Fate Denied: A Star Wars SI

[Saphrith]

Aboard the Resolution over Dac, 31BBY.

"A good defense across the board, save Tion," Admiral Hadrim Nezar grunts, poring over the holographic starmap with a grim smile. The Zabrak admiral hums to himself and pokes a few points, zooming in on them.

"Hard to prepare for two Azalus dreadnaughts and their escorts locking you in place while the Katana fleet hammers your flanks. No hard wonder they had to retreat, even if they'd won the losses would've been disastrous," Commodore Maeve'synda says. I listen quietly, not sure enough about how this works to really offer my opinion. From what I've heard, the Katana fleet was tearing through the support corvettes and frigates to allow gaps for Hutt bombers to slip through, and every cruiser that turned its guns toward them was one not focusing on the heavier Hutt vessels.

"Only losing the stations and a score of ships was a victory in my books even if the Hutts now have the Tion Hegemony open to them," Commodore Abrig adds with a shrug. Hadrim exhales with a huff of annoyance.

"Their contributions to a massed exchange aside, they're currently harrying the outer Tion systems and dragging the defenders on an agonizingly pointless game of tag. A game we can't afford to play when there's a bigger threat preparing to move in," Hadrim continues. He changes the hologram to Dac.

"We held here well enough, moderate damage to the shipyards but far less than they were hoping for. They thought they could cripple Dac's production lines, but within a year we'll have these yards back at full capacity and producing new warships." Hadrim smirks.

"I don't like that we misread their attack plans to such a degree. It says something bad about our intelligence services or something good about theirs. Both choices suck," I reply. Maeve'synda snorts.

"I call it the Admiralty Board's problem, the Hutts are bloated bastards, but they're not that stupid. They had to know we'd laid down killzones at Ryloth. I'm not surprised they decided to fuck off to where we were the weakest," Maeve replies airily.

"I still think we could've given them some more wounds before we left," Abrig adds, then waves dismissively as if to say 'what can you do'. I'm not sure I'd be so blaise considering the Centrality, Senex-Juvex, and other allied states haven't made their moves yet. But what do I know?

"Scored a good hit on one of their flagships at least, your Aces pulled off a good maneuver, Master Sarat," Admiral Hadrim mutters, then shakes his head slowly. She did do pretty good, and it's actually given me an idea for my Battle Meditation in the future. We'll have to see how that plays out.

"Ryloth got out untouched more or less, could be a good avenue to strike into Hutt Space or a ploy to lure them out," I comment. Hadrim shakes his head.

"Not for us to say really, could be either. The Hutts have a strong military force, mercenaries aside, they'll keep a strong defensive line at home. Twenty-five thousand years to secure their hold, I don't want to imagine what odds and ends they'll have waiting for us. Better to bleed them until they're weak first," Hadrim answers.

"Meaning what for us, right now?" I ask. The force that invaded Dac's retreated back to Hutt space, whether to regroup and attack again or change their plan. We hurt them, but not nearly as definitively as I'd like.

"Well, for the moment, we're waiting for orders from Fleet Admiral Baraka, but if I had to hazard a guess we're going to Tion. The Hutts have too much strength there and their allied regions haven't even committed yet." Hadrim shrugs as if he doesn't care, but I can feel the intensity burning inside him.

"Do you think they'll have us go after the Katana Fleet?" I ask, and he shrugs.

"Might be, destroy it or reclaim it, depending on which is easier. I don't expect fighting the Katana fleet will be the problem, catching it on the other hand, will be the challenge. We don't really have any interdictors effective enough to lock them in place unless we can position ourselves there in advance," Hadrim answers, and strokes his chin contemplatively.

"Were I a Hutt Commander, I might've used the Katana Fleet's Judicial IFFs to confuse local defense ships and get close enough to barrage them point blank. But I suspect they don't want to risk turning the Republic's ire against them, such an act could easily be misconstrued as the Hutts trying to get the Rim Alliance to attack or break away. Instead, I suspect they'll jump around a lot and see what ships they can pick off, what worlds can they bombard or raid before we can respond?" Hadrim continues, then looks at me as if expecting me to continue. Hm, I wonder.

"But if we pull away too many ships to try and pin them down, we weaken ourselves elsewhere," I suggest. We'd have to use multiple ships to surround and prevent them from just running away without a fight. But pulling the ships needed from the line would leave us weakened elsewhere and limited. So we have to be strategic and risky with how we handle them.

"Exactly, so we have to convince them to want to engage in a fight, meaning bait. What better bait than a few ships all on their lonesome?" Hadrim asks, nodding to me. Now I get it.

"Which is where I come in and use my Battle Meditation to coordinate the vessels to survive until the Katana Fleet can be lured in," I tell him. It's a risky measure, especially if whatever fleet involved gets overwhelmed before reinforcements arrive or if it works but doesn't do enough damage. The Katana Fleet would be more hesitant after that and unlikely to fall for the same tricks.

Though maybe that's the point? Have them always wondering whether or not this small collection of ships they're looking to prey upon is a trap in disguise. Maybe enough to convince the Hutts to abandon the strategy. Hadrim claps his hands half-sarcastically.

"She gets it! Yeah, that'll probably be the plan while we regroup. They've got us on the backfoot now, but what can you do against a sucker punch like that? We'll have 'em licked soon enough." He turns to his commodores who snap to attention.

"I want your battlegroups ready as soon as their repairs are done. As soon as the Admiralty Board gives us our orders we fly," he commands sharply. They salute crisply and turn to leave. Which means it's just me, Duala, and the two Knights standing resolutely behind me as if there's a sniper shot expected any second.

It's a little charming, actually.

"Master Sarat, I'm gonna be honest here. We haven't had too much time to get to know each other, even less now that there's a war going on so I'll give the rundown in brief," Admiral Hadrim says, coming to stand in front of me. He's still a foot shorter, even standing up straight, but the presence he carries is enough to put him at even.

"I've done my reading on you and what you can do. While I'm quite excited to see what Battle Meditation can do in a focused campaign, I would like to make it clear that I cannot have you doing your…usual escapades. I will seal every door on this ship if I must," Hadrim adds, and I almost laugh.

"Isn't that a bit excessive?" I ask him. He does laugh.

"No, I don't think it is, I have a feeling you'd rush off to lead boarding actions if I let you, no I'd prefer you stay on the bridge with me so that we can coordinate our endeavors or within the Army HQ building when on ground deployment. Your power is known and the Hutts would do anything to see you killed and denied to our allies," Hadrim counters. Duala giggles behind me. I don't dignify it with a response.

"I suppose that's fair, it'll suck being stuck behind the lines, but the boon is worth it," I admit reluctantly. Hadrim nods.

"You have your Jedi Knight guard, but Admiral Targon has assigned a platoon of special forces to bolster your protections. I'll need a full itinerary of your planned movements throughout the course of the campaign. War aside, there will be downtime while we're cycled through assignment and if you plan to take a little visit to Naboo or Onderon, I will need to know so your guard can keep up." I don't sigh at Hadrim's words, but it's going to be very awkward spending time with Sata while there are four Jedi and a special forces team hanging around.

That does give me a thought though, as the Hutts do have a thumb on the underworld and the many assassins and mercenaries within.

"If you're bodyguarding me, my daughter will likely need someone as well. Sata has the full might of the Onderonian military behind her, and while Aladaa has Moris and the Daybreak's crew, she travels a lot on business. It'd be easier to catch her somewhere isolated." And if they're that desperate to put me out of commission, I wouldn't put it past them to go after Aladaa as the easier target.

The Footman droid will be an unexpected challenge for them, but Moris is one droid, and the Daybreak's crew is less than a hundred on a modified CR-90. A single Hutt Ajuur-class or a Sabaoth Heavy Cruiser getting the drop on them would be enough to blast her apart. I did tell her to keep away from the conflict zone in our last call, but it couldn't hurt calling her again and suggesting she stay at her offices until the war's done.

"Of course, I'll speak to Admiral Targon, a squad of agents shouldn't be hard to devote to a single Togruta," Hadrim assures me. Still gonna call her, and there's probably a bodyguarding service I can also refer her to. Plus if she stays on Naboo, the Temple won't be far away, and who could expect to get past that?

"What about me and Cabur? Are we stuck on the ship too?" Duala asks the million credit question. I glance to her. She's wearing her armor sans the helmet. It was against my orders, but she did help take out a trio of corvettes with Cabur. Those shock rods are no joke when they get latched into hull.

I really don't want her fighting in this war. She's still learning. But at the same time, it is what we're here to do, and Jang's even letting Tren fly with her and Blue Squadron. It's not like this isn't part of the job. I am concerned for her as is part of my job, but I can't be smothering her. If I'm keeping her with the fleet, it isn't like I can just tell her to sit on her laurels as much as I'd like to. I was fighting plenty at her age, danger or not.

"You're free to act as you feel you need to. So long as you follow the orders of whoever Admiral Hadrim or myself put in charge of you. Assuming they have a use for a padawan and her Basilisk." I turn to Hadrim who snorts.

"In a huge engagement, not a lot, but if she wants to deploy out with some of our smaller strike forces, she could make the squadron's life easier harassing their corvettes and goodness knows she'd be heavily requested for ground assaults." Hadrim shrugs. Duala grins, puffing up with confidence.

I…don't like it, probably never will, but I refuse to let myself be a smotherer. As long as she has sufficient backup and she's operating on a plan made by less…reckless individuals, I figure it'll be okay.

"Awesome, thank you Master. I'm gonna go tell Cabur the good news." Duala bows and turns to head away, still radiating good cheer. She's more excited about the war then I'd expected, but I suppose she was being raised to be a warrior for her clan. It's not that surprising that she'd be a little bit excited about something she's thought of as her path for so long.

"That aside, I've got a meeting with the Admiralty Board about our next moves and I'm sure you've got your own contacts back at Naboo to keep informed. I'll let you know when we're moving out," Hadrim says with as clear a dismissal as could be imagined. I smile and bow thankfully.

"Of course, Admiral. May the Force be with you," I tell him and stride from the bridge. The passing ensigns and crew salute to me as I leave which is weird. My 'escort' falls in around me. Glynn-Beti chose the four best Jedi willing to just follow me around the whole time. There's two humans, a Nikto, and a Twi'lek: Nidiri Janz, Halon Ortig, Orta-Shin-Kar, and Saey'recora. Orta and Nidiri are with me now while the others rest, even Jedi need to sleep. They don't look at me, but I can feel their focus spreading toward me and around me as they keep an eye open for threat.

"I'm sure we'll be safe on the Resolution especially within friendly space. You don't need to be that on guard," I advise them kindly. Nidiri turns to me, her long braided hair swishing with the movement.

"Pardon me, Master Sarat, but that simply isn't true. Throughout the Order's history, those with Battle Meditation have been often targeted by our enemies, whether Hutts, criminals, or the Sith. You're going to be in constant danger, especially once they realize what ship you're stationed with," Nidiri counters.

"We need to familiarize ourselves with the Resolution's layout and crew as well. The Hutts will likely attempt to infiltrate or extort the crew to sabotage it in critical moments," Orta adds. I sigh and shake my head.

"As you wish, I'll be speaking with the Council for a time then walking the ship to familiarize myself," I tell them, and they nod stiffly. I cannot imagine this is going to be an easy transition, but hopefully it won't need to be a long one.
____________________________________________________________________________

"Master Sarat, it's good to hear you're doing well." Glynn-Beti's hologram nods, and the rest of the Council holograms mirror her. I bow in return, then settle into my chair. The hologram projector is a pretty good one. I'm a little flattered, as they probably had to put this in custom.

"Thank you, Glynn. What about the rest of you?" I ask. I know Master Kota is in the Hegemony helping rally the defenders there, and Master Rhara is working with her own Ace squadron to head that way.

"Everything's fine on our ends, Kota and Clee Rhara are in transit at the moment, but I think we need to talk more about the Rancor in the room, so far three hundred of our Jedi have declared their intent to be involved in the war effort," Roan Shryne reports.

"Indeed, we've already lost two Jedi," Glynn-Beti notes. I raise a brow in surprise, two Jedi already? She takes my unasked question and elaborates.

"Jaden Nam, killed on the Pammant Shipyards due to sudden explosive decompression, and Nayrin Lamson shot down over Kaon." So one wrong place wrong time, and another shot down in combat.

"I've been talking with General Sifo-Dyas to get our Jedi assigned to army corps, from there they can be assigned out to local units or assignments," Master Kota adds.

"Is that wise? Jedi shouldn't be on the frontlines of a war, there's no benefit to it," Shaak Ti asks to a murmur of assent from the others. The Clone Wars saw how terrible an idea that was, but then again it was the point.

"We're not going to be, this is just someplace to put those Jedi until there's a mission for them, I don't know what the specifics will be but Sifo-Dyas assures me they're not planning to use Jedi for mass-scale engagements. Sabotage, striking soft targets, maybe helping a regiment or two secure positions. Depends on the need," Kota explains as his hologram waves stiffly.

"Kota, make sure you consult with the Jedi heading out, they're not Aces but more than a few have plenty of time in the cockpit and equal skill. Jang and I have a squadron and that's it. More Jedi squadrons, or even Jedi pilots working with non-Jedi could tip the scales," Clee Rhara pipes up.

"That's a safer job than special forces assignments," Roan Shryne half-jokes in a grimly serious voice. I shake my head.

"It's more dangerous, but at this point…defeating the Hutts defeats the Sith. We cause enough trouble we might lure Sidious or his apprentice out, and these talks of fallen Jedi working with the Hutts is concerning. When and where will they be deployed?" I ask my fellows. That's the question I have to ask.

Is Sidious going to actually step onto the battlefield? He's not as tough as he would have been had he won, but he's still powerful enough to wreak havoc. Not to mention whatever they've been scheming up.

"Oh I agree, we have no choice, but we have to keep in mind that they no doubt expect us to be involved. They're undoubtedly hoping to thin our ranks a little. I'm wondering if we would be better suited limiting our involvement to the three hundred currently out there. No need to commit all of ourselves before we know what they're doing," Roan continues.

"It's not a bad suggestion. Senex-Juvex is within striking distance of Naboo if they get involved, staying back here would protect our flanks until we have a clearer picture of the Sith's intent," T'ra Saa mutters quietly. Tobar huffs loudly.

"I have a bad feeling about this, perhaps it is war clouding my thoughts but a part of me feels that we are missing something," Tobar adds. I haven't been feeling anything, but then again with all the things I have to deal with, would I?

"Even more reason to not play all our cards right away, but we have to play something. If we can lure Sidious or his acolytes out we can prune them before they cause trouble. We should be talking with Kamparas about this, or Ood Bnar and the Council of First Knowledge at the least. The Shadows are perfectly trained for this," I say. I bet they have to be chomping at the bit to get at the fallen Jedi and Sith.

"Masters Windu and Yoda are in Hutt Space, this thinning out of troops there has to be lending them a welcome hand. Sidious might be forced to flee anyways. I'll speak with Kamparas though, I'm not much for fighting," Tobar responds. Good, that's him settled.

"How many of us are getting involved?" I ask, pointing to the Council around me. I know I am, as are Kota and Clee Rhara. That's three of the Council, so we probably don't want too many more getting involved.

"Tholme and I won't be," T'raa Saa says. I blank as I try to remember what they were doing, then sigh and nod. Greejatus, they have to keep on him so that's them spoken for.

"I'm going to be running the Temple more or less, so that leaves me out." Glynn shrugs, but that's to be expected.

"I'll stay behind to help her, the majority of the Council should stay behind, no sense in having half our leadership potentially lost to disasters," Roan Shryne adds. Shaak Ti nods her head as does Tobar and Denia. Which leaves Bol Chatak

"I can help Kota lead our Jedi in the field, I'm sure he would appreciate the assistance," Bol offers, and Kota bows his head gratefully.

"That done, we should be putting the rest of the Jedi who aren't going to be involved in the war to work immediately," Glynn says, gliding past the who's going and who isn't. Nine hundred or so Jedi sitting around on their laurels is a thing no one wants.

"There'll be plenty of disruption from the war, displaced refugees and criminals looking to make use of them. Plus Hutt saboteurs slipping in, we can offer our help getting the refugees sorted and dealing with the criminals that pop up," Roan proposes.

"The Rim Alliance has a commission forming for just this sort of thing, we should get in contact with them if we're going to offer our help," Denia adds. Nods around the room, a simple matter.

We'll still have enough missions to keep people busy while the war goes on. It's not like there'll be a lack of assignments. Heck, there's probably going to be even more as militia and security forces move off to join the war.

After that, the rest of the meeting is mostly logistics and administrative matters. Funding's going to be a little tight, understandably so as the RA has to now fund a war, so we're going to need to find some new temporary sources of income or cut back on a few things. Glynn's already made up some projections and possibilities. I swear she's wasted managing our funds when she ought to be managing the Rim Alliance's budget. I nod along and pretend like I understand half of what she's saying, but I trust she knows, and that's enough I guess.

The meeting ends, the lights winking out until I'm alone in my chambers. I sigh and head over to my bed. I grab for my datapad and take a seat. Aladaa wanted me to get in contact with her after the battle was done. I know she worries, and she's probably burying herself in her work to avoid thinking about it.

I start typing out a message to reassure her I'm alive and in one piece and update her on the bodyguards she'll be getting as well as my suggestion to stay on Naboo until the war's done.

She won't like that, she loves to travel, but I'm sure she'll understand that she's as much a target as anyone and sit tight. At least for a little bit.

I glance back over the other messages, our little correspondences between her trips, tracking the excitement every time she scores a big profit and reading over her ramblings on what the price of chaughaine or allacrete in one sector versus another means or her trying to excitedly predict where prices of goods will rise or fall next.

And between those there's pictures of the places she visits along the way and the little stuffed animals she amasses in turn. Some things never change. I glance over to my nightstand where a little carved wooden nexu sits at rest. I pick it up and run it through my fingers.

Maybe I should suggest Alpheridies instead? She could spend time with mom and dad, and on a planet like that non-Miraluka would stick out like sore thumbs. At the very least, she could split time between both places and throw off any pursuit?

The next leave I get, we can go out to dinner, just the two of us. We get so little time to spend with each other in person after all.

Message sent, I sigh and lean back in the bed. I don't know how this ends anymore, nor do I know if I want to know. The future is troubling, knowing that I and countless others could die at any moment.

I'm not really that afraid of dying, honestly. I've been anticipating it ever since I realized when and where I was. I spent years thinking my fate was sealed and that I would be destined to die during Order 66 or flee into the wild to be gunned down by the Empire later.

Here we are with all that thrown out the window and me with no idea where my life goes next. Sidious is still alive, and there's a war on. The players have changed, but we're still here. Have I traded one fate for another?

I'm not afraid to die, but I am afraid of what comes after for my friends and my family. A small part of me wants to run away, fall back on my old plan of just disappearing until someone else handles the matter, but as soon as the thought surfaces I quash it.

I can't back out now, nor can I back down. I've inextricably tied myself to the fate of the Rim and its people. Their life is mine, and their death will also be mine. A daughter, a padawan, a woman I love more than I can properly express, my friends and comrades! The people who look up to me of all people! I could no longer stomach the thought of turning my back on them. Even death would be preferable.

What even happens after this is done? Sidious dead, Plaguies too if I can manage it. The Sith beaten down and the Hutts crushed under heel. How could someone even contemplate the mountain of work still awaiting us?

I shift into a meditative stance and begin my breathing exercises. The battle was a challenge in and of itself, switching my Battle Meditation among different groups, adjusting to keep the flow of battle coordinated, and all while ignoring the constant explosion of death and pain around me.

I wonder if Battle Meditation makes it worse, connecting myself to the flow of battle and the people within. I'm going to have to start keeping a journal of my experiences for the Temple.

I half-shiver, remembering the familiar racing sensation burning under my skin. Not just the itch and anxious energy, but the feeling of my skin burning so hot I half-worried it was actually gone. If only it had hurt, it'd be less of a concern. The fact that I liked the feeling and, on some level, felt alive and invigorated is a grim reminder.

I'm excited about this, more so than I should be. I want to fight. The thought of crushing the Hutts and bringing them low brings more satisfaction than almost anything else I've done. I would gladly see them in chains and on trial for crimes against humanity, with their empire and slaves freed from their grasps.

Even now that thrill is trying to push its way through my meditation, like a pet trying to nuzzle up to me for a scratch. It's honestly terrifying. Not the goal obviously, bringing the Hutts down and returning peace to the Rim is as admirable a goal as can be, especially right now. But I know that thrill won't stop there and will gladly slowly nudge me towards darker and darker things.

I remember enough that the Clone Wars brought the Jedi low in more ways than simply killing them off. It forced them to think like generals, to make sacrifices and condone slaughter that they never should have had to deal with.

And here I am stepping right into that role, if by proxy. Here I said I didn't want to be a general, and now I'm acting more or less as one. It'd be laughable if it weren't a problem I need to be on the watch for.

Gah, how inconvenient it is to have to be careful about your emotional state! Isn't this just the cruelest irony of having the Force? But this is the price I pay gladly to be able to do what I can to help.

I exhale, feeling a weight lift from my shoulder, if only for a moment. It's a mild thing, and the coming days will be stressful beyond belief, beyond anything I've ever done before. Tund, Trandosha, Korriban, Dathomir, Coruscant, Mandalore, each and every one of those incidents were quick and isolated instances. Over and done in a matter of months at most with plenty of time in between of quiet contemplation. Now… now I'm going to be in constant stress, constant work, for years at least.

And a part of me couldn't be happier for the challenge.

I guess I'll have to see if I'm up to it.

 

[Saphrith]

Admiralty Board meeting, Eriadu, 31BBY.

Jace Dallin steepled his fingers as he stared at the tactical map of the Outer Rim. The floating map was marked with multi-colored lines indicating the spread and scope of the Hutt deployments by their fleets as well as the Rim Alliance's own positions and commands.

"They're putting more pressure on Dellalt, Tionese intelligence suspects there'll be a proper invasion there within the next few days and I'm of a mind to agree," Admiral Jonoin said. Her hologram flickered as she gazed across the map, a frown on her face.

"We've got three hundred warships over Dellalt now, but taking it would cut off one of our supply lines to Dac, invading it will be a trial for them though. I still think they'll take the easier route through Wyndigal." Jace stroked his chin thoughtfully. Dellalt had nearly a billion people living there, it was one of the Tion's bigger population centers. Hitting it would be a slog and trying to hold it even worse.

"They're already bypassing Dellalt and Wyndigal with the Katana Fleet to hit other worlds in Tion already, how and why they aren't using their routes for the rest of their fleets I don't know, so they don't really need to punch through Wyndigal. Taking Dellalt, even if they were forced to leave right after, would be a big blow to morale for the Tion and Rim Alliance, which fits their prior strategies of trying to divide and conquer. If Dellalt falls they can put pressure on smaller, surrounding worlds to give in without a fight," Admiral Bhranx reported dismissively. It was a fair point, and why they had to defend Dellalt.

The nightmare of the main Hutt fleet bypassing the defense lines like the Katana was doing likely haunted all of them. But for now there was nothing they could do about that, so they could only hope the Hutts couldn't use other fleets via that route for whatever reason.

"I believe the hammer blow is coming to Dellalt with those two dreadnaughts at the helm. Can we pull any more ships from the line to ambush that fleet?" Bhranx continued with a look. Jace shook his head doubtfully.

"Not while the Katana Fleet is still active. To be an effective ambush we'd need heavier ships. Where would you take those from, Livien? Kismaano, Lianna, Arcan IV, Estara maybe?" Jonoin listed off half a dozen other worlds each far too important to even come close to losing. Big population centers, rich mining, agricultural, or manufacturing worlds that would be devastating losses.

Arcan IV had a huge smuggler and criminal underworld that even Jedi aid and increased funding hadn't completely cracked. If they took Valors or Centurion's from those worlds for an ambush the Hutts would learn of it, and the Katana Fleet or worse would come out and hit those worlds.

"We can't spare too many more 'volunteers' either. The Blood Prince and his thralls are just waiting for the chance to get back to the good old days of piracy," Jerjerrod added. Ah yes, the pirate problem. They'd pulled so many ships from normal Rim Alliance deployments to go and aid the seceded states that they were spread more thinly in the Rim than Jace liked. They had plenty of carriers, and in most cases a few squadrons backed by a frigate or some corvettes were enough for the small fry, but it was dangerously thin. Pulling more would tip their hat and for little gain; these ships wouldn't be fully-armed and much less effective.

"Admiral Hadrim's working on catching the Katana Fleet, once that's done we can use his fleet to pressure the Hutts in Tion. We either force them to pull more ships from their territories, or weaken their exterior fleets to keep up the same strategy," Jace said quickly. They had someone working on it at least, which was the frustrating part of war. Yes, they had people working on the problem, but it would take time for the issue to be solved, and he had to sit and wait.

"In the meantime we should continue rearming the volunteer vessels as efficiently as we can manage. It will be harder now, finding the time, but we cannot allow ourselves to fall behind on firepower in this critical moment," Jace continued, and Admiral Fonn snorted.

"If we can afford the jacked up prices the companies keep charging. Our funding is growing thinner with the economic downturn in the Rim. You think the new Council can revitalize the economy?" Terhane asked darkly. Jace sighed.

They'd built up a considerable war chest for just this scenario, but even with that, the corporations saw blood in the water and were eager to feed themselves. And the new tariff agreement was surely irking them to make it even more ruinously expensive. Alsakan, Corellia, Nubia, and Rendili had donated a generous sum of credits to buoy their war chest, which helped. But they would need more if this dragged on for too long.

