of his eye.

I let myself get one good look at him, gave him a polite nod in acknowledgement before returning my attention to the shelf of… edible lingerie? Really.

My focus returned to Mr Beard as my senses began taking in everything about him, especially via technometry, as he had an implant behind his ear with a pulsing EM signal. A subcutaneous comlink, very handy. Though if its frequency range and encryption was ever compromised then it would act as a clear identifier and locator. A clear liability for a spy.

He also had a small pistol hidden in his jacket, but it wasn’t high energy enough for a blaster. It would work fine as a stun gun though.

Prescience of the next few minutes showed that this guy would attempt to use that stun gun on me. I pushed my intent to let it happen and it revealed that he would grab me under the arms, and carry me out to a speeder car that would be waiting.

Padme would be left alone for the moment at least.

Getting my ass abducted was not on the cards for the day. As much as it would be interesting to trojan horse these guys, find out who they were and take them out. The chance was just too great that I was actually dealing with CIS Intel. In which case, I would have an entire state intel agency to take on - I was not about to go Jason Bourne on the entire CIS Intel presence on Raxus, not when I had Padme’s safety to worry about and consequently an entire galaxy.

Mr Beard was steadily getting closer, keeping his right hand up and occasionally pushing a bit of skimpy clothing aside to inspect it. Neatly serving to keep his hand as close to his stun gun as possible. It was very natural and I was clearly dealing with someone trained, professional, but I would hesitate to say experienced.

The CIS spy agency was new, as was Republic Intelligence, but they had drawn and recruited from the clandestine agencies of their member worlds extensively. Very few Expansion Zone and Outer Rim worlds were developed enough to actually have them or see a need for it. Most of RI’s personnel were actually sourced from megacorps anti-corporate espionage divisions.

Throwing such diverse talent into a melting pot and expecting it to turn over consistent results immediately was not realistic.

Could this team actually be RI?

Had they been observing the CIS team that had been observing Bonteri?

Was that how I had been pegged?

How had I missed that?

Mr Beard was now less than a few feet away.

His hand reached into his jacket in a blur and brought the stun gun to bear, pulling the trigger in the same motion.

The blue ring of energy barely had twenty centimeters to travel to hit me right in the back.

The energy sizzle had surprisingly very little volume. It would barely be heard outside the room. To my montrals that was a different story, as was the result of getting hit.

I seized upon the energy that was threatening to overwhelm my nervous system with Tutaminis, channeled it to my hands and slapped Mr Beard right on his legs.

He instantly lost control of his limbs and fell to the floor, twitching. His hands were locked tight and he couldn’t let go of the gun.

“Oh dear,” I gasped in shock, pretending that I had no clue what was going on.

I knelt down to ‘render aid’, as the guy finally lost his battle with the stun energy I had dumped into him.

The clock was ticking now. His partner would wait for twenty seconds at most for him to announce a successful capture over their personal subnet.

He had a credit pad, a few chits, the gun, nothing else, not even a fake ID code cylinder. Nothing that could be used to trace back to any identity, only his DNA would provide a search vector. I plucked a few strands of hair right out of his beard and put it in an empty belt pouch.

That’d have to do for now.

Next, I placed a finger directly behind his ear, feeling the implanted comlink there.

My senses plunged along the link, following it through the Force. He was talking to his partner, so my first stop was right outside the shop. I forged ahead to the greater connection and merely three kilometers away, my point of view emerged in a darkened room.

A human sat there, looking at multiple portable terminals. His face lit by the harsh glare of screens. His wavy black hair was unkempt. Streaked, ruined skin on one side of his severe face that looked like he had been in a fire and just not bothered with a proper biosculpt to fix it. His blue-gray eyes glared into the readouts and he was tapping on a comlink earpiece.

“Lightfoot, come in,” he said - his voice was a hoarse, throaty rumble that sounded like he had a long history of smoking something.

Naturally, there was no response.

Mr Smoker narrowed his eyes and I could feel his natural suspicion and paranoia flare. I knew immediately that this was no rookie operative. Never mind his physical appearance of having led a harsh, stressful and dangerous life. In the Force, this man swirled with both the Dark and the Light. He was a hard man, willing to do what was necessary for his own cause and beliefs.

Sorry, Mr Smoker, but I can’t let you frak this up.

I reached out to him.

His eyes rolled up as deep sleep fell on him and he fell forward face first into the portable terminals, knocking them over with a harsh clatter.

My perceptions surged backward and I was once again kneeling over Mr Beard in the boutique.

The door swished open, the entry chime sounding.

The gotal entered, his right hand buried in his own jacket, his yellow eyes scanning harshly back and forth, until he caught sight of me kneeling over his unconscious partner.

I really didn’t hold his next actions against him.

His own stun gun immediately emerged and he aimed straight at my head.

I flinched slightly as the blue circle of energy hit me square in the face, yet achieved nothing. I simply pulled the energy in and pooled it.

Mr Gotal couldn’t believe his eyes and stared rather stupidly at his pistol for a moment before aiming and trying again.

I stood to take this one in the chest. This was not fun, because parts of the stun ring clipped my left breast.

The pain was ignored and I began walking steadily towards him, making sure to meet his eyes with my own.

He shot again, clipping me in the stomach.

I hoovered the energy in and kept walking.

He kept shooting, until I was standing with my chest against the small barrel.

The gun had finally run out of charge, yet his finger kept trying to shoot and he was absolutely paralyzed with fear.

Until I ripped the gun from him using my own right hand, whilst my left hand shot out and gave him a punch in the stomach, whilst simultaneously releasing a portion of the stun energy straight through my fist.

He collapsed to the floor, out like a candle light.

I still had quite a bit of energy to deal with, so I simply knelt and touched the floor, bleeding it all back into the ground below me.

Now, how to play this?

I had a bunch to do to wrap up this mess and do so in a way that wouldn’t further tip my hand to either side.

Step one, with a twist of will, use TK on the shop’s front door to keep it locked. No further witnesses until the time was right and the stage set properly.

Step two, search the shop for any interior visual surveillance. Thankfully, there were only two sensors, which I shorted out with far greater power than normal, which scrambled and wrecked the data storage. I’d make sure to leave the clerk a very generous tip so that could be replaced.

Next I walked up to the counter to patiently wait for Padme and the clerk to finish.

Half a minute later, I heard the front door of the shop try to open as the final member of this spy cell, the speeder driver, finally came to check on why his entire team had gone dark. It didn’t budge and I could feel his panic, anger and skyrocketing levels of paranoia. This guy was another human and it was a pity I couldn’t get a visual look at him, but at least I would know him through his unique ‘fingerprint’ in the Force.

He now felt only frustration as he couldn’t dare force an entry in full view of an entire busy street. A grim acceptance settled on his mind and he hurriedly left, abandoning his speeder at the side of the road, most likely to enact whatever extraction contingencies the team had.

I felt only slightly bad that I had just compromised a spy cell that likely worked for RI. They were just doing their job, but at the end of the day, they were working for Palpatine. Fulcrum was now capable enough that we could be considered a clandestine spy network/conspiracy working against him, therefore RI was our enemy, just as the CIS was.

A gasp of fright announced the return of Padme and the pretty clerk.

“W- wh- what happened here?” she held a hand at her chest to steady herself. Padme was also naturally surprised and convincingly held a hand to cover her mouth and stared at the collapsed bodies.

“These two came in here and tried to rob me,” I said with annoyance, jerking a thumb at the two spies. “They thought me an easy mark. Unfortunately for them, I’m captain of the university’s Zama-shiwo team. The human will remain unconscious for three hours, the gotal for four… roughly. More than enough time for the Raxulon police to show up.”

“They usually respond within ten minutes,” she said and pulled out her own small comlink from the waist of her dress, where a cunningly hidden pocket was.

“They also did something to your surveillance system, not sure what, but I doubt you’re getting anything from that,” I said with a wince of sympathy.

“Bastards, that system isn’t cheap!” She now defaulted to anger and looked ready to introduce her foot to the two prone operatives.

“In the meantime, can I get measured for that dress now?” I asked, playing up the ditzy act.

The clerk looked conflicted for a moment, “We really should wait for the police, but… all right.”

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I entered our hotel room four hours later and leaned against the closed door, taking a moment to just relax.

Dealing with the Raxulon police and then hurrying over to the RI cell’s ‘headquarters’ to sanitize their equipment and deal with the sleepy cell leader had not been a fun time. It had been nerve wracking in the extreme and I even got Hermione on an encrypted line to double check that I had gotten everything done.

I had arrived at the ‘headquarters’, a very ordinary apartment building in a lower income area of the city with baited breath, fully expecting the leader to be gone already or waiting for me in some cunning trap. Thankfully, he was still sleeping like a baby and had offered no resistance. I only had to deal with the local security systems they had rigged on the apartment itself, which had been quite extensive.

The only thing I couldn’t be sure about was the memories and the minds of the members of this cell.

I was not a Jedi Mindwalker.

The best I had been able to do with Mr Gotal and Mr Beard had been to ‘muddle’ the memory of their confrontation with me in the boutique. Much like using a brush filled with turpentine to mess up a painting. Their longer term memories of seeing a dark figure take out their competition in surveillance of Senator Bonteri and then tailing me to eventually get a visual ID was way more tricky.

That I had not picked up on them following me from the senator’s house was a stupid error on my own part. I had been just so relieved in pulling off the infiltration, getting through to Bonteri, pulling Padme into the shared dream and getting out of there that I had just not thought to keep my senses outward to max. That there would even be an RI team specifically on the senator just hadn’t occurred to me at all.

At best, I’d thought any RI efforts would be focused on the parliament as a whole. They didn’t have the operatives or the resources to devote surveillance to every senator on the planet.

“Naala? Did everything go well?”

I opened my eyes to see Padme emerging from the bedroom, wearing a vastly more comfortable brown blouse and pants. Her hair was wet, as if she had just come from a shower.

“Yes,” I answered simply, walking towards the small couch in the living area. I let my body flop bonelessly on it, just indulging in the comfort. “It went as well as could be, I suppose. Yet in the end, RI will eventually know that there is a third party playing the game.”

“Are you sure it’s them? What did you do with them? Are you sure it's safe to speak more candidly?”

“I’ve gone over the room with a fine tooth comb, there’s no active scans bouncing off any surface. A passive one will need to be close and I’m keeping a watch for that. As for how I’m sure it’s RI, their equipment might have no markings but that computer architecture and hardware is unmistakable to someone who knows what to look for. It's basically repurposed Industrial Automaton computer hardware.

“As for what I did with them. I scrambled their memories of me as best I could, staged a small fire in their little HQ which wrecked their stuff, then put their cell leader in a responding medical skiff as he was also suffering from smoke inhalation. He’ll recover in hospital, the speeder driver will enact his exfiltration contingency, whilst the two that attacked me in the shop will be spending the next few months in jail. I imagine RI will let them stew in there for the full duration, no need risking yet more operatives for a rescue that could go wrong in many ways.”

“But the speeder driver is the problem then,” she said with worry. “You haven’t managed to scramble his memories.”

“I know what he feels like in the Force, in fact, I can sense his position right now. He’s in the western edge of the city's industrial district. If he even begins approaching the spaceport, I’ll be waiting. I was planning to do a bit of recovery meditation and hunt him down afterward.”

Padme softly walked over and sat beside me, “Given the stakes we’re fighting for, Ahsoka, are you sure it wouldn’t have been easier to…” She stopped herself and winced.

“Of course it would’ve been easier to just kill them,” I sat up and cradled my head in my hands. “It would be easy. Just infiltrate the police station, then apply just enough pressure with telekinesis to a major arterial blood vessel that leads to the brain. I wouldn’t even need to be near their cell. I could just sit in the public reception area. Do the same for the other two.”

“I imagine that’s the Dark Side?” she asked

“Using the Force in that manner and context is very much an act that pushes into the Dark Side. It’s not just like pulling the trigger on a gun to kill someone in a fight or war. When you’re manipulating the Force… this is hard to explain… there’s a transactional process happening, for want of a better word, that feeds back to you. For me to kill using that technique…” I stopped myself. “No, I’d become the very thing I was fighting. Me falling to the Dark Side is something I don’t want this galaxy to ever see. I’d rather you or Anakin kill me first before that can happen.”

Padme put a soft, comforting hand on my shoulder, “It won’t come to that, Ahsoka.”

“Never say never,” I chuckled weakly.

The annoying chirp of a comlink hit my montrals at that point.

Padme picked it up from the caf table, and tapped it. A holo blossomed into being with a text message. “It’s Mina… she wants to talk.”

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A/N: Try to think of everything alone and you'll inevitably miss something. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and have a great weekend.

The Force Wills - Chapter 62

I pulled back on the Xanadu’s hyperdrive control lever and the converted Rogue class stealth ship shot itself back into normal space at the designated emergence point exactly on time. My hands on the control yoke, I yawed and pitched the ship onto our new course and pushed the acceleration hard onto our new vector. I didn’t want to give cause for a Coruscant traffic controller to scream over the radio that we were mucking up his schedule.

My relief at just getting back to the ecumenopolis without something getting in the way was palpable.

Yes, I was probably overstating things, but getting away from Mimban after fighting on the ground and in its aerospace for nearly three miserable weeks of near constant combat operations… being in a planetary biome which would have an actual sun over my head and not the constant overcast of that infernal rainforest planet…

I can’t believe I’m actually looking forward to being in the ‘duracrete jungle’ of Coruscant and walking the pristinely silent halls and walkways of the Jedi Temple. Of course, there was no way I could ever say I liked being in Palpatine’s Dark Side Shroud, but every good had to come with a bad of some kind.

“Everything’s okay, Snips?” Anakin asked as he dropped himself into the co-pilot’s chair.

“Fine, master. Just looking forward to being home, dry and actually catching up with the galaxy at large again.”

“My hair agrees with you,” he joked, ruffling his dark blonde locks, which were looking like they were screaming for a conditioner.

“I can also imagine the amount of flimsiwork waiting for us,” I grumbled. Anakin had imposed a com and Holonet blackout whilst we were on the six day journey back to Coruscant, so we could both get some much needed relative solitude and meditate. It meant that we were both refreshed and ready for the next assignment the Jedi Council had for us.

The bad side of that was six days of backlog, mostly involving the 501st and their withdrawal from Mimban. Anakin had arranged for Admiral Yularen to cover for most of it, but there was only so much the naval man could do, when many authorizations actually required the General and Commander of the Legion to sign off on it.

That we could withdraw the 501st at all, was because of the large amount of territory we had essentially ‘blitzkrieged’ and liberated from the pervasive CIS droid presence. An entire continent had been effectively cleansed and space traffic could resume back and forth from the surface. The 224th would remain for ‘mop up’ operations.

That was the ‘official’ line.

The reality was that, as I had predicted, that mop up would take years of grinding warfare, especially now that the CIS droids had finally begun rolling out their reassembled armored formations.

Mimban would become exactly what the CIS wanted - a constant drain on the GAR’s resources in the belly of Republic space.

About the only positive I could draw from Mimban was the Liberation Army. They were now a properly structured military force in their own right, who had even started using captured and modified Separatist armored vehicles and hardware. It wasn’t even done with any Republic or GAR assistance - it was all in-house. Turns out when you have a planet full of miners who specialized in using remote mining systems and droids, that they were quite adept at fixing broken down and damaged droids. If those droids just happened to be CIS AATs and Hailfire tanks, repurposed to either hold an organic crew or act as drones via remote control… Well, I wasn’t going to object.

Taking the weapons of your enemy and turning it against them was a central tenet of guerilla warfare, after all.

I slotted the Xanadu into the traffic pattern and let the ship handle the atmospheric entry, before we were guided into a high altitude lane for starships.

Our Jedi clearance got us into a nice straight dive directly for the Temple hangar complex when our flight path passed overhead.

It wasn’t long before we had landed in our assigned bay and I was climbing with a duffle bag over my shoulder, out the Xanadu’s upper hatch and into the dry air of Bay 24.

The bay was large enough to house other ships; the bustle of the crews working on them, the occasional Jedi walking around to check on their ship was a mise-en-scène that I appreciated and just absorbed for a moment.

“Come along, Snips,” Anakin waved me over.

I vaulted and dropped to the floor, quickly running to catch up with his long strides.

In the turbolift, I enabled my own comlink again with a hint of dread.

Sure enough, I had dozens of messages and numerous holo-communiques that were waiting for my attention. Most of them I could put off to deal with at my leisure, but a number were marked urgent from Mandalore and some I knew were encrypted signals from the Fulcrum network. It was rather daunting just looking at my day just eroding away before me.

“I’m in the same skiff,” Anakin commented, looking at his own inbox with a bleak look, before shutting down his comlink.

From the grind of war, to the grind of paperwork.

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It was the evening of the second day of our return to Coruscant and I was seated at my own work desk in Anakin’s quarters. I had done a bit of reorganization and it was now slid into a corner of the main ‘living area’, that had a rather nice transparisteel viewport that looked out onto the flat distant cityscape horizon that stretched for over forty kilometers in every direction around the Temple.

It now had all the necessities; a conventional terminal, a large screen datapad that was partially integrated into the desk itself, holo emitters and a few pot plants with a Milla and Rominaria flowers imported straight from Naboo to green the place up a bit.

Far from enjoying a pretty and colorful view of the cityscape while I worked and listened to music streamed directly onto my montrals with specialized ‘montralphones’, Coruscant’s weather control had decided to deliver clouds and rain over a dozen sectors of the planet, which just so happen to include the Jedi Temple.

I was sorely tempted to climb into a speeder and give the Coruscanti minister responsible for atmospheric management a good piece of my mind.

So dense and low were the clouds that my window’s visibility was reduced to practically nothing.

Of course, I knew better than to bother the man responsible for keeping roughly a trillion sentients breathing reasonably fresh air every day. If his climate modeling indicated it needed to rain over x amount of the surface for x amount of time, then it was going to happen.

I stopped my meandering thoughts with a snap of will and got back to business.

The 501st had loaded up the last of its equipment back onto the Resolute and was awaiting the final tick on the box from both Anakin and I that they could leave. We had both done the inspections remotely via drones that scuttled about on eight legs and could carry our ‘holoselves’ anywhere on the ship. The losses in both equipment and personnel in the Mimban campaign had been ‘light’ for the 501st. That still meant we were pushing casualty rates of 27% over just three weeks, half of which were permanent fatalities.

The only good news on that front was among the clone pilots of the Resolute, which only had losses due to either the inevitable malfunction of a system or B2 rocket droids managing to make it through the defenses. An event which got rarer and rarer as counter-tactics were refined and improved.

Those tactics were also the other thing I was currently busy with - writing a doctrinal paper for the Prefsbelt Naval Academy and Royal Naboo Pilot Institute.

The winds of war and how technology was influencing what was and wasn’t possible with a fighter sized craft was rapidly changing. The days of having a fighter with in-line weapons that required the pilot to point his entire craft at a target to shoot it with low fire-rate blaster cannons was coming to a close. The Geonosian Nantex fighter with its turreted laser cannon, was clearly pointing the way forward. Combined with concussion missile pods and improving ECM warfare, it was increasingly clear that the fighter force that could deal with these threats and dish it out better than their opponents would be the ones with the clear advantage.

In that respect, I considered even my new Fang fighter to be obsolete already.

I already had plans cooked up in my head for improvements and changes to it, but which I would not share except for a select few back on Mandalore. These improvements wouldn’t come in time for the Clone Wars, but would be functional to potentially confront Palpatine’s Empire.

Improvements like three turreted cannons on a larger Fang fighter with even more powerful yet compact shielding, along with a hyperdrive that would give the future Millennium Falcon a run for its money. Not only would it eat TIE fighters for breakfast, and X-Wings for lunch, its main course was destined to be the Yuuzhan Vong coralskipper fighter.

On that happy note, Anakin walked into his quarters with a chipper spring in his step that could mean only one thing.

I kept writing and simply asked one question before he could even open his mouth.

“So what is our excuse for meeting the senator?”

He huffed at being preempted like that and folded his arms, “She wants to discuss something related to the latest affair that’s gotten the Senate’s undergarments in a twist and would like my opinion on how the Jedi Council will respond. Not to mention exposing you to more of the Senate’s inner workings.”

Not that I needed it, but we couldn’t exactly say it out loud.

The Republic Senate’s latest item on the agenda very much affected the war effort, therefore it was only natural that the Jedi at least had an interest in directly observing the affair.

That was how both Anakin and I ended up standing at an overlook a few hours later that gave a nice view of the entire bowl-like internal structure of the Republic Senate. Listening to senators prattle on about this or that, debate endlessly on the smallest minutia of policy language and occasionally scream, boo and moan in complaint.

The acoustics of the Senate chamber meant that it quickly became a cacophony of noise that forced me to put a Kinetic bubble around my head to dampen it.

Currently on the agenda, which was attracting interest from many parties across the Republic and undoubtedly from the CIS - the true cost of the war.

“Order! Order!” shouted Vice Chair Mas Amedda to the entire assembly. Surrounding the podium were nearly half a dozen senators, on their individual floating podiums, trying to get their chance. At the center of it all, was Palpatine himself. He was in a light brown outfit with an elegantly cut and patterned dark burgundy outer robe. The man needed to just add a bloody lightsaber and he’d pass for a Jedi. He held a mild smile on his face as he observed the squabbling senators and his eyes seemed to scream that he was hatching some cunning scheme or was humoring everyone around him. His hands, held folded together in a ‘wise man’ pose added just that perfect final touch to the mask he was currently wearing. Finally, the volume died enough for Amedda to speak further, “Let Senator Saam finish his point. All participants will get their chance.”

Senator Gume Saam, an Ishi Tib and representing the Techno Union, was yet another example of technically having the ‘enemy’ under your roof. An enemy who wore the fair cloak of neutrality, simply because they were so critical to the economies of both the Republic and CIS.

KDY, Sienar Systems, BlasTech Industries, the premiere suppliers of the GAR, technically fell under the Techno Union banner. Baktoid Armor and Combat Automata, held the same role for the CIS. Naturally, the Union could hardly hold an overt, all hands, in-person meeting these days. Not without either side screaming treason, but nothing stopped under-the-table dealings.

Saam cleared his throat, “This is not a matter of philosophy but practicality. The casualty figures are clear. If we want to have any defenses left, if we want to stop the Separatists from gaining more ground, we need more troops.”

“Senator Organa,” Amedda prompted.

“What we cannot afford is to be irresponsible. The war has seen government spending going through record levels and the Republic is verging on the cusp of bankruptcy.”

Once again, that set the fox among the hens, as hundreds of senators began shouting in objection. Most of them could only think of what that would mean for themselves and not their constituents. On the other side of that spectrum, were those who were truly fearful for their people and worlds. As the Republic was a lifeline that ensured their economies could even function and their worlds would quickly become unsustainable without a financially solvent Republic.

That there were so many of the latter worlds was the result of stupid, idealistic policies enacted more than a century ago, finally coming home to roost. People had been encouraged to surge into the Expansion Region and Outer Rim, form colonies and settle. Hardly a thought was given to sustainability, income generation, import, export, or economies of scale. Big daddy Republic would always be there in the background to keep the boats afloat.

“Order! The chair recognizes Senator Dod.”

“Bankruptcy is not necessary,” said the Trade Federation representative simply. “Senator Saam’s bill is exactly the remedy for this. It will allow the Republic to open new lines of credit and gain access to the needed funds.”

I listened with a feeling of inevitability. Anyone in the entire galaxy who had a bank account with the Banking Clans and managed it themselves would be able to predict that this moment would come.

The Republic only taxed its citizens and member worlds at a set level. A level that had been practically set in stone since the Ruusan Reformation. It had been adjusted on only a few occasions over the last thousand years. The last time it happened was just over 150 years ago, which had been a downward revision, but each adjustment had required decades of debate before it had gotten the required amount of support in the Senate.

The idea that the Republic would be able to increase taxes within the scope of the war was laughable.

So it did what was expedient and easy, it borrowed from the Banking Clans.

That borrowing was regulated, specifying the amount that could be borrowed over a certain period of time. Saam’s bill was essentially to strike down those regulations, giving the Republic a freer hand to borrow.

It wasn’t long before yet another shouting match erupted as senators argued about the deregulation.

My own mind was tuning them out mostly and I was debating with myself on the wisdom of bringing this idea forward and to whom would be the best. Prescience wasn’t helping on this long term problem, this deep in the Shroud, but all I knew was that this galaxy needed to militarize and bloody well grow technologically. The last two hundred years had been characterized by stagnation on that front. Hyperdrive speeds had not increased. The standard of living for the core worlds was generally high, but stayed that way, with no improvements and as many worlds in the Expansion Region had increased the quality of life for their citizens, other worlds had outright degraded. The Outer Rim held many beacons of civilization, but was otherwise a lawless, degrading mess.

In this respect, I found myself actually agreeing with Palpatine.

Finally, a welcome voice cut through the chaos.

“Members of the Senate, do you hear yourselves?” Padme asked rhetorically as her podium flew forward. The squabbling died down very quickly. How she could command this massive room sometimes with her charisma was quite impressive. “More money, more clones, more war! Say nothing of fiscal responsibility, what about moral responsibility? Hasn’t this war gone on long enough?”

Padme, that is not a line that will fly with the majority of assholes facing you, I thought wryly.

“Senator Amidala,” Saam’s beaky face couldn’t scowl, but his two stalked eyes with cat-like pupils were pulled together in an Ishi Tib equivalent. “Are you suggesting we surrender to the Separatists?”

“Of course not,” she retorted in an obvious tone. “Negotiation might be an avenue worth pursuing, however. Projections indicate that the Separatists are also feeling the financial strain of this war.”

“Negotiation is impossible with those animals!” shouted another senator. I couldn’t recognize his species offhand but the undercurrent attitude identified him either as representative of a world that had suffered direct attack or he was simply a warhawk. “Keep the war going! Vote! Vote!”

That set off the chamber for a few moments with similar chants.

“Order! Order!” Amedda shouted them down. “Senator Organa has a motion.”

“Members of the Senate, I suggest we table this bill until it has been thoroughly researched and determined whether deregulation is the right course of action.”

The suggestion swept through the chamber and seemed to find root among the majority of the moderates, whilst the rest followed suit, seeing the way the political winds were blowing. It was a master stroke from Bail, who neatly used the political tendency to stall and filibuster a decision for later to his own advantage. The only ones who didn’t like this were the warhawks and war profiteers, but their extremist nature made them quickly fall into the minority.

“The motion is passed,” Amedda declared eventually. “Next order of business.”

I pulled out a small disposable datapad and quickly began tapping out my idea on it.

“Taking notes, Snips?” Anakin asked with amusement. “Oh dear, I recognize that face.”

I gave him a wry unimpressed look before continuing to rapidly type into the pad. The Senate session was dismissed roughly two hours later, just before local midnight, but I was in place and ready to intercept the intended recipient of my little idea.

Bail Organa walked off his docked podium and he smiled as he saw me waiting for him.

“Padawan Tano! Good to see you again.”

“Senator Organa,” I bowed in Alderaanian custom.

“What brings you to the Senate this lovely evening?”

“Oh, just observing the session. My master thought it would be a good learning experience to see the repulsors of government in action.”

Bail chuckled, “For someone your age, I imagine it was most engaging.” He gestured for me to walk by his side. “Come, I can see you have something to discuss. Let’s go to my office.”

Our walk was slow and in no particular hurry. Late nights in the Senate were a common thing for him, so I didn’t even bother to enquire in that direction. I could sense he was tired, that he’d like nothing better than to get in bed, but he was willing to postpone it for me.

“How are things at home?”

“Good, though whether it will remain that way, is still up for debate,” he said. Translation: The situation with the Compeer and House Rist was still ongoing. He didn’t feel optimistic about it either.

It was a few minutes walk and a number of turbolifts before we reached the long circular string of offices that senators stayed in during their on-duty hours. As Alderaan was a major Republic world, Bail’s office rated a place of prominence and included a wonderful view of the surrounding cityscape of the Senate district.

He sat down behind his desk with a deep sigh, then briefly closed his eyes before rubbing his face in some form of half-exercise/half-ritual to keep himself alert and focused. “Now, Padawan, what’s on your mind?”

I handed over the datapad, containing a full description of my idea, including a reasonably detailed proposal on the particulars. “In regards to the finances of the war.”

Bail gave me a surprised look before picking it up and he began reading.

While he did so, I was pacing with hands folded behind my back and carefully sensing for any listening devices in the office. The one in the desk’s light fixture panel was so obvious that it had to be from the security services of the building. With a small twist of will, it was shorted out into malfunctioning.

Other than that, the place was clean.

It didn’t take Bail long to read through it and he was clearly digesting a few novel concepts I had included.