"Speaking of rearmament, Admiral Baraka. You have your report on the Calamari Sector, I presume," Jace said, giving the floor to the Mon Calamari Admiral. Admiral Baraka bowed, hologram flickering in the waving light of the room.

"Repairs to the yards have already begun, but the Hutts have not let up their attack on the Sector. Skirmishes and small-scale battles have broken out across the region but centered around Poseidonna," Admiral Baraka began, the region highlighting on the map as it zoomed in on the small world.

Poseidonna was a companion world to Mintooine, supplying its shipyards with a steady supply of metals and workers. But the Hutts had to venture off the hyperlanes to reach it, so jumping there in force was risky. Travel off mapped hyperlanes was a lot slower and dangerous to your ships. There was also always the chance the opponent reinforced or attacked you elsewhere while your ships were stuck in transit.

"It's a risky target for them, wouldn't they be better off striking with everything they had at Dellalt and then striking down to Mintooine and then Dac?" Jonoin suggested, imagining those two Azalus Dreadnaughts joined by the Procurator and Praetor-class vessels plus their supports sent a chill down Jace's spine. They'd have to pull most of their ships from Dac just to have a shot at holding Dellalt, which no doubt opened the Calamari sector open to a small raiding force anyways.

"Do you believe Poseidonna will be the target?" Jerjerrod asked, and Admiral Baraka nodded slowly.

"I believe it is likely, this time with the full concentration of their previous forces directed towards us," Baraka warned, causing a grimace to spread across the room. Those three warships were no joke. Each of them had been the cornerstone of the initial three-pronged attack and had managed to be such a pain that even with fewer numbers, they'd managed some success.

All three of them directed at one world would be a nightmarish fight. They'd need to pull ships from elsewhere in the sector to push them back and likely it would put another avenue of pressure on their defensive line. If they could find out when the ships set out though, they could make an attack elsewhere. If they failed to defend Poseidonna though, the Hutt fleet would have a new route to bypass the defenses at Dellalt.

"It could be a trick, Dellalt gives them an equal shot at the sector, and making another deep strike like that would leave them without those ships for longer than sound," Jerjerrod countered grimly. The room fell silent as they fell into thought.

Poseidonna would be a clever move, bypassing Dellalt to threaten Dac anyways. But it could also be too clever for their own goods, leaving Agon Nine exposed to a counter-attack.

"Is it a trick we can afford to ignore, we can't send the sector forces to reinforce Dellalt with the possibility there and if we don't and they pull five super-heavies at Dellalt then we'd lose there anyway," Admiral Fonn pointed out.

"We can maybe spare some Centurions from the Calamari Sector to Dellalt just in case, if they go for Poseidonna we can still retreat to Mintooine and recalculate," Jonoin added.

"And leave Poseidonna to be conquered and raided?" Admiral Baraka said Aghast.

"I don't like it, but we don't have the super-heavies to counter theirs. The Inexpugnable aren't armed enough and they're more coordinating ships than that kind of warship," Admiral Bhranx retorted, and Jerjerrod frowned at him.

"What about your project? It could serve as a counter-balance," he proposed, and Jace nodded in agreement. The CEC project had been underway for some time, but Corellia closing itself off had made it criminally easy for CEC to speed up and finish production far faster and more securely. Admiral Bhranx raised his arms in a shrug.

"If you want, I'm more than ready to intervene, but it's a one-time only shot and I thought we'd saved it for Senex-Juvex if they jumped into the war," Ethan told them calmly. They had, as Senex-Juvex's threat to Eriadu and Sullust was well-known, but holding off too long and losing Dac was hardly worth keeping that secret wasn't it?

"We can request aid from Alsakan perhaps? A 'purchase' of some of their remodeled Atgeir Battlecruisers, they just need new hyperdrives," Jace suggested. The King had always been supportive of the Rim Alliance and supplying Atgeirs would be yet another way to stick it to the Republic and Axum.

"Worth a shot, we'll forward the idea to the new Council and see what can be done. In the meantime, we can find some more volunteer squadrons perhaps to fill in the current gaps," Jonoin replied. Jace recalled that they had some bulk cruisers that could serve as carriers for them. They could also base the starfighters on the planet there if necessary. A handful of bomber squadrons wouldn't add a lot of firepower against the big ships, but against the small fry they'd be another tool, and the fighters could give more of an edge against enemy fighters. In a battle like that, everything would be useful.

A few more suggestions flew out, but it came down to the same problem: too many commitments. The Hutts wanted them to throw everything they had at the problem and leave themselves open to counter-raids. The Alliance had to cover every world against raids, as leaving any world exposed would see its population taken as slaves, while the Hutts could keep their defenses more focused.

"It's not wholly a problem yet, we have superior training and discipline," Jace said. Tion was a miscalculation, but not one they couldn't correct from. They would need to hold Dellalt and Poseidonna, then blunt the Hutts back into a slower, grinding pace where the Rim's superior numbers and manufacturing could overpower them. Once the Calamari sector's shipyards were up and running, more of their Mon Calamari cruisers could be built to turn the war back into their favor.

And, if they finalized those designs quickly enough, there would be a few surprises waiting for the Hutts once done.

"In the meantime, Admiral Targon, has Havoc Squad begun their mission?" Jace asked. The quiet Admiral raised his head and nodded slowly.

"They've deployed into Hutt Space, once they have a sense for the Hutt's logistics they'll begin their work," Targon reported curtly. Terhane whistled appreciatively. For good reason, even getting into Hutt Space was likely to be a death trap now. Admiral Fonn had already put several heavy squadrons against the 'wall' of Gamorr and Nar Kaaga to little effect. The Hutts had fortified their space heavily enough that there was little chance of them getting in conventionally.

"Then we wait, once Admiral Hadrim and Master Sarat remove the Katana Fleet from the picture, we can devote them back to Poseidonna or Dellalt depending on where they're most needed," Jerjerrod suggested. A handful of nods followed, stationing her at one of the major expected battlefields promptly was the tempting suggestion, but the Katana Fleet was an annoyance they could not afford to let go for too long.

"Then we'll break until tomorrow, begin preparing your commands. Admiral Bhranx, is your fleet on standby still?" Jace asked. The Admiral nodded stiffly then grinned.

"Give the signal and we'll be ready," he answered. Jace almost snorted but smiled back. After everything they still had an ace up the sleeve.

"It's odd though, isn't it?" Targon said suddenly, just as the Admirals began to stand and disperse. They paused at the still sitting Zabrak Admiral who raised his eyes to each of them.

"The Hutts intelligence network is top notch, no surprise there given their underworld ties, but their logistics from what we've seen are equally superb. Strange how such a small region of the galaxy can command a comparatively large portion of resources and manufacturing," Targon continued slowly. Jace frowned slowly as he glanced across the room to his comrades and saw the same concern slowly spreading across their faces like cracks on clear ice.

"Not too surprising, the Hutts have been known to hoard valuable commodities for emergencies or later sale. Add all of that to their own local industry, supplies from their allied states and smuggled goods and it makes enough sense," Jerjerrod suggested, though he seemed to doubt his own words as he spoke them. Jace narrowed his eyes.

"That doesn't explain how they're intending to keep up their war for long, we're straining enough as it is to keep supplies flowing and we have connections across the Rim backing us. How are the Hutts going to manage a long war? They're not stupid, arrogant but not stupid, they're not going to tire themselves out in wasteful frontal assaults if they don't think they'll be able to keep them," Jace answered.

But…smugglers weren't invincible; the Rim Alliance caught plenty of them all the time. And a smuggler with a small freighter wasn't going to make a drop in the bucket of the war materials the Hutts would need to prosecute a long war. Even a thousand smugglers making round trips couldn't manage it. They'd need millions of them or at least larger ships which brought ever higher risks of being caught and seized before their smuggled goods could even get near Hutt Space.

"Might be they've got some secret suppliers," Bhranx suggested though it seemed as if the idea was sour on his tongue for the way he grimaced. At the looks every other occupant in the room gave, he shrugged.

"Cassander, Senex-Juvex, the Centrality, Zygerria, Yinchorr, and the Arkanis Union. Any one of those worlds could be an official go-between, buying the materials with Hutt money and then shipping it off to the war front. The only question then is who's doing the selling and why," Ethan explained with as much dry sarcasm as the man could manage.

Who had a grudge against the Rim, like for instance anger at a series of tariffs and extra fees? The Techno Union, Corporate Alliance, and Commerce Guild to name a few.

"We can't prove that, not easily. They'll have shielded themselves behind a dozen shell or holding companies each with a small army of lawyers, and none of those states would tell us who they bought the materials from, if they even did. We've been watching them and there isn't that much increased traffic to Hutt Space," Jonoin muttered.

"I suspect it goes deeper than that, but I've little evidence for it, and no real resources to spare to investigate it. Not when I'm directing Havoc and hunting down Hutt informants." Admiral Targon shrugged.

"A matter for another time then. We can't do anything about it without more evidence and breathing room. We need to break the Hutt intelligence network first," Jace cautioned. That supply network, whether it existed or not, was a problem that wouldn't be going anywhere. The Hutt's knowledge of their movements was more pressing.

"As you wish, I'll redouble my efforts," Targon promised. The rest of the Admirals left, leaving Jace alone in the room. He sighed, stood, and straightened his uniform. He'd be going to give the Council his update and hopefully get some things moving there.

A flash of memory struck him as he walked, a half-heard thing from Ranulph about Master Sarat and her troubles with getting a peace settlement on Trandosha, a series of weapon transactions from suspicious buyers.

Maybe there was some sort of connection there? The RA couldn't afford to spare the investigators, but the Blue Jedi could.
____________________________________________________________________________

Nal Hutta, 31BBY

The ruling chamber of the Hutt Council was starkly lit, with the highlights upon each of the five Hutts upon their daises. Beneath them and around their thrones scurried attendants and guards along with the rest of their entourages. Dancers and jesters capered about for the amusement of their Hutt masters, though little notice was given to them.

Jiliac Desilijic Tiron sat at the place of pride, the speaker's throne, and gazed out across the room to the rest of the ruling council. Jabba sat stiffly, perhaps awkwardly as the newest member of the Council and the most eager to prove himself, while old Vedo sat relaxed and resolute. Gardulla was stoic though her hatred for him was adamantly known, and Belhata was as unconcerned as he ever was.

"Our attacks failed," Gardulla hissed angrily, turning her ire to him as the presumed cause and fault of the situation. Jiliac chortled, taking a puff from his pipe and regarded his fellow councilor with disdain.

"My dear Gardulla, they were quite prepared for our coming, how could they not be? There were only a few places we could have gone. Though I am glad to say our feint to Tion has proved effective," Jiliac countered, reaching for his hookah pipe and taking a long puff.

"Yes, but now we are committed and can no longer safely change tactics. Dellalt and Wyndigal will be difficult to crack without losses," Gardulla continued.

"We have the manpower, and the material, that is not an issue to be overly concerned about now," Jabba retorted, and Jiliac snorted. Hutt Space had plenty of desperate and devoted beings willing to sign up for military service if only to escape their dreary existence. The wider galaxy had more, and despite the circumstances, he knew plenty of beings from more 'civilized' places would gladly hire up with them.

"They are just as committed as us now, we need only hurt them more than they can afford," Vedo muttered contemplatively. A crude way to say it, but not less correct. If they could break the Rim defenses at Dellalt, they could thin out the Rim Alliance's navy and threaten Dac further while also opening up a path further into the Tion.

"Both Dellalt and Wyndigal is perhaps too much to ask for, a decision must be made upon where we should place our heaviest focus," Belhata suggested, tapping his cane on the side of his chair. A dozen slaves and servants moved to massage his corpulent body with therapeutic oils while the Hutt sighed in relief.

"If Belhata would share his maps through the Ash Worlds, we would not be having this conversation, the spread of the Tion would be open to us," Vedo murmured with a hint of fury. The Ash Worlds were lost to time along with the routes in and out… unless you happened to have saved them for a profitable smuggling enterprise like Belhata's kajidic had.

It was the only reason a small Kajidic like his could sit on the Council of Elders. Through him they had a backdoor into the Tion, but only for Belhata's affiliated vessels.

"Just because we are at war, does not mean I must share all my secrets. None of us are committing every secret and trick we have to the effort, do not think to talk to me as such," Belhata replied with a hint of satisfaction. Jiliac huffed, but he wasn't wrong. War was just another part of politics, and no matter how much they were working together, they each had their own personal objectives and their rivalries.

New money had to hold tightly to its advantages against a line as prestigious as Vedo's.

"Enough, it isn't an important matter right now, we can come back to it should the need arise. Right now we should be discussing the focus of our strategy," Jiliac said. For once, Gardulla seemed to agree with him.

"Agreed, we should direct our focus towards one primary objective and leave the other as secondary. We should launch another strike on Dac directly, their shipyards were not sufficiently destroyed in the opening strike. If we give them too much time they'll begin producing capital ships to match our heavier warships," Gardulla proposed. Jiliac gave the idea some thought, and it had merit he supposed. Their Ajuur heavy cruisers and Toth's Sabaoth Heavy Cruisers were enough to handle the Rim's re-armed Valors and Centurion-class, and even the new Mon Calamari warships weren't too much of a hassle, but more of them and stronger variants could prove decisive if not dealt with.

"I disagree. Our ships would be stuck in transit for far too long on such a deep strike now that the war has properly begun. They could take advantage of their long absence, and no doubt they have prepared their defenses extensively and even now are hardening their shell to prepare for the next onslaught. An attack on Dellalt would be much less risky," Jabba countered quickly

"They already know we are primed for Dellalt," Vedo hissed, and Jiliac almost interjected on behalf of his kin, but Vedo had a point. Doubling down on Dellalt would not surprise the Rim.

"Of course they do, but they are afraid for their shipyards at Dac, knowing they need them to supply themselves with the ships they need to match us. Striking Dellalt and taking it would open a faster line of attack against the Calamari sector while allowing us to further invade the Tion. Poseidonna is a suitable feint, they fear the great warships we sent into the sector before and hinting we might do so again will pin their fleet down for risk of leaving themselves vulnerable. And if they do shift forces to Dellalt, then striking Poseidonna is a good idea anyway," Jabba replied drolly. His eyes momentarily dipped to the dancer performing beneath his dais, a wasteful distraction, before he continued.

"But this is a war of hearts and minds. This Queen Airal enjoys the support of her people because she promises safety, take that away and her support will drop. Her noble supporters will look for safer fields and the poor destitute masses will scratch and claw for any peace imaginable. We break Dellalt and then both Tion and Calamari sectors will be open to us," Jabba concluded. Jiliac leaned back to consider the strategy on offer.

It was not an unfamiliar tactic, and one they'd discussed at length before, but at the time they had not particularly decided on where and when such a tactic would be employed or if it would need to be. Such tactics were…tempestuous.

"We could spark the opposite reaction, inciting such an anger in them that they resist bitterly to the end, arming themselves with every weapon imaginable," Vedo cautioned. Another reason they had not cemented on such a strategy.

"We do not need to perform another Devouring, simply capturing and holding territory would be enough to pressure Airal into capitulation. With her falling, the Rim Alliance will be weakened significantly and we can pressure Dac into capitulation," Belhata mentioned. They all nodded, a fair enough point.

With those two dealt with, all that would remain would be Ryloth. They could be patient. The foolish thought that they would put settling their vengeance over tactics is what had given them the advantage they now had, but Ryloth had not been forgotten, nor would it be forgiven.

For them, a Devouring was not out of the question. Ryloth had been one of their big moneymakers in slaves, spice, indentured servants, and investments. Every kajidic dealt in the Ryloth trade at least a little bit, either directly, as middlemen, or the buyers and retailers that received the goods somewhere else.

Having that world be taken from their influence was an insult to every Kajidic. Jiliac would see to that debt being settled himself if he had to.

"There's a spread of worlds we could seize easily now, but doing so without a victory at Dellalt would be pointless," Vedo added. A fair point, Dellalt would serve as an easy staging ground to interrupt any landing or retake any lost territory. And what worlds would those be, paltry things with barely ten million people at best. No, that was too distant. It would need to be Dellalt, a world of nearly a billion, to have the effect they would want.

"The Katana Fleet can bring troops to the less defended worlds. They will not bombard their own worlds, not when we will be near their own people. Perhaps that is as good a, if not better, use for them than these hit and run strikes we've been performing," Jiliac proposed. He got a few hesitant nods for the effort.

"As good a use as anything for those relics. Setting a thousand fires for them to constantly put out and pursue," Jabba added in agreement. Gardulla humphed annoyedly.

"The Calamari Sector is still the more important target. We can crush Tion after destroying their major shipyards," Gardulla emphasized, again not without merit. As much as Jiliac despised the other Hutt she was shrewd enough to have reached this position.

"Perhaps we can still do so, an attack against Poseidonna with our Calamari forces combined could be enough to break through and severely damage their defenses. Or at least force them to redeploy some of their forces to reinforce it," Vedo mused.

"We would force them to devote more ships to the sector, weakening their hold on Tion and possibly thinning out the rest of the Rim's strength to reinforce. The Blood Prince is eager to get back into the fray," Jiliac supposed, stroking his chin. The Thalassian Pirate was a hard beast to tame. Their leash on him and his pirate followers was a tempestuous one, cutting him loose on a weakened Rim could only help.

"Suggest that we will 'approve' of a suitable target if he can find one. Let him slake his thirst for blood and plunder and remind the Rim just what cards we have to play," Gardulla suggested helpfully. Damn her but the idea was a sensible one.

"At the least we may use him to draw out any hidden cards the Rim has in play. The Corellians haven't moved, and neither has Alsakan," Belhata added.

"A hidden reserve waiting for us to overcommit somewhere or to reinforce their lines? The Corellian Sector has been closed for several months now, even we know little of what CEC is doing," Jiliac admitted grudgingly. That was the quiet coil of dread around his heart. Rendili, Alsakan, and Corellia had shipyards on par with or above that of the Calamari Sector, and only any Republic limitations would prevent them from throwing their power around.

"All the more reason to be decisive, a victory for us will put them on the backfoot and force them to play their cards before they're ready. We still have allies to call in ourselves. Judicar is preparing to ship out to Wyndigal to lead the assault there. We've harbored him and his Master, let us make some use of them," Jabba urged again. Jiliac turned to the younger Hutt with a calculating eye.

Judicar he understood and could work with. It was a simple matter of nudging the Sith to where he wanted him to go. But Sidious was another matter. No mind trick could stop a Hutt, but standing before Darth Sidious was an altogether unpleasant experience.

The human exuded power and madness in a way that even Jiliac found unsettling. It seemed inconceivable to dislike ruthless cunning, manipulation, and power, but Sidious managed to make his very presence a black hole that drew you in and crushed you under its weight. Jiliac had found himself agreeing with the man without any mind tricks, just to get him out of his sight.

"We have no hook in him, nothing to control or dictate terms with him. I dislike putting ourselves into his debt," Gardulla growled. Jiliac was unashamed to agree with her, in this instance.

"Of course we do, he is hiding too is he not. Yoda and Windu continue to slip through our territory in pursuit of him, a futile struggle for even that pair without aid. But even Sidious must fear them cornering him, we could always…subtly nudge them in the right direction if we needed," Vedo proposed, chortling with mirth. Jiliac found a slow smile spreading across his face.

Yes, they did have a method to contain Sidious if they needed. He would need to quietly spread the word that the two former Jedi Masters were to be…tolerated, kept from disrupting anything too important, but otherwise allowed to roam. Always escaping just ahead of their security forces until such a time as they needed them to dispose of or threaten Sidious.

"Perhaps, there is merit in seeing what Sidious can do to aid our advance. If nothing else, granting him territory in reward would undoubtedly satisfy his desires and make him a nonissue for us," Jiliac declared. Lianna perhaps, and some other territories, the Sith could fight the Republic, Rim, and Jedi to his heart's content. While they snuffed the Sith out, the Hutts could cement their control of their newly acquired territories.

But that was for the future. For now they had to deal with the schemes of the two Sith without letting them take too much control for themselves. Judicar going to fight in Tion was just part of that, let him make use of himself against the Jedi there. They had certainly invested enough in him to expect at least that much in compensation.

"There is still the matter of where our focus should be, I still sustain that breaking the shipyards at Dac remains paramount," Gardulla said, bringing the meeting back to the issue at hand. Jabba immediately raised his hand to counter.

"And I attest that Dellalt should fall first, our strategy there could break their will to fight as well as their forces, and is far less risky to our own." Gardulla spared a withering glance for Jabba and then Jiliac as he raised his hand in support of Jabba.

"I agree with Gardulla, I dislike such sizable shipyards in the service of our enemy. They must be destroyed or turned to our use, once they are eliminated the war will be effectively won." Belhata looked at Gardulla with a quiet nod. His Kajidic was bound to hers in business. Unsurprising that he would side with her.

Which left Vedo as the tiebreaker. He gazed about the room to each of them in turn and reached down to snack on one of his morsels as if showing how much power he had over their decision in this moment. He was likely loving this. Jiliac would have been equally jubilant in his position.

"Both ideas have merit, and having given it thought I will tentatively side with Dellalt as the preferred target. However, I have an additional idea for the council's consideration." Vedo leaned forward and began to speak.

Slowly, Jiliac found himself smiling wider and wider until a deep chortle erupted from his lips.

Yes, that would do nicely. Very nicely indeed.

 

[Saphrith]

Excerpt from the Journal of Jedi Master Viera Sarat regarding the Great Rim War. Entry One

I have often wondered if the path I chose was correct. Mostly, the answer I come to is yes. A card laid is a card played, as the saying goes, and regretting your actions only serves to cause you problems. Let go and move on.

Not that I'm perfect with that.

Before now though, I had the ability to throw myself into work or on assignment to push down any questions. Now I'm stuck aboard a warship, with my duties keeping me from rushing off into trouble, and the question stays locked in my mind. Especially since there's a good argument that none of this would be happening if not for me.

Ranulph was ready to give up after Troiken, too sunk into his own despair, and even my initial suggestion probably wouldn't have done anything had I not followed it up by suggesting to Dooku and Sifo-Dyas that visiting the man would be a good idea. The Rim's growth and resulting struggles can be linked back to that.

Though I suppose that's not giving enough credit to Ranulph, maybe he would've pulled himself back together on his own, but I can't know that for sure. It doesn't matter that much in the end. The point is that I'm sort of reaping the seeds I planted over a decade ago. I'm a bit mixed with the fruit. Hah, the thought of going back to myself at that age is darkly funny, but that's letting impossible things distract me.

It's another reason to join the fight, I've put off my responsibilities to the Rim for long enough. Now here I am hunting the Katana Fleet. The irony of looking for the fleet of ships I wanted to find as a young girl is not lost on me. Back then, I had thought recovering the Katana Fleet would revitalize the military defense of the Rim against pirates and slavers, and now I'm hunting it to destroy it.

The crew is nervous, understandably so. Would they be angry if they learned we were using them as bait on the line for a fierce shark? Or would they understand the necessities of strategy and risk? Some mix more likely, but we have our orders and we know the risks.

I just wish I didn't have to live with knowing their names.

End Excerpt.



Aboard the Valor-class cruiser Beacon, 31BBY.

Living life aboard a navy cruiser in the midst of a war is surprisingly easy once you've been a Jedi for two decades plus. The early hours, the regimented lifestyle, the strict discipline, and ever-present danger of the job are all too familiar.

No whiskey though, which is a disappointment, especially right now. But what can you do?

My senses come back to me with the dawn, or equivalent thereof onboard a vessel in the dark of space. I nudge Duala awake each morning, if she isn't already awake and meditating, and we prepare for the day. We've got the diplomatic suite for lack of another suitable place to put us, so showers and such are easy and warm. A luxury I'm not sure I really deserve any more than the others, but I'll take it gladly.

Our guard changes as soon as we're out the door, two Jedi and two special forces agents in their advanced armor. The Jedi bow and the troopers salute, so I do my best to respond to each in kind, but they're dreadfully quiet no matter how much I try for even light conversation. Doesn't stop me from chatting with them though.

From there it's breakfast, usually in the officer's mess, but this time I feel like heading for the general mess. Despite the strained grunting from one of the agents at the prospect of guarding me in a crowded room, they follow without complaint.
____________________________________________________________________________

"And that was when Politrix collapsed the floor beneath him and he fell right at the feet of the security squad as they entered the building." I finish the story with an exaggerated whooshing sound. That had been funny, if a bit reckless of us. It was just a simple assassin. Our Masters weren't thrilled at the damage we did to the office to catch him, even if it prevented a hostage situation.

An eruption of laughter breaks out at the incredibly dumb and embarrassing story of how Pol and I barely managed to catch the most incompetent assassin ever. It had been a cavalcade of failures on our part, both in rooting him out and catching him. We'd both been reckless and off-balance, something our Masters hadn't failed to point out to us, in what should have been a simple and easy job. But it was a good learning experience.

"Hey, s'not that bad a story. Jace and I were at a party drinking questionably legal booze one night when the local police showed up," a grizzled looking woman, who insists she's only twenty-five, says with a wink and amused nudge to another younger looking Mirialan man.

"Always with the story," he grouses good-naturedly. She swats him and continues with a grin.

"So this idiot decides he needs to run away before he gets arrested, we wouldn't have been, and thinks climbing a three story tenement behind the house was the best way to do it. Course he's drunk off his ass and stumbling half-blind so he gets as far as two meters before he loses his grip and falls. Thankfully there was a dumpster there to catch him." She giggles, and he sighs

"You moved it there," he grumbles at her.

"Oh that wasn't nice," I say, though the amusement is there. She shrugs.