Eventually he put down the pad and stared out of the office window. “It’s an intriguing idea, padawan. I just wish its application could’ve been for something other than war.”

“It’s entirely possible to apply it during peacetime as well, senator. There are major infrastructure works in the public interest that could be undertaken using this approach, which will not have to strain the treasury or borrow from the Banking Clans and stomach their exorbitant interest rates.”

“They’ll object to this being tried,” Bail tapped the pad.

“Only the short-sighted ones. The beauty of this, is that it also actually benefits the banks in the medium to long term. The Republic itself is a customer, after all, with many thousands of specific accounts for its various departments. The amount of transactions this will create, along with the broad consolidation of funds from across the Republic, from across all the social spectrums is staggering. You saw the estimated numbers, senator. We’d probably still have to open those new credit lines with the Banking Clans, in the short term, just to remain solvent, but with this in the works… our borrowing from them will be significantly reduced, if not entirely eliminated.”

“You’re effectively putting the Republic in debt to its citizens with this, isn’t there a danger that we’re just deferring the money crisis to after the war.”

I smiled, “That’s why you issue these financial instruments with a series of staggered maturities over time. In that way…”

Bail smirked as realization entered his mind, “You avoid having to pay them out all at once. I especially like how you’re giving the Republic a figurative lightsaber to hang over their heads as well. They either provide reasonable rates or we just go to the public.”

“It’s my own personal belief that corporations have no business being in the Senate chamber. If I had my way, I’d kick out the lot of them, tell them to stick to making products that satisfy their customers, pay their taxes and kriff off.”

He laughed with delight and slapped his hand on the table. “Oh, padawan. A dangerous opinion and one I have come to share of late. The commerce guilds have just always been in the Senate. The sheer notion that they should not… Are you sure you don’t want to become a senator one day?”

“It’s Jedi Masters who are renowned for their patience, senator,” I said primly. I could just imagine myself going Darth Vader on a number of them within the first few weeks. “The only reason the corps are there in the first place is because they were so vital to Outer Rim development a hundred years ago, not to mention I’m sure quite few votes were outright bought by them.”

For all the idealism of the chancellor of that era, she was painfully naive and had no idea of the monster her policies would eventually spawn. She also fell victim to the old Soviet style fallacy that economic policy and law would magically change the sentient condition.

“Then the only remaining issue is selling the public on this idea. They are after all the ones who will be buying these ‘War Bonds’.”

“I can think of no better people than COMPOR to market this to the public. They’re already fighting against CIS propaganda, they can now appeal to the patriotic spirit of the citizens. Give them the sense that even though they can’t or even won’t pick up a blaster to fight on the front lines, they can financially support those who do. The fact that there’s no interest payments on these bonds should discourage the very rich and affluent from trying to game the system. You’re not buying a War Bond to get rich, you’re buying one because you want a gun in the hand of the soldier fighting for you, his belly full and the ship he is on, well maintained.”

“In this case we are also buying the existence of that soldier,” Bail said evenly.

“Correct, which should get the Kaminoans, the war profiteers and zealots neatly on board with this idea. If they can see beyond their own noses.”

Bail chuckled, “I will have to study this idea of yours further, padawan. I agree with it in spirit, especially its peacetime potential. Do you mind if I share it with a few select advisors of mine back on Alderaan? Have them study its feasibility.”

“Not at all. I only ask that you don’t take too long, senator.”

He nodded, “I can understand the urgency. Very well, you’ve provisionally convinced me. If all goes well with the research, I will personally move forward on a bill that will see the Republic issue these.”

A soft chime echoed throughout the office and I immediately sensed that Anakin and Padme were outside.

“Enter,” called Bail.

I just had to take one look at them both to know that there was ‘trouble in paradise’.

“Senator Organa,” Anakin smiled and bowed politely.

“Knight Skywalker, come to fetch your errant padawan?” Bail’s brown eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Not entirely,” Anakin admitted and glanced at Padme wearily.

“Ahsoka,” Padme greeted me warmly, giving a subtle glare at her secret husband. “Bail.”

“Senator, good to see you again,” I bowed and rumbled around in my mind what I was sensing from them, trying to understand.

“Do you mind if I borrow a moment of your time in private?” She even gave me a subtle hand signal, which meant that she wanted to talk about very critical stuff, that was not even for the ears of Bail Organa.

“Not at all. Senator Organa, thank you for making time to see me.”

“No, no, my friends, relax.” He stood and gestured at the office space magnanimously. “I need to get home, feel free to use it for as long as you like.”

“Thank you, Bail,” Padme smiled at her colleague.

When the Alderaanian senator had left and the door closed behind him-

“We can speak relatively freely, the security surveillance is disabled,” I said immediately.

“I was rather counting on that,” Padme said with a wry smile. “Ever the spy.”

“Ahsoka, tell her no,” Anakin blurted out in haste and began pacing in agitation.

“Oh this is going to be good if it’s got you acting like this, master.”

“Ignore him, he’s just being overprotective,” Padme declared. “Ideally I need both your help to pull this off but Anakin is being… himself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked with outrage.

“Relax master, it means you’re acting as you should,” I signed ‘as a husband’ to him with my right hand. “Now, Senator, what is this request?”

“This war can’t end unless both sides are at least talking to each other. Now that can’t happen officially, because even communicating with any senator or official from the CIS is illegal. It would recognize and legitimize them as a politically separate entity, which the Senate refuses to do.”

“So you want to make it happen unofficially?”

“Yes.”

“And is there a senator on the other side that won’t throw you in a CIS prison?”

“Yes, her name is Mina Bonteri, senator from Onderon and she was one of my personal mentors when I was still new in my own position here. We are very good friends, but I haven’t spoken to her since the war began and her planet seceded.”

So time marched on and this moment had finally caught up with me. Did I dare say that this was going to lead to the death of her friend and mentor? That her good intentions will cause Sidious to sign a death warrant for Bonteri - so she would be killed in a ‘Republic attack’ and inflame the people of the CIS. That Padme’s entire peace initiative would only be used as more kindling for the fires of war.

This… was an opportunity.

“Very well, I think it’s a good idea and I’ll help make this happen, Padme.”

“Are you kidding, Snips?” Anakin gritted his teeth. “You’re talking about smuggling ourselves through enemy lines all the way to Raxus itself, the Separatist Parliament world.”

“It can be done, Skyguy,” I shrugged nonchalantly.

“Of course it can, don’t mince words. If we’re discovered…” He didn’t want to finish the thought.

“There’s also the question of whether we can undertake the journey secretly. It’s eleven days one way.”

“I have many personal leave days piled up that I’m not using up any time soon,” Padme argued. “You’ve both returned from the front recently, so surely the Jedi Council won’t be sending you out so soon. Not while the 501st is still in transit back to Coruscant.”

“We could do most of our work remotely, at least until we were near the front lines, master.”

“The Resolute will be back in five days roughly, she took no damage, so her turnaround time and restock will be three days at worst,” Anakin reasoned. “No, there is only one way this works. I have to stay and I have discretion to assign you where I think you’ll learn the most, therefore I have decided that you will learn the fine art of Senate politics from Padme for the next… twenty five days.”

“Politics is a rather lengthy subject to study after all,” Padme smirked at her husband, her eyes looking slightly ‘steamy’. “There’s so much involved in it and if I just so happen to take leave to visit a good friend I haven’t seen in a long time, then Ahsoka will just have to come with.”

I pointedly cleared my throat to remind the two lovebirds of exactly where they were.

“If we’re going to do this, the logistics have to be worked out, senator. We will both need to be suitably disguised and under pseudonyms. You cannot send even an encrypted hint of a message to Bonteri that we will be coming. It must be a complete surprise. If the enemy gets even a whiff of what we are attempting-”

“I understand, Ahsoka,” she raised her hands in a placating gesture, seeing how intensely I was speaking.

“Good. We can’t take the Xanadu, because it’ll be missed.” I tapped my vambrace and a holomap appeared of the north-eastern sectors of the galaxy, my fingers swiped through it and I inputted some search parameters. “We can leave using Padme’s ship officially, then head to Mandalore, where I can procure a suitable ship that will fit our disguises. Our next destination will be here, Indu San is a neutral world and part of the CNS. We park the new ship there, then catch an onward passenger transport into CIS space. Crossing the border should also pose no real problems.”

“So it’s decided then,” Padme smiled with satisfaction.

“Don’t make me regret agreeing to this,” Anakin said.  “Snips-”

“You don’t need to say it, master.”

“Good.”

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Such was the secrecy of our trip that I even convinced Padme to ditch Captain Typho - by putting him on leave back to Naboo to see his own family. Typho naturally did not leave without giving me the bodyguard equivalent of a shovel speech.

“She is a guest of Clan Vizsla. I could mobilize an entire moon of Mandalorians to come to her defense if it came down to it.”

Gregar Typho just continued to give me a one-eyed stare for a long moment, “I’ll hold you to that.”

The ship we would be using for the initial leg was a new one from the Theed Palace Space Engineering Corps and reflected the turbulent galaxy around us. It was a substantially modified J-Type Star Skiff that featured two top mounted laser cannon turrets. Actual weapons on a Naboo starship!

Its overall design was the usual aesthetic brilliance from the Theed SEC, a curving swept wing design with underslung Sossen-7 sublight engines in nacelles, giving the ship a stupendous power to mass ratio, allowing it to push 3500Gs. It could outrun Vulture droids but not the newest Tri-fighters in normal space. It also had a hyperdrive that carried that magical 0.5 rating.

Further sacrifices had to be made in crew accommodations and luxury to shave further weight off the design. It had only space for a total of six; pilot, navigator, gunner and three passengers. The cockpit was mounted at the rear of the craft and raised above the main center of mass, giving the pilot an excellent panoramic view of space that clearly had roots from starfighter design philosophy.

The thing was a dream to fly and doubly so because it was set-up to let Padme easily fly it by herself. She was many things, she could technically fly a Naboo N-1 starfighter, but being a dedicated fighter pilot was far down her list of priorities.

“I haven’t sat in a starfighter for almost a year, Ahsoka, and even then it was training just enough to fly in general formation with other fighters and a diplomatic barge,” she said, staring into the roiling tunnel of hyperspace, lost in memory, as we powered away from Coruscant on the first leg of our journey.

“But you would be able to control the guns?”

“Of course,” she nodded idly. “I’ll run some simulations to sharpen me up as we travel in hyper.”

I wasn’t foreseeing any threat on the route to the Mandalore sector, but it never hurt to be prepared.

The nice thing about this new J-Type was our total travel time estimate to Raxus being shortened by nearly three days.

By the time I landed Padme’s ship in Clan Vizsla’s estate on Concordia, our next ship for our disguised personas was already waiting for us.

It was a used Lancer-class pursuit craft, the former owner of which had been a high value, low volume freighter pilot who had kept a good record plying his trade in the Mandalore sector. His luck had run out though and pirates flagged him as a ‘target of interest’. The resulting ambush damaged the primary hyperdrive enough that it needed a full replacement. Combined with the high value of the contract he had bungled, it left him completely cash strapped and he had no choice but to sell off the ship.

It was also somewhat pretentious of the guy, even if he was a Mandalorian, to have named his ship Basilisk and it probably contributed slightly to the pirates choosing him.

Any Mando worth their salt knew of the ancient history and significance of that name; as it was given to the fearsome war droids that the Mandalorians literally rode into combat during the time of the Old Republic.

To fit our new identities, the ship was now renamed to the Pioneer, a new stock Hyperdrive fitted with a rating of 1.0, whilst the sensor suite and navicomputer was upgraded to models that were more appropriate for the job of our personas, which included some portable equipment.

Padme was now Dishan Bridma, an explorer and academic from the Iskaayuma Academy of Rodia, whilst I was Naala Taan, the top ranking student of her class. The two were setting out on an astronomical survey of the north-east Outer Rim, aiming their sensors out of the galaxy to record the celestial galaxies in that direction.

Organizing the identities was a piece of cake for Hermione and the Fulcrum network’s steadily growing group of slicers. They worked under the official umbrella of Corusca Online in their day jobs, whilst moonlighting as Fulcrum slicers.

We spent a full day on Concordia to get our wardrobe and other small touches sorted out. Rodian high fashion was always some form of bright purple and various pastel shades of burgundy red and yellow, with tunics, form fitting jackets and puffy pants. Not my favorite fashion, considering how stuffy it felt.

I had to also invent a new lekku, montral and facial pattern, including getting a stuffed bra and subtle hip extensions, to help further differentiate my body type from that of Ahsoka Tano.

Padme dyed her long hair into a light blonde, changed her eye color to blue with a set of contacts that held tiny diodes, which would allow on-the-fly color changes with the push of a button. This was combined with a new makeup scheme and removing the characteristic mole on her left cheek.

She still looked great, but you definitely couldn’t tell anymore that she was Padme Amidala from a distance.

The final bit of disguise we had to adopt was more than just skin deep. A small implant into our left hands that would hijack and fool any close range scanner for DNA.

The CIS border wasn’t so tightly shut that they could have these at every civilian travel checkpoint in their space, but Raxus was another story.

It was the parliament world that held all the former Republic senators and representatives who were now forming the new political union. Security as a result was quite high, but it wasn’t on the level of Serreno. It wasn’t a world that was truly a crucial ‘center of gravity’ for the CIS, but that didn’t mean that Republic Intelligence was just going to ignore it. The CIS parliament had to be kept updated on military affairs and the potential for striking intel gold was there.

The second leg of our journey began with the much slower Pioneer, and we both used the time to refresh and educate ourselves to the point where we could pass ourselves off as astronomers interested in extra-galactic space.

It would take three days along the Salin Corridor hyperlane heading galactic east before we reached Indu San.

The world of just over a billion humans were only technically part of the Republic and had quickly joined the CNS when it became apparent that there was no way they would survive economically to cut themselves off from either the new CIS and Republic economies. They were not as yet self-sufficient, the war hitting the galaxy just a decade before they could’ve told either side to take a hike. Their primary export was high value gemstones that were sought after all over the galaxy. The proceeds of which had been reinvested into infrastructure and high technology, to eventually build a world that would be a jewel of independent civilization in the Outer Rim.

Our stopover here was barely a few hours, before we had to hurry with our portable astronomy equipment to a passenger/cargo ship that was bound for Raxus.

The ship took four days to finish traversing the Salin Corridor, before turning north-east along the uppermost reaches of the Perlemian Trade Route hyperlane.