"Saved his ass, didn't I? He'd have broken a leg or two otherwise," she insists, though he grins at my implied support of his position. The table around is filled with people, mostly crew but a handful of naval marines, pilots, and engineers too. Conversation rises and falls, swirling around us like moons orbiting a planet, but we seem to have the main focus.

"My clan sisters used to play a game where you had to fulfill a challenge agreed upon by the others or take a drink. It usually ended with them all drunk and bruised," Duala chimes in between bites of her food. I snort, sounds like a terribly fun drinking game.

"You're not allowed to do anything like that until you're my age or a knight, whichever comes first," I tell her. She looks up at me slightly disappointedly but then shrugs it off.

"Fine, alcohol's disgusting anyway," she says, and I recoil with mock outrage and affront to raucous laughter.

"Betrayed by my own padawan. Alcohol, whiskey in particular, is the greatest invention ever made and anything else is slander," I reply, to appreciative, half-joking whistles from the crowd. The conversation transitions smoothly to other topics, but the tension still simmers underneath, threatening to rise and boil over at the wrong provocation.

It comes, eventually, as the holonews program that's playing switches to war news detailing more raids and skirmishes around the front. The whole table goes silent, the whole cafeteria really, as everyone turns to listen. I quietly sigh. This is exactly what I was afraid of.

"The Beacon ain't exactly the best armed Valor, any idea why we're heading out on a combat mission?" a Zabrak sergeant asks me with a curiosity that hides his unease. Eyes and ears turn to me, and I have to quietly shut my initial response for operational security. This is the bad part about dining with the enlisted. They want to know what's going on, and I can't tell them even though I do know.

"We're heading out where Admiral Hadrim thinks we're best suited for, and I'm here to make sure we all do our jobs well," I say diplomatically, not even trying to pretend this isn't a combat mission. I wouldn't be here if there wasn't the expectation of battle, and they're smart enough to know that. The Beacon is a 'volunteer' vessel out of Barcaria with armament befitting a more restricted vessel. There's a fair number of those kinds of ships in the defense fleets, too little time to properly arm them.

Which is half the point, a properly armed Valor would be a dangerous foe for even the Katana fleet, especially with our dozen escorts. But a lightly-armed Valor with a mix of corvette, frigate, and two light cruiser escorts is a very tempting prize. Anything else and they might not bite. It's a gamble, and a risky one, putting thirteen ships and their crews out as bait to lure the Katana Fleet in for the catch. I glance around the room of soldiers and note their tension.

Roughly twenty-thousand lives are banking on it working, on Hadrim's relief force getting there on time, on me being able to keep us organized and efficient, on them to fight with everything they've got.

"I can't say what we're doing, but I can say we'll be doing our part to help win this war and end the Hutt's power over the Rim. I'm willing to put in some risk and danger for that. Those slugs deserve to be knocked down from their pedestal, don't they?" I ask him, and he nods without hesitation, though the unease is still there. Can't help it I guess, hard to deal with knowing you could be killed at any moment in a war like this.

"And hey, you've got me. I'm not going to just sit back and do nothing when we're all in danger," I tell him. Also, I don't think Hadrim would be allowed to assign me a suicide mission. I'm not going to say that to him though. He seems a little better, so I reach over and pat him on the shoulder.

"You'll do great, we all will, trust me," I assure him, and that seems to be that. He moves on without a word as do I. Some of the tension seems to have bled from the table though, so that's good. We're back to more jovial conversation as I listen and encourage some more stories or simply get people to talk about themselves while I coax them onward.

Duala gets into it, regaling them with stories of her home and clan. The whole Rancor riding thing draws plenty of attention and interest, and suddenly she seems a little bashful under the attention, but some coaxing gets her through the rest of the meal.

After that, it's off to the bridge to meet with Captain Sagura, a Duros man with a scarred face and an surprisingly easy demeanor. He nods to me when I enter the bridge and turns to the viewport where the lines of hyperspace are spreading out without end. I step up to him and he leans in close.

"We'll arrive in the Rudrig system soon, should be a quiet scouting, but we'll want to be seen at least," he whispers as we draw near.

"Still getting ready for drawing out the Katana Fleet?" I whisper back, and he nods slowly. We'll make an appearance and let our presence filter down to where the Hutt spies can get ahold of it and pass it up the chain.

This is going to be such a pain in the ass. No jumping from system to system pursuing the trail of the fleet, especially since they'll get suspicious of the dozen or so ships relentlessly following a fleet of two hundred or so.

So we have to jump around on 'scouting' missions in the hopes of the fleet intercepting us at one of our destinations and then holding on long enough for Admiral Hadrim's forces to jump in and support us.

Meanwhile, the Hutts are probing Dellalt and Wyndigal, while sending deep raids to Poseidonna. Our own raids coming out of Ryloth are hitting the wall of the Hutt's southern defensive line

"Have we heard anything more about the Katana Fleet's movements?" I ask him. He nods.

"Ambushed a frigate and its two corvette escorts, blasted them apart before they could do anything but call for help. We lost a small supply convoy and had to pull a few heavy ships off the line for the next escort." Saguro shrugs, though I can feel his frustration building.

"Are they laying down more interdiction mines at least?" I ask. He nods, which is reassuring. At least something is being done.

"Yes, though it has to be done carefully to not interfere with our own ships, but I'm not privy to how and where they're doing it until they tell me. Best not to worry about it too much," he says casually.

Interdiction mines are a tricky thing, barely into development and ripe with issues. They worked at Agon Nine with a well prepared position, but they can't really be used against the Katana Fleet with them bypassing the defensive line. They'd interdict our own ships just as easily as theirs, and creating a safe route takes calculated effort and risk in circulating the safe route to merchants and supply vessels. We could end up isolating entire systems from inbound or outbound traffic if we're not careful. I shake the thought from my head. I'm sure they're being careful with it.

"Their spy network is something though, every criminal lowlife, bounty hunter, or smuggler is either in their pocket or under incentive to be in their pocket for a quick credit. Every freighter or transport has the potential to be passing along what they see to the Hutts." And we have no way of knowing who without invasive inspections.

"It's not all bad, plenty of smugglers pass along information to us so it's a bit even handed on balance," Sagura assures me. On that we're at least evenly matched.

"In the long term, we'll need to root them out. Perhaps the Jedi can aid with that, I'm not sure how, but we might have luck picking spies or those too invested in seeing where we're moving from the crowd," I offer, and Sagura nods gratefully.

"Anything is welcome at this point. In the meantime, let's take a look at the map, shall we, and see what we know of the Katana Fleet's movements." Sagura leads us from the bridge to a quiet conference room. He taps a switch on the table, and a holographic display of the Greater Tion appears above the table.

"If we look at the map of Katana fleet sightings, we can see their first appearance at Kaon, jumping out and spraying fire at the defenders before leaving. Killed one of your Jedi in the crossfire, I think. Then at Nuswatta to spook the defenders. They didn't stay, the defenses were too strong there, but then they showed up at Salemvara and decimated the defenses there." Each world trills and hums as Sagura points them out

"And now the ambush at Salgard," I say. Kaon, Salemvara, Nuswatta, and Salgard, a varied net for four showings. Mostly small-time worlds, Kaon had the highest population at forty million.

"What's the timeline?" I ask him. It's been maybe two weeks since they broke into Tion. Two weeks of gathering our ships and ordering lines of battle, yet they've only hit four targets? The Greater Tion's a decently sized place, but it doesn't take that long to traverse it, especially on a military hyperdrive.

"Three days, give or take. Plenty of time to do some makeshift repairs where needed, refuel and rearm, replace lost fighters and whatnot, but I don't see where they're doing that from." Sagura monologues, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Three days? The timing seems off to me.

"Do you think they're going back to Agon Nine to refuel and rest between sallies?" I ask him. Sagura scratches his narrow chin then slows and stops.

"Maybe? We don't have intel on what they have at Agon Nine right now. I assume they must have something to guard the only midway point between Tion and Hutt Space. But how are they getting past the defensive line at Dellalt or Wyndigal? It's too quick for them to be traveling off the hyperlanes," Sagura replies in a slow drone, thinking.

"You're right," I mutter slowly. Hyperlanes were the go-to travel method for a good reason. Traveling off them was a slow process, there were unexplored and uncharted worlds or stars that could pull you out and obliterate you before you realized as well as asteroids or black holes and other stellar phenomena. It made deep strikes either very risky or very slow, as to be safe you had to constantly send out probes to find a safe route forward.

And even if you found one, there was no guarantee it would remain stable. A passing comet or asteroid could slip in and undo all your precautions. Hyperlanes were important not just because they were clear of hazards one time, but because they stayed clear. They were thoroughly mapped and maintained. The Katana Fleet would need to revert to realspace, send out probes, then repeat constantly to ensure their passage was safe. They weren't taking enough time for that though.

Duala frowns at the map beside me and raises her hand.

"Is that the only way between the Hutts and the Greater Tion?" she asks, looking at the map again. I frown, a tinge of a memory ghosting across my mind like a fading echo. I grasp at it, but it flies away from my reach. Well obviously, they could go the long way round, but they'd pass through Republic worlds and we'd definitely know.

"Theoretically, old Tionese legends say that Agon Nine was just one of many lost worlds of the ancient empire of Xim, but only Agon Nine's been rediscovered and who knows if the others even existed. If they do exist, maybe they'd have a connection but no one's been to any of those worlds in over twenty thousand years." Sagura shakes his head. Now it hits me, an old excerpt from my studies of the Tion. Supposedly there was once a lush and bright stretch of worlds in Xim's Empire, including two Throne Worlds lost to time and memory. Some said a star or series of stars went supernova and burned them clean of life along with the hyperspace beacons that would've held the coordinates to those worlds.

Others said the Hutts razed the worlds and exterminated every last soul to weaken Tion before they could ally with the Republic against the Hutts. An academic theory bitterly debated with no proof. Agon Nine, tentatively identified as Turallon, was just discovered within the last hundred years and yet devoid of any actual proof. The Hutts obviously aren't saying one way or another, and after 25,000 years even the Jedi Archives didn't know which was correct.

"Well, what if they did have a route to those worlds?" Duala asked. I glance at the star map and the gap between Hutt Space and Tion. If they did have a route, then why even bother going through Agon Nine and the defenses there? Their whole fleet could have bypassed the Tionese defenses and ambushed Dellalt at least. They'd brush away the defenses and have the world besieged before we could even hope to get there. It'd be a crushing blow to morale, but perhaps they wouldn't want to get trapped behind enemy lines or open Hutt Space to a counterattack?

"Theoretically, if they did, the Katana fleet could jump to one of the Ash worlds and then…jump back out? It'd seem like they disappeared, only to pop back up where we didn't expect them. It might explain how they're getting around the defensive squadrons Tion has guarding the hyperlanes." I had been wondering, as had every other officer I heard talk about the matter, how they were popping up and surprising worlds with so little notice. If they've got a secret jumping off point, or several, they could hit dozens of worlds without even a warning.

"I'll pass the thought along to the Admiralty Board, not sure how they'll take it but they can put intelligence on the task for figuring that out. In the meantime, we're going to go on a circle around Dellalt as if watching for further Hutt incursions and hope the Katana Fleet picks up the bait," Sagura says, bringing us back on track from the hypothetical to real strategy.

The thought stays with me though. We'd need to catch a Hutt ship and somehow prevent it from destroying its own nav data then decrypt the nav database. Pretty easy after that, compare what's on their database with ours and focus on everything that doesn't match. If, of course, the ship we grab has the database.

The Katana Fleet has slave-systems, so the Katana could be the only one who possesses the nav data and leading the rest of the fleet out on its sorties. In which case we're kind of in trouble there.

But, there's not much we can really do without more information and no easy way to get it. The conversation staggers on.

An hour later, our route and plans to let our location leak all figured out, Duala and I depart once more with our escort to tour the ship a little. We've got no real duties beyond my Battle Meditation, and Sagura has his own work to attend to without hosting us.

As we walk, Duala screws her face up in concentration, and her aura twists and rolls like a snake that's lost its sense of which way is up. I let it go, waiting for her to come to me with it. We pass guards at their station, and they salute us. I salute back, stopping to have a short conversation if they're willing. Most of them are. Duala pipes up and interjects when she feels like it, though I can tell her focus is half here.

Eventually, as we find a stretch of mostly empty hallway, she turns to me then looks back to our escorts hesitantly. I nod to them, and they trail back a few feet, enough for some privacy. She smiles back at me.

"This isn't going to be like Mandalore, is it Master?" she asks me. I shake my head regretfully. Oh how I wish it were a thing over and done in a month or two with just the cleanup to look forward to.

"Not even a little bit, get ready for a long war. Are you scared?" I ask her. She shakes her head vigorously, a little too vigorously, then smiles up at me.

"No, just…well this'll be my first proper war. Everyone's nervous, and afraid even if they don't say it, and it feels like there's a heavy dread everywhere. It kind of reminds of that holofilm Ara took me to see, the scary one," she says. I almost laugh at the memory. Ilena's padawan loves the horror genre and convinced Duala to go along. Showing a Dathomiri girl still getting used to galactic society and tech a gore-fest movie about horrific monsters and technology was probably not the wisest idea. Really funny though. Duala pouts at my clear amusement, but I ruffle her hair and wave her on.

"It's almost like I can hear the music from that film, pulsing in the heartbeat of everyone around me. It's like I've leaped off a cliff towards the water below and now I'm just waiting for the plunge," she explains, shifting on her feet in a vain effort to hide her own nervousness. I nod and put a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

"Well, in that case, you've already leaped, fretting about the inevitable is hardly going to help anymore. But we're here for a purpose, a good one," I tell her, smiling reassuringly.

"I feel that same nervousness, hard not to really, but my duty and responsibilities require me to be here and all those people who are counting on us to do our part can't be let down, don't you think?" I ask her. She looks past me, possibly imagining the thousands of crew on the ship and with our escorts.

"No Master, we have to do what we can. A-and I'm not saying I want to quit, we have to defend the people and stop the Sith. I just, well it's finally hitting me that this is real. I'm going to fight in a war," she replies.

"Hopefully the only war, but yes. You'll do fine I promise, I'll be there to have your back, and Cabur will be looking out for you too," I say. The Basilisk I know will defend his rider at the very least. Duala's nervousness slowly fades into a grin.

"Yeah, Cabur and I can use our shock rods to punch through any ships who get in our way," Duala proclaims with a confidence I don't feel. A smaller corvette maybe, but the Katana fleet is too big for one Basilisk's shock rods to make that much impact.

"We'll see, remember what you promised. You're not going to rush off on any scheme or plan without approval from myself, Captain Sagura, or another senior officer. And definitely not alone," I remind her. She nods stiffly.

"Yes, Master. I won't let you down," Duala promises. I clasp her hand and squeeze gently.

"Good, then together we'll make it through this," I tell her, and we continue as if nothing ever happened. We can talk more later if she needs, but for now things have smoothed over. We've got a couple days still, there's time to settle in.
____________________________________________________________________________

Rudrig, 31BBY.

I stand on the bridge with Captain Sagura and Duala beside me, the lines of hyperspace stretching out endlessly before the main viewport.

"We'll be reverting to realspace in a few minutes. Rudrig isn't much to look at, we'll be out and off again in a few hours," Sagura declares dismissively. It's just another stop on the line of putting out the seeds of our trip to let the Hutts figure out.

"I heard it's quite pretty actually, there's a noted university there," Duala pipes up defensively. I smile.

"Sixteen million people, no industry to speak of, subsistence farming and the university's all they got to go for it," Sagura counters. I suppose there's merit either way depending on your metric of what passes for civilized or something worth looking at.

"Do the defenders there know what our purpose is?" I ask. Sagura shakes his head.

"They think we're here patrolling, Fleetcomm doesn't want this getting out any farther than it has to," Sagura responds. I nod, refocusing on the viewport as the nav officer begins counting down to reversion.

There's a tugging sensation, a sense of inertia returning that goes away almost immediately. The viewport expands and sensors come online as we arrive in the Rudrig system. Immediately I feel something is wrong just before alarms start blaring. Sagura looks around, surprised.

"Report," he orders tersely.

"Hostile signatures in the system, two hundred Rendili dreadnought class vessels…Sir, it's the Katana," she concludes. I follow the tac map to see two hundred warships in formation blasting away at the defending forces of Rudrig.

"They're attacking our allies," I say quickly. Looking at it, the system's defenses are a trio of Rendili Attack frigates, a half dozen CR-90 and DP-20's supporting a Hammerhead cruiser pounding away fruitlessly against a foe that massively outguns them.

Well, looks like we found them.

 

[Saphrith]

Rudrig System, 31BBY.

"Well hey, we found them," I say with false cheer while the bridge crew explodes into action. Captain Sagura's reply is lost in a wash of anxious focus and flurry of orders and alarms.

"Send a priority transmission to Admiral Hadrim and all nearby units, we have the Katana Fleet over Rudrig and need immediate reinforcement. Launch fighters and prepare to engage. Master Sarat, if you could help us along," Sagura barks orders crisply. I'm already lowering to a seat on the floor of the bridge, my guards moving protectively about me. Duala looks to me silently, and I nod.

"Follow Commander Kazmin's orders," I tell her, and she dashes off at full tilt to our rooms for her armor. I watch her go and sink into the Force, letting it flow through me as I reach out to our small squadron.

The many threads of flame tug and sway in an invisible wind flailing this way and that while the tendrils of my presence reach out to them. The pulse comes slowly, flickering in and out, but slowly beginning to fall into sync akin to that of a chorus of drums beating at once.

It starts with the pilots heading to their ready rooms, or those already on station rushing to their ships. The mechanics and engineers are finishing last-minute checks and refueling, preparing the pre-flight startups amidst a hanger bay, as suddenly the heart of chaos becomes a tad more orderly.

A pilot grabs his helmet and steps back just after the pilot behind him moves on to the hanger, gliding past each other by inches without interrupting. A mechanic pulling a cart away from the launch area and another running to refuel a bomber move around each other in perfect sync without touching or interfering.

The Beacon's gunners in their rooms swiftly power up the turbolasers, missile tubes, and point defenses under the watchful eyes of gunnery officer's Kyne, Hown, and Milagr. The rapid clack of fingers on keys echoes in harmony, the anxiety and excitement tamped down by their discipline and steady commands. Captain Aller leads her engineers to their stations and ready-zones for rapid repairs as Captain Jarn with his naval marines rush to defensive positions.

Then on to the other ships, one after the other the same pattern repeats until all at once we're linked and beating as one single heart. Thump-thump, thump-thump, the noise seems to pound in my ears. It isn't painful, far from it. I'm feeling almost excited now.

"Bring us about thirty degrees, Spitfire and Nightfall move to covering positions and prepare to engage the long range guns," Sagura orders, the information relaying almost immediately, filtering down the chain like a spark traveling through neurons. There's something electric about using Battle Meditation on a fleet. Ground troops, the coordination is slowed by the speed of feet or vehicles, but here in space it's almost like an extension of my body, reactions coming so quick that the changes happen almost right after.

"Firing first volley, t-minus thirteen seconds," Sagura's fire-control officer reports tersely. I feel the beat of the Beacon's gunners lining up their shots. There's a moment of almost oppressive silence, and then I feel the boom of the turbolasers as bolts of energy fire out from the Beacon. They streak past, narrowly missing their target. I don't curse, at this kind of range even with advanced targeting there's going to be a fair number of missed shots. But that's half the point of the longer range guns. My mind echoes with the words of the gunnery officers reporting the targeting data while the gunners recalculate. Our escorts join in firing a salvo of shots to follow the tracers.

"All ships hold position. Are the fighters ready to launch?" Sagura asks. I don't catch what the deck officer says, but I already know the answer. I can feel them flickering and flaring with confidence. They're ready to launch.

"Launch the Beacon's fighters, starfighter screen. Tell Commander Kazmin to direct his bombers for the engines of any ship he can get. I want at least one of those ships hobbled and cut off," Sagura orders.

"They might cut their losses and destroy their own ship," I mention off-handedly. Sagura scoffs.

"Hutts, sacrifice their own to save face, nah," Sagura droned sarcastically while keeping his gaze locked on the tactical map. He frowned, a knot of anxiety slowly easing from his chest as the rush and adrenaline began to fade.

"It doesn't matter if they destroy their own vessels, so long as we snag the Katana. But every ship lost is a boon for us. And if they're dumb enough not to wipe their nav computer or spread the codes out, we might get something," Sagura continues. It's a small chance, but whatever we can get, right?

"How far is Admiral Hadrim behind us?" I ask for reference. Sagura snarls angrily.

"Six hours, he's keeping an extra jump behind us to put off any rumors. Wouldn't want us to pass by a world and then have it reported that a massive fleet followed shortly behind. We'll need to keep them here for six hours and keep ourselves alive." Sagura chuckles heartily, excited despite the long odds.

Well, we did want them cocky enough to hang around.

"Message from Captain Malana Saftry, Rudrig defense force," the comms officer reports. Sagura nods wordlessly as the line gets put through.

"Thank the Force you're here. We've lost our starfighter defenders in the first wave and they're rampaging planetside. The 41st systems army's air defenses are being overwhelmed by sheer volume and they've begun sending shuttles down," Captain Saftry reports breathlessly. Her hologram flickers slightly as her ship apparently gets rocked by another volley.

They don't stand a chance the way things stand now. Only the hammerhead's size and agility is keeping it alive against the onslaught, and the supporting frigates and corvettes aren't much better off.

"We've already sent out a distress call. Pull back and get yourselves reorganized into a battle line while we strafe their lines and divide their attention," Sagura orders.

"B-but… understood, there's no point in losing the fleet for nothing," Captain Saftry replies glumly. Retreating back would give the Katana Fleet a better position over Rudrig, but it wasn't like they couldn't bombard the planet already, and her small defense fleet was already on the verge of being overrun anyways. The damage reports for her ships flash across our screen, and it isn't good. They've been fighting for thirty minutes by now, and already they're nearly down and out. Outgunned like that, they didn't stand a chance.

"Master Sarat, can you add them too? We'll need to coordinate together," Sagura asks. I, yeah, sure no problem. I'm reasonably sure I can cover them all. If I need to, I suppose I could drop the naval marines and nonessential crew to balance things out.

Extending myself towards them and reaching out I almost stumble at the sudden rush of fear, anxiety and worry. Half her crews are in a panic, rushing to put out fires or repair short-term damages and mitigate the more long-term problems. There are injuries and medical teams moving with staggered pace under the fear of imminent death.

And…worse, there are people floating out in space. Pilots and naval marines in armor, their armor's sealed with some oxygen but not a lot and they have no one to get them to safety. Their panic's only going to lower their oxygen reserves. My presence washes over them, the Force calming them slowly and bringing them in line with each other, slowly drawing into unity with their fellows.

There's a handful of spaced pilots and marines, still living ones that is. RA Naval armor and pilot gear are rated for forty-five minutes of air. There's also a class of rescue shuttles devoted to recovering spaced pilots and crew, but generally speaking not within the middle of an overwhelming fight like this. I'd be surprised if Saftry's forces had a shuttle to spare. We've got twenty or so, but sending out a shuttle alone is guaranteed to see it destroyed, and we can't really spare a whole squadron to ensure it gets there and back safely.

Well, there's one thing, and it would keep her from rushing into the worst of the danger.

"Captain, I'm sensing a couple of spaced pilots and marines. I don't know how long their air supply will last, but if you could spare me a shuttle, I can send Duala out to help recover them," I tell him quickly.

"I can do that, we'll need everyone we can if we're going to win this war and leaving them to suffocate out there isn't a thing to be done," Sagura says, before leaning into his comlink to relay the message. Then his face hardens, and he focuses back on the battle.

"Bring us about, two clicks parallel to the Katana Fleet, full salvo." We're moving again, ships gliding through space just as the first two or three dozen of the Katana Fleet ships turn to meet us.

Turbolaser fire flies towards us, but inaccurately and without direction. Captain Sagura watches it with a laugh as the comms officer reports our fighters engaged.

"Launch second screen and reinforce the initial wave," he says a few minutes later as turbolaser fire flies back and forth between us. They're doing well actually, massively outnumbered as they are. Assuming the Hutts keep the starfighter complement full there's over two thousand fighters and bombers here, but between the ones harassing Captain Saftry's forces and the ones terrorizing the 41st planetside, it's a lot more even than it would have otherwise been.

In a way it's better for us that we caught them mid raid. They're invested enough we might be able to hold them here until reinforcements arrive. That said, a bunch of people are likely dying even now. Not even likely, they are, a flare of pain from the planet below soars up like a volcano erupting in a sudden conflagration.

"They're turning to face us, but they aren't pulling away from the planet. If Admiral Hadrim arrives and boxes them in, they might decide to decimate Rudrig in a final act of spite," Sagura grumbles. They could absolutely destroy the population centers and most of the people if they wanted, and all it would take was a few deciding to ram the planet in their death throes to cause massive ecological damage.

"Then we draw them away, if we go up and orient right they'll have to shift to fire back at us. Or at least send some of their ships up to harass us," I suggest. Sagura frowns, thoughts whirring a mile a minute.

"Maybe, at the very least staying mobile keeps us safe from their mass volleys." Sagura passes the order down and 'up' we go, slowly and continuously firing volleys with every passing minute. Saftry's defenders are finally regrouping at a safer distance, organizing their ships for the next go round. But I don't know what exactly they're going to be able to do in their damaged state.

"Twelve Dreadnoughts are angling to get above us," Lieutenant Amala reports, tapping away at her terminal quickly.

"Adjust course, move around them," Sagura responds, and immediately off we go without nary a word. The dreadnoughts slowly begin to change their pace, adjusting to match our movements. Are they…trying to surround us? It's not like we can't go around them, but if they can get around us they can pincer us between them and the rest of the fleet to force a close engagement.