It was here that we had our first inspections from the CIS Navy.

Not any of the big capital ships, who were all tied up along the front lines. No, this flank was tied up with only a handful of Recusants supported by numerous Pursuer-class enforcement ships. Awfully designed, blocky ships that were nevertheless good at their jobs and produced by MandalMotors, a production contract that was honored until the Mandalore sector declared the CIS as enemies.

It was moments like this that I both hated hyperspace and loved it. Give me just a small half squadron of Venators and I could smash open a new front here, but no, the hyperspace lane couldn’t handle that. At best, with creative navigation and mass management I could squeeze through two Venators at once, only to be promptly smashed into pieces by a CIS Navy that was ready for me with homefield advantage, their spies and listening stations having long since detected my approach.

My kingdom for any of the other FTL technologies I could name from other universes.

Having endured a general scan for contraband and a squad of B1s merely patrolling up and down the ship, then logging the passenger manifest and physically checking it, we were cleared through the border of CIS space.

Our next stop was the Lianna system a day later, where another scan and cargo inspection took place.

Then at Desevro merely twenty hours later, another passenger inspection and an extra scan of our astronomical equipment just to make sure they weren’t for use in ‘spying’. Both Padme and I had the opportunity to thoroughly befuddle the B1 droid inspector with the knowledge and technical details of our equipment.

“Uh, I’m sure it’s fine, ma’ams. I don’t detect a Holonet connection or long range transceivers. Thank you for your patience.” It returned its scanner into the dedicated port on its lower back before marching off.

The Perlimian Route made a small detour to avoid a black hole at this point, before we finally turned south-east onto a narrow hyper corridor that was locally known as the Raxus Run.

Fourteen hours later the cargo ship was emerging from hyper into a high orbit of Raxus Secundus itself.

From orbit it was a beautiful world. If I looked quickly I could almost imagine I was looking at old Earth itself. The continents were shaped differently, but the water to land ratio was eerily similar; the atmosphere, the way the clouds were seemingly drawn across the planet, the weather. It was a very rich, fertile world, with forests, hills, plains, and massive oceans. It was no wonder that it had been chosen to house the Separatist parliament.

Who wouldn’t be content when surrounded by such beauty.

The planet had numerous large cities, but the Raxians were careful to preserve the beauty of their world. Just looking at the cosmopolitan nature of who called the place home - it was a melting pot of the major species of the galaxy, all who could trace their families back to some sort of Outer Rim colonist; aqualish, bith, gossam, gotal, human, twi’lek, to name a few.

That independent, pioneering culture and attitude would be passed down and eventually coalesce into what we were witnessing today. A new nation being born. That was the perspective of the average CIS citizen.

It was just such a shame that it had been all given form by the machinations of the Sith, picking up the pieces of the Republic’s failed Outer Rim policies.

Our ship was scanned a final time before clearance for deorbit was given and after riding a slow five minute bumpy ride of aerobraking through the atmosphere, the cargo ship eventually landed in the primary spaceport of Raxulon - the capital city of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

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We managed to make it through spaceport security with our cover identities intact and merged into the bustle of the city.

On the surface it looked like a mini-Coruscant only with much more green and natural plant life artfully integrated onto the roofs and sidewalks. I found myself also enjoying the look of the architecture; everything was arched or had arches of some type, even the facades and décor. Some buildings even reminded me of high tech versions of late Renaissance churches on old Earth but with modern materials.

The sheer variety of people of every immigrated species just going about their day without worry and the mood I was sensing from them; you couldn’t imagine that these people even knew there was a war going on. A fight for their very existence as a nation and their own freedom.

We used our access to the local planetary Holonet to find a suitable hotel and booked ourselves into a modest room, since our cover demanded we be cash strapped academics.

We dumped our luggage onto our separate beds and Padme began automatically unpacking.

“Well, we’ve arrived,” she commented pointedly to me.

“It’s all right, the room isn’t bugged, no one is paying attention to us, we haven’t tripped any security flags,” I announced.

“You’ve been rather reticent in explaining our plan,” she opened the closet and began hanging up her travel outfits.

“It’s not like I have a direct line to RI reports about Raxus Secundus, we’re going to need to do a recon of our own before we even approach your friend.”

Padme frowned in realization, “You think she’s being watched?”

“If CIS Intel doesn’t have an entire surveillance team on each of their senators here on Raxus, including extensive bugging of their residences, then I question their competence.”

“Naala, I know my friend, including a lot of the other senators that seceded here, they wouldn’t stand for being under that level of surveillance,” Padme objected.

“You assume they know or have any choice in the matter if they do know,” I shook my head sadly. “From the CIS point of view, many of these senators, despite declaring they have seceded from the Republic and whatever they may say publicly against it, still have friends and sympathies for their loyalist colleagues on the other side.” I didn’t have to point out that it was the exact thing we were exploiting here. “No, Dishan, to approach your friend openly is to sign her death warrant.”

Padme whirled on me with wide frightened eyes that quickly turned to anger, “You knew this already for sure, yet-”

“If CIS Intel knows you are here, then the enemy will know within less than a day. It will require no giant leap of logic for him to then deduce why you are here, given the remarks you gave before the Senate.”

Padme stepped away from the closet and sat down slowly with a huff before cradling her head in her own hands. Her emotions were a frothing cauldron at this point and her smart mind was quick to begin piecing things together. She looked up and her eyes were haunted. “I know Mina, she would jump at the chance for negotiated peace talks to begin. She hates conflict as much as I do. If we both bring our proposals before the Senate and CIS Parliament… then the enemy will know anyway, all the war profiteers, the banks, they’d…”

“They will stop at nothing to prevent the possibility of peace,” I said grimly. “It’s already begun on the Republic’s side. At some point in the next week, a sabotage attack will occur on Coruscant by disguised CIS droids, smuggled directly onto the planet. This is to stoke fear among the Senate and help Saam’s bill go through despite a rally of concerted opposition that Bail will organize. The same technique will be applied to the CIS parliament. Your friend will be killed in a ‘Republic attack’ after she brings forward her peace proposals. Naturally, the actual attack will be done by disguised agents of Count Dooku, who is merely doing as the enemy commands. The moderates on both sides will see that the other side can’t be trusted and they will flock to the warmongers banner.”

Her temper was severely tested as I laid out the current trajectory of the probability line. She stood and stepped in front of me, her eyes burning in anger, her lips pursed, jaw muscles flexing and her hands opened and closed quickly. She began pacing back and forth in front of me, clearly wanting to slap me but impressively resisting with all her will.

“Why are we even here, Naala?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Note I said, we can’t see your friend openly. I didn’t say anything about not seeing her covertly.”

“What would that even accomplish then? If she can’t even…” She trailed off as her mind began deducing more. She stared at me with wide eyes and gave a slight hysterical laugh. “You… you want to recruit her into…”

I stared into her eyes with the full weight of my presence in the Force.

If there was one rule I made sure that everyone in the Fulcrum network swore by, then it was that you do not talk about the network’s existence, even if you knew you were in private with another member or on any communication medium.

She quickly looked away, somewhat chastised. “Right, so… how do we covertly see her?”

“That will require me to go on a recon of her home and the surrounding area, so a plan can be devised. It will take a few hours, so in the meantime, act according to our cover identities, play tourist, deploy the equipment on the roof when night falls, and be an astronomer.”

I turned around and headed for the hotel room door, wanting to give Padme some space immediately.

“Naala.” My hand paused on the door controls as her voice reached me. “Can her life be saved?”

“This is war. As long as we can bring her into recruitment and she does not make any mention of peace in a public setting, then she will remain beneath the notice of the enemy.”

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Mina opened her eyes and awoke to another beautiful day on Raxus.

The local avian species were cheerily singing with the arrival of the morning, the air was crisp and fresh and she wished she could just close her eyes and stay in the very comfortable bed.

She wished she could just ignore the day ahead.

A day filled with just sitting in that parliament and growing more and more disillusioned. A day of just reading more reports from the front lines, clinically stating the amount of losses among the Navy in both droids and personnel. Reading statements from the Navy and Count Dooku that everything was going to plan. How unsustainable the Republic’s position was and that it was only a matter of time before the steel of the droid grinded the flesh of the clone into submission.

It was also another day of confronting the empty void in her heart left by the death of her husband. His warmth in her bed forever denied to her by the cold engine of war - at the blasterpoint of brainwashed clones.

She knew a year ago that Onderon walking this path would not be easy, that there would have to be sacrifices. In her darkest nightmares she never imagined that Kavah would die. That was what the droids were for after all! He would command and never be in the line of fire!

Yet cruel fate decided otherwise.

Now she had to raise a son alone.

She could only count her blessings that her dear Lux was many things, but a fighter or soldier he was not. He was a clever and handsome boy, who believed in the cause. He would be a great leader in the CIS one day, leading Onderon alongside King Rash into a golden age free of the burdensome yoke of the bloated Republic and its corruption.

She steadily worked up the final bits of will to throw the heavy covers off and get out of bed.

A short ten minutes in the Refresher and she was back in her closet trying to decide what to wear for the day.

The stately light blue dress was always a favorite of hers; comfortable, elegant, practical. The longest part in her routine was the makeup. The years were marching on and already she had the first hint of gray at the edges of her short hair. Then a last minute touch up to make sure the traditional Onderonian tattoo sleeves around her neck and arms were up to her own standards.

She adorned her best outward ‘mask’. The one that showed no weakness or weariness. That she was confident and everything was going to be alright. A face that she would wear for Lux until her last breath.

Then she walked out of the bedroom and into the large palatial house afforded to her.

Lux’s bedroom door was still firmly closed, no doubt sleeping a little late again after deadening his alarm. He would be down soon enough, answering the call of that void he called a stomach.

Entering the kitchen, she noted that it was distinctly empty.

Ana wasn’t here.

The chief of her household staff was usually the first to rise. Her delectable cooking skills hard at work, wafting the entire house full of heavenly scents, yet now she was also sleeping in.

“Odd,” she mumbled to herself and began searching the pantry to whip something up for both herself and Lux.

Soon strips of ruping meat were searing on the stove and she idly stirred and shoved the meat around to ensure an even distribution of heat. It was nice to occasionally work in the kitchen again.

It was at this point that something struck her as… missing or off? Yet, when she tried to focus on what it could be, it slipped from her mental fingers, as if she was trying to grab a cloud. Eventually she shrugged it off and returned her focus to the food.

In a haze of working on autopilot, she soon had two plates of breakfast ready; ruping meat with sauce, bread, and a succulent purple king’s crown fruit, neatly sliced.

She turned around with plates in hand towards the central kitchen table and gasped with fright. So startled was she that the food went flying into the air and not a few moments later, the plates thumped onto the hard kitchen floor.

She clutched at her chest, trying to get her breath back and also trying to make sense of what her eyes were telling her.

Padme was sitting there at the head of the table with an apologetic expression. Her former protege was also not alone, as standing right behind her was a teenage togruta Jedi, her two lightsabers gleaming in the morning sun on her hips, whilst wearing a rather daring outfit.

Padme was looking as beautiful as ever, as if the past year of war had not happened at all. Her brown hair was resplendent and glowing. Her face was vital and her golden dress flowing around her, with cleavage on prominent display.

“Hello Mina, sorry for the fright and popping in like this,” Padme smiled, gesturing to the room with raised palms.

Mina blinked and shook her head, “Padme? Is that you? What? How?”

“Yes, it’s me. The how, well, I’ll leave that for Padawan Tano to explain,” she gestured to the togruta behind her. “It’s quite difficult to even believe, but… you’ll understand soon enough.”

Mina rallied her thoughts, “Padme dear, being here is not wise at all. I know we haven’t spoken or seen each for a long while but-”

Padme raised a hand to gently interrupt, “I know, Mina. I know. This had to be done, now.”

“Why my dear? Traveling thousands of lightyears through hostile space, sneaking past thousands of droids and men that would arrest you, imprison you and throw away the key?”

Padme gave a brief glance to the togruta behind her, who nodded in answer at a silent question. “Mina, the Republic and the CIS are puppets in this war. Your fight for independence has already been usurped.”

She heard the words but it failed completely to make sense at all!

Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

“My dear Padme, what nonsense has this Jedi shoved into your head?”

Her friend chuckled weakly, “A more appropriate metaphor would be she pulled aside a curtain of the stage and showed me the strings.”

“Senator Bonteri, a pleasure to meet you,” said the Jedi, who bowed, then reached for her pocket and produced a small holoprojector onto the kitchen table. “I think it would be best, if you sit down for this.”

The holo flared into existence and displayed a flat screen. Prominently featured was Count Dooku, walking slowly beside a slightly smaller man, dressed and cloaked in black, his face mostly hidden in shadow, with only a slightly prominent chin and nose catching what little light there was for the visual sensor.

“Dooku might seem like he is leading you and the CIS, Senator Bonteri. Yet even he is just a servant, carrying out the will of his Sith Master.”

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A/N: Hmm, things are not as they seem. Hope y'all enjoyed and have a good weekend.

The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 17

Dad and I spent most of the morning around the kitchen table brainstorming ideas for his cape persona.

Just settling on a shortlist of names was a constant back and forth, with both of us referencing the Internet and PHO from our phones. Soon we were even bringing down books from the small house library and boxes in the attic that were filled with all of mom’s old reference books on the English language.

It soon became apparent that my own struggle to find a name would not come close to the problems dad would have in deciding. It wasn’t just that he was a Master, his control over small animals and insects lent itself to names that were naturally villainous in their general cultural and historical context. If dad just limited himself to controlling birds, things were much easier in that regard, but neither he nor I wanted that kind of self-imposed limitation. It was just creating an unnecessary secret that when it inevitably came out would create suspicion and fear.

There were two schools of thought when it came to cape names; the straight and the idealist.

The straight was the oldest but which was rapidly falling out of fashion - simply because it usually outright advertised what the hero was capable of; the Invisible Man or the Flash, as examples. Thankfully, it was easy for both of us to agree that names like Insectman or Birdman were just ridiculous and almost every good name in that direction was taken. Those that were left were either not applicable at all or the bad history behind the former owners of that name, meant you wouldn’t want to come within a mile of it. Quite a lot of these names also had enforceable copyright. As the action figures that were sold by toy companies of some of these heroes, meant that once that hero died or was retired by its current owner, no other cape could really pick up that mantle, not without the blessing of the company at least.

The idealist was the current trend with cape names, and it was one which I had drawn from for my own.

It was a name that was mostly divorced from your powers completely and instead embodied an ideal or cause that you wanted to strive towards.

Currently, I was the only thing that truly mattered in dad’s life. Yes, he had friends at work, colleagues, but he wouldn’t kill for them. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do when it came to protect me. That theme of protection and defense was a good one, but we ran smack into the fact that many heroes in the world ran with that same theme. You point to a synonym or name in that ideal, someone already had it somewhere.

“What about Bastille?” Dad pointed to his own list.

“Already taken by a hero in France and Canada, there’s been six of them over the last twenty years,” I said after briefly looking it up on my smartphone.

“Bastion’s out, he’s the leader of Boston Protectorate,” Dad sighed, crossing the name off his list. “Bulwark?”

I thought about it for a moment, then did a search on PHO, “No one has it outright that I can tell. Though I doubt most capes would go with such a name. It rather sets quite high expectations and you’re not a Brute, dad. Most villains would line up to try and take out someone calling themselves that.”

He put a question mark next to the name. “Let’s put it on the shortlist.”

I wanted to object immediately, imagining the likes of Lung or Hookwolf going after dad, but stopped myself - this was his choice in the end.

“Buttress?” I asked, seeing the next name on the list, failing to keep the twitch from my mouth.

“No,” he said firmly. “The puns almost write themselves.”

“Citadel.”

“Nicely gels with Fortress as a concept, I like the way it sounds,” he shrugged then penned that down into the maybe list.

There were a whole bunch of words next that absolutely didn’t fly as names; cover, dike, embankment.

“Garrison?” I asked. Both of us were silent as we tumbled the word around in our heads. “It fits with your mass minion mastery and I’m not seeing it taken.”

“It has a bit of a military connotation, that I don’t personally like,” he grumbled. “Then again, we have Miss Militia.”

“She also had lots of people in the Protectorate that worked to get that name into the public consciousness over the years, she was part of the first ever Wards team, that went a long way,” I pointed out.

“Rampart and Redoubt,” he said, moving on.

“First one is too close to ‘rampage’, it obviously doesn’t mean the same thing but…”

“It’s not my specialty at the office, but I know my share of public and industrial relations, dear,” he smiled at me mildly. “You have to acknowledge that there will be people who don’t have the first clue about the true meaning of words and will just associate them with something close because of the way it sounds. Redoubt doesn’t have the same problem and is at least obscure enough that I’ll put that one down onto the shortlist.”

“Not taken by anyone as far as I can tell. Okay, next is Resistance and Safeguard.”

Dad was silent for a moment, looking up into the ceiling in contemplation before shaking his head, “No, too much baggage in history for the first one and people will immediately think I’m ‘anti-government’ or anti-status quo. Safeguard… has connotation problems as well; protection against something going wrong.”

“Something has seriously gone wrong with the world, dad,” I pointed out reasonably.

“Oh all right, onto the shortlist then.”

My smartphone rang and a quick glance at the screen showed it was Henry calling.

“Now what?” I wondered, picking it up from the desk. “Yes, Henry… oh, yes, India, Alpha, Mike, Sierra, Charlie, Pappa, one, three, four, I am a D&D character.”

“Zero, One, One, Charlie, Whiskey, I am out of time,” Henry replied. “Good, you remembered. Sorry to bother you at home so soon.”

“Not a problem, Henry. What’s happening?”

“Just to let you know that the delivery company is coming for the package. Should be at your front door in twenty minutes or so.”

Ah, a team to pick up the SCP safe.

“Good, we’ll be on the lookout. Anything else?”

“I’m sorry to do this, but this really needs to be talked about face-to-face. I digged through a lot of our former CEOs plans overnight and he was only mildly helpful with some aspects of clarification. I’d normally wait for this discussion, but some of this has implications towards the you-know-what that’s probably memetically affecting everyone.”

That Coil was somehow involved in the greater conspiracy on Earth Bet shouldn’t have surprised me.

“All right, I’ll come back with the van. I might as well see the package safe in its new home.”

“Thank you, boss. See you soon.”

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Dad actually managed to spot the Fortress van with one of his birds, though he couldn’t exactly make out details, other than it was ‘boxy, big and noisy’.

He went out to meet the team and had the van reverse up the driveway to the garage door. From there the safe was quickly loaded up by two of the four Fortress Tactical Force members, disguised as UPS delivery men.

Before we set off though, we had the four gather for a quick briefing.

“Treat this safe as if it was loaded with a Tinkertech bomb that will go off if its door is opened. It might seem benign but that can change,” said dad with folded arms. “The door to this safe cannot lock, it can only be latched. It has to get back to Fortress and Director Hawkins will supervise further handling of it. In case of any emergency on route, defend yourselves as appropriate but Escort will be handling the situation.” I was leaning against the van door, trying my best to not be distracting to the team. The occasional glance and my reading of their auras showed I wasn’t really succeeding. “Any questions?”

The four men looked at each other and their leader, Sergeant Jayce Turner, shook his head, “No, sir.”

“Good, off you go.” They reflexively gave salutes and hurried back into the van. “Taylor, whatever Henry’s discovered, I don’t want you to spend any more time at Fortress than necessary for now.”

For a moment I thought he was playing the protective dad card that didn’t want his daughter tempted by all the beefcake on offer there. A look at his aura and body language said that yes, that was part of it, but he also just wanted to spend the free time he had with me.

“Fine, I’ll probably want to discuss the plans Coil had immediately with you anyway. Henry’s tone was rather worrying.”

“Fly safe,” he said with a smile as the van’s engine started up.

I gave him a quick hug before misting and following the van as it surged up the street, but kept well within the speed limit.

The journey back to Fortress was quite agonizing simply because, given my streak of luck lately, I was expecting some accident or even the van to be ambushed by one of the parahuman gangs. Maybe the E88 had somehow linked the van as belonging to Coil and they were tailing it or had some way of tracking it.

Thankfully, this time, I was not that unlucky.

It arrived uneventfully at Fortress and the SCP safe was carried into the freight elevator.

In the Fortress base, the elevator was stopped on the tenth subfloor and Henry was waiting for it.

I reappeared next to him suddenly and he naturally didn’t even flinch. I had to wonder what it took to really startle the animated statue.

“Seen it before?”

“There are many SCPs dear Taylor, I’m not familiar with them all. It’s possible that we will encounter SCPs that are entirely new, which not even the Foundation or any faction are aware of,” Henry pointed out gravely. “Yes, Sergeant, to Room 1023, please.”

It could be carried by one person, but they divided it up between two men, which let them have a free hand to respond with in case of emergency.

Room 1023 turned out to be a rather large secure room with a thick ‘blast door’ that was controlled centrally. It was further access controlled via keycard, facial scanner and had surveillance cameras watching the interior.

“I gather from the layout plans this was a place Coil intended to house recovered Tinkertech, either from enemies or allies,” Henry explained as the safe was put into the middle of the empty room and he dismissed the FTF to return to previous duties. “I will also applaud your caution with this thing. Many Foundation researchers and scientists are dead or worse than dead because they got complacent dealing with an SCP. Thinking everything was already known about it, so they thought, ‘We could maybe try this or try that, no need for all those pesky review procedures or paperwork.’”

“What about my idea of getting some actual scientists?”

“Definitely has merit,” he nodded. “There is room in the budget, but the problem is that the recruiting process is going to be tricky. The Foundation liked to scout and recruit scientific talent who were going through college and universities - 18 to 23 years old. They would be inducted and the truth slowly revealed to them via a carefully controlled environment. It would then be another four to five years of further training before they’d be ready for even the most junior of roles.”

“So they didn’t recruit older? What if someone showed talent or discovered something about the supernatural?”

“That was done on a case-by-case basis. You must understand that the revelation of the truth about the anomalous and related fields can lead to an existential crisis in a person. There has been numerous cases where older recruits just couldn’t handle it and ended up causing major disasters during their breakdowns or just committed straightforward suicide. It happened frequently enough that analysis revealed the trend and so only the relatively young are recruited.”

“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” He nodded, simply staring at the SCP and using his own senses to evaluate it.

“I’ll see if we can’t ask for a volunteer among the FTF who can go suitably disguised into the various universities in the state and scout in a similar manner. This will not be a quick process. We’ll be lucky to find a suitable recruit within a month or more and even then they might fail the screening process I’m going to design. We’d then be in the situation of asking you to hypnotize someone into silence, since we don’t have amnestics.”

“If we have to cross that bridge, I’ll do it,” I agreed. “Now what did you learn from Coil or about his plans?”

Henry walked forward on his knees before transitioning to a seated position on the bare concrete floor, so he could look me in the eye. “Where to begin?” he asked himself thoughtfully. “His plan was both simple and complex, the motivations as old as humanity but twisted by an outside party. Naturally, the end goal of his plan was to sit as a mastermind and ruler of the parahuman criminal underworld of Brockton Bay in his Coil persona, and to become director of PRT ENE. Through this he will also control and influence the city’s institutions. Therefore in the end, to sit as the ruler of a parahuman fiefdom carved right out of the US.”

My brain tried to imagine the process of doing that, what would need to be achieved, the obstacles that would be in Coil’s way. “How was he planning on following through with this?”

“There are many steps to the plan, it is almost supernaturally elegant, which makes me think that he perhaps had help from this Accord fellow in Boston. The first is to recruit parahuman catspaws that will act on the villain side of the equation. Who act as the striking power and muscle. Then recruit, by any means necessary, Thinkers of sufficient power, to know when and where to use those strikes. He already has a number of dossiers on parahumans in the Bay he was surveilling for such recruitment.

“As his hand picked villains began strikes against the gangs, he would be working behind the scenes to undermine the current PRT ENE director. His access to their systems, both legitimate and otherwise, would let him orchestrate their response like a conductor. He would steadily begin to heap losses on the heroes; not killing them, but defeating them with his catspaws at every turn. Against the villains, he could afford to act with a freer hand. Each gang would steadily be picked off or imprisoned until all that was left would be his handpicked villains, to which territorial concessions in the underworld of the city are made.

“As all this chaos is happening, combined with the seemingly hamstrung and ineffective heroes, it shifts the politics happening in PRT leadership. He also has a plan that will ensure the precarious medical condition of the current director will steadily worsen.”

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked curiously. My research into Director Emily Piggot was limited to what was publicly available and all of that was naturally curated by PR. She had been a PRT field agent who was injured in the line of duty, but was now clearly benched into an administrative role.

“She actually has no kidneys and has to use hemodialysis every night to survive.”

I winced at the mere thought of it, “Yeah, it wouldn’t take much to make that worse. I’m rather amazed she’s still considered to be fit enough for such an important role. Most would take medical retirement with such an injury.”

“Emily Piggot is not someone to take lightly, even Coil acknowledges this. She sufficiently demonstrated to the high level PRT leadership that her condition would not impede her job function. Her stubbornness and strength of will is well known throughout the PRT. It is also her greatest weakness.”

“Unable to adapt, inflexibility?” I guessed.

“Yes, something which Coil will use to lead her exactly where he wants her. She also treats the villains of the Bay with a far different hand than what you’ll find in other cities.”

“Really? What does she do differently?”

“The PRT elsewhere, generally recognizes that there is a measure of wisdom in at least keeping an unofficial line of communication open to the big villains in their cities. Piggot is different. There’s no communication unless an A or S-class situation is declared, otherwise it’s open season, no compromises. No talking to the ‘enemy’.”

“Militaristic mindset then.”

“Quite so. Now, notice I’ve been talking in generalities and not specifics. That is because this plan is so comprehensive, detailed, with contingencies upon contingencies that it took me nearly six hours to read through once using speed reading.”

“That’s impressive,” I said, trying to imagine it and failing.

“There are so many avenues of research and investigative paths it reveals, we’re going to spend years unraveling it. You should take a copy and read it for yourself, even give it to your father. We need more eyes on it, see if there’s things I might’ve missed. In any case, the main reason I called you down here urgently, is that the plan alludes to the conspiracy I’ve been seeing the signs of. It’s what led me to further question Coil in person and he’s helped a bit, but some of these questions he refuses to answer unless they come from you. I think he's genuinely afraid of this conspiracy.”

There was only one question I had, “Who are they?”

Henry’s stone face was thoughtful for a moment,  “For the sake of caution, I’m going to avoid saying the name for now. Coil said that this conspiracy has a Thinker in its employ of incredible power. Her power, when he described it, is such that she somehow knows exactly what to do, to defeat anyone or anything without exception.”

I knew better than to ask a stupid question at this moment, but the concept that such a parahuman power could even exist was quite baffling. “And it somehow has global reach?”

He shook his head, “No, not on its own. The conspiracy has a number of very powerful parahumans and normal humans working together. One or a number of them gives them the ability to create a non-euclidian matter bridge or ‘portal’ to anywhere on the planet at will. It is the primary method of travel for this Thinker, who is only known by the name ‘The Woman in the Suit’ or ‘the bogeyman’. There is no defense and the portal could open in this room if they chose to.”

“Okay, that’s horrific to think about, but what’s the connection between Coil and the conspiracy?”

Henry raised his hands, “Sorry, the plan is not easy to explain. You could say the conspiracy is the one who is actually enabling it by allowing it to happen. It is because of them that Coil even has his power.”

I had to pick up my jaw from the floor at the implications of that, “Are you saying they can even give powers?”

“Yes, it's given in a large vial and drunk - after which, you turn from normal human into a parahuman.”

The sheer idea of it, that there was a path to powers that didn’t involve life shattering trauma. It was hard to wrap my head around. On the surface it was plain ridiculous. It was like I had just discovered yet another memetic layer that had been put in my mind that I saw for the first time. My fingers started massaging my temples on their own as I worked through the myriad of thoughts and implications that unfolded.

Okay, somehow you’ve worked out how to give out powers, putting aside the mechanics of just how you could link an extra-dimensional power into an ingestible liquid, what would you do with it?

Well, the conspiracy clearly gave one to Coil… but at what price? Did they even do any research about what kind of man he was? Did morality even come into the picture?

If I had powers in a bottle, how much would I charge for it?

If it would produce another Legend, a man who had done so much and saved so many lives, I’d give it away for free. But how would I truly know that this buyer would become a hero that good?

I forcibly stopped my train of thought.

“Did Coil say how much he had to pay for it?” I asked.

“Yes, the conspiracy seems to be quite practical and adjusts the price based on the potential earnings the receiver could generate with their new power. In Coil’s case, since he could game the stock market undetectably, it was about two hundred million that he had to pay back over six years. However, despite settling accounts, the conspiracy will in the future require a favor from him, no possibility of refusal.”