A volley of turbolaser strikes the nose of the dreadnoughts and washes over their shields. A counter-volley slams into us to no effect. Shot for shot, a trade, but one still unevenly in our favor. The Beacon might not have the armaments it ought to have, but it has its shields at least.
____________________________________________________________________________

"Commander, CloakShapes on your tail." Kazmin tilted his head back to look up at the three fighters trailing behind his X-wing and without looking twisted his fighter into a steep dive through the chaos of battle.

The CloakShapes followed far faster than a ship of their model usually would. Too much to hope the Hutts might've skimped on the aftermarket modifications. But then again, hard to find an unmodified Cloakshape.

"Six, fall in behind me and peel off one or two would ya, flapjacks are sitting on the griddle a bit long," he half-ordered while green laserfire traced past the cockpit. Wordlessly Janna Devaad, fell in behind him. Somehow he just knew she was there without needing to check the tactical map, a certainty as sure as gravity. Red laserfire joined the green, and a quick glance told him that one of the Cloakshapes had been destroyed. The other two peeled off and left him free.

"Good work six, that three kills now?" he joked, pulling his X-wing back up into the dogfight that had begun between the two fleets.

"Four," Janna crowed happily. Kazmin smirked, pulling his X-wing behind an HH-87 and unloading a hail of laserfire at the Starhopper's rear. He almost couldn't believe they hadn't had any losses…yet. They were engaging a fraction of the Katana Fleet's starfighter complement: Batils, Cloakshapes, HH-87s, alongside the odd Z-95 or Dunelizard. No Scyk or Kimogila yet, nor even their heavier gunships. Anytime now the more elite fighters would be rushing to engage and things would get spicy.

"Devil Squadron, reposition to mark 6.3 and prepare for the next phase of the operation. Second wave is enroute and bombers are cycling targets." Captain Sagura's orders sang through his comlink as smoothly as any singer, here and gone in a flash, yet Kazmin was already turning his X-wing toward the new vector. A CloakShape zoomed by ahead of him only to find itself in a shower of sparks from his laser cannons.

Devil Squadron fell in behind him quickly. He saw a pair of Rendili dreadnaughts glinting grey against the black and white backdrop of space and saw their target at once. The two dreadnaughts were moving to cut off the Beacon and her escorts from getting above the Katana Fleet, but in doing so they were moving away from the protection of their fellows. Their point defenses were tough, but tough enough to handle all of them? Hardly.

"Commander Kazmin, this is Eagle Squadron, my bombers are heading for the target now, acknowledge vector," Commander Miniro said quickly. A flash of targeting data appeared on his screen, and he acknowledged with a quick word. Off they flew, toward the dozen cruisers. Three more squadrons joined them, X-wings soaring through space. Green laserfire buffeted the void about them, creating a rain of rapid-fire blasts. And yet…and yet…he felt calm. He had been at Pammant and remembered the frantic anxiety of turbolasers and point defense guns flashing back and forth with such severity that it had been everything to not screw his eyes shut and pray for deliverance. At any moment he could've been killed, blindsided by a point defense gun or a fighter that cut across from out of his line of sight.

None of that here as he nudged his X-wing as gently as he steered the small sailboats he rode as a young man up and down the coast of his little town. A gentle nudge brought him through the mess with little difficulty. Devil Squadron was right behind him.

Eagle Squadron's bombers weren't far behind them as they sailed for the dreadnoughts. He clicked his shields to focus double-front and oriented himself towards the lead ship.

"Alright, double-time it Devils, cut across the axis and draw their fire. Eagle Squadron it'll be all yours," he said and pulled, drawing his X-wing in a long arc. Point defense fire followed him hungrily. Claws and fangs of green fire scratched and barked, yanking and reaching for his small craft as he wove through the chaos.

The rest of his squadron followed behind him, and he knew that the other three squadrons were doing the same but in different directions so that Eagle Squadron's bombers could hit the engines of the lead dreadnought. Their damage would be minimal on the superstructure, but combined with the rest of the fleet and with continued bombardment, they'd disable at least one of the bastards. Then they could examine its nav computer at their leisure.

"Commander, heavy fighters inbound at mark 6. Looks like the planetside fighters are coming to say hi," Janna reported. He looked down and sure enough a few flights of fighters were heading their way. The tac map glittered with symbols marking Kimogila-class fighters. Kazmin scowled, those bastards were the worst.

"Alright, set course for intercept and pass the word down we've got company," he ordered, redirecting his X-wing toward the new fray.
____________________________________________________________________________

'I do not like this mission, there is little glory in rescue operations,' Cabur huffed beneath her petulantly. Duala patted his hull gently and a little chidingly.

"They're dying out in space, trapped in the void with no choice but to wait for their oxygen to run out and suffocate. Surely there is glory in preventing your comrades from dying ignobly, especially after they fought relentlessly against massively superior numbers," she explained. Duala swore she could almost feel Cabur's consideration, and eventually his resigned huff.

"I suppose, but let us finish this quickly, battle is before us and I would not be left out.' Cabur relented at the thought of eventually getting the fight he craved so much. Duala swallowed her reservations and any concerns she might have felt in favor of focusing on the moment. Two clicks back were a trio of X-wings, her 'escort' though in truth they were the shuttle's escort. The small vessel had a sealable cockpit where the pilot and med team would wait while she maneuvered the rescued pilots on board.

"First beacon is just up ahead, get ready and grab them gently, Cabur. No accidental squeezing," she told him quickly. They'd practiced simple maneuvers back on Naboo, little tactics and strategies, and he seemed put off at using his clawed 'hands' as anything but a means to tear and destroy his foes. He didn't bother replying to her this time, a series of code that roughly translated into an annoyed huff.

Their momentum slowed, debris glided through space and bounced off his armor silently or was pushed aside with a quiet nudge from her or the Force. The blue and green pilot's uniform shone in the darkness, now clearly visible, a faintly humanoid shape that hung like a statue. As they neared it turned to her and almost jerked at the sight of Cabur. Duala raised her lightsaber and ignited it, waving the blue blade quickly in a signal. It worked to stop the jerking and when they drew near, Cabur was as gentle as if picking a flower.

"Hey, we're here to rescue you. There's a shuttle, but first we need to get the others," Duala said quickly over the radio, tossing him a long line of cord connected to Cabur. She reached out, guiding it along smoothly to the beating of the drum she felt deep in her soul. Her Master's ability fell over her like a wave of sound, a great orchestra working in rhythm and Master Sarat the conductor. The cord zipped toward the pilot who gripped it and began pulling himself back along the line.

As soon as he was on, she handed him another cord, this one with a clip to attach to his armor. At the very least if he fell off, he wouldn't go far.

"Alright, we've got five more to pick up," she explained, reaching out for the still living pilots. Then she frowned slowly as a slow chill crept over her. Hadn't there been seven pilots and marines to pick up? She could have sworn there'd been seven. That unnerving thought followed her through the whole ride to the next pilot. The process repeated itself, and now she had two passengers.

"Harist, good to see you." Their newest passenger, a younger woman by the sound of her, breathed quietly in relief. Harist nodded and helped her clip herself in.

"Same to you Em, we're both quick on the ejection finger I guess," Harist joked while Duala scanned the area. The battle was raging 'nearby' but not so near that she worried about being given much notice. Maybe there had been seven and one had just suffocated. But surely she'd have sensed his distress, right?

"Cabur, can you give me a motion scan, anything moving within the vicinity of us and our targets," she said as she palmed her energy bow.

"It will be done," Cabur's answer was clear and quick. She set off again, feeling a sharp sense of unease and discordance in the chorus of the Force around her. A string plucked at the wrong time, or just a chord too low or high, a little thing, but noticeable for its out of placeness.

"Motion detected, three hundred meters above us," Cabur reported. Her head shot up and only saw the blackness of space and on the edge of her vision the dreadnoughts of the Hutts. What was moving? Did space have creatures that moved within the void? Mak's Padawan Rees had talked about rumors of strange wraithlike creatures that existed in the void between the stars and possessed people who crossed their path.

She knew a lot of scary stuff, but Duala had found very little about creatures that lived in space itself. At least…nothing that would be so hard to see.

"Keep track of it and tell me if it gets closer," Duala hissed quickly, then turned to Harist and 'Em'. "Are either of you armed?" she asked, both pilots looked at her then drew small light blaster pistols from holsters on their belt.

"Will this do?" Harist asked. Duala nodded crisply. It would have to serve. Cabur was well armed himself, and she had both her bow and lightsaber to work with.

"We're approaching, be ready," she said and pointed to a figure thrashing roughly in the void, a blaster rifle in their hands. As they oriented towards her a red blaster bolt fired out, barely missing Cabur's flank.

"Friendly!" Duala hissed, igniting her lightsaber and waving it like a landing beacon. The soldier stilled and then she could feel the anxiety and panic that had been suffusing them for so long melt away into relief. She tossed them her guiding cord and let them pull themselves close to Cabur.

"We have to move, those things are drifting around here. They got Mikkels already and we're next," the naval marine whispered in a vaguely female voice. Duala cocked her head but activated the plasma string on her bow anyway.
.
"What things?" she asked, thinking back to Cabur's motion warning. She looked up and still found nothing out of the ordinary.

"Those….things! They're drifting in space. Mikkels got gutted before he could even fire a shot at them," the marine hissed, nodding her head to where another body drifted in space, a razor thin line of red the only sign of the blood that slowly revealed itself about them, floating in the void.

"Motion detected, two hundred and seventy meters above us," Cabur reported grimly. Duala looked up again and still could see nothing unusual against the glittering tapestry of space about them. The massive blue-white of the stars shone like a million bright jewels that seemed almost blinding against the black backdrop, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

"I don't see anything," Harist muttered, raising his blaster pistol up defensively.

"We need to move, there's four more people to rescue from the vacuum and then a shuttle can pick you up and get you to safety," Duala said quickly. She raised a hand to her ear and tapped her comlink.

"Escort Lead, Cabur is reading unknowns moving in my area. I can't see them, one of the targets is insisting there are hostiles murdering the floating marines and pilots. Can you get a better visual?" she asked. The X-wing's sensors might have a better sense of what was around them.

"Motion detected, one hundred and eighty above us," Cabur reported with growing discontentment and annoyance. He wanted a fight as much as she did.

"Hang on Search and Rescue, running a scan now. Please standby," Escort Lead replied calmly. Harist, Em, and the panicky marine were looking around worriedly. The panic was slowly settling in on them. She tried to slow her breathing, reach out into the Force and prepare herself for battle. Her senses expanded, yet still she couldn't sense anything concrete. Danger was around them, but there was a battle going on, of course there was danger everywhere.

"Ninety meters." That was too close for her liking. She drew back on the plasma string and fired an energy arrow up. It soared through the void and dissipated far from her position, but nothing revealed itself.

Except.

It was so small, such a minor thing, she barely noticed it. But the stars shifted. Like a veil being drawn across a light for a bare second, the light of the stars winked out and then back almost unnoticeable in the sea of a million others glinting brightly just like it.

But there it was, and that was unsettling enough for her to draw back and fire. This time something was hit. She saw a scrape of heat and burnt metal, a scorch that burnt a red-gold scar across the brilliant tapestry.

"Forty-five meters, closing fast." Cabur began to turn himself up, orienting his laser cannons towards the threat as she drew back her bow for another shot.

"Search and Rescue team, move! I'm reading multiple small energy signatures rushing for your location," Escort Lead said. Energy signatures…like droid signatures? Duala had only a moment to wonder before the marine opened fire, and something nimble landed atop Cabur and roared at her.

It was tall with a thin, spindly body coated in pitch black armor plating with a featureless face save for two bright photoreceptors flaring behind a protected faceplate. A small blade protruded from its right wrist, long and thin for quick jabs. In its other hand it held a pistol of some kind.

Three more fell behind it and opened fire.

 

[Saphrith]

Rudrig System, 31BBY

"Focus fire on the advancing dreadnoughts, ignore the mainline further back," Sagura orders. Lieutenant Kyne relays the words quickly, and like electrical signals traveling through the nervous system, the response is incredibly fast. I can feel a dozen minds rapidly calculate targeting vectors in an indescribable flurry of thought. It's kind of amazing, the difference between using Battle Meditation on soldiers and using it on people making intense mathematical calculations.

Three of the six shots glide off the side of one of the dreadnaughts while two of the remaining three miss completely. The last splashes across the bow of another almost by complete accident, if not for the sense of satisfaction coming from the gunners that at least part of that was intended.

I never really thought about how inaccurate these battles are, but we're hitting twelve percent accuracy on our shots. Sagura assures me that is a great rate for a capital ship in these types of long-range battles, and unless we get in super close our accuracy won't be much better.

Of course, getting in closer comes with letting them and their higher number of turbolasers get better hits on us and our escorts. The Beacon can take a lot, but if they destroy our escorts and launch boarding actions en masse we're equally screwed.

"Adjust starboard and move to flank the approaching dreadnoughts," Sagura orders. Ensign Madiri, our navigation officer nods and begins adjusting our course once more to bring us around the dozen or so dreadnoughts.

The rest of the Katana Fleet is still hanging in a mass above Rudrig, a good distance from the planet. Half of them are focused on Captain Seftry's battered defense force while the rest are oriented towards us and firing their long range guns, mostly to scare us I think. That or hem us in for targeting data.

As it stands, if they stay where they are, when Admiral Hadrim's reinforcements arrive we can pen them in between us and the planet. Except Rudrig doesn't have a planetary shield generator. I bite my lip and fight the nagging worry of what they'll do to the planet if they're backed into a corner.

But we can't let them realize we're holding them until the fleet comes in. I mean they're probably not stupid, so they should expect reinforcements to come. But there's a big difference in expecting a smattering of lighter ships arriving and a huge fleet of ninety ships with heavy guns coming out. Even a single moment of surprise could be enough to damage them.

So here we are playing cat and mouse, trying to support the defense without looking like we're trying to stall them.

"Commander Kazmin reports heavy fighting, they're pulling their fighters away from Captain Seftry and Rudrig," Ensign Madilon reports tersely, going back to managing the comms. Sagura nods quickly, but a small smile cracks across his face.

"Good, he's to keep their attention and prepare to isolate those dozen dreadnoughts from their fighter support. If nothing else, those twelve should be our targets today," Sagura replies. A dozen's a good haul for a day, but only if we get out of this unscathed.

"Prepare for a massed volley, all ships. Master Sarat, I'm counting on you," Sagura says, extending his hand forward dramatically. I focus, letting the pulse and thrum of the flickering auras around me fill my ears. It's a better focus than worrying about my padawan and the rapid flicker of her aura in a dizzying mix of panic and adrenaline. I have my duties, and so does she. I know she's good enough to survive, especially with Cabur at her back.

I reach out for the gunners on each ship, drawing them together like strong rope tying a construction together. Their auras brighten until they burn as one, and the orders of Captain Sagura etch into their minds.

There's a pause, long and loud. The flames crackle louder and louder, sizzling and popping until with a great conflagration it releases. A synchronized volley of turbolaser fire blankets across the viewport in a mass of energy.

"Direct hit, damage to the third target. Looks like we vented their aft hanger," Madilon reports. The Beacon shakes slightly as a counter-shot hits us and crashes over the viewport. Our shields hold, but even still it's hard not to flinch a little.

"The Arbilest's shields are down to sixty percent," Madilon continues reporting. That's one of our Assault Frigates, a variation on the very ships we face now, Rendili StarDrive's attempt to fix past mistakes and make a new vessel for the Rim to use.

"Tell the Starbound to prepare to switch places on the line once the Arbilest's shields reach thirty-five percent. The Arbilest will swing around in a long arc to recharge shields," Sagura directs.

"If we do that, the Arbilest will be open to their long range volleys. The Katana Fleet's trying to bracket us more or less," I advise him quietly. He doesn't make a move, but his aura hardens.

"This is the price of war, they'd be in danger one way or another. I trust Captain Kuze, she'll find a way to steer her ship through to safety. Captain Seftry's fleet can't hold on much longer and it'll be another two hours at least before Admiral Hadrim's Vanguard arrives. We have to survive till then," Sagura answers.

"I suppose so, what about a bombing run though? I told you about my idea and I think with enough bombers we can cause some problems," I tell him. We have a lot of bombers, and with my Battle Meditation steering them through the mess of point-defense fire they could do a lot of coordinated damage.

"Eventually, right now their own fighter defenses are too much trouble. Let's wind them down a little more. Move the Arrow into anti-fighter duties ," Sagura ordered. The Arrow, a DP-20 frigate, began to shift away from the formation, turning its turbolasers and concussion missiles against the massive flurry that was the ongoing dogfight two clicks from the fleet. Or rather, the waves of fighters coming for it from the Katana Fleet and Rudrig. The Arrow wouldn't stop the tide, but they could stem it a little and give our fighters more of a chance no matter how outnumbered they were.

A rush of anxiety and controlled panic rushes through me. I tense and follow the connection down towards the orbit over the planet and the defense ships there. One of the frigates is beginning to list and start its death throes, and they're heading for escape pods.

"The Tide of Kamorra's launching escape pods." There's the Beacon's crew catching up to what I'm sensing. The Tide of Kamorra lists further, and turbolaser fire chases the fleeing pods. I wince at the bursts of fear popping like firecrackers with each shot.

"Bound to happen eventually, tell Saftry to run evasive patterns but hold her general position. Prepare to adjust trajectory straight for these coordinates," Sagura says with a grim smile. I can feel Madiri's hesitation even as they begin inputting the new vectors. The Beacon begins shifting forward, engines kicking in to drive us forward closer to the fight.

I almost want to point out the recklessness of getting closer to the enemy and their guns, especially as our escorts are much squishier than we are. But then the utter calm in Sagura's aura hits me, and I take a second look. Slowly, a smile stretches across my face as I see the Captain's plans.

The dozen dreadnaughts advancing to face us have outpaced their allies by a wide margin, and in so doing made themselves into the best shield we could ask for from the other one hundred and eighty or so dreadnaughts. Against two hundred dreadnaughts we would be destroyed wholesale, against a dozen with the Beacon holding the center and drawing their fire, we had a much better chance.

"This won't last long," I warn him. "The minute they realize what we're doing they'll move to counter." He smirks.

"We're already in a rough spot, let's force them to break off piecemeal to envelop us. That just means when Admiral Hadrim's force arrives we can clean up the mess," Sagura replies easily. I suppose I see the point, if they move away from Rudrig or break off into smaller contingents if we were lucky, we could have them picked apart. At the very least we could save the planet from their focus and nab a dozen dreadnoughts in the bargain.

"I'm more worried they decide to attack Rudrig or focus on Captain Saftry's forces. But if they do, I have a contingency," Sagura adds lightly. I chuckle morbidly, or they could do that.

Well, we'd just have to see now wouldn't we? At some point they'd have to give up playing with us and start trying to seriously bring us down.
____________________________________________________________________________

"Droids! Back up, Cabur!" Duala cried, pulling her bow back for another shot. The droid raised its blaster before a long clawed arm batted it aside, tearing gouges of metal across it contemptuously.

"Finally! Let my power sing!" Cabur roared. The Basilisk brought its other arm up as from the void came a hail of blasterfire, quick and blindingly accurate. Duala hunched down as a bolt nearly took her head off. She deactivated her energy bow and drew her lightsaber instead. The blue blade ignited, and suddenly, as if fresh meat tossed to ravenous hounds, the bolts sailed towards her. She swung the blade carefully to avoid her two new comrades and deflect the shots back at the shooters.

She couldn't see them, not really. Only the faint illumination of their bodies by the blasterbolts gave them away, but now the Force was helping her, chiming slowly in the direction of where she needed to redirect the shots.

Em and Harist were firing back, but clearly did not have the Force helping, so their bolts went wild as they tried to track the droids by their blasterfire. Cabur unleashed a hail of laserfire that bathed the void in a green hue.

"Pull back a bit, pal, I need to move forward," she said, calling on the spirits of the void. It was so different here, as the spirits were thin and spread out over millions of miles and only sluggishly came to her chant. But come they did, and when she stood to put her boots on top of Cabur, she knew she would not be flung from his hull no matter what maneuvers he pulled.

"Get behind me!" she shouted to Harist and Em, letting them pull themselves back across Cabur's body towards the saddle while she stepped forward. Now unfettered by any risk of hitting the other two, she began her dance across the top of her friend, deflecting blasterfire as it came.

"There's something off, my sensors can't get a good lock on them," Cabur growled. Probably whatever was hiding them visually. And if Cabur was having trouble…

"Fire where my bolts are redirecting to," Duala suggested. She had some degree of sense where they were, at least enough to redirect the shots. Her arms moved with perfect motion reflecting her training back on Naboo. Yet even this supreme coordination seemed not enough to catch where the droids were moving to.

A Basilisk War Droid's lasers and pulse waves on the other hand were not so easily dodged, and Cabur's wrath sent crackling sparks and dismembered bits of droids in every direction. Duala reached out for some of the broken droids and brought them closer, pocketing a few small pieces. They could be looked at later. Someone would want to examine these.

"More movement, drifting our way at speed," Cabur reported eagerly. Just then her two escorts zoomed by, laserfire raking through the void and blasting apart the oncoming droids. Their sensors were better than Cabur's it seemed.

"No time, buddy, we've got some people to rescue and now we're on a timetable," she said and directed Cabur further on. He grumbled disappointedly, but they'd no time to waste, especially now.

But now as they peeled off and Cabur was so helpful to mention the motion tracker again, she could feel the tension in the void around them. The droids were hunting survivors. Why? For sadism? Just to snuff out whatever life they could find? It was unimaginably cruel and worst still for no practical purpose.

"Padawan Aidu, you might want to hurry up. I'm reading Six Cloakshape fighters enroute to our position. I can't cover you from that," their escort warned tersely. Duala frowned but didn't bother looking for their oncoming pursuit. It wouldn't do her any good.

"Step on it Cabur, double-time," she urged, feeling his engines throttle with his fury. He would go as fast as he could for her. She knew she could trust him on this. Their next target was delirious as she found him and mutely did as she asked. Harist and Em helped him clasp himself onto Cabur as they moved on.

Further and further they went, each one more delirious and strained than the last as their air supplies dwindled, until only one remained to be rescued, and her heart soared in her chest. She was going to do it, and then take them to the shuttle and get out of here.

"One more, Cabur, straight ahead," she whispered urgently. The floating marine was unconscious but still alive. If she hurried, they'd make it. But as she neared a flare of danger slashed through her ears. Cabur darted off course as a Cloakshape fighter seared past, lasers firing. She didn't have to see to feel the marine's quick death. She closed her eyes and held back a sniffle. They were so close! She was just about to grab them! An ember of anger swelled in her chest as she desperately clamped it down. Focus, she had to focus!

"Escort Lead, we've got them all, they need extraction immediately," Duala said. A moment of static followed and then…

"Shuttle's heading toward you, we're kind of busy." The reply was clipped and focused. When she looked back the two X-wings were darting around in a desperate dogfight with four Cloakshape fighters while the other two circled her like sharks. The shuttle was making its way towards them through it all though. This was going to be a difficult handoff.

"Cabur, think you're up for shooting some fighters?" she asked, though really she had no need to. He'd have done it anyway, but Ara said it was always polite to ask someone even if you knew they'd do it.

"Gladly," Cabur growled, and laserfire began to lash out at the two cloakshapes. They weaved easily through it, but that did nothing to stop her friend's earnestness while the shuttle approached. Duala turned back to her passengers and began adjusting the rope tying them to Cabur.

"The shuttle's coming, the pilots and medic are in the pressurized section, once you get into the shuttle the doors will pressurize behind you," she explained, fumbling with the rope. They were happy to help the process along as the shuttle closed in. The Cloakshapes were beginning to turn and circle towards them and the shuttle, eager for the kill.

What could she do? Cabur wasn't hitting them, and one hit would be good enough to kill her and the others if it went wrong. Ah, what would Master Sarat do…no, Master Sarat would leap from Cabur and toss her sabers to cut off the wings or something equally insane. Duala didn't have that kind of skill, nor bravery to be honest.

Instead…an idea rang like a bell through her mind, and she almost smiled at the simplicity of it all.

"Cabur, fire to the left of the rightmost Cloakshape approaching," she told him quickly. He grunted something back and began drifting his fire left. Laserfire from the Cloakshapes shot past them, the two fighters zeroing in on their position. Duala reached out with the Force, her presence drifting like a pleasant tune through the void of space to the Cloakshape on the right.

The pilot's bloodlust washed over her like a sudden flash of heat, searing and enough to make her sweat and pant lightly. But she pressed on, feeling for his hands at the control stick of the fighter, directing it and firing its guns. She'd only ever theorized this, never actually tried it, but she grabbed at the control stick with the Force and yanked left.

It was imprecise and jerky, but the Cloakshape began to veer towards Cabur's stream of laserfire. The pilot fought the control and moved up just enough for Cabur's laserfire to strike and break off a wing in a shower of sparks. The Cloakshape careened off into the void, spinning wildly but otherwise still intact.

"Yes!" Duala crowed just before she shrieked as Cabur jerked back to avoid the dive of the other Cloakshape. It swerved away to go for another run, keeping a distance from Cabur.

"Focus, Duala, I will not lose another rider to carelessness," Cabur cautioned while the shuttle approached. The doors were already open, and with a casual shove of the Force she began sending the rescued pilots and marines along toward the open door. They had to be quick about this. She felt a sudden burst of agony and looked. One of her escorts had been blasted, leaving only one X-wing against two Cloakshapes. Her heart was thundering in her chest. The spike of adrenaline sent chills up and down her arms, her body moving faster than she was used to, and yet she wasn't stumbling about with unfocused and clumsy energy.