“Not exactly cheap,” I muttered.

“No, we can infer that always asking for such a relatively significant amount of money from their potential clients acts as a form of filter. It ensures commitment and no chance for second thoughts or changing their minds later. Asking for a compulsory no-questions favor later is also worrying, it means that the conspiracy definitely has and wants influence in key positions of social, business and governmental circles. It’s a trick that the Foundation has applied as well.”

“Well, at least I know what my nighttime reading for the foreseeable future is gonna be now,” I said ruefully. “Henry, honest opinion?”

“Always Taylor, with caveats to protect you from cognitohazards,” he chuckled.

“You’ve read the whole plan, talked to Coil, done the research on their effects on Earth Bet, you look at it with an outside context. Do you think this conspiracy needs to stay or should we work to pull it out root and stem?”

“I can’t answer that, there is still too much unknown about them. There are still some questions that you need to ask Coil before we can even begin to form a cohesive opinion that’s not simply based on emotion. They are clearly working towards a greater goal, until we understand what that is, we can make no judgments.”

My shoulders slumped, I really wasn’t looking forward to this. “What do you need me to ask?”

Henry smiled at me and he flexed his large left hand, then as if by magic an A5 piece of printer paper appeared between his forefinger and middle finger.

“Was that ontokinesis?” I asked with fascination.

“No, just simple prestidigitation. Yet another consequence of being unable to sleep, yet you still need to keep the mind stimulated with variety.”

“Teach me, please?”

“You have quite enough on your plate for the moment, Taylor. One step at a time, but yes, eventually.”

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We had Coil imprisoned in the on-base bedroom he liked to use, though only after having gone through it with a fine-tooth comb and Henry had further moved out the luxury furnishings. All that was left now was the bed, a few chairs and a single bookcase that contained mostly novels and educational books that Coil himself had brought in. For the moment, his closet only contained the spare examples of his normal costume and underwear.

I snagged him into my mind web the instant I opened the door and could immediately see his utter relief that I had returned.

“Mistress,” he said reverently, he dropped his book and jumped to his feet.

“Thomas,” I greeted him with a strained smile. “I hear you’ve been behaving yourself somewhat.”

“Yes, as you commanded, mistress.”

“Yet you’ve clearly disobeyed as well. Did I not tell you to answer all of Director Hawkins’ questions?”

I stepped closer and carefully scrutinized his aura, beginning a slow walk around him. There was still a question about Coil to answer. Why did the idea of jumping his bones feel so repulsive?

“Mistress, if I answer, I will be killed and unable to serve you.”

“Yes, by the ‘Woman in the Suit’, protecting their secrets that you have.”

“Precisely, mistress. She can appear anywhere at any time with no warning. She doesn’t even have to step through the portal. She’ll simply raise the gun from the other side and shoot with perfect accuracy. The portal will close and pursuit or tracing it is impossible.”

“Truly?” I asked leadingly, wondering where he would go next.

“Yes, I have studied and researched the possibility of fighting back against them. It certainly is possible to frustrate them. They’re not truly omniscient, but once the Woman has you in her sights, that’s the end. No meaningful resistance possible. Anything you do will simply be accounted for, countered and even used to defeat you.”

“Did you perhaps not consider the notion that she can’t account for me? As you could not?” I said, reaching out to trace a finger along Coil’s shoulders, studying my own instinctual reaction and fighting through it.

“Mistress, in my own studies of parahumans and powers, I have concluded that there is a hierarchy to them; their scope, strength and potential reach. As Eidolon is to Trumps, Alexandra to Brutes, Legend to Strikers, the Woman is the Thinker of the world. It’s entirely possible her power will account for you, where mine failed.”

“There is only one way to find that out truly,” I said, coming to stand in front of him, tracing my finger slowly across his pecs and winding my way lower. I knew I was playing with fire, but there was no way to progress further. We’d be second guessing ourselves into eternity, wondering when the Woman in the Suit would swoop through a portal to screw things up or put a bullet in our brains. We had to know if our ontokinetic nature as SCPs would also be outside context for this bogeywoman. “Tell me something dangerous, Thomas. That they wouldn’t want you to say.”

His breathing sped up and his eyes widened with fear. “Mistress, please… don’t.”

I pressed down harder on his mind. “Thomas, what is in the vials?”

“I- I don’t know, mistress. Truly.” His entire aura rang with certainty but it was getting washed out with his fear. It was the truth as he knew it.

“When you drank it, describe it to me. What process did they go through?”

He gritted his teeth and hissed, trying mightily to resist and eventually said, “She comes with a portal, you’re escorted into an utterly white room with only a chair, into which you’re strapped down.”

“Why?” I asked softly, my hand now moving across his waist, the finger just barely missing his rapidly enlarging manhood. The tightness of his costume generally didn’t leave much to the imagination. He smelled as a man should, nothing was repulsive there.

“They make sure to warn you the formula isn’t 100% guaranteed. There can be rejection or side-effects, which could lead to deformities and in the worst case, death.”

My finger now traced the length of his manhood through the suit and he hissed with rapturous pleasure.

“So you lucked out then,” I said, fighting my own battle to not flinch with disgust and continue.

“Yes, if no rejection occurs, the formula also has near miraculous healing properties.”

“Fascinating, so powers and healing in a bottle, it sounds too good to be true.”

“It works. I used to have a number of allergies, mistress. All gone after drinking it.”

Again, he was speaking the truth.

“Okay, so they then open the portal, dump you right back where they got you.”

“Yes, with a final reminder of payment due.”

“And just how do you pay them? I doubt that this conspiracy is a publicly listed beneficiary you can just tell your bank to pay a million dollars to.”

“I was provided with a number of bank accounts to what were clearly shell companies, listed in the US, Canada, UK, Cayman Islands, Monaco.”

I nodded in understanding, “Someone clearly doesn’t want their eggs all in one basket. In a world of Endbringers, that’s wise. Have you tried to trace where the money goes?”

“Yes, mistress. Doesn’t work. One of their parahumans is known as the Numberman. He’s the relatively trusted financier of the parahuman underworld and he uses his power to obscure any attempts at forensic accounting. I also understand he’s the near undisputed king in cyberspace as well, since at the end of the day, it’s all about math at a fundamental level.”

That was quite interesting and really brought up another tangent, “Can he even beat Dragon?”

“I’ve never considered that question, mistress. Dragon is a great Tinker, but would she be able to defeat someone who’s specialty and power lies in, figuratively speaking, ‘manipulating the very ground she stands on’. I doubt it, mistress.”

I had an idea already of the answer to this one, but I wanted to lead Coil somewhat, “So these people finance villains?”

“Not just villains, mistress. Heroes owe their careers to them as well.”

I nodded, “How many in the Bay? You’ve studied all the players here.”

“Triumph,” he answered eagerly. “He’s due…”

“Stop,” I ordered immediately. I wasn’t about to jump down and join Coil’s flagrant violation of the unwritten rules. It was also another example of him trying to skirt around my orders. My forefinger flicked directly on his manhood and he cringed in pain. “Not who, how many?”

“I know of at least two in the Bay, mistress. There may be more.”

“So they can call favors from both sides. What do you know about their motivations? Why are they doing this?”

“Nothing definitive, mistress, I’m sorry to say. Only speculation.”

My hand returned to the slow caressing strokes and Coil seemed to shudder from pleasure. “Speculate for me then.”

“Despite asking for money, they don’t need it. The Numberman’s talents assures they’ll never run out. They have all the power in the world already. There is nothing beyond their influence with a Thinker such as the Woman in the Suit. You have to look at the ripples their actions generate to begin to get an idea. The fact that they supported me in my plan to take over Brockton, by assuring nothing external would interfere or change the status quo. Giving the plan the maximum chance of success.”

“Elaborate for me, define how they would stop external interference.”

“Piggot has requested reinforcement to equalize the numbers of heroes and villains in the city, they use their influence to make sure it doesn’t happen. They also ensure that Federal and State budgets for Brockton remain unchanged, meaning traditional law enforcement stays stagnant and is unable to grow.”

I was starting to get somewhat angry. Who wouldn’t when you heard that your city had been turned into a social experiment.

“So their goal is to reshape society to whatever twisted vision they have for us.”

“On the surface, for those who know, that seems to be the case, mistress. However, I’ve always thought that even this is merely tangential to their true goal and motivation.”

“That we’ll only get directly from the horse’s mouth, I suppose. Tell me more, anything else you know about them.”

“They are also involved somehow with the Case 53 phenomenon. Given their warnings to me when I was about to take the vial, I think Case 53s are those who experienced inhuman mutation from taking it. To avoid the fallout and keep their secrets safe, the unfortunate is given amnesia and released into the world.”

“If they have so much power, they could simply kill them and get away with it,” I pointed out.

“They could, mistress, but even in their failures they find a use for the 53s. With a Thinker of the Woman’s caliber, it would be easy. The fact that the PRT also has official support programs for the 53s, means they want them out there and thriving.”

“Last question, what do they call themselves?”

“Mistress, are you sure…”

“Yes, tell me,” I said softly, now enclosing my entire hand around his erect manhood through his costume. It took nearly everything I had to maintain composure at this point.

“Cauldron,” he said through a shudder of pleasure.

I looked around the room in anticipation and waited.

Twenty seconds later, nothing.

I let go of Coil and stood back, resolving to wait another minute.

A minute passed.

“Is she going to wait until I comment on it to make her grand entrance, I wonder?” My mouth couldn’t help but smirk at this point.

Still no portal.

“Well, thank you, Thomas. You’ve been most enlightening, as you were.”

I stepped through the door and locked it behind me.

Henry was waiting outside, leaning against the wall to his full height. “So it seems they cannot see us. I’d give it a week though, just in case.”

“That’s probably being slightly over-cautious, but given what we’re dealing with here, I agree,” I let out an explosive breath, then resisted the urge to run and get my right hand disinfected.

“Pardon my crassness here, Taylor, but I thought for a moment you were going to… feed, as it were.”

I shook my head, “Coil is still something of a mystery for me. I should have had no problems draining him dry, but he just… disgusts me. I didn’t have this issue with the fucking serial killers he had on the payroll. He just-”

Henry raised a finger to interrupt. “Let me stop you there. You’re an SCP. Think about your rules and nature. When else do you feel such disgust?”

I frowned, “The closest is when I try to eat normal food.”

“So clearly, your nature is telling you, you won’t be getting any benefit from him,” he said simply as if it explained everything.

“Something’s wrong with his semen then? But the Cauldron vial…”

“I’ve looked through Coil’s files, including his own medical records. He was naturally curious after taking the vial, what benefits he had gotten. That is how he discovered his cured allergies. However, he also discovered an unwanted side-effect. Despite how unaltered he seems on the outside, his vial wasn’t perfect. It altered his reproductive systems. He still produces semen, but they’re genetically flawed and the doctor he saw indicated that he would probably never father any child successfully.”

“Oh, so he’s literally producing food that’s off.”

I let out a sigh of relief at the maddening puzzle finally being resolved.

“Seems so. Now, I think you better get going, before your father gets on my case.”

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The rest of the day passed with a nice boring monotony, well, except for dad’s reaction to Cauldron and everything revealed about them. He decided to go down to the garage for a punching workout and I could hear the birds in the area around the house acting quite strangely and aggressively; flying in formations, fighting each other unnecessarily and relieving themselves en masse on a number of driveways around the street.

“I can offload my emotions into my minions,” he explained, then started to gulp down from a water bottle whilst covered in sweat that was staining his shirt. “They then start to act on the input as best they can. I did not tell them to poop over driveways.” He was clearly rather embarrassed though.

“Any more weirdness like that and the neighbors are gonna start calling the PRT, dad,” I chuckled with laughter.

“I’ll try to limit the offloading to critters that are below ground and not generally seen,” he chucked the bottle to the side and began throwing punches again. “Are you going out tonight?”

“Yes, I have an appointment to keep, young guy I met at the golf course. Gave my word I’d find him in the Red Light.”

“We’re getting close to Endbringer time,” he reminded me.

“Have you thought about your own response when the time comes?” I asked with a worry twisting my gut. The thought that dad would go out there to meet the likes of those monsters was hard to stomach. Hypocrite, thy name is me.

“About the only thing I can do is using my minions to scout, search and rescue,” he grunted as he threw a three strike combo. “Doubt those things would even notice if a plague of critters swarmed them.”

There were times I appreciated Henry’s thoroughness, but not in this case. Even though there was no footage of how those monsters fought and their level of durability, the eyewitness accounts painted enough of a picture, though they were naturally prone to be exaggerated.

“I need to really find out if I can mist with people, then I can at least get the injured out of harm’s way.”

That was about the only relatively immediate way I could see myself contributing to an Endbringer fight.

Dad brought the punching bag to a halt and nodded to me with approval, “Good idea, not that I want to see you within a hundred miles of an Endbringer. Yes, yes, I won’t even try to stop you when you make that decision.”

Endbringers it seemed were on everyone’s mind. The three month cycle was common knowledge at this point and the streets in general were experiencing a distinct lull of activity. That was not true of the Red Light though and it was the busiest I’d ever seen it so far, with customer cars driving through slowly every few minutes or so.

“Not surprising when you think of human nature, Tay,” Del said, whipping her newly styled red hair into a proper shape. My working girl colleague had really gone all out in terms of making herself extra spicy and attractive for the night. I truly felt like a Plain Jane standing next to her. “Sure the families will want to stay at home and together, but the loners and bachelors are thinking, ‘This might be my last night, might as well go out with a bang if it happens.’”

“Yeah, well, sorry I haven’t been around lately, cape business has been hectic.”

She waved me off, “I saw you were involved in that Tinker train thing, so no biggy.”

“Have things been okay around here?”

“Smooth sailing, Tay. No gang, pimp or law trouble. Worst thing we got was a drunk customer who was so out of it, he smelt like a brewery. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but he was alone, so we called the cops on him. Drunk driving is not something the girls find amusing. We’ve lost people in the past thanks to that kind of thing. Drunk assholes can’t judge when to break or turn wrong…” Del clapped her hands, her face grim, “Splat.”

“I’ve lost close family that way,” I swallowed down my emotions at the thought. “Drunk driver combined with the fact my mom was distracted by her phone whilst driving.”

“That’s shit, Tay. Sorry to hear. So you know why we hate that around here.”

Not exactly a happy conversation to continue the night with. It wasn’t long though until I spotted a possible candidate for my appointment. A blue Ford pickup truck had turned the corner and was slowly cruising through the street.

Del noticed my interest. “Bit of a gamble, those ones. Make sure he has the cash before you get started.”

I nodded, “Yeah, might be a potential client I met earlier. See ya, stay safe.”

“You too, Tay.”

I misted and invisibly zipped forward, then easily turned around to keep pace with the pickup. I poked my head through the roof and there he was.

Mr S. Miller, the young ‘landscape engineer’ from the golf estate where Uber and Leet lived. The bleach blonde hair and blue eyes were unmistakable and he had dressed rather trendy, as if he was going out to a nightclub; fancy black jeans, designer white shirt and a denim jacket - the kind you were never meant to button up. His hair was neatly done up and gelled into a wavy pattern. The cologne I smelt on him just added to the whole package, neatly complementing his natural male smell.

All in all, he ticked all the boxes and pushed the right buttons so far.

I pulled him in my mind web and reappeared in the passenger seat.

“Hey Miller, slow down and park.”

“Yes, mistress,” he said softly, turning the steering wheel. The moment we were stationary I pushed him out.

He blinked for a moment, and stared at me with astonishment, “Uh, Escort? What…” he gulped nervously, his aura suddenly bursting with shyness. “What was that?”

“Just a bit of hypnotism so you don’t cause an accident when I suddenly appear right next to you.”

“Oh, that makes sense I suppose,” he rubbed his hands nervously on the steering wheel. “You could’ve just flagged me down though.”

“You’re not the only blue pickup in the city.”

“True, should’ve just given you my license number at least.”

I giggled and sat up on my legs to bring my left arm into range, resting it behind his head. His eyes naturally zoomed on my slightly jiggling breasts before he hurriedly looked back up into my face. I brought my right hand to his face and started to caress his chin and jaw.

“Are we going to talk about should’ve, could’ve and would’ve at a moment like this?”

“No,” he coughed uncomfortably.

Tension was flowing through him like crazy, any tighter and I was afraid he was going to sprain a muscle in his back.

“Just relax,” I whispered soothingly, pulling on his mind just enough but not completely into the center. “This isn’t complicated at all, Miller. What’s your first name?”

He closed his eyes and began relaxing a bit, beginning to enjoy the sensation of my caresses on his face, “Silas.”

“Well, Silas Miller, don’t worry, I’ll be your guide in losing your virginity.”

His eyes snapped open and a bit of panic emerged before I pulled him completely into the web.

“How do you know that, mistress?”

“That’s a secret, shhhhh,” I put a finger on his lip, before my right hand slowly caressed its way down his chest and I idly started to explore the mechanics of what it would take to free his manhood. He had a belt and the jeans zipper was quite strong. I could also see his erection already starting to tent and strain the hard material.

He was starting to breathe faster as his own excitement was building, but I pushed him out of the mind web. I wanted his first time to be as normal as possible. His fear returned with a vengeance.

“Why… are you doing that?” he asked breathlessly.

“You fear not measuring up or performing to some ridiculous standard. I’m trying to alleviate that. Do you really think that you’re going to be some Casanova of sex right out of the gate, Silas?”

He bit his lip and looked down, feeling stupid and ashamed. “No,” he mumbled.

“Sex is just like any human activity, in the beginning we fumble, stumble, it's awkward and it’s not some steamy story of perfection. Accept that, accept that this is a journey, and most importantly, just for now…” I pushed my mouth to his ear, “Relax.”

That finally seemed to get through and I saw him make the decision through his emotions as he finally let go, his arms and body relaxing.

I began lightly pecking and kissing his ear and neck, whilst my right hand undid his belt buckle.

When I unzipped his jeans, he almost sagged in relief as his manhood was now only straining against his underwear.

He thankfully had some foresight and planning in his choice of undies, as it was a ‘folded’ type, which allowed for a guy to simply pull aside a fabric panel and work their length through, without having to pull down the entire undy.

This meant I didn’t have to ask him to lift his butt at all or manhandle him.

With a deft flick of my wrist on the flap, his manhood emerged and its heavenly scent hit my nose and brain.

It was a struggle to not just skip straight to blowjob, but I managed, wrapping my hand gently around his length and beginning to caress it all over, carefully avoiding the extremely sensitive glans area.

Despite my precautions I could tell he was already rapidly building to an orgasm just from the situation he was in and little stimulation he was receiving.

I slowed my hand down considerably and worked with the lightest of touches I could, yet it was clear this was a battle that was not going to be won.

His eyes rolled and he hissed in desperation, talking to his own treacherous body, “Ah c’mon!”

My upper body practically teleported down and my mouth enveloped his manhood just in time before his seed came bursting out in a few thick spurts.

I took the opportunity to lubricate him while I was down there before sucking a bit and swallowing the nourishing nectar of his semen.

The act began to get my own arousal to step up a few gears as well and wetness began trickling on my inner thighs.

“Fuck, sorry… sorry,” he whispered frantically, as he twitched with the aftershocks of his orgasm

I swallowed, sat up and waggled an admonishing finger, “Relax. Don’t beat yourself up.”

He could only nod and try his best to comply.

I re-established a link to him, managing his refractory period, including massaging any areas where tension threatened to return, especially around his neck and shoulders.

Just a few minutes later, he was hard again.

I misted to reappear on him, straddling his lap.

His eyes were immediately on my breasts, his hands also wanted to instinctually grab and cup them, but he stopped himself.

My own hands grabbed him by the wrists and I guided them right back, until his palms were under my breasts.

“Don’t fight your instincts, especially if you’re sure they won’t hurt and your partner won’t object, which I most certainly will not.”

He nodded and he properly cupped my breasts to begin tentatively playing and massaging them.

The sensations were quite nice and he eventually got the hang of using just the right amount of pressure and even started playing with my nipples.

I could sense he was building up again, but slightly less rapidly this time.

“Relax, relax, reeelllaaax into it,” I almost chanted softly into his ear.

“Yes… mistress.”

I brought my hand down, lightly grabbing his manhood to guide it in as I relaxed my legs.

We both groaned and hissed with pleasure at the joining.

We rode the sensation and I just stayed absolutely still for a while. Just to let him get used to it.

Then I gently guided his hands away from my chest to move his arms around my back. I sat forward and pressed my chest to his face.

He began kissing my breasts rather awkwardly at first, but soon found a rhythm where he would journey with his lips around my nipples, before giving them a brief lick and suck, before moving to the other breast.

I then gave him a slow ride, gripping his manhood with my inner vaginal muscles and slowly pushing up and down.

It was enough to distract him completely from delivering attention on my breasts and he diverted all his attention to his brinkmanship. His world narrowed until all that was left was the feeling and his struggle to make it last as long as possible.

I lifted myself up, riding his length until he almost popped out of my folds, but pushed down just before it could happen.

My own pleasure and the journey to orgasm was also steadily moving along. The temptation to just ride him hard to fulfillment was also building in me.

I changed technique at this point, keeping him in deep whilst simply twirling and twisting my hips.

It created pleasure at a slightly slower rate for me at least, but poor Silas was sent hurtling forwards on his journey.

He hissed and gritted his teeth in the effort to resist.

Unfortunately, to no avail.

“Uh, shhhit,” he gasped as he became a starburst of energy to my sight and orgasmed in me. His instincts finally overriding his caution - he grabbed me in a hard hug and thrusted up rapidly, desperately pushing further to spill his seed deeper.

I let him continue. The feeling of the act and the energy increase in me sent a further challenge to my own control. As it was, I had already started a two way channel of energy, that would keep him hard and was starting to act as a net drain on him. The pleasure built and built, I kept rolling my hips and riding.

Silas, for his part, just enjoyed the continuing sensation, forgetting about the weirdness of having no pause and a dick that stayed hard. He even grabbed me by the butt with both hands to facilitate my efforts.

My pleasure broke through my control and my voice began to release a veritable aria of moaning gasps.

Finally, I crossed the finish line and reached the end. The world turned into an infinite landscape that just consisted of my own pleasure and joy as I orgasmed, barely even cognizant of the physical aspects of the event.

My only thought was that I wanted it to never end.

Of course, it had to end.

I opened my eyes and smiled into Silas’s adoring blue orbs.

I decided to reward him with a deep, long kiss and in this respect it seemed he had some good experience.

Our tongue duel lasted quite a bit, and he even started to play with my chest again.

His decreasing energy levels eventually got through to me - I had failed to moderate it properly so I misted off him to reappear on the passenger seat.

“Awww,” he complained, wiping his mouth a bit to clear off a bit of saliva residue.

“Sorry, but there’s a long night ahead and there are other customers,” I demurred, getting my breath back and working to calm down.

He nodded in understanding, then began working on pushing his manhood back in and closing things up, “Check the glove box.”

Inside was a roll of five hundred dollars. I took the 300 I had agreed upon and was about to give him another thank you kiss…

Well, at least the Void had waited until we were done.

The ominous feeling washed over me and the infinite multiverse yawned open. My true sight reflexively closed in self-defense and I knew at that moment, I should never try to force the issue, if I wanted to keep my own sanity.

“Uh, Escort, what’s wrong?”

Silas frowned at my frightened expression, until he was distracted by a loud thump coming from the back of his pickup.

We both whirled around to look through the cab’s rear windows.

Standing there, slightly crouched in the light of the overhead streetlamps, was a short statured woman wearing a very familiar bright orange jumpsuit. Her long black hair trailed around her head wildly, as if she didn’t take much care for it. Her dark brown eyes were barely recognizable as such in the light, looking more like the utter darkness of a shadow on the moon. Her chocolate brown skin had also seen better days, and her nose was steadily trickling blood down her lip.

I just needed one look to know that she was a full blown SCP.

Her aura was swirling with chaotic patterns and affecting the reality around her like many millions of fingers that clawed at the very fabric of the universe.

Her eyes were wild, frantic, her emotions primal, firmly in the instinctual response of flight. She looked around, her head whipping this way and that, not even seeing that Silas and I were in the cab ahead of her.

She took one step onto the edge of the truck’s bodywork, jumped and bolted away.

I grabbed ‘15, belatedly realizing I had given the thing another period of being unobserved during the lovemaking. I fished my phone out and began dialing. “Sorry, Silas, cape stuff. Thanks and stay safe, eh? Do come again if you wish.”

“Yes, mistress… I mean, yes Escort,” he nodded with his expression flipping between confusion and happiness on his features.

I misted briefly to stand outside the truck and eyed the retreating form of the woman. She wasn’t a speedster at all and in fact seemed to be rather out of breath already.

The line picked up, “Escort?” Henry asked.

“Void event, sentient SCP, woman, wearing the jumpsuit of a D-class I think.”

“Then she’s not D-class, are you or anyone else in immediate danger?”

“No, she’s booking it, but I can keep up with her easily.”

“You’re in the Red Light?”

“Yes.”

“I’m scrambling an FTF team as backup just in case. Keep her under observation, until you figure out her powers. Do not approach until your backup arrives.”

“I know the procedures Henry.”

“Just making sure. Remember, there’s no guarantee that you’re stronger than her. That sentient SCP is also a frightened person, who was most likely in Foundation containment. She will not want to go back to anything resembling it.”

“Got it, Henry, be seeing you soon then.”

I hung up, stowed the phone and misted into the sky, just as the woman turned around the distant street corner.

Well, this will hopefully not be an interesting challenge, I thought.

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SCPs featured:

No new SCPs are explicitly mentioned.

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A/N: Hmmm, what could this woman be, what can she do. If you have any ideas on a cape name for Danny, be sure to comment. Have a good weekend.

The Force Wills - Chapter 61

The door of my quarters aboard the Resolute closed.

Finally assured of privacy, I practically fell back against it and struggled in the fight to remain awake for just a little longer.

The ship had finally arrived in high orbit roughly half a day after Astrakane had been liberated, but it felt like an eternity. The aftermath of that town’s liberation was just one problem after another and dealing with everyone clamoring for just ‘a moment’ of Anakin or my own time to help with their own issues had been exhausting.

At first, there was no problem, but then at hyperspeed, word had spread and then I felt like I was inundated with people asking for solutions or help from the all-knowing Jedi. It wasn’t long before I started to lose patience with it. Even Astrakane’s mayor had long since shut himself in his house and barred anyone from entering.

‘Solve your own fucking problems!’ I had wanted to scream into the face of a store owner whose shop had been badly damaged by the fighting. Instead, I simply listened and in the most polite manner possible indicated that rebuilding and repair was not in the badly overstretched GAR’s mandate, nor was it even equipped to do that. That there was not an Engineering division or some reconstruction group who did that job was by design.

Then there was the other big problem; the Mimbanese Liberation Army.

For all that I had helped train and get it off the ground, managing and advising Iasento and Mayor Brolet, who were the de facto senior ‘Generals’ of the MLA, was also a gigantic pain in my ass. We had to start actually turning away all the volunteers we were getting, because it threatened to utterly denude both towns of able-bodied people. Most of which were actually needed to help with reconstruction or keep the towns from crippling themselves economically - a situation which was already on a knife’s edge.

One of the first things I had ordered the 501st to bring down, besides themselves and their war gear, was food from the ship’s long term stores. The last thing we needed to deal with right now was rioting townsfolk and starvation, when the food supplies began to run down due to the disrupted off-world supply chains. The CIS droids had targeted local food production as one of the first things they did after they had surprised everyone with their invasion.

The local farmers, those who were still alive at least, also only had bad news. By the nature of Mimban’s climate, the flora and fauna, these farms weren’t large and at best, provided for only forty percent of the food requirements. The rest was off-world imports, which the mining companies mostly organized for the population. A number of food-bearing freighters were stuck in orbit and convincing the captains to not only stay, but also land and actually deliver was another headache on my list of ‘things to do’.

I lifted myself off the door, triggered my armor to open up and stepped out of it with a wince as my own aroma hit me.

“M8, treat yourself to a nice long clean at the droid works,” I said blearily, continuing to strip on my way to the shower.

“At once, mistress,” the armor replied, closing herself up and turning to exit my quarters.

“Wait,” I ordered and chucked the helmet. M8 walking around Resolute like a bizarre headless horseman expy was weirdness that I didn’t want to expose the crew to. The armor caught the helmet and easily attached it with a simple twist. “Keep your internal lighting on as well, no imitating that I’m in there.”

“Aww, mistress, it’s so fun watching everyone jump to attention.”

“That’s fine when I have to pretend to be somewhere else, not now. Off you go.”