"Got it. Hurry onto the shuttle!" she called back. The marines and pilots were pulling themselves hurriedly through the doors and turning back to help their allies. Laserfire lanced past her Basilisk and barely missed the shuttle, leaving scorch marks across the hull.

The last pilot was pulled inside, and the doors shut quickly. Duala breathed a sigh of relief, mirroring the relief she could feel from the pilots and marines aboard.

"They're aboard! Pull out!" she shouted to her escort. Cabur's lasers lanced out for the Cloakshapes while her hands flew over the controls. She had missiles, not a lot, but she had them. Okay, the targeting worked like…she pressed a button and from Cabur came a trio of plumes flying like arrows from the string. Her last escort spun off as the Cloakshapes circling it sped away to evade the string of missiles. One connected and detonated the Cloakshape in a shower of sparks and debris. The other two missed narrowly but clearly left the fighters damaged.

The second fighter that had come at them was circling around for another run, and Cabur turned to it angrily. She could almost feel the tension in her friend, the bunching of circuits and gears like tendon and muscle. The bright pink of his form hunched in as he took off like a shot, far faster than she'd ever seen him go in atmosphere.

Duala whooped as she realized Cabur had been holding back his speed. The poor Cloakshape jerked in the void, having realized just that at the worst time. One of Cabur's clawed hands snaked out and grasped for the fighter. He got a wing, and suddenly she was being spun around as the fighter's engines and Cabur's fought each other for control of momentum and pulled each other into a twirling dance.

Cabur's other clawed hand reached up to secure his grip. The Cloakshape fired desperately, but there was no way out with Cabur's grip on him. As her friend began to squeeze and twist the wing buckled and bent until it had broken off completely, and the Cloakshape fell into a spiral of death through the endless void.

Duala watched it go and faintly wondered if the pilot had an emergency air supply. Did the Hutts bother to supply their pilots with exo-capable suits? Or was he spiraling to an eventual death? Had she and Cabur doomed that man to a slow death or would he live long enough to maybe be recovered?

She didn't have time to think about that, couldn't really think about it or else she'd collapse, and she knew it full well.

"Thanks Padawan, we're heading for the Beacon," her lone escort reported. Her eyes twisted back to the battle where green and red turbolasers traded back and forth between ships that seemed so close yet were so far away. And they were moving as well it seemed.

"The Katana Fleet is on the move, they're heading away from Rudrig," she whispered. The great mass was moving, stretching out like a large hand to envelop the smaller fleet where her Master was.

Except…one of the dreadnaughts was staying behind, moving instead in parallel with the planet. Duala found her gaze locked onto that one even though her master was about to be in serious danger. Why leave that one behind unless it was for some horrible plot.

"Cabur, move us towards the defenders," she said slowly, hesitantly. Master Sarat's orders were to listen to Commander Kazmin and Kazmin had just told her to stick with the Escorts while she recovered the vented pilots and marines. She'd done that, and now she had no clear orders. Kazmin was probably fighting for his life, and what her mind told her was to go and help him clear out some of those fighters. Cabur could do it, she could do it. She could keep practicing that trick she used on the Cloakshape, jerking their controls and pulling them out of their maneuvers.

On the other hand, her heart and her instincts were telling her that lone dreadnought was trouble and something she could not ignore. Cabur obeyed without a word. They took off at great speed toward the wounded and flagging warships that served as Rudrig's defenders.

"You have a plan, Duala? I am eager to hear it," Cabur asked, almost a purr really. She wondered if she really was feeling his excitement and eagerness or if she just imagined it. Did she have a plan? She wasn't really sure beyond the instinctive need to move and do something, anything!

"That ship that stayed behind, I bet you it's going to blast Rudrig as a parting shot. There's millions of people down there! I can't just sit by and do nothing when we could be helping them," Duala declared, her hands gripping tightly about Cabur's controls while they soared through the air.

"And you think you can do something to stop them?" Cabur questioned. Duala smirked quietly and patted her friend's armor.

"Yeah, I've got a plan. Do you remember what I did to slip into Norg Bral and help break the siege there?" Duala responded in a sing-song tone. Silence, Cabur's processors were hard at work piecing together the hint, and when he did, it was a joy to hear the amused cackle in his response.

"Excellent! You don't have all of the tools necessary to do it like you did at Norg Bral. Will it be as effective?" Cabur asked curiously. A good question, she wasn't sure. Ideally, she wouldn't need to make use of the ruse for long.

"I won't know until I try. But a distraction would really help me along. I mean, part of the deal is giving them reason to not focus on me too much. Which is where you and the defenders come in! I need you all to run cover for me," Duala said. Cabur moved too fast, and if she disappeared from his saddle, then it wasn't going to be too suspicious. If they even noticed between blasting at the Basilisk. Add in the defensive forces attacking and it was the perfect cover! Plus she could always add to the mimicry later.

"It will feel strange to not have you with me in this battle, but I will do as you ask. Seeing that ship implode will be a joyous sight." Cabur's joy and bloodlust was palpable, but Duala shook her head.

"No, at least not yet. First thing I want to do is check their nav computer and see if I can tell where they've been coming from. Master Sarat and Captain Sagura think that they're using lost hyperlanes only they know about. But surely the nav computer has something we can use," Duala replied. Well, she wanted to stop the ship from firing firstly, but stealing nav data would be a steal if she could get it.

She just needed to get Master Sarat and the defenders to help her. She opened up her comlink on a direct line to Master Sarat.

"No, Duala," Master Sarat said before Duala could even think of speaking. How? Oh, the Battle Meditation, she could probably sense Duala's intent.

"Master! We have to do something, that dreadnought is going to bombard Rudrig and kill countless people! I can get onboard and have at least a chance of slipping by to get there. I can sabotage the reactor, steal the nav data in the confusion and get out." It wasn't a perfect plan, but she'd done her reading on the Katana Fleet!

This ship almost certainly didn't have the full complement of soldiers and crew. At best it had two thousand or so crew and maybe a thousand soldiers for ground operations. On a ship that usually needed sixteen thousand crew? The halls would be bare, and even if they mounted a defense, she would have plenty of places to double-back from and change directions. She was small enough to get through maintenance crawlspaces and could cut holes in doors to allow for better passage.

"You'd also be alone on an enemy warship surrounded by enemies. What will you do if they decide to jump to hyperspace while you're onboard? You'd be trapped, no this isn't a thing you can do. Maybe in the future, I'll request extra Jedi support. You can go in with a pair of Jedi Knights to back you up or maybe a Special Forces team. Not half-cocked on a scheme that could just as easily kill you as win any great victory," her Master replied with a clear note of worry in her voice.

Duala felt a tug at the back of her head, urging her to turn around and go back, but she ignored it.

"And how many people will die on Rudrig because no one can stop that ship? The Planetary security forces are barely holding together, even one dreadnought is going to be a tough fight, and you can't get pass the other one hundred and ninety-nine to stop them. When Admiral Hadrim arrives they'll still have to get past the main force to stop this ship from bombarding Rudrig." It was one ship, but it seemed likely it was already going to start doing that anyway, and they had no idea when Admiral Hadrim would arrive.

"My mimicry spell worked at Mandalore, even convinced the Basilisks. It's going to be risky, but I'll go quickly and go for the reactor first. I can damage it enough to cause power failures and stutter any bombardment. If I miss going for the nav computer…fine, but I'll have helped save the planet," Duala continued while she had the time.

"You had the armor then, and Cabur to add to the mimicry. This time you'll have next to nothing to use to make the mimicry work. Who knows what that ship is laden with to defend itself. You're talented Duala, but even I wouldn't try to take on an entire dreadnought's crew by myself," Viera countered.

"Those droids I sliced up, I have a couple parts of them, I can affix the shell to my armor and pass as a droid. With them distracting the ship, the focus shouldn't be on me anyway," Duala replied. It wouldn't matter if the mimicry wasn't as strong, no one would be paying enough attention to catch it.

"Duala, you can't go in alone. Come back and join the defensive line with Commander Kazmin. Another time we can work on an infiltration plan where you go with a squad. It'll be better that way," Master Sarat said firmly, but her voice was wavering. Duala could feel it.

"Next time won't save potentially millions of lives. This is what a Jedi does, isn't it?" she asked, not hiding her desperation.

Silence, a long drawing silence as she neared the battered defense warships. Duala wondered if Master Sarat would agree. If she didn't, would she go on and try anyway? She didn't know what to do!

Every instinct told her she had to do this, do something! The thought of tens to hundreds of thousands perishing in orbital bombardments with many more suffering strife afterward because she'd sat back and done nothing horrified her. She could barely stomach contemplating it.

"Captain Sagura is calling Chief Engineer Gabbas up, she'll guide you through figuring out the best route," Master Sarat said finally. Duala pumped her fist, yes!

Now she had to figure out a way to make this work.

 

[Saphrith]

Rudrig, 31BBY.

"Sixteen dreadnoughts moving to flank us from above," Ensign Madilon reports as another shot rakes the Beacon's shields. I hold back a curse but barely, sixteen above, thirty on the left, thirty on the right, and soon more below.

They're still a good distance in spatial terms, but they've got us on every angle. Something else is said, but I don't hear it. The flames of the various crews are burning unevenly, and I have to reach out and tune them back into line. It's the problem of Battle Meditation. As the battle goes on and tempers flare or frustrations mount I feel auras dim or brighten and go out of line with their fellows.

So here I go trying to reach out to those flames and nudge them back to where they need to be. Either removing fuel or adding it depending on where it's needed. A gunner curses softly at another miss, and her focus dims into dull acceptance. I reach out to her comfortingly until her motivation soars up and she throws herself back into working hard.

A fighter pilot's enthusiasm rides a bit too high on his sixth kill, and I feel his pride urge him on to more and more risky maneuvers. I feel like a scolding mother, reaching out to gently congratulate his success, then chide him on not playing well with others and bring him into line. All without dampening his spirits too much that he gets killed…great!

I zone out for a solid minute I think, barely even aware of myself as I flit from person to person. Battle Meditation is starting to get a little strange…or not so strange? It's hard to say.

"Prepare to adjust course, full speed parallel with the planet. Let them give chase if they want. The farther they come out, the closer-range Admiral Hadrim's fleet will be." Sagura's words bring me back to the Beacon's bridge, and my presence snaps back to my immediate surroundings.

"Spitfire and Nightfall move to cover the bow and stern, all other ships are to move to the opposite side of the Beacon for coverage," he continued quickly. Fighters surge towards us past the massive dogfight ongoing with Kazmin, and soon our point-defense guns open up alongside the turbolasers.

"The fleet's moving to follow," Madilon reports, and looking at the map they're shifting slowly to pursue us, keeping to their formation to envelop us and taking advantage of our fewer rear-facing guns to fire without reprisal. There's a fair bit of minor damage across some of the closer ships but nothing staggering.

"Why're they still chasing us, they have to see something's off?" I mutter quietly, not quietly enough it seems because Sagura chuffs with amusement.

"Why not? I bet they've got their hyperdrives warmed up to jump at the nearest opportunity. They're outside Rudrig's gravity well. At this point they're just playing with their food. They could burst to full speed and close the gap before we could do likewise. Besides, it's not every day they get the chance to snag a Valor," Sagura answers. I'd laugh at the absurdity if not for the lives on the line, though the knowledge of the inbound fleet to spoil their fun is sweet.

"On the bright side, our starfighter corps is kicking their asses," I say after a glance at that combat figure. Sagura laughs.

"Let's see how long of a merry chase I can lead them on before they get tired of it," Sagura replies gleefully, and I feel myself being tugged away again. The flames of the crew call to me like a moth, or the galaxy's most anxious fire tender. The deck seems to flicker around me when I bother to 'look' back to it, becoming more translucent than usual until it seems like it's almost not there. What the hell is going on?

"Your padawan's making her move, best of luck to her," he adds comfortingly. I take it for what he means by it and let it go. I hate that she's being me, but I hate even more that she has a point.

That dreadnought is locked over Rudrig's capital and could decide to bombard the planet at any moment. Captain Saftry's beleaguered defense ships aren't in any condition to fight that ship evenly, and we can't get there to help without bringing the rest of the Katana Fleet down on our heads.

So something has to be done, and befitting my annoyance, it's my padawan in the best position to do it. I just…wish I wasn't having a stream of all the things I wish I'd taught her running through my head. She's made leaps and strides with her enthusiasm, and she has a lot of talent, but that talent can only take you so far.

I turn my attention back to the battle, seeking out the pilots in particular and the flames of their auras. Their discipline glows with a steady blaze, but there are cracks, places where the fire burns unevenly or seems…incomplete? Like there's a gap in the flame. I huff and reach out for the pilots in question, gathering them together and stoking them. Off you go sweeties, you got this!

I really don't know how to explain it other than a mix of stoking fire and herding children like a schoolteacher. It's kind of comforting actually. I can hear voices faintly at the edge of my perception. Like there's voices speaking on the other side of the door just low enough for me to not be able to hear it clearly. I focus on it, and the voices become clearer, fast-paced yet focused and unerringly accurate. I listen for a few seconds and move on, good job guys.

"Comm transmission, from the Katana," Madilon says, slightly hesitantly. I break back into the moment like a rubber band snapping back into place. A transmission? From the Katana? Sagura grins savagely.

"Put it through, main display," Sagura answers. The hologram begins to shimmer and shake until it forms up as a Jilruan man in ornate, near ceremonial armor. He regards us for a moment then nods as if confirming something.

"You are the Captain of this small squadron?" the Jilruan asks in a clipped, low voice. Sagura inclined his head in a mute nod. That seemed to please the Jilruan.

"I am Jaktosh Kilmav, commander of the Katana by the beneficence of his excellency Belhata. On his behalf I will have your surrender," Jaktosh orders confidently. Sagura smirks, the Duros clenching his fist just out of sight.

"I think I'd rather accept yours first. Those ships are Republic property and I'm sure the Judicials would appreciate them being returned rather than me having to destroy them," Sagura replies confidently. Jaktosh's face doesn't twitch.

"With that force? I could crush you in a moment, but Master Sarat would make an excellent prisoner and increase my standing," Jaktosh answers. I smile, delightfully proud that I get to be an 'excellent prisoner'. Not that I'd want to be subject to the Hutt's tender mercies, or Sidious' if they decided to do so.

"So come send a boarding party. We'll give them a warm welcome," Sagura responds evenly. We've got nearly five thousand soldiers aboard, not counting our naval marines. It'd be a tough fight for them regardless.

"I shall, but before you resist, please note the dreadnought orbiting Rudrig. Right now, I have every concentration of Rudrig's population targeted. Nineteen million potential casualties will lie on your head," Jaktosh says. An alarm blares, but I don't hear the words as the screen displays the planet and the dreadnought orbiting it as a turbolaser shot slams down onto Rudrig.

I hear the screams of the dying chime dully like a waking alarm swatted off. It's a bit depressing how numb I am to death. It hurts, it's bad, I hate the loss, but the chill that would normally have accompanied it just…isn't there. After Coruscant, I'm not sure I can be shocked anymore.

"That was a herald of what is to come should you not surrender. I will give you forty minutes to decide," Jaktosh declares and cuts the line. I curse under my breath, but Sagura is louder.

"Bastard," Sagura growls as he clenches his fist until the steady drip of little rain drops of blood hit the deck.

"So what do we do now? Can we warn the people to evacuate?" I ask him. Sagura shakes his head.

"If he's got the population centers targeted, he'll know if they start evacuating and can adjust if he doesn't open fire anyway. No, we stay the course and keep waiting for Admiral Hadrim to arrive," Sagura says. I turn to him, as Hadrim won't be here before those forty minutes are up.

"And what about Rudrig? What do we do to help them? We could stall, pretend to surrender and waste time until the fleet gets here," I suggest. Sagura shrugs as if it doesn't matter either way, but I know he's fighting his own anger.

"Admiral Hadrim gets here and that dreadnought fires before fleeing. We can delay things, but it all amounts to the same in the end. I'm not surrendering this ship and I won't hear of any possibility of surrender either. It's not like we'd be guaranteed they'd not bombard the place. That is, after all, their point," Sagura points out. Fair enough, not like I expect the Hutts to play fairly or honorably. That said though, I don't like the thought of doing nothing to help Rudrig.

Except now….now it's looking like there's a single method and…dammit!

"If we can stall for time, we might be able to give Duala the chance she needs," I suggest reluctantly, biting my lip as I speak the words. Damn that girl and her recklessness!

"Oh, you're all for it now?" he asks. I snort despite my worries.

"No, but I know when we don't have a better option. I think I know what she's planning and it might work, emphasis on might," I say. It is our best hope right now. I just wish she had better infiltration gear. Next time, after this, we can get her training and equipment for this sort of thing.

"On it, but Captain Saftry can't run distraction for her now. We get close and they fire," Sagura warns. I nod and quiet the butterflies in my stomach. Duala can do this. She handled infiltrating Norg Bral well enough, she can do this.
____________________________________________________________________________

"Grab me another fragment," Duala muttered quietly, checking her oxygen canister annoyedly. Twenty minutes left. That was fine, once she got aboard the dreadnought she could replenish them. In her head the distant echo of the dead below whispered like a lonely breeze upon a barren desert. So many people dead… Duala scowled at the unpleasant reminder.

She'd seen it close hand, the sudden gathering of light that became lances of destruction rained down upon innocent. The screams had been so loud she couldn't hear anything as they bled through her skull and racked her brain until she'd been left standing there watching.

Why? They'd taken no part in the battle, they were barely armed. People died in wars, but only those like the Nightsisters killed so cruelly, without a need.

"Will it be enough?" Cabur asked, and Duala nodded fiercely. It would have to be enough. She took another fragment and affixed it to her armor.

"It has to be, the mimicry will take it and give me a chance to slip past them without drawing notice. If I can get to a ready room and find some uniform bits then I can change into something easier," she said with a final tug. The mimicry had worked on Norg Bral mostly because of Cabur's presence, but here it would be different. She would look like one of the strange droids to them. That wasn't going to be the same as being 'another Mandalorian'. She'd have to act the part and try to slip away when she could to sabotage.

"I do not like you going alone into the ship, if they catch you it will be a fight," Cabur growled protectively. Duala smirked and patted his hull gently. It was sweet of him, and she truly appreciated it, but she'd be fine.

"You'd raise too many alarms, buddy. I can slip through more quietly on my own. Now let's get to the drop off spot," she said confidently. Cabur flew quickly, moving through the void of space near that hateful ship and its bloodthirsty crew.

"You'll need to slow yourself down somehow or else splatter against the hull. You can't miss either or you'll die upon reentry," Cabur warned. She wanted to yell at him to not make this harder than it was, but it was still good to know. She couldn't allow herself to fail in the timing.

"I know Cabur, I'm going to start the mimicry now. Just wait for my signal to fly in and pick me up. Getting out is going to be insane." Duala swallowed her nerves and moved from her seat onto the top of Cabur. Crouching, she began to reach out.

The Force toned somberly about her, chiming in mourning of the countless dead with a slow and soft drumbeat akin to a slowly dying heart. She focused on that beat, trying to bolster it, feel it pound rapidly. Slowly it seemed to her that it did, until the heartbeat began to become so rapid and loud that it overpowered every other sound, even her own slowing breath.

That beat, that power, she grabbed hold and channeled it into her legs to give them the same power and beat. Cabur was drifting now, and she could see the dreadnought in the distance. Slowly they began to align together until she had as straight a shot as she could judge towards it.

Next, she called upon the spirits of the void, those faint formless and weak entities surviving out here in the void. They were so weak, and yet so eager to come to the aid of someone who could channel them.

Almost too eager, she felt the energy wash over her in a rush like she'd been hit by the force of a flowing river. A gasp forced its way out, and as she calmed the chill remained. Then, with that done, she pushed off Cabur with all the force she could muster.

She took off like a shot toward the dreadnought, flying so fast she could almost imagine what the wind would feel like if she weren't in the void of space. It was just like her descent to Mandalore, that fleeting moment where she was falling endlessly to the ground with a hostile Basilisk trying to claim her life.

Now that same Basilisk was one of her best friends, strange how things could change.

The dreadnought grew closer and closer, rapidly growing larger in her view. Those turbolasers and point defense guns didn't alight as she drew near, and no missiles or lasers obliterated her, so she could only hope that her mimicry was keeping them from realizing what she really was. The hangar was open with a small blue shimmering field protecting it from the vacuum, but not from objects passing through, as fighters returned to the vessel.

"Almost at the ship," she whispered into her secure comm.

"Acknowledged, report back once you get clear from the hangar," her engineer support, Engineer Gabbas, answered. She knew the deck plans of a Rendili dreadnaught like the back of her hand.

Now, how about not splatting against the hull? Duala reached out for the Force again, gathered the energy like a drumroll building up to the finish, and held it. She got closer and closer until she was only twenty meters from crashing against the hull before releasing it like a great crash of cymbals, and the push slammed into the metal hull.

No chance of it moving the ship, but it did arrest her momentum enough for her to grab for an antenna and come to a safe stop. She began to crawl towards the hanger, spider-crawling her way down the edge of the hangar until she could come out and step through the blue shimmer.

The interior of the hangar was awash with activity, and for a brief moment she was struck by a sudden fear that she'd be seen. But the assembled droids and beings here were more focused on the starfighters, fixing minor damage, refueling, and rearming the fighters while the pilots pointed out issues or simply meandered about their vessels.

She walked stiffly around the edge of the hanger towards the door. She could contact Maise and figure out where to go from there. She had two goals from this little operation.

The first was to sabotage the weapons systems in some way to prevent them from firing upon Rudrig. Sabotaging the reactor could do that, or she could just damage the targeting connectors, leaving the gunners unable to fire no matter how many times they pulled the trigger. The former would be relatively easy but incredibly risky to her, but the latter required a bit more of an extensive amount of sabotage.

The second goal was much harder. The fleet was likely using the Katana's nav computer to make any secret jumps, but there was still a chance this ship's nav computer could provide some clues as to where they went. But getting that information meant going to the bridge and somehow downloading the information without anyone noticing.

That would be her last stop, one way or another. As soon as she did that she'd be running for her life.

"Stop there, droid." Duala stilled, feeling panic start to creep up and knock at the iron ring of armor that Master Sarat's Battle Meditation had formed around her. It didn't creep in, but it made its presence clearly known regardless.

She turned around and found a grey-skinned humanoid in a rough-spun uniform of red and black with slicked back green hair. He had a blaster pistol holstered at his belt, but he hadn't drawn it, nor did he seem to be preparing to by what she could feel. She felt what she surmised was a dull curiosity, giving her no more interest than any other droid.

"Where's the rest of your unit? Are you the only one left?" he asked. Duala nodded without trusting herself to speak. She'd never thought to test to see if the mimicry would cover speech, much less droid speech! She didn't even know if these droids could speak.

"Damn those fighters, are you damaged too? Report to the mechanic's room and power down for repairs. Commander Kilmov wants all battle data recorded for later reference." Duala nodded and he let her go without another word, expecting that order to be obeyed. She marched confidently forward, as if she belonged. That was one of the keys to a successful infiltration. You acted like you belonged, and people generally believed you did.

"Gabbas, I'm out of the hangar," she whispered quietly, cutting her helmet's exterior speakers. Looking around, the hallway was seriously cramped when she compared it to the Beacon. The hallways were narrow, barely fit for two or three to walk side by side. There were doors and branching paths going off to where she didn't know, but in lieu of any better plans she took off right down the hall.

"Okay, the reactor core should be leftward from the central hanger if that's where you're going to go. Sabotaging the reactor will serve to destroy the ship then and there if you're not careful and turn the Katana Fleet against Rudrig in retribution. Sagura suggests taking it slow and heading for their targeting computers. There should be two gunnery stations at the aft and forward. Sabotaging them should be your first stop." Gabbas' voice came softly through her internal comms.

"Okay, I went right from the hanger. Which am I going for?" she asked.

"You're heading forward then, they shouldn't have had the time or need to change the superstructure any so assuming you keep on the same hallway with no deviation you'll reach the forward gunnery deck as the last two doors on the left before the hallway turns right," Gabbas answered. Well, if walking was all she could do right now, then walk she would.

As she walked, droids and organic crew moved past her to go about their duties. Mostly droids though. Narrow tan bipedal models with color-coded markings seeming to denote some specific crew duty she didn't understand. Astromechs and slow power-droids marched between other bipedal models whose hands sparked with tools and interacting implements.

She glanced at every door that opened as she walked, spotting a lot of retrofitted rooms for droid maintenance and power charging. Another seemed to be a retrofitted pen of some kind with clear cages inside.

"Gabbas, there's cages in here. The Katana Fleet might be carrying slaves," she whispered furtively. Now what? What if there were slaves aboard the ship? Destroying it would kill them, but she couldn't safely free them, could she? She could imagine any number of plans to get them out of the cages, but getting them to escape pods or shuttles? Not possible.

"Oh," was the engineer's response, and then she grew quiet for a time. Duala wanted to fidget as she walked, trying to contemplate potentially damning civilians to death.

"BX-model unknown, identify." A droid interrupted her transit. It was one of the tan bipedal droids with blue markings all across it, and it moved to block her path.

"Identify." It repeated. Duala raised her hand and tapped her head slowly. The droid didn't respond.

"Damage?" The droid tilted its head, confused it seemed. She could almost feel it processing her actions and parsing them out. It didn't seem smart, but that…dumbness seemed to also make it rigid and unable to handle complex thoughts.

"Identify, Damage." The droid repeated. Other droids were turning, and while none of them seemed to be armed or even too much alarmed, that wouldn't last for long, would it.

"Eh…" she croaked, trying for her best scratchy voice. This caused the droid to twitch and jerk, adjusting and appraising her with some kind of measure she couldn't quite understand. The droid raised a hand.

"Escort to maintenance, vocabulator-damage, unknown errors, follow follow," the droid orders and without another word begins walking…in the opposite direction she was going. Duala wanted to scream with frustration yet didn't dare do anything but follow.

Ignoring this order would certainly undo her already shaky mimicry. She couldn't afford to not go along with it until she had a better disguise to her mimicry, and so back she went along the long hallway but only for a short while, not so far as to go back to the hanger itself. Soon she was standing at the door of a nondescript room. The other droid knocked on the door, and a gruff voice ordered them in.

Within the room was a collected assortment of droid parts big and small that lined the many shelves and walls. A tall ladder on rollers moved across the walls to allow the mechanic to reach the many parts.

Said mechanic was a tall Devaronian woman with windswept red hair and a long scar across her nose that tapered off into jagged points at each end. Green eyes barely looked up from an open astromech's dome.

"BX-droid, damage identified," her bidepal guide explained. What did she do now? It wasn't like the mechanic could open her up, but just refusing or attacking would break the mimicry. The mechanic approached, something heavy looking in one hand. Did she bolt and just upend the mimicry now?

"Easy there, let's get you ready for the examination," the mechanic crooned, moving before Duala could get her plan together. A shock surged through her so strong she couldn't even muster a scream nor even feel the pain. Her body locked up, and deftly the Devronian dragged her over to the table.

"You're fine, I've got it from here~" she singsonged to the droid who left without a word. Duala saw more than felt the straps being brought up to tie her to the table. She could barely move her limbs, the nerves sluggish and slow. Master Sarat's Battle Meditation was a comforting blanket against her rattling nerves but only just.

"It's so nice to be on a ship with so few organics to bother with. Nice, clean droids who don't cause problems. You might appreciate that, strange organic that you are." She hummed, ignorant of Duala's sudden jolt of fear. The Devaronian giggled to herself while she rummaged through a drawer of tools and implements, sharp jagged things and screws aplenty. Some had electric jolts sparking from them, but it was the glimmer of delight in her eyes that bothered Duala the most.

"Oh, it's clever, whatever you're doing to make yourself look like one of our BX-models. I confess I can't quite place whatever you've done to disguise yourself but oh boy am I curious to find out. Our dear Commander will appreciate whatever I get out of you, might find myself a nice bonus." She giggled, leaving Duala to contemplate her circumstances.

Of course a droid mechanic would know a fake droid from a real one on sight, but she hadn't alerted anyone yet. No communications with her superiors, yet. But that couldn't last for long. She seemed…happy with the prospect of being able to torture and question at her leisure.

"No words yet? I'm sure you're probably panicking just a little bit. Don't you worry, I'll get you out of that armor so that I can see the pain on your face…and document your identity for later. I'm pretty sure you're someone reasonably important." The Devaronian sighed, reaching out to stroke the cheek of her armor.

Okay, okay this was getting very creepy and very uncomfortable.

"Duala, are you okay?" Gabbas' voice whispered urgently over the comm. The answer was no, she was not okay. Her mimicry was as good as dead. As soon as someone saw through it, the spell weakened to nothing!

The Devaronian was reaching for her armor, brushing aside the BX-droid pieces to work at the clasps to her armor. Duala glanced up to the shelves and the innumerable clutter stacked high above them. She was lucky for the Devaronian's carelessness and lack of attention. If she spotted the lightsaber in the small holster on Duala's belt, she'd panic and call security. She'd be screwed if that happened!

So up she reached, calmly rattling the parts on the shelves until they began to shake and shift near the edge of their shelves. Slowly, they began to rattle louder and louder until all at once they fell forward, bits and pieces crashing down around them.

The Devaronian looked up in shock just in time for a half-taken apart motivator to crash into her face and some more circuits to land atop her. She stepped back and flailed against the downpour of parts before an R2's empty head crashed atop hers and knocked her to the ground.

It was a torrent, and Duala couldn't escape being buried under a flurry of parts herself. The great clamor bellowed throughout the room until at last it began to stop with a slow clanging and ringing of objects slowly coming to a stop.

For a moment Duala just lay on the table, buried and wondering what in the name of the Maiden she was supposed to do now!

"Duala? Padawan Aidu, are you there? What's happening?" Gabbas asked a tad desperately over the comm, likely fearing whatever Master Sarat would do if it seemed she'd failed her padawan.

What would Master Sarat say in this kind of situation? Duala thought for a moment, waiting to see if the Devaronian stirred.

"Fuck," she said. That was probably about right.

 

[Saphrith]

Rudrig, 31BBY.

I've come to the conclusion that really getting into Battle Meditation is…weird. Even more so for how natural it feels. I've noticed myself growing decidedly detached from myself as the battle's progressed. Is this what it means to begin to actually…well not master, but acclimate to using it so much?

My body is…I have to look for my body actually, amidst the wash of minds and auras I find myself shepherding. Okay, you're doing great with the gunnery controls, but pay attention to the gunnery officer's directions please. Then I immediately move onto another person. Yes you're missing your shots, but that's okay, you're trying and that's what matters, keep at it!

The voices whisper around me, the flames behind them flickering and crackling in tune like a chorus, a mass of candles, hearths, bonfires, and torches all burning to their own beat and rhythm. It's all I can see, all I can feel, endlessly swirling about me as I find myself drawn to one after another in a seemingly never-ending—

"Fuck," Duala's voice rings clear as cracking glass through the concordance of sensation. I flick my focus over to her and find her laying astride a table, unharmed by the look of things, but clearly distressed. I reach out to her and feel her quickened breath, imagining the darting of her eyes back and forth and the regret and frustration wallowing within her. Gently I brush aside her doubts and clear the clutter off her flame. Let it breathe, let it grow, her flame is whimsical and gently chimes in time with each flicker.

She really is just like me, I can't help but think. But I think it's the adventure that draws her more than the desire to right wrongs. As much as she talks, it's hard not to notice the itch in her aura, that desire to take the trail leading off the main road, just because.

"You can do this, Duala, but be safe please," I whisper softly. I don't even know if she can hear me right now. Her flame stabilizes slowly as the discipline of her training and the Battle Meditation slowly center her thoughts.

"Dreadnought shields are down." The words interrupt my shepherding of my wayward padawan and gently pull me back to the moment in my body. Even focusing on myself, I still feel like I'm some sort of Astral projection above myself.

I really think I understand how that Jedi Master at the Battle of Mira got sniped during her Battle Meditation. This is distracting, thank goodness I've got Jedi watching my back. Sagura's grinning savagely like a man who just saw his moment.

"Focus fire on that dreadnought before they bring their shields back. Tell Commander Kazmin, now's the moment to strike," Sagura orders. The command flutters like signals through neurons relaying through the various intermediaries.

Another bombing run maybe? Damage the engines and at least one ship won't be leaving when reinforcements pop out. The tugging of orders ghosts along my senses beneath the flickering flames.

I feel my presence detach again and drift off after the passing sensations to corral and bring into line.
____________________________________________________________________________

Getting herself out of the restraints was simple, a quick application of the Force and they clicked open or undid themselves in a snap. Pushing off the detritus and parts was another simple matter. Finding her footing in the now cluttered floor was slightly harder, requiring she shift things around a little bit.

Figuring out a new plan…still in progress. Her mimicry was shattered, and she had enough trouble getting that one up with the few spirits present in the void. Another one was almost out of the question, and what would she even do to create a new one?

She thought of stripping the Devaronian to wear her outfit, but that was even trickier. Taking on the guise of the mechanic was too specific, too fixed. People would know her and quickly wonder why she wasn't at her post and why she acted so strangely, and that would be the end of the mimicry.

She needed something faceless and benign. As a faceless Mandalorian she had an easy time of it, especially with Cabur. If there were organic troopers she could've tried for their armor, but she had yet to see one.

"Duala, what's your status, what's going on?" Gabbas repeated, sounding faintly desperate. Duala sighed.

"My mimicry's broken, I don't think I'm getting another one," she replied sadly, and a little worriedly. What did she do now! She just got here and already the mimicry had failed. She hadn't even begun with her mission!

"Shit, are you in danger?" Gabbas asked. Duala wanted to answer yes, as if she wasn't now, she'd be in danger shortly. But instead, she breathed in deeply and let it out slow, looking about the room for a sign that anyone had noticed the commotion.

The room was probably relatively sound-proof to keep her work from disturbing the rest of the ship, but who knew how sensitive droid audio receptors were or if there was a camera watching the room? She didn't see a camera, but she also didn't exactly know what a Hutt camera would look like.

"Not yet, but I will be soon. I…I'm in a maintenance room and I need another way out," she said at last. Going out the door would start a fight almost immediately. Silence on the line, and she hoped Gabbas was using that time to consult schematics.

"Um, do you know where you are in relation to the hangar?" Gabbas asked quickly. Duala bit her lip and tried to think.

"Well, I went right from the hangar initially, but the droid caught me and took me back the opposite way. We didn't go past the hanger, so…still to the right of the hanger. I'm on the left side, opposite the hangar door," she rattled off, straining her ears to hear the faintest hint of…well anything that might indicate a squad coming to attack her.

"Checking the schematics…there's a maintenance hallway going parallel with the stretch of rooms you're in. See if you can find a vent," Gabbas said eventually. Duala glanced around. A vent cover would be close to the floor against one of the walls. She crouched and looked underneath the various shelves and desks until she spotted what seemed to be the vent cover beneath a sitting desk, half hidden by a clutter of scrap.

"I don't know if I'll fit in there, what if I get stuck?" Duala asked nervously. If she got stuck in there it'd be…a problem. The thought of finding herself stuck in the vent and unable to move, surrounded by all that cramped metal made her shiver.

"They're bigger than you think, these ships were meant to hold sixteen thousand crew plus troop complements. The designers cut corners wherever they could and so all the ventilation systems are connected with the interior maintenance hallways, so you won't need to go far. They were meant to be able to fit the SX-5 mouse droid model which should be tall enough to fit a girl your size. You just need to get there and you can traverse the ship more unnoticed," Gabbas offered.

"If you insist," Duala muttered as she removed the vent cover and prepared to crawl through. The interior was dark, but she thought she could faintly see a pinprick of light somewhere beyond. As a safety, she unclipped her lightsaber and held it in front of her. If she got stuck she could maybe activate the lightsaber and cut herself free somehow?

Every inch of her shook as she made her way into the vent slowly. She had to crawl slowly with every movement rattling and making the metal creak. That was faintly reassuring actually because it meant she wasn't stuck yet. But neither did she have a lot of room to wiggle as every time she moved her arms to pull herself forward she bumped into the side.

Breathe in and breathe out, she had to keep breathing evenly, letting herself focus on the act of moving forward because if she didn't and stopped to think for too long about what she was doing she thought she'd scream.

It wasn't even the cramped quarters! It was the thought of being stuck, unable to move in this little vent where no one could find her nor would they bother to try. She felt tears prick at the corner of her eyes, welling up her vision until she had to rapidly blink them away.

Forward, forward, just a little farther. That pinprick of light was growing brighter and brighter now. She could almost see the maintenance tunnel, and that bright spot of hope was enough to get her to pull herself along more quickly until she could feel her hands on the grate that separated the vent from the maintenance walkway.

Opening the vent cover she pulled herself onto an empty metal walkway similar to the Beacon's engineering crawlspaces. The familiarity was such a blessing that she just laid there for a moment, basking in the freedom. Then she inhaled and stood slowly. She still had a job to do here, and this was enemy territory. A maintenance droid could easily spot her, and while they generally weren't smart enough to notice she wasn't supposed to be there, that was only 'generally'.

"I'm in the maintenance tunnels," Duala whispered, clipping her lightsaber back to her belt and moving slowly down the walkway.

"Okay, keep going until you get to a junction and figure out where you are. There should be a listing on the wall. I've got the schematics up now and if we're lucky you can bypass half the ship before they realize anything," Gabbas said. The hope was nice, even if she was on plan B at best.

A mouse droid zipped past her feet and didn't even make mention of her over its tasks and duties, so that was at least something. Being able to hear their mutterings was actually pretty useful here.

The junction wasn't anything special. She barely noticed it against the uniform metal, the samey support beams, and metal gratings with their dull glow. The only thing that gave it away was a small dip in the wall where a path almost hidden by the bulk of the superstructure hid. She darted forward and spun to look at the markings.

"Uh, we're at Junction Cresh-5 heading north," Duala read out, whatever that meant. At least the instructions were still in Basic. The Hutts generally used Huttese, but would they have bothered to completely relabel the whole ship?

"Okay, you're on level six. Keep going north until you get to Cresh-8 and go left. Do you still intend to try and sabotage the gunnery stations?" Chabbas asked with a note of concern.

"Yes, it's either that or the reactor and I don't know enough to sabotage the reactor without getting myself killed," Duala answered glumly. At this point, her best option was probably to go in and destroy the gunnery stations to prevent them from being used.

"They can reroute the gunnery controls to another station, but that'll take them some time and it won't be nearly as precise," Gabbas explained when she told the engineer her plan. Well, that was about what she'd hoped for.

A delay of any kind would be enough to save the people of Rudrig. Then a thought occurred to her.

"Gabbas, is this gunnery station I'm going to the one controlling the guns facing the planet? What if I sabotage the wrong guns and they just open fire on Rudrig anyway?" Was that how this worked? She wasn't sure.

"It doesn't work that way, there's guns all over the ship. They'd be able to fire on Rudrig regardless so long as they had some gunnery stations operational. Take out one and you've lessened the number of turbolasers firing, nothing more," Gabbas answered. That…wasn't the answer she wanted.

Especially since she'd have to be very obvious about sabotaging the station, what with no mimicry anymore. She'd get one clean sabotage, and then she'd have to either run or be very careful on her next approach.

"Then I'll have to sabotage this gunnery station and hope Captain Saftry can handle the weakened dreadnought." Half their guns maybe gone, the rest of the fleet chasing Master Sarat, maybe they'd have time to damage the ship again and save Rudrig?

"Alright, then head to Cresh-8 and go left. There should be an access door that leads as close to the gunnery station as you can get. You'll go left and three doors down on your right will be the gunnery station," Gabbas reported. Awesome! She could sabotage the gunnery station, retreat into the maintenance tunnels, and get as close to the hanger as she could. Then Cabur bursts into the hangar, and they fly out to safety!

Perfect plan.

"Thanks Gabbas, I'll let you know as soon as the gunnery station is sabotaged," Duala said as she jogged down the path. The line clicked closed, and she was left alone in the dim maintenance hallway.

All in all, it wasn't a bad mission per say. A few hiccups, some minor changes of plans, but all in all she was doing well. The next time she considered something like this she'd need a better disguise. Maybe she could ask to have Hutt soldier uniforms/armor or droid wreckage sent to her to provide her with better mimicry, something like that.

Yeah, or perhaps this would be better in an army camp where there were more people to lose herself amongst? That was something she could talk to Master Sarat about in preparing for the next time she attempted this.

She got to junction Cresh-8 after what seemed like fifteen or so minutes of running and went left. A small door stood at the end of the hall, and it opened when she pressed the door controls. She'd have thought it would be locked, but maybe it was only locked to people going into the maintenance tunnels, not out?

She peeked her head around the corner and found a hallway mostly empty save for a few marching droids. Heads turned to her but didn't immediately clock her as out of place. Three doors down on the right side stood an unassuming door. Okay, sprint in and get things done then get out.

She took off like a shot, every footstep pounding in her ears with a resounding boom. Her lightsaber unclipped from its holster and flew into her hands as she heard the first beginning warbles of alarm and panic. She drew on the Force for aid again, feeling that pounding drum begin to boom faster and faster.

With a shout she burst into the gunnery door and stopped, lightsaber ignited and raised.

The blue blade cast its cerulean glow across a room twice as big as the mechanic's small workshop with matching rows of terminals glowing orange with holographic displays. Before them sat twenty of the same tan colored droids with yellow markings instead of the blue before.

Standing in front of her on a raised section of the room was a gobsmacked Weequay woman in what Duala believed was probably a Hutt uniform. Flanking her on either side were two…Trandoshans? Duala squinted.

No, those weren't Trandoshans. They were too tall and bulky, and their heads weren't shaped the right way, no teeth in their mouth but terrifying strong looking beaked mouths. The one closest to her narrowed its eyes at her until they alighted on her lightsaber, and then something flared in its eyes, something violent and cruel. It roared in a language she didn't understand and drew a sword, long and jagged, from its belt alongside a shield on its back.

The other reptilian was doing likewise. Duala leaped right, heading into the room and away from the brute. It gained on her fast and swung that wicked looking sword for her. It hit the edge of the door, and the clang that followed was far louder than she liked. That thing hitting her would be bad, even if her armor blocked it.

She darted along the edge of the room and leaped up, kicking off of the wall as her lightsaber extended into its pike form. On the spin she swung the extending blade strike through a droid at its terminal and slammed into one of the fighter's shields. And there it stopped.

Duala blinked at the resistant metal and backpedaled quickly, thrusting the pike out in a series of rapid jabs that her foe deflected. Well, wasn't that annoying! The other one was coming down the other side of the room to flank her. Duala considered her increasingly limited options and swung the pike into a nearby terminal while she had the time. She had to damage the batteries somehow!

Her foe howled and charged her with a viciously wide swing. She adjusted her pike so that the blade fell on the haft of the pike and screeched against the metal. Her arms shrieked with pain, and once more she called on the Force, letting it buoy her strength to fight.

From behind her came another attack, a creeping twang just before the strike. She dove forward amidst the terminals, the droids still working tirelessly. Idly she grabbed hold of one with the Force and flung it at her attackers. Her target batted it aside without a second thought but retreated back when her blade thrust for his gut.

The second opponent was on her in an instant. Duala grit her teeth and reached out once more, Master Sarat's late night training and Ood Bnar's holocron ringing in her bones. She gestured upward, and the reptilian burst into the air like he'd jumped onto a trampoline. He flailed for a second, then lowered his shield to soften his landing on the terminal and the poor droid attending it. The sound of it crunching under his weight was concerning enough.

The Weequay was fumbling for her blaster and comlink, but Duala lunged with her pike and thrust forward. She heard a scream as her blade punctured the Weequay gunnery officer's gut. Duala vaulted onto the raised platform and retracted her blade. The pike was a good idea for getting distance, but she was too cramped in here.

She grabbed the blaster pistol quickly and turned to find herself…back in the same position she'd been. The two big guards moving towards her amidst the terminals, the door on her right, no real plan except to wing it, and a timer likely counting down to when reinforcements arrived to trap her in a tiny little room.

"Okay, could I possibly ask you both to either fight me one on one or leave me be?" Duala asked, knowing there was no hope of that. They didn't even bother to answer. What to do, what to do, what to do!

A whisper of a thought passed through her mind, and a calm settled over her like ice water across her raging nerves. This was a warship, and people lived here, even if they were mostly droids. With organics came food, supplies, life. Where life thrived, so did spirits. She began to chant a familiar spell, feeling the spirits react to a new face and a new call. The guards swung for her, but she backflipped onto the wall. Her feet latched on, and in the momentary surprise she leaped across the room.

She slashed and fired as she flew, the Force transforming her into a whirling dervish of blade and bolt. Her lightsaber cut apart droids as they worked, uncaring of the violence around them, while blaster bolts slammed into terminals to damage and render them useless.

She landed on the opposite wall of the room and smirked. Now she had all four walls of the room as her playground. Her leap had destroyed most of the droids in the room but fewer of the terminals. She still had work to do and still had foes.

They rushed her furiously now, angry at her destruction and their inability to catch her. She raised her lightsaber to meet them, letting the Force flow through her to keep herself strong. The first blow of the sword still rattled her arms a little bit, but not so much she couldn't handle it. She disengaged and danced across the wall, trading blows and firing off blaster bolts haphazardly. She wasn't a great shot, barely passable, but the narrow confines made that matter less than it would have otherwise.

She darted and leaped from wall to wall, causing problems as she went, though they seemed to acclimate to her new style of fighting rather well.

She was slashing terminals as she went, but now they were pursuing her with a fervor she couldn't quite match and a speed that gave her little time to respond. She reached out for one of the reptilian enemies and flung them up into the roof with some effort. She took a few shots at him while he seemed dazed, but only one shot actually hit his unexposed skin, and that didn't do much.

Before she knew it she was back to dancing across the roof while her saber sparked and sizzled against the blade of her enemies. Her arms ached and her heart pounded with each heavy clang of blade against blade. Even with the Force bolstering her muscles they were strong and trading evenly with her blow for blow.

Ataru wasn't working, she'd need to switch. Master Sarat had been drilling her on Djem So, so maybe that would help her? She sidestepped a sweeping lunge and lunged for the other reptilians, crashing into him with a flurry of blows that bounced off his blade or his shield.

A horrible scrape and a throbbing pain erupted across her back as the enemy she'd sidestepped swung around, his blade scraping across her back. She almost stumbled but pressed on. The Force was showing her a path forward, and she was doggedly walking it.

Her foe blocked with sword and shield, but there was a gap becoming clearer and clearer. He raised his shield and cocked back for a swing. She braced herself against the ceiling and 'ducked' under the first swipe. Then she sprung 'up' when he swung for the second time. Her lightsaber carved through the reptilian's shoulder and sword arm in one go.

That done she leaped away again as the other finally caught up and lunged. Duala grinned fiercely, she had her opening! But she was so short on time.

"Stop right there!" someone shouted, followed by the sound of multiple armored boots on the metal floor. She glanced over in dismay to see a human man in heavy looking armor with a blaster carbine in his hands. Behind him were about a dozen battle droids with blaster rifles. They were leveled at her but not firing yet. She raised her lightsaber cautiously.

"I don't know how you got aboard, Jedi, but this is as far as it goes. Drop the lightsaber and you'll live for now," the man ordered authoritatively. The droids were beginning to fan out through the room to surround her, and more were sure to be coming behind them. What did she do now?

The reptilian she'd wounded was clutching his severed arm with the other one growling menacingly at her. A blaster bolt flew into the ceiling near her as if to emphasize her predicament.

"Jedi, this is your last warning. Four squads are enroute to secure the hallway and escort you to a cell. Unless you wanna die, drop that lightsaber!" the guard yelled. Duala glanced to the few active terminals remaining. She'd destroyed the droids operating them, but there was no way they didn't have spares to fill that position the minute she was captured.

Her time on this ship was about over, and she'd only damaged one gunnery station. It was better than nothing, but she still felt like she'd failed. She grit her teeth and looked to her would-be captor.

That didn't mean she was going to let herself be captured, or go quietly. He was moving around to the Weequay to check on her, but now she got a good look at him. He was armed to the teeth, predictably given he thought he was going to fight a Jedi. In addition to the carbine, he had a slugthrower pistol, two or three long knives, and a grenade on his belt.

He was going to regret that last one. Duala extinguished her lightsaber and saw the tension in his body relax, as if he was out of the danger zone and had just secured himself a nice promotion and reward. The reptilians were seething with anger and thwarted fury. They might have lunged for her anyways, but they were obedient it seemed.

"Good, now drop the lightsaber," he ordered sharply. She looked at her lightsaber then to him.

"I think your grenade is busted," she said and reached out. He glanced down, confused, then panicked as the grenade began to beep ominously. He flailed at it, reaching for his belt with shaking hands to unclip it. Duala leaped down to the floor and yanked the grenade from his belt toward the middle of the room. She ducked behind a terminal and waited anxiously.

She heard roars, movement, and blasters fired around where she hid as the droids ignored their imminent destruction. The man was staggering to the door when the explosion went off.

It was more destructive than she'd anticipated. The wave of heat washed over the room in an instant as if she'd gone from an arctic wasteland to a lava-filled volcano. With it came a rush of force that nearly knocked her from behind her cover. Under the deafening boom of the explosion she heard a thousand clangs of shrapnel and shattered metal parts being flung every which way from the detonation.

When it finally ended, she was left in a room of silence broken by the occasional crackle of sparking electricity from open cables. No roar of angry defiance, no battle droids trying to kill her, nor any human officer insisting upon her capture. Just her, and the slowly growing pain in her shoulder.

Duala hissed as she turned to look at her right shoulder and the bit of the terminal behind it. The explosion had melted through part of the metal and burned her armor black. She tried to move it and felt a lance of pain. Oh, that was going to be a trip to the bacta tank when this was done.

She stood shakily and turned to the wreckage of the room. Not a single terminal left operational. At least she had that going for her. Duala raised her arms weakly and whooped quietly.

Success?

 

[Saphrith]

Rudrig, 31BBY.

Not success, Duala stepped out into the hallway to a hail of blasterfire. Her lightsaber swung in messy blue arcs as her muscles screamed at her to stop and rest, but she was hardly in position to do so.

One, no two dozen various droids and organics were ahead of her hunkering behind blast panels, curves in the hallway, or doorways for cover, and she could hear the gentle harp string whisper of more coming from the other way and quickly. She didn't have time.

"Gabbas, I've sabotaged one of their gunnery rooms but I've got to get out. Tell Cabur to head for the hangar to pick me up. Now's our best chance to drive the ship off." She didn't like how raspy her voice was and how she was breathing heavily. She reached out to the Force, trying to draw more strength, but every bolt seemed to break that concentration, keeping her focused on deflecting the flurry of shots as she advanced to the maintenance hatch.