“Yes, mistress.”

I could practically hear the pout in that tone.

I waited until M8 had closed the door before stripping off completely and jumping into the shower, slamming the button which would start it with a bit more force than truly necessary.

The first two minutes of just holding my head under that warm water was truly a balm and my bed beckoned me with its embrace. Again, I had to fight it off and actually get down to the chore of cleaning properly.

Of course, I had barely done a minute of this when my comlink decided to chirp for attention.

I wanted a punching bag at that moment. Resisting the stupid urge to punch my shower wall, I reached out with the Force and the small device came soaring across my quarters to land right in my palm. I adjusted it to audio-only mode and tapped the link to open.

The head of steam I wanted to unleash on the unlucky caller died in my throat when I perceived who was calling. Of all the times and places to make a first impression…

“Padawan Tano,”  said Jedi Master-General Laan Tik in greeting.

The kajain’sa’Nikto was standing on the bridge of his flagship Venator, the Horizon, the clone naval crew in full swing as mobilization operations were underway, launching the 224th Division onto the planet to begin combat.

It was hard not to wince somewhat at his physical appearance, though all Nikto and their three subspecies had horned faces of some type. The general was of the ‘Red Nikto’ subspecies and had the extra special fate to possess the purple skin - which was a rare mutation. Especially because the Red Nikto subspecies came into being because they had adapted to survive in the desert regions of their homeworld.

His purple skin would’ve stood out like a sore thumb on the Wannschok, or ‘Endless Wastes’ of Kintan. No natural camouflage without using clothes to completely cover himself would be possible.

To make the visage of a kajain’sa’Nikto even worse; they seemingly had no nose - a result of it being covered by a flap of movable skin to allow breathing even in the worst of sandstorms. Then there were two natural breathing tubes on either side of the neck, which could also be covered similarly - another perfect adaptation to recover the air moisture from a kajain’sa’Nikto’s exhalations.

As the master was currently standing on a perfectly air conditioned starship bridge, there was no need for him to cover those tubes and it left me looking at a species that had every physical feature that pushed old instinctual buttons of revulsion, disgust and fear.

I slapped the button to switch the shower off. “Master Tik.”

“You can continue your ablutions, padawan. The comlink can hear you perfectly fine.”

I sensed his intent and inwardly groaned. I had studied the master’s record and everything freely available about him, including some stuff not so freely available - that I got through Anakin’s Knight level clearance. I had hoped it was just hyperbole or that I was just reading too much between the lines.

By all rights, I should switch on my shower and go along with his seemingly open invitation, but I knew it for what it was - this was a test.

Master Laan Tik was a straight laced, hyper-orthodox Jedi.

The kind of Jedi who was seemingly humble but you gave them just a few of the right pokes and it revealed the arrogance frothing beneath the surface. The Jedi who believed that their interpretation of the Force was the only valid one and everything else heresy.

I fortified myself with no outward physical tells, drawing energy from the Force. “No, that’s all right, master. What can I do for you?”

From one point of view, I had passed his test, from another I had just shown him my belly and who was top dog. There was little else I could do. He was now theater commander, the senior Jedi in charge of the entire system.

“I would like your personal report and opinion of the situation down on Mimban. Please come to the Horizon as soon as possible. I’d rather hear this face to face from someone who was on the ground this last week, instead of just trying to glean this from military reports.”

I was rather astonished at the subtext I was able to read. Either my perceptions had taken a jump recently or perhaps my training from Kina Ha was beginning to pay further dividend. A layman would’ve just taken the master’s words at face value, even some Jedi as well. The master had said nothing in any obvious tone to betray his true feelings, but I was able to read a lot more, perhaps because I was also using the comlink as a focus for Farsight? How you spoke when you thought no one of consequence was looking at you was also perhaps at play. Then again, shouldn’t Master Tik know as well of my abilities to work the Force through a comlink? He wasn’t on the Jedi Council, but he should’ve had access to my own personal file.

There was so much to unpack…

“Very well, master. I will come over in a shuttle.”

“Thank you.”

The link was cut.

I stared at the small device in my hand for a long moment, before throwing it out to land on my work desk, then slapped the button to continue my shower.

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“Sorry for pulling you away from the Fang simulator, Soggy.”

Clone Pilot 32234, callsign ‘Soggy’, shook his head as he pre-flighted the shuttle, “No problem, commander. It was either that or boring CAPs watching Shadow Squadron bomb clankers. Ferrying you is a nice relaxing change of pace.”

I sat down in the back of the shuttle with a datapad carrying everything I had researched on Master Tik, to review and prepare myself. I couldn’t do that if I was worrying about flying myself to a high orbital rendezvous with another Venator.  “Well, thank you anyway.”

It was a pity that my own Wraith Squadron wasn’t truly suited to the general theater conditions of Mimban, since the pilots trained and were geared for anti-fighter and capship work. Something the Z-95s were poorly equipped for at the moment. It also didn’t help if we went through the effort of switching to anti-ground loadouts, yet suddenly had to fight a space battle. Therefore, I just had to accept that Wraith would be absent from the killboards unless the CIS managed to smuggle Vulture or Hyena droids to the party.

The shuttle began humming as its engines and repulsors came to life and I turned my attention to Master Tik’s war record thus far with the 224th.

On the surface, it was quite exemplary, with only a handful of defeats that came as a result of circumstances beyond his control. The Battle of Malastare, for example. A late reinforcement, forcing a retreat, the initiative never regained and the CIS just kept going, steamrolling over any defenses the GAR could put in its way. The situation in space was even more dire and the 224th had to be evacuated completely, ceding all planetary control.

His victories were generally straightforward affairs and he really seemed to know how to use armored forces well. He seemed to know how to put the 224th right at the correct spot where the enemy was the weakest and flatten them under the armored feet and guns of AT-TEs. The one thing curiously absent from the reports was the ‘butcher’s bill’ - casualties, fatalities, the number of armored vehicles lost. I had to go digging into records from Kamino and do a cross-reference search to get an idea of how much ‘salvage’ they had picked up in the wake of the victories.

I couldn’t get a truly accurate result, but it was high enough to leave a sour taste in my mouth. It was war, casualties and deaths happened, but what I was seeing here was someone who spent the lives under his command with a near callous disregard. Then again, it was easy to make this judgment now, I hadn’t been there. Would I have spent the lives of the 501st to fulfill the objective and achieve victory? Of course, I have done that many times, but not with this kind of butcher’s bill coming due.

My fingers swiped on the pad, shutting it down.

The shuttle was already outside the Resolute, executing a series of accelerations and decelerations to match the relatively eccentric high orbit of the Horizon.

That he had requested me and not Anakin to deliver this report also spoke to something deeper. What that was, I could only speculate at the moment. It wasn’t as if Anakin was unavailable. He was still technically on assignment to the MLA and now in command of the 501st on the ground as they consolidated the ‘beachhead’ of the area around Miststar and Astrakane. I could’ve still been down there, but Anakin wanted me up on the Resolute to organize the air and bombing campaign. He also wanted me to take the opportunity to rest and get the neural shunt taken out. My montrals were perfectly fine now and it’d be nice to use them again.

Now my sleep had been disrupted, I was grumpy, I still had the shunt and now I was on my way to speak to the newly arrived Jedi theater commander, who I had a proper bad feeling about.

The Horizon slowly grew in the forward viewport of the shuttle cockpit, until it totally filled the forward view.

“Uh, commander,” Soggy said and I felt his clear confusion. “I’m getting instructions from the Horizon’s landing controller. They’re telling me to land in Bay 1.”

I frowned in honest confusion for a moment - Bay 1 on a Venator was literally the most forward landing bay in the spine of the ship, practically in the nose.

“What’s the traffic like?”

He keyed up a holo showing the scan readout for ships around the Horizon and it somewhat answered the question. The dorsal doors that ran for almost 570 meters along the forward length of the ship were mostly closed as per regulation. Only the doors that were needed were open to space. Bay 13, the most rearward, was open, Bay 12 and now Bay 1 was open as well. Ships were mostly just leaving the first two, but Bay 1 had no activity.

Another test from Master Tik?

Landing me in the furthest point possible from the bridge, making me walk more than a kilometer of corridors, navigate a bunch of turbolifts before finally getting to him.

What was the point?

Testing my patience and endurance?

I wasn’t his padawan.

Sure, Anakin didn’t have exclusivity in training me, but reaching out to another master was always the prerogative of the padawan, usually in conjunction with your ‘official’ master. It was generally the acknowledgement that everyone had unique talents and predisposition for certain aspects of the Force, so you could seek out training if needed.

“Go to Bay 1, Soggy, as instructed. We can’t exactly disobey landing regs, now can we?”

“Yes, commander.”

I quickly powered up my datapad again and began a remote search in the Jedi archives, asking a quick question.

Did Master Laan Tik ever have a padawan?

The shuttle touched down by the time I had my answer.

No. In three decades as a Jedi Master he hadn’t even put his name down on the list for consideration.

The shuttle’s ramp opened and I exited onto the mostly empty Bay 1. There were a couple of fighters landed here, mostly a few Y-Wings and a Z-95, but they were all in a clearly non-flyable state and being worked on by crews.

Bay 1 was usually the place on a Venator that the captains and commanders sent their ‘problems’ - whether they be personnel related or technical. That one fighter that just kept breaking down, off to Bay 1 it went. The rare misfit clone that while physically perfect, just didn’t gel behaviorally or in temperament despite all the conditioning - to Bay 1 he went.

That didn’t happen on the Resolute, but Bay 1 was still seen as a poodoo assignment, simply because it was so far from the crew quarters. It then just naturally became a place associated with either bad luck or that I had somehow found something to dislike in whoever I assigned there. No matter how much I said otherwise.

So naturally, I developed a dislike for the bloody place, even though it didn’t deserve it. I was almost tempted to use a bit of Force buffed running to make this stupid journey to the bridge shorter.

I grit my teeth at the mindgame I suddenly found myself in, thanks to Master Tik.

No… I would not get angry. I understood it, looked at its path and let it pass through me.

My feet carried me through the main bulkhead doors of the bay and into the first corridor.

Very well, Master Tik. I will play your frakking game and then beat you over the head with it.

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When I walked onto the bridge of the Horizon - forty minutes later I had come to the conclusion that I had run into the first Jedi I could point to and truly state with absolute firm conviction, ‘He’s an asshole!’

In any well run ship, a journey from fore to aft, should take at most less than ten minutes. In an era of grav turbolifts with inertial dampers on ships, there was no reason for a journey inside a ship to take this long. It was even a primary design consideration when beginning to plan any large spacefaring craft that was meant to be a warship.

Yet very conveniently the turbolifts in the port quarter of the ship were ‘down for maintenance’.

Then the turbolifts that I did get in started to send me in wrong directions. The reaction of the naval clones that just happened to be with me in the lift, were genuinely startled and many immediately got on the comlink to report the problems to engineering.

Was this Master Tik as well?

I could find the answer with Prescience, but honestly, it wasn’t worth it. If it was a test, it was a test. A bloody petty one and one which I did not know the motivation behind. If he wanted to test my patience he'd have to try much harder than this.

My combat booted feet came to a stop a respectful distance behind the master. He wore the typical Jedi light brown tunic, pants, robes and boots, not even a hint of armor or a practical consideration that he regularly fought in a galactic war. Even my current Hapan outfit at least had armored greaves and vambraces.

His green eyes were pensive as he stared out the front viewports of the bridge, but otherwise he was visibly serene and even in the Force, it was like I was looking at a mirrored lake.

He didn’t make a single sign of acknowledging me, even in the Force. He might as well have been in a meditation trance.

It seemed the test was continuing.

I fell into an at rest stance, folding my hands behind my back and waited.

He asked for me, he wanted my knowledge, he would be the one to speak first.

Internally, I acknowledged that the potential was there that we could be standing here for hours, he was a Jedi Master, after all.

My attention partially journeyed down the bond with Anakin to check on him. Still hard busy organizing the 501st alongside Rex and getting the LAAT gunships sorted out. The rainforest was going to make them crucial even more so than usual for mobility. Contact had also been made with another tribe of Mimbanese whose general territory the main thrust of the advance would go over. Iasento and the Zhamor were on good terms with them, so it wasn’t a hard sell to get them on board the MLA.

“Snips, I thought you were going to get some rest,” Anakin thought sternly at me.

“I was, until Master Tik called me over to the Horizon to debrief him on the situation on the planet.”

“What? Oh, but… why do I sense something off about that?”

“Good perceptions, master,” I praised, then proceeded to give him a brief burst of my recent memories.

“Sithspit! I don’t know much about him, but this is… crazy. He should know that you don’t give uninvited training or testing to a padawan that already has a master!”

“Well, something has clearly given him cause to do otherwise. It’s rather ironic, because everything I see and read about him tells me he’s a traditional Jedi.”

“I know what your answer will be, but I have to ask…”

“No master, you don’t need to interrupt your work just to come save me from the Jedi who has his panties in a bunch and a rod shoved up his ass. Unless he starts swinging his lightsaber around, I can handle him.”

“If he does, you tell me and fight with everything you have, understood? After all, Dooku turned traitor.”

I knew he was only half-joking. That we hadn’t seen a Jedi fall to the Dark Side yet due to the pressures of the war was a bloody miracle - but it was only a matter of time. It was quite vague due to how far in the future it was, but Prescience had already shown me a number of dark presences that would emerge from within the ranks of the Jedi, who would either rebel going outright mad or join Dooku. That this was in addition to ones from my past life memories was quite worrying.

“I will, master. Hopefully I can soon get to the bottom of this at some point.”

“Good, the instant you’re done with him, you get back to Resolute and sleep. Don’t make me come up there and tuck you in.”

“I will, master.”

In the end, it took a further two hours, nineteen minutes and fifty five seconds for Master Laan Tik to finally speak. He simply seemed to come out of his half-meditation and nodded at me.

“Padawan.”

“Master Tik.”

“I must admit you surprise me, given all I’ve heard.”

I was not about to engage him and fall into the next trap he set. He wanted to goad me into asking the question ‘From where?’ or to dismiss his sources as ‘inaccurate’. Both roads would lead to places that were of his design.

“Does master wish to hear about the tactical situation on Mimban?” I asked politely, firmly keeping my cool and not playing the game at all.

He didn’t react outwardly, but I definitely sensed I had made an inroad into his own composure with that one. The calm lake of his mind and presence in the Force, rippled as if I had thrown in a stone.