"On it, we're detailing a squadron to help escort you back and to support Saftry's attack. Get out of there quickly," Gabbas responded with a touch of worry. Duala put on an extra burst and cried out when she slammed into the maintenance door. Locked? Why was it locked!

Blasterfire sizzled around her, barely missing her in the small dip of the hall where the door sat. Duala cursed softly and plunged her lightsaber into the door, praying with every cut that they didn't close the gap and blast her in the back. Her back was on fire, the proximity even on a miss enough to warm the back of her armor as blasterfire began to come from both directions, slowly converging and getting closer to actually hitting her.

The door fell inward with a clang as good as a choir of the Winged Goddess' high spirits to her ears. She stumbled through and took off once more, half-hobbling as she ran.

"Gabbas. I'm in the maintenance tunnels, how far do I have to go to get to the nearest hangar?" she asked between staggered breaths. She didn't actually know.

"From the door you went in…go down nine junctions and go right," Gabbas answered. Nine junctions wasn't what she wanted to hear. How far was that, and how long before they started chasing? A red bolt screaming past her head answered that question quickly enough. Too soon it seemed. She turned back and swung to deflect what she could. The cruel irony of being in a narrow corridor where she could bleed her pursuers but unable to risk stopping.

A blaster bolt grazed her leg, earning a yelp of pain. She deflected a bolt back into the pursuing droid and kept on as more marched over the wreckage.

Right now would be a great time to have a partner to work with, someone who could watch her back while she worked.

Really, she'd have loved to have Master Sarat with her. This wouldn't be such a problem if Master Sarat was here picking apart the droids like they were made of paper.

And maybe a regiment of elite RA troopers if she was wishing for miracles. One junction passed, then another as the clanging grew louder around her, and she couldn't shake the fear that they would be smart enough to cut her off. She pressed herself to go faster amidst the pain in her legs and body.

The second junction down she began to feel a bit more confident, and she made it all the way to seventh junction with only the pursuers behind her giving her trouble. But the confidence didn't last and didn't overshadow the expectation of facing an enemy ahead.

Which was about the time that a huge droid came stomping around the junction ahead and raised a hand to release a torrent of blasterfire. Duala deflected the bolts back, each hit staggering the droid but doing little else. A blaster bolt nearly slammed into her shoulder as she plunged her saber ahead into the big droid and carved a chunk off.

She turned and flung it back into her pursuers for the few precious seconds she'd get to continue on, but ahead more droids were coming from the junctions, and Duala had to slow to deflect and carve through them.

Her body was faltering though, and only reflex allowed her to dodge what her lightsaber couldn't deflect in the narrow corridor. She was fighting her way through, and they were trying to weigh her down with their numbers and her injuries.

She carved through one droid and used the corpse to block behind her while two more droids came from ahead. She didn't even have the luxury of having grenades to clear the path. That was her second-biggest mistake. If she'd had a bandoleer she'd be in a much better spot.

The ninth junction was as nondescript as any of the others, and with a relief that almost made her collapse, she stumbled through the door back onto a familiar hallway. She remembered passing through here on her way in. The hangar door was open as she hobbled over to it.

The interior was of no help. The fighters were still parked there for refueling and rearming, but now there were battle droids milling about and organic soldiers with blaster rifles in hands. As she stumbled in, they raised their weapons in her direction.

"End of the line, Jedi," someone said, and then a wave of blasterfire rushed for her while she ducked and dove behind a fighter for cover. Blasterfire sailed under the fighter, and she was off running again, putting her back to the wall and desperately trying to deflect enough to keep her safe.

There was too much though. She couldn't hope to deflect more than a fraction for long, and what didn't miss was going to hone in on her any minute now. Each cover she took was ruined within a minute as they repositioned.

A few of the organics had grenades which she gladly primed as soon as she got the chance, but all that did was relieve some of the pressure. It wasn't a full relief.

A Basilisk War Droid tearing into the hangar at full speed and slamming down onto the deck, knocking aside fighters and cargo like so much trash, was another thing altogether. Cabur flung around wildly, sending fighters toppling and rolling across the hangar with booming crunches on each impact.

Duala extended her lightsaber into a pike and waved it like a baton to keep her friend from accidentally crushing her. The attention of the room had rapidly shifted from her to him as lasers popped bits of metal into the air like plumes of fire erupting from a volcano.

"I see you, rider. Remain there until I come for you," Cabur answered with a low, rumbling growl. He roared loudly and stomped about the deck, flailing his clawed hands left and right while blasterfire impacted dully across his armor. In response, a pulse wave sent everyone in a cone in front of it flying back. Then, he surged towards her, and she felt his claws grab her gently before his engines fired and he blasted from the hangar.

"Thanks for the pickup," she mumbled blearily, feeling too exhausted to even climb into Cabur's saddle.

"But of course, you are my rider. You fought gloriously today and now it is time to rest," Cabur said with surprising gentleness. Cabur weaved through laserfire as the battle raged around them, and she saw X-wings surging back and forth against Hutt starfighters converging around them.

"Put me in the saddle, I can shoot my bow and help," she mumbled, extinguishing her saber and returning it to her belt. Cabur laughed, the sound much like a warbling radio stuttering and peaking at odd intervals.

"I applaud your bravery, but you would do me more harm than good in this fight. I will return you to the Beacon and continue the glorious fight in your stead," Cabur answered quickly. Duala huffed, but she probably wouldn't have been able to hit anything anyways. Cabur's lasers were firing out, missiles launching at anything that got too close, and he seemed content to turn quickly to anyone trying to approach.

Her mind drifted, the spots at the corner of her vision slowly expanding until it seemed like she could barely see anything. She wanted to yawn but even that was too much energy. The pain was a dull, constant throb that pulsed evenly or spiked when she was moved or jostled in Cabur's grip.

She closed her eyes and immediately drifted off to sleep, slumped in the grip of a Basilisk War Droid.
____________________________________________________________________________

"Pull in, nine," Kazmin ordered tersely. Devil Squadron twisted and spun through the pounding turbolaser fire from the twenty or so dreadnaughts below them. They fell upward like rain in an ceaseless stream that he only barely managed to pull himself through. More than one blast passed through the narrow gap between his s-foils and set his nerves on edge like the rising swell of the tide. And yet with each time, a breaker appeared and restored his calm focus.

"On it, they're trying to pull us apart," Nine answered, pulling her X-wing back into line without another word. None were needed. They worked in tune with each other as well as any parade flyover squadron.

"Commander Kazmin, Green Squadron is almost ready to deploy, prepare breakaway," Green Leader reported tersely. Kazmin was already nudging his control stick. The Y-wing bombers behind them were the heavy payload for this little operation. The unshielded dreadnaught beneath them the unfortunate victim. Kazmin pulled back with his squadron, releasing a stream of laserfire as he went that splattered across the unshielded hull causing little damage but plenty of annoyance.

Point-defense guns chased them instinctively before the bombers came in behind. Proton bombs dropped, leaving a trail of explosive metal shrapnel behind them.

"Fighters, coming in behind," Six reported just as a trio of Kimogila's screamed past. Nine swerved to dodge but a turbolaser shot smashed through the space she occupied, and her fighter disappeared in a flash.

"Bombers pulling out, prepare for the next run," Kazmin ordered grimly and yanked his X-wing back to surge upward into the mass of dreadnaughts.

"The Arbilest's suffering, she can't take much more," Four murmured. Looking back, the frigate was venting atmosphere and missing a few emplacements while it tried to position itself behind the Beacon and the Spitfire moved to cover it. But the Spitfire wasn't doing much better, and half the fleet besides the Beacon were showing visible signs of damage.

Even the Beacon's shields had taken a pounding.

Kazmin was beginning to feel the strain himself, as much as he'd deny it. How long had they been fighting without rest? He couldn't even begin to say, but for all the exhaustion he felt, he wasn't flagging as much. His reflexes were still on point, his coordination and focus still strong.

"More fighters, inbound," he said as his tactical map alerted him to a squadron on approach. Devil Squadron fell in behind as the next wave began to arrive.

"Feels like they're exhausting us. This is the third wave of fighters," Devil Ten growled fearlessly. Kazmin grunted, feeling strangely calm for the situation they were in. He'd had a better kill rate today than Karazak, and the battle was still young.

He checked his wing tacmap and sighed. 26 of the Beacon's X-wing complement were gone, another 19 damaged and returned to the Beacon. His own X-wing was definitely showing some wear and tear.

But here they were, fighting a force that by rights ought to have overwhelmed them by now. It was a pure miracle that his starfighter forces had survived this long and coordinated this well.

Kazmin felt that buoyant sense of warmth creep in again. There was a raging storm knocking down trees and sending speeders tipping over, but it would be alright, he was protected. That warmth kept him calm through the first salvo and into the ensuing dogfight.
____________________________________________________________________________

"Captain, Spitfire and Nightfall aren't going to last much longer under this gunfire," Madilon reported. The focus of the battle meditation had left her tone clipped and short, any panic shorn from it to focus on the bare details. The contrast was almost comical. Was it wrong that he almost wanted the panic? The situation didn't feel as dire as it was.

"And we don't have enough heavy frigates to serve as proper rearguard ships," Sagura finished before she could mention it. They had some corvettes and DP-20's for anti-fighter work, which they were doing admirably, but Spitfire, Arbilest, and Nightfall were their 'heavies', outside of the Beacon.

"We don't have a lot of choice. We knew going into this plan we'd be putting our lives at risk. But that fleet has to be brought to heel." Brought to heel, captured, destroyed, the means didn't matter so much as the end result. Then they had to pray the Hutts didn't use the same trick to bring another fleet, one more powerful than before.

Why they weren't doing that was beyond him. If there'd been a few Ajuurs, or gods-forbid an Azalus with some corvettes, Admiral Hadrim's fleet would have had to be there entirely to have a hope, and in the meantime they'd have decimated every garrison they met.

Hutt squabbling, he hoped.

"Incoming transmission from Captain Saftry," Madilon continued. Sagura waved, and she didn't need him to tell her to send it through.

"Captain Sagura, my fleet is inbound for the dreadnaught. Near half it's guns seem to be offline. Good hunting on your end," Saftry said with deceptive calm. Sagura didn't know how else one could face their inevitable death. Her fleet was already so damaged it was still even odds against the lone dreadnaught, disarmed by half or not.

"Good hunting, Captain. Drinks when this is over?" he asked wryly. Gods but he could go for a scotch right now.

"I know a place planetside, if the bastards haven't torched it that is," she replied and cut the line. From the tactical map he saw her ships begin to move forward to engage the dreadnaught that was already beginning to fire down at the planet's surface. Half its guns were silent though, and the ship had needed to rotate to fire on the planet.

Fools, or simple savages wanting to do harm to the planet more than properly fight back to save themselves. Whatever the reason, their ship would be easy pickings.

"What's the status on Master Sarat's lucky fool of a padawan?" he asked with a glance down to the Jedi Master who seemed to have gone off into her own little world, not even reacting to mention of her padawan.

"Her Basilisk is heading for the Beacon to drop her off. ETA ten minutes. I've got a medical team on standby in the main hangar to bring her in." Sagura nodded, that was good. What she did was incredibly stupid, and that it had been half-successful was a mark of luck. Or the Force, or both even. Sagura would give credit to whatever got him the victory.

"The things I do for battle advantage," he scoffed quietly. Trusting a Jedi Master's meditation to somehow be the difference between victory and defeat when all she did was sit there and focus with a pair of Jedi guards and a squad of Special Forces operators defending her. It was all wizardry to him, but like that time he'd listened to his daughter ramble about her Bioengineering coursework, at some point you just had to nod like you understood a tenth of what was going on.

The results were undeniable though. He'd expected a suicide mission for the good of the Rim, but they just might survive this whole debacle.

The Arbilest's shields cracked on the tactical display, as if to punish him for his hope. He glanced over the fighter casualties, low but starting to rise more steadily than they'd done before.

"Send the last of our reserve fighters to join Kazmin, order the corvettes into anti-fighter defensive positions and tell him I want him to shift the battle closer to the fleet so we can support him," Sagura said at last. He'd done his work well. Now it was time to bring them in and turtle until help arrived or they failed. One or the other.

Minutes ticked by like the eons of time. Each one felt like an eternity of waiting for nothing. Turbolasers fired, seemingly more accurately by the shot until every few moments the shields flickered under another impact.

Now starfighters flashed across the viewport chasing one another or moving to a better position while his corvettes unleashed torrents of fire after them. More Hutt fighters were swarming in to compensate until he could see dozens and hundreds of the things in formation passing by, stretching his already struggling escorts to the limit. The Arbilest's shields had come back for all of twenty minutes before a wave of bombers had ripped them apart and proceeded to take bite sized chunks from her superstructure with each passing.

On a side note, hearing Captain Koralis talk calmly while his ship got picked apart slowly was a tad bit unnerving.

Spitfire and Nightfall weren't doing much better, but they were holding. The Beacon's shields were taking hits but still fine. That wasn't likely to change until they lost all their escorts and started getting pelted by boarding parties.

"Captain Saftry's flagship just detonated," Madilon reported dully. Sagura sighed and closed his eyes in a brief prayer. He'd known that was coming, but he'd hoped for another outcome.

"What of the dreadnaught?" he muttered. The ship seemed to be flagging, taking heavy fire from Saftry's remaining ships even as it hammered them back in turn. There were only four of them left at this point, but they just might be able to manage it.

He put that battle on a side screen and turned back to his own engagements. When it was over, the dreadnaught still stood, but its weapon emplacements seemed as good as crippled. The bombardment of Rudrig ceased, for the moment.

"New transmission from the Katana." He waved it on silently. Commander Kilmav appeared above the holocomm and scowled at him with the visage of a man who thought he had a winning bet in the casino only to find out the house always wins, and he'd bet some significant funds on things.

"Your resistance is futile, captain. I have been tolerant and patient of your struggle, but enough is enough. I will have the immediate surrender of your fleet or else I will put end to this farce and burn Rudrig's population to the ground. You will be remembered as the man who chose to sacrifice twenty million lives for the sake of what? Pride? Pointless defiance? I know not, nor do I care anymore. With but an order, my dreadnaughts can go to full speed and cut your ragged fleet off before you can escape. Your escorts will die first, then I will board your ship and slaughter your crew before hauling you back to Nal Hutta in chains. It will go better for you if you surrender peacefully." Sagura yawned. He didn't mean to, but the stress of keeping up with the battle, all his focus, he couldn't help being tired. He didn't regret it once Jaktosh's face scrunched up in a rictus of self-important fury and indignation. Roll with it.

"There'll be no surrender, Commander Kilmav, unless you're offering to turn the fleet over to the Rim Alliance. I guarantee you'll get better treatment than what you offered us. How about a nice cell in the Lianna Maximum Security Prison?" Sagura countered.

"You say you have us by the ropes, then do it and end this farce. We've kept you for hours on this little rigamarole, I've damaged several of your ships and a single padawan was enough to sneak aboard and sabotage a gunnery station and escape. You think we're near dead, I say we're just getting started and before the day is done you'll either be running with your tail between your legs or I'll be standing upon this bridge overseeing the detritus of your destroyed fleet," Sagura continued, tapping his boot upon the deck.

"Then I should stop playing with my food," Jaktosh rumbled angrily. Sagura glanced to the tactical screen and saw a dozen dreadnaughts turning toward Rudrig to finish what the first ship had started. None of the planetary defense ships remained, their crews either dead or descended to the planet's surface.

"You captain could have saved the planet, but now you will watch them burn. And still I will have your ship and crew as my prisoners. You will be paraded before the Hutts, humiliated and besmirched until you crave death over subjugation but still my masters will not give it. I will see the both of you frozen in carbonite and mounted for display to all." With these words the dreadnaughts began to surge forward, bringing their full speed to bear at last and rapidly closing the distance between his small fleet and theirs.

Arbilest, Nightfall, and Spitfire began to shift away, widening the net to let the sudden influx of turbolaser fire have more room to pass between them. It wasn't foolproof though, and he could see their shields flickering faster under a heavier assault. But the Beacon was being bathed in fire. Across the viewport dozens of green lances thundered around him, and their shields rippled like a lake under heavy rainfall. Slowly but steadily the shield indicator began to decrease.

It would still take time before the shields actually broke, but they were decreasing. Nightfall flared as her shields shattered and turbolaser fire raked across her hull while she tried to weave her way through the deadly rain. Arbilest's engines sputtered and died in a shower of sparks that sent her lazily spinning through the void.

Spitfire was holding on but only barely. When she went, any cover his corvettes had would be destroyed, and they'd follow shortly. Sagura glanced down to Master Sarat, still sitting on the deck and locked in her meditations. She didn't seem to be reacting to their decaying circumstance at all, nor the death about him.

Sagura closed his eyes, letting the anxiety wash over and away from him. He'd order his marines and garrison troops to begin preparing defensive positions to repel boarders. They'd pay for every inch of this ship before they captured anyone.

"Hyperspace reversion detected," Madilon's voice was as dull and flat as before, but a tinge of hope permeated through the cloud of resigned determination. Sagura's eyes flashed open and swiveled to the tactical map where dozens of ships had dropped out of hyperspace. He recognized the Centurion-class Battlecruiser Resolution at its center and the Valors flanking it on either side with support cruisers and frigates milling between and behind.

"Captain Sagura, sorry for the late arrival, I had to stop for caf," Admiral Hadrim's dry voice echoed across the comms. Sagura laughed, unable to stop himself, tears of relief fell down his face as the bridge erupted into cheers. Fighters began to emerge and swarm from the vessel until a great mass began to buzz and flutter about the display like a swarm of angry devouring locusts.

"Hope you brought enough to share, we need it. Tell me where you want us," he said, biting down on the laughter until he could wear his face like a stone mask, resolute and determined. They weren't done yet.

"Hold your position and keep your taskforce alive. Let us do the rest," Admiral Hadrim ordered grimly. The Resolution surged forward with her flanking Valors, turbolasers slamming forward like the fist of an angry god descending for the slaughter.

The Katana Fleet reacted immediately, dispersing rapidly downward, heading for whatever vector they could find to avoid the 12th Fleet's massively superior firepower. Sagura had to whip his crew into shape, urging them to keep firing as their cheering threatened to distract them from the goal.

"This isn't over yet, not until every last dreadnaught is disabled or fled. There are still people who need us here!" he ordered forcefully, switching channels rapidly to assess the situation.

"Commander Kazmin, pull half your flight back to prepare rescue operations, put the rest on perimeter defense." There were crew and pilots vented, survivors from the battle that had raged above Rudrig, people they needed to protect and bring home quickly.

He wasn't afraid to say that he took great pleasure in seeing two Valors accompanied by a half dozen medium cruisers chase down the dozen plus dreadnaughts that had decided to assail Rudrig to finish off what the first ship had started. They'd gone too close to the planet and no amount of speed would allow them to escape the gravity well before the taskforce was on them.

The rest of the enemy fleet was taking heavy fire as their formation moved away from the planet under a hail of turbolasers from the pursuing fleet hot on their heels. Massive waves of fighters and bombers joined their mother ships in the relentless assault while the faster frigates and destroyers raced ahead to cut off the Katana Fleet's retreat and force them further and further from their destination.

Sagura watched it with a satisfaction that bordered on vicious as shields began to falter under the relentless fire and crackle with the might of the more heavily armed Valors and Hadrim's battlecruiser. By the time the Katana finally managed to jump out with most of the fleet the marks of battle on them were clear as day.

The dozen ships that had plunged for Rudrig were not so lucky, disabled and left to drift for the marine teams to board and extract every scrap of intelligence possible. Others had exploded into chunks that now drifted aimlessly about the planet.

Sagura watched with relief, solemn acceptance, and a mournfulness he could not shake over the losses. He would have to follow up with Captain Saftry and her crews. How many had managed to escape to the surface safely? Some of them might still be trapped in the wreckage. Rescue operations would take the rest of the day, and he'd have to be awake for all of it to give his report to Admiral Hadrim later.

Gods, he hoped there actually was caf present.

 

[Saphrith]

Naboo, 31BBY.

The news holo droned, a steady background buzz to his work. The words came in and out of focus, losing ground with the monotony of prepared statements and milquetoast buzzwords meant to fill the air with the appearance of meaningful action.

"The Chancellor's office condemns this senseless war and the lives to be lost….A galaxy of peace is a galaxy of prosperity…..suggest talks to be held on Axum." Zey tuned it out again as the drivel it was. As if anything would, or could, stop now. Condemning the war broadly would win them no favors anywhere. He supposed as placating mouth noise went it would serve while Antilles tried to shore up a major response beyond urging Republic citizens to depart the Greater Tion, Dac Sector, and Ryloth.

"It would be nice if things were that easy, but I doubt either side is willing to listen. And why should the Rim have to? The Hutts have made their intentions clear." Maks sighed tiredly as she walked by with Rees hot on her heels.

"Because the Hutts have kept their independence through numerous Sith empires, and the broken kingdoms of the New Sith Wars. It wasn't entirely because no one saw a point to conquering them. Is what they would say if you asked, but here things are different," Zey answered grimly. For a starter, the last of the Sith were collaborating quite strongly with the Hutts.

"Do you think Master Windu and Master Yoda will be able to bring Palpatine down? I should hope that with Hutt Space evacuated of so many troops the going will be easier," Maks asked. Zey chuckled unexpectedly and quickly composed himself as she turned to look at him.

"I think if they can get to Palpatine it's fine, but Hutt Space is surprisingly large and he could be hiding anywhere within it. Plus, there's still going to be a lot of guards about," Zey muttered and looked up from the report he was fruitlessly pouring over to stare up at the ceiling with a floaty feeling that he was choosing to identify as hope.

"If ever there was a moment, it would be now. I suspect they're searching for his hideout and laying low to avoid detection," Zey continued idly. It's what he would have done, and with the news of RLA strikes increasing in Hutt Space—and in the Core but that was another matter—the chances to strike were growing.

"Well, we can only hope for a swift victory for the Rim then," Maks said, but Zey could spot the doubt in her words in a second. This wasn't going to be a quick war, nor a relatively bloodless one, not by a long shot. Even without the reports coming in he couldn't shake the feeling that he was stuck on a rail about to plunge into a deep dive into the dark.

Pirate attacks were up in regions where the Rim Alliance had pulled more of its warships to the war front, hit and run raids on shipping and worlds that had for years known peace. It was a savage return to the days of old, but was it the herald of the fall of the Rim or simply the last dying gasp of an era of piracy that could no longer be sustained? The question was open-ended enough to be either.

He could've been out there working on that issue with the other Jedi who hadn't gone off to war. It would've been a better use of his investigative strengths and the strengths he was trying to impart to his padawan. He glanced back to where Dar was pouring through data sticks and files for their search.

Instead, he was here doing this.

He tapped the data terminal and slid to the next report. Kalos City Logistics was a firm that didn't seem to exist. The contact information went to a dead line, and the office that supposedly housed its headquarters had been on Coruscant. Whatever new headquarters they'd moved to hadn't been updated it seemed.

"Master." Zey leaned back to face his padawan. Dar stood at attention, holding his datapad like it was a sacred relic. Zey grabbed for his caf and drank deeply of the now lukewarm brew. Sure he could have just…called on the Force to bolster his energy, but he liked his caf.

"Any luck?" he asked. Dar shook his head stiffly, like it might crack and fall off from the movement. Zey almost snorted at the thought. He took the datapad from his padawan and began mulling over its contents.

"The pilot signed his name as Ambrose Baxley, native of Bonadan and employee of Kalos City Logistics based formerly out of Coruscant. But with Coruscant destroyed, there's no telling if that's true," Dar said, effectively summing up his notes in a sentence. Zey sighed.

"And not a lot we can do to verify one way or the other. Not without more information," Zey added. There were a few firms that talked of doing business with Kalos City logistics, but they were relatively small-time and didn't keep very good records of the transactions.

"Seems like a perfect sacrificial lamb just like the others," Maks commented, coming up behind him with a handful of data sticks. Zey smiled up at his Gran friend and held out his hands to take the sticks.

"That it does, is this Lodestep's information?" he asked. She nodded, gesturing to her padawan who was following up behind her. Rees Alrix was hefting a fair number of things, including some flimsi even. The Devaronian teen was struggling, so he nudged Dar off to help.

"What I could find for you. There's a couple of names and a holding corporation but nothing damning. The funds went through the shell company, but I can't seem to tell from where the funds came," she said.

"What about the holding company?" It was the best lead they had so far. Maks huffed.

"The holding company is Kariba Holdings, an immediate holding company under the purview of a parent company named TransGalactic Investments, part of the Commerce Guild." Zey scoffed as she finished. Of course it was.

"So that's it then? Who owns TransGalactic Investments?" he asked. This was the biggest lead so far.

"A man by the name of Kimarin Argyle, native to Kailor V in the Core, is the chief executive officer and I've got the rest of the board in the notes. There are a few…hidden board members only listed through other shell companies," Maks replies. Zey let the information stew in his mind.

A company like that, an investment firm with a holding company underneath holding a shell company through which the secret arms to Trandosha had been funded, could have any number of illegitimate operators. The layers of ownership and authority to direct funds for the purchase was labyrinthine to the point that his logical mind told him to just pass it on to the Rim Alliance intelligence board and be done with it.

But, something about this whole thing had him anxious and on edge. He'd come back from Trandosha with Dar to get acclimated with the ongoing war and his eventual place in it, but something had stopped him: the weapon shipments. The rebels on Trandosha had been a pain in the ass with their new supplies, and his asking around had gotten him very limited answers and more questions. Now look at him, drinking lukewarm caf and looking at a mountain of work.

Why fund a hopeless war? The rebels couldn't survive the fight for long, not with the weight of opposition. A few years of bitter fighting and they'd crumble under the superior equipment, training, and outside support for Ehruss' faction. A Valor and its complement was more than enough to secure the planet and funnel troops in to put down the rebellion.

Obvious answer, to foil the treaty negotiations and cause problems for Viera out of spite and hatred. Not so obvious answer, fuck with Viera plus waste even a small amount of Rim Alliance time and manpower on a side venture.

Whatever the reason, something hadn't sat right with him. Now here he was instead of joining the scores of Jedi going off to fight. Fine, he was more suited for investigation than battlefield combat or sabotage anyway.

After all, the kind of person who would arm Trandoshans would have no trouble arming Hutts, and given what he knew of Core ultra-conservative thought, he didn't doubt the appeal of helping the Rim Alliance lose to them.

"Why can't we just ask Lodestar where the funds came from?" Dar asked quietly. Zey shrugged lightly and tapped his cup.

"Because shell companies exist to hide credits or act as intermediaries. Those credits could have been moved into that shell company for the purposes of financing a merger or branching into a new market. It's nominally protected by financial privacy laws. Especially since Lodestar's a CSA company," Zey answered with a quiet huff.

"So they're exempt from Republic law?" Rees questioned curiously. Maks shook her head above him.

"Not completely, but in matters of financial disclosure. If the company can point to the cash flow as legitimate business expense then there are…lengthy judicial processes to view them. And we would need to prove that whoever owns Lodestar purposefully directed the funds to purchase those weapons for Trandosha," Maks explained. No court would buy any evidence short of documentation directing the purchase and delivery by an appropriate member of management. All information they would need access to financial disclosures to discover.

The companies would claim said manager to be acting utterly on their own whether it was true or not, and things would get swept under the rug with a heavy fine if they were lucky.

The library door chimed open, and a familiar red-skinned Togruta teen stomped inside with a dark mood following her like a rumbling thunderstorm not yet fully formed. Zey raised one brow, then looked to Maks and shook his head. Viera's kid's problem was not necessarily his. Besides the two Rim Alliance agents dutifully and quietly following behind her were enough extra eyes watching.

"O-oh. I'll h-handle her," Rees said, bowing as she rushed over to greet Aladaa Sarat and guide her where she needed to go.

"Is TransGalactic Investments also headquartered in the Corporate Sector?" he asked Maks, who smiled in that manner that told him he was asking the obvious question. Like every other big corporation looking for less governmental oversight, they had their headquarters there. The Corporate Sector was the holy grail of business. Startups aspired to earn a spot there, and businesses already present guarded their positions with ferocious jealousy.

"Well, it'll make getting some answers harder, got anymore on this Argyle fellow? I figure we'll start with him," Zey mumbled. A holo of the man emerged. His bio said he was seventy-nine, but he looked a few decades younger. He had a thick mop of brown hair perfectly coiffed and styled, blue eyes, and a smooth-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. Typical Core CEO profile picture, there were a hundred more just like his with the same perfunctory, slightly empty smile.

"Born on Kailor V as mentioned, to an upper class family connected with the President's office. Six presidents in his family history, including his older sister. He graduated from the University of Byblos with a degree in business management and after a 'small' loan from his family he started with commodities trading under the name Kailor Commodities," Maks began. Zey raised a brow wordlessly, and she stopped.

"Yes, it is a very uncreative name, but he studied business, not writing," she defended. Zey rolled his eyes. He hadn't said anything.

"He's moved beyond that and now has a very diverse business in metals, both mining and smelting, agriculture, tourism, retail, wholesaling en masse. But strangely he's not listed as owner of TransGalactic even though he supposedly founded it some twenty years ago. Nor is he owner of Kailor Commodities anymore. Though the business data I've found suggests he has upwards of thirty percent shares in multiple companies," Maks explained. Zey stroked his chin.

"Another layer of hidden ownership? He holds enough power on the board to influence policy his way without having to be responsible for much of the decision making. What do we have shady on the man?" There had to be something shady. No way someone like that got to be as rich as he was without doing something vaguely illegal or unethical somewhere.

"Oh, plenty. He's been accused of conspiracy to bankrupt independent mines to buy them out for bargain prices. He's broken a handful of trade sanctions and embargoes, most notably with the Zygerrians and several dictatorships out in Wild Space. Nothing he's been indicted for, anything that's been attempted has been tied up in courts until the matter fell away. But over the last decade it seems he's mostly fallen off the map, no major news of him," Maks said.

"Could he be trying to shield himself from more scrutiny?" Dar asked. Zey nodded, smiling ever so slightly with pride.

"A good idea, padawan, it is a possibility. Maybe he's tired of the public scrutiny of his business practices, maybe he's old and just preparing to retire from public life," Zey proposed, though he doubted the latter. A man with his wealth could afford the medical care to live for a very long time.

"He's a good start, but I'd like to know the other members of the board first. We've got a name to reference, let's look at who he associates with," Zey muttered. He heard the clamping of footsteps coming behind them. He felt Aladaa's souring mood before he saw her but then noticed the change in her face as she found the hologram.

"What business do you guys have with Kimarin Argyle?" Aladaa asked almost suspiciously. Her eyes burned with annoyance at the hologram to such an extent that Zey almost expected her to try and attack it. Some bad history there.

"Business? Nothing yet, he's just connected to some things we have an interest in. Why? What's your deal with him?" Zey responded. Couldn't be anything major, there's no way Viera wouldn't have found out, and Zey would know if there'd been a wave of destruction across the Corporate Sector.

"Nothing, he's just connected to some things I have an interest in," Aladaa parroted back to him glumly. He raised a brow, looking to a very fretting Rees right behind her. Aladaa sighed explosively.

"He's an asshole who's pressing the CEO of Ramilia Transportation Services to try and push me out of my contracts," Aladaa finally explained, crossing her arms and glaring balefully at the holo of Argyle.

"A-ah, l-language please," Rees interjected. Aladaa turned, still annoyed, spotted a fretting Rees, and sighed defeatedly as she looked away.

"Seems small time for a man as big as Argyle," Maks said. Aladaa shrugged.

"I mean, he's not that involved directly, he just has a significant share in Ramilia. I think he's trying to fold them into his bigger companies and I'm just the unfortunate casualty to him trying to dominate the sector we work in." Aladaa huffed.

"I wonder what that's like," Zey muttered, not actually meaning it, but Aladaa took it as a sign to vent.

"There's a million war contracts for transport, but they're trying to muscle away the good ones, the long-term contracts that pay reliably. That bastard"—Aladaa sighed and looked apologetically to a surprisingly firm-faced Rees before continuing—"actually sent one of his transports ahead of one of my transports to try and sign off my delivery!" Zey settled for nodding mutely, playing sympathetic.

"And what does Argyle have to do with that? Is he funding it?" Zey asked.

"Probably, but I think his focus is more on Sata than me." That got a raised brow and a glance.

"He wants to get his foot in the door to her Corusca mining business. She's got the whole of the Yavin system under her contract, but since Sata's company is royally chartered, he has no avenue besides Sata herself," Aladaa added. Interesting tidbits. Aladaa leaned in close.

"So, what's he done to bother the Jedi? Is he going to get arrested, please say yes. Even if nothing comes of it, he'd be too distracted to help his proxies steal everything I'm working on," Aladaa rambled, leaving Zey to sigh. And Viera wasn't here to throw in the way to distract her.

"Nothing…that we can prove. Some of the armament shipments to Trandosha that foiled the treaty negotiations went through a shell company owned by a holding company that is itself subject to TransGalactic Investments, which he owns." Saying it aloud was confusing enough, and that was just a scrape of the surface of the complicated layers of ownership.

"And they wouldn't say where the funds come from or on whose authorization they were given. Buuut…" and here Aladaa trailed off. She reached down to her datapad attached to a clip on her belt.

"Mom talked a little about the problems she was having and I decided to do some thinking of my own on the matter. The timeline's really suspicious if you ask me. There was like a month between the treaty negotiations and the weapons shipment. Whoever ordered these would have to have had a smuggler on call able to go immediately to make the pickup. And that's not even getting into transport delays and product availability," Aladaa said with a wicked grin, typing into her datapad. Zey let the thought sink in and felt the gears turn.

"Look at this," she declared, thrusting out the datapad like it was a spear as Zey leaned back to avoid being accidentally brained by the device. Maks walked over to lean in and stare. "See here, this is the profit margin I got on a shipment of weapons to the Rim Alliance depot at Dantooine. GR-75 Medium transport filled to the brim with nothing but weaponry."

Zey glanced over the numbers and felt his brow raise in slight shock. That was a pretty big number. Granted it was for several thousand tons of cargo but still. Aladaa preened with pride, cheeks puffed up in glee.

"And this was me lowering the price I charged. Some greedy manipulative company most certainly would've raised the prices as much as possible. An Action VI freighter full of weapons is a huge expense these days. No company would just toss that amount of weapons away, and there's no way the Trandoshans could've afforded the cost," she explained.

"The order would've had to be put in ahead of time to have the weapons prepared in time for pickup and delivery. The funds would need to be approved and authorized to be released and some amount of records kept to justify a loss of expense like that," Zey added. He was beginning to see the thread here and following it…

"Someone in the company lineup knows exactly who authorized those funds and directed the purchase and the pickup," Maks finished happily.

"But…we already knew they were probably lying to us," Dar said, sounding confused, and yet Zey could see his padawan coming to the slow realization.

"B-but n-now we know how t-they're lying," Rees pointed out, then squeaked and slouched as everyone turned to her. Maks smiled, Zey nodded in acknowledgment, and Aladaa reached over to pat her gently on the shoulder and made a thumbs up gesture.

"Exactly! And it's not like setting up all these shell companies and recruiting smugglers willing to fly into a warzone would be quick. So! Clearly the plan for buying weapons and shipping them was long in the works before then, months or years even!" Aladaa added.

"B-but the situation only started a month or so ago?" Rees asked confusedly.

"Everyone's known war was coming, every big company and independent freight hauler is looking for their big score. Production's ramped up everywhere and I guarantee these corporations have been making plans and preparations to buy as much stock as they can to resell for profit later. Hell if the Hutts hadn't invaded, the corporations might've started a war just to profit off their arms," Aladaa answered easily.

"Right, so the infrastructure's been established already. They didn't need to find a smuggler able and willing to fly past the blockade, they just needed to give him the pickup destination and send him on his way," Zey finished with an immediate nod from Aladaa.

"Yep, and freighter pilots talk, smugglers or legit. I know a couple of people who make it their business to keep abreast of this kind of stuff. Give me a week and I might know of some people who've done work like that," Aladaa offered. Zey had his own contacts in that scene, but he wasn't about to turn down additional leads.

"That's an acceptable start, but I'm not going to wait around for the report to come in. Dar, pack your things, we're going to the Corporate Sector," Zey said at last, standing up.

"I'll get you a data brief prepared, give me a day." Maks gathered up the errant data sticks and began rushing off to prepare, Rees right behind her. A day was perfect to see himself prepared.

"Dar, get your things packed and hit up the armory for spare blasters. Two pistols and two carbines," he told him quickly. His padawan nodded stiffly and turned to run, heading off without a word.

Aladaa fell into step behind him as he walked out, following disarmingly.

"Awesome, so when are we going?" she asked innocently. He looked back to her with one raised brow in disbelief.

"We? You're not going." Her face fell in disappointment but squared itself defiantly.

"Why not? You think two Jedi walking into the Corporate Sector and asking questions about TransGalactic won't get back to them? Even undercover you two will stick out. I have connections there, I've been there before, I have reason to be there." Aladaa pressed stubbornly. She did indeed, but she underestimated how quiet and below the radar he and Dar could be if they wanted.

"Doesn't matter, your mother would strangle me if I took you with. There's an entire polity and two Sith Lords who have every reason to believe that targeting you is a key part of their war effort. Stay here on Naboo, keep working on your corporate headquarters and your business, leave all of this to me," he said, practically watching the words go in one ear and out the other. Her face didn't change as she huffed and tried to look nonchalant, though it came off as more pouty than not.

"You can't stop me from going with you, I've got a corvette that takes me where I want to go," she declared petulantly, acting the teenager she was for once. Zey pulled a comlink from his belt.

"The corvette and crew who are technically subject to Princess Satajayu and your mother above you? The same pair who I can call and have override your orders in the course of less than a day? That corvette and crew?" he asked leadingly. Her face fell as she realized and Zey allowed the smallest smirk. "Yeah, yeah I know. I do my research, even on my friends."

He was not smug, he wasn't. He didn't care enough to be, but it was privately amusing to know that his friend was a Jedi Lady by technicality, even if she neither knew nor cared. She even had a nice little growing estate on Dathri.

"I can get there by other means, please? I want to help mom, and Ehruss. We wouldn't be near the frontlines at all and the Corporate Sector is big on security. I'd be safer there than I would on Onderon." Defiance having failed she seemed to have settled on pleading, but Zey dealt with Jang often enough that it wasn't going to work.

"I'll call Tosan to carry you back to your apartment. Don't think I won't," he told her. He was not going to face Viera and tell her that her adopted daughter had been hurt or killed because he'd allowed her to come along.

"You need an in to get into the sector, two random people showing up will cause word to spread. You don't have a good enough record. If you're part of the Daybreak's crew, I can get you in as laborers or guards." Zey half-stopped, then kept going.

Customs and Immigrations would be the biggest difficulty in getting to Etti IV. His fake ID would be less effective going through those ports, and the labyrinthine laws detailing the rights of foreigners was going to be a pain.

He was confident he could get in regardless, but the extra scrutiny wouldn't be as bad if he had a good cover. Some sailors on leave while the big boss negotiated contracts and arranged for new cargo? That gave him a lot of leeway.

And if their ship happened to leave without them, well…don't that just beat all? They'd be free to move as they liked within the underbelly of Etti IV

He turned back to her, and now it was her turn to be as smug as a cat that knew it had its meal trapped. He mentally composed himself and pushed down the witty retort he had planned. Instead he smiled lightly and tapped his finger on his arm as he began laying out his plan.

By the end of it they had a solid plan of attack and transport arranged. Now all that was left to get packed and go.

 

[Saphrith]

Aboard the Hospital Ship Haven, 31BBY.

The air smells of antiseptic and soap with bitter metallic hints of blood and sickness. I walk amidst rows of wounded marines and naval crew in their beds attended by a small army of doctors and nurses.

The injuries run the gamut from simple burns, scrapes and bruises, to mass shrapnel from exploding panels and fuses, broken bones, and organ replacements. A fair few crew were instantly killed in explosions, mostly on the Arbilest, Spitfire, and Nightfall. The wounded are treatable with our medical supplies, but the number was beyond even the Beacon's expansive medical bay.

I walk amongst the beds, nodding and gently patting the shoulders of the injured or the medics as I pass by. Duala trails slowly behind me, her own barely recovered injuries keeping her pace slow.

Thanks to her armor, she didn't break anything, but the bruising, burns, and strain of her injuries are going to keep her on light duty for a bit. A few more soaks in a Bacta tank would clear her up, but there's too many others who need it more right now.

"Master Sarat," voices call out one after another in acknowledgment or greeting as we pass. One of the benefits of not actually being in command is that I don't have to do the after action reports that Sagura does. We're hanging in orbit over Rudrig while reinforcements come up to form a new planetary security garrison, a slightly bigger one at that. Rudrig's populations took nearly a hundred thousand casualties, more wounded than dead, from the brief bombardment. The local hospitals are filled to the brim so half the fleet's medical bays are filled with civilian casualties along with the two other hospital ships in the fleet. I wish I could be down there helping, but we're leaving in a few days, and I'm wanted back at Dellalt.

"Master, are you mad at me?" Duala asks bluntly, looking up at me with concern in her aura mixed with a knot of anxiety that twists and writhes formlessly. I pause to look at her.

"No, why do you think that?" I ask her, frowning with concern. Duala shifts awkwardly under my gaze so I hurriedly soften it.

"It's just, well…you've barely said a word to me since you picked me up from the Beacon's medical bay and well…I ran off on my own for a risky mission that didn't even fully succeed," Duala explains, leaving out the part where she'd been unconscious for three days while I helped wrap up securing the crippled dreadnoughts and the system.

I pause to collect my thoughts and push down the instinctive 'yes you were reckless and I would've been worried sick had I not been in the middle of my Battle Meditation' as a bad response.

"It was risky, and reckless, you went off alone on a mission that put you on an enemy warship under a nebulous and risky disguise. And it paid off as well as the rushed planning could have, limited success but barely making it out of the ship alive," I begin, watching regretfully as she deflates with the outline of just how bad an idea it was. I squeeze her shoulder comfortingly and smile happily.

"But at the same time, you did as I would have done to protect innocents on Rudrig. Reckless action aside, it was done with the right intent, that of a Jedi. For that, I could not be more proud," I say honestly. Really, I am incredibly proud of her dedication to being a Jedi and doing her best to save lives. Recklessness aside, good job!

Her aura lights up, flaring brightly with her growing enthusiasm and a sense of relief like maybe she'll get out of this okay and without too much punishment. My smile stretches just a little bit, and she mistakes it for more happiness on my part. Oh no, child. Oh no.

"You will, however, be spending time with Captain Metaras from the 145th to study squad tactics as part of the new schedule I've written up for you," I tell her, watching her aura seem to fluctuate between interest and trepidation. Her excitement of new experience subdued by the part of her that's probably screaming this isn't what she thinks it is.

"My new schedule?" she asks curiously. I hand her a datapad with the schedule I spent the three days she was unconscious designing. She looks at it, and her aura dims deeper and deeper as she reads it. I'm not ashamed to feel a bit happy that I think the message is sinking in.

Early morning training with me, probably fun for her but once she's fully recovered she won't be so appreciative of the pace I set. Then breakfast, followed by squad tactics with Metaras till lunch followed by two hours of meditation and practice of Force techniques and another two working in the hangar to expand her knowledge of droids and maintenance skills.

When that's done, she gets to spend three hours studying various field equipment commonly used by the Rim Alliance. Then dinner and the rest of the night to her own direction. But given our schedule, that isn't going to be as much as she thinks.

"Master, this is a lot…do I really need all of this?" she asks me. I nod in agreement.

"Of course, I've come to realize that the best way to make sure we don't have a repeat is to make sure you know exactly how reckless your actions were. Next time you get into this kind of position, you'll have hours of training telling you how foolish you're being. And maybe, you'll avoid that reckless decision, or at least wait for reinforcements," I explain. She looks up at me with dawning comprehension of the reality behind my smiling face. Then she sighs and turns her head down. I squeeze her shoulder again comfortingly.

"Listen, this is a trust exercise, show me I don't need to do this and I won't do it. We put our lives on the line often, but there's a difference between risking our lives and throwing them away. We don't have a death wish, when you realize the difference between taking a calculated risk to save lives and tossing it away, you'll be free of this schedule," I tell her with a last pat on the shoulder as we continue through the ship with Duala following glumly.

As we walk, I find myself turning away from the path to our shuttle and instead head for a side hallway labeled ICU. There's a silent tug on my heart, an unspoken assessment that I'm needed down here for something. And given the nature of this place, I can guess for what. Duala doesn't ask why we detoured, but I can feel her curiosity reaching out to the source of the disturbance.

The smell of blood grows stronger, as does the antiseptic smell covering it more and more imperfectly, like too much perfume. My nose wrinkles until I almost want to gag at the overpowering stench. The hall leads to a waiting room with another branching hallway and four doors leading off to separate rooms. Beyond I can see ongoing surgery in the rooms, doctors and nurses hovering over their patients.

"Master Sarat?" I turn to the small desk where a nurse sits, filing reports at her terminal. She smiles a bit confusedly at me, obviously wondering why I'm in the ICU. I wonder if explaining to her that the Force drew me here would be met with confusion? Probably, so don't bother.

"What's going on here? I didn't know we had injured who needed surgery," I ask her. We had some more serious injuries, but I had thought they were along the lines of severe burns and impact trauma. The nurse checks her reports as a cover for collecting her thoughts, fair I guess, before responding.

"Flash-cloned organ transplants. Shrapnel tore a few organs apart beyond simple mending. They're going to be in the ICU all day," she says. I nod sympathetically and look back to the rooms where the surgery is still ongoing and reach out. The assorted surgeons and nurses are hard at work while their patients's auras twist and turn nauseatingly through what I can only imagine are twisted and fevered dreams.

"Do you mind if I hang around, I'd like to offer my condolences to the injured and the surgeons?" I ask her. She nods quickly, almost too quickly. I don't bother her any further and find a chair to sit and fall into my meditation. Duala takes a seat next to me.

I reach out for the surgeons, nurses, and patients as well, touching their auras and aligning their flickering candles together. The patients are the hardest, as I feel like I'm trying to reach through a thick sludge to drag people out. The haze of their feverish dreams poisons them, I'm pretty sure their bodies are reacting to the fever to make things infinitely worse for them.

I press forward, grasping for that weak, flickering flame buried deep within their souls to feed it kindling and fuel until it becomes strong enough to maintain itself. That's it, nice and easy, hold yourselves calmly and it'll all be over soon. Their auras calm, and with it, their bodies seem to slowly reflect their calm mental state to the surprise and relief of the operating surgeons.

They're much easier to wrangle into concert with each other, so much of their job is focus and coordination that adding my Battle Meditation is even more beneficial to their skills. I conduct the flames like an orchestra, lowering and raising their spirits as needed while offering what little comfort I can to the feverishly dreaming.

I don't actually know how much I'm helping, but I feel their auras and the way they seem to relax and even strengthen. No idea what dreams, if any, they're facing, but I hope it does something for them.

It seems before I know it the surgery starts to come to an end, and Duala is nudging my shoulder. She's eating something from a small hospital tray. I frown and check the time, has it been that long already? A time six hours later than I'd started tells me it has.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I hadn't realized it would take this long," I tell her softly. Duala shrugs and offers a reassuring smile.

"It's fine, I meditated for a bit and then got lunch. They're moving the patients into post-op now, but the secretary thought to tell you they were looking to be in good shape," Duala replies. So she did understand what I was doing.

"That's good to hear, have our pilots gone looking for us at all?" I ask, belatedly realizing that they had been expecting me to come back promptly after retrieving Duala, and I did not inform them of my delay.

"Your comlink chimed, I answered it for you. They said they were going to do some standard maintenance and relax a little and that we should let them know when we're ready to leave," she says. I flush a little in embarrassment, whoops. At least they didn't seem to be taking it poorly, and I'm not really expected anywhere until after dinner.

"Come on then, I don't think we should keep them waiting anymore," I reply, standing and brushing off my robes. There's no dust, but it's a habit these days. Duala stands beside me and sets her empty tray on a receptacle to follow me back out of the ICU.

It's a little thing done, but if I can use my Battle Meditation for battle and diplomatic functions, then why not surgery? Really, I could use it for a lot of functions outside combat, shame it's such a rare talent.

Our pilots are a bit off-kilter at our return and quickly put panels back on where they had been checking internal systems and doing readings. I wave off their apologies for the twenty-minute delay and make my way onto the ship. When they're done they join us, and we fly from the Haven to the Resolution.

Here the differences become apparent between Hadrim's command of a ship and Sagura's. The Beacon's crew were disciplined, but there was a relaxed atmosphere of a crew mostly from the same sector and worlds. There was a shared comradery beyond being on the same side.

The Resolution is the flagship of a fleet, with officers and crew assigned from dozens of different worlds. It is simultaneously the last stop on many naval personnel's career path and the first step for others looking to jump to command positions of their own. The crew are friendly but stiff in many regards. Formality is enforced more strictly, and there's a bigger sense of regimentation and just a hint of stuck-upness from ambitious officers thinking to run their sections by the book to impress their superiors.

On the other hand, they get the best meals and their rec room's amazing. Flagship privileges I suppose. There's an escort waiting for us when we arrive: two Jedi, a squad of naval marines, and three of the Rim Alliance Special Operatives hanging back by the door.

"Master Sarat, welcome back to the Resolution," a young, baby-faced Mirialan marine sergeant greets me perfunctorily with a crisp salute and firm posture. I smile kindly and bow my head in greetings. He seems a bit thrown off by the unorthodox response but recovers quickly.

"Admiral Hadrim is waiting for you in the conference room. It seems things are changing," he says quickly. I raise a brow, wondering just what could have happened in just a couple of hours.

"I see, thank you sergeant, please lead on." I nod my head to the door. The sergeant spins on his heel with perfect form, and I almost clap. That would probably be ill advised. He might look young, but technically he's probably only a few years younger than me at best.

We march through the Resolution's halls, crew stopping to salute as we pass which is incredibly awkward. I don't have a rank, I'm not a general or admiral or anything, but they treat me as one more or less. I don't know how to respond without coming off as uninformed by performing the salute wrong, tacky, or arrogant. But stopping to bow my head to each of them is time-consuming, and simply smiling and nodding feels lackluster.

Admiral Hadrim is sat at the head of the table with his commodores and sub-commanders about him. He nods when he sees me and gestures me to an empty seat to his left. Duala goes to a corner of the room to sit and meditate.

"Sorry for the delay, I was busy on the Haven," I apologize with a bow. Hadrim nods gruffly, impatiently gesturing me to sit.

"Yes, Captain Bir'dol mentioned you were using Battle Meditation to help a couple of surgeries. Apparently one of his clerks was very concerned about your presence. Think nothing of it, minor as it may be I'll take anything that helps us keep a few more of our people alive and healthy. But things have changed," Hadrim answers. Ah, I suppose she might have worried that my work could have caused problems. I take a seat and Hadrim clears his throat.

"The Admiralty Board is pleased with the action at Rudrig. We destroyed or disabled twenty-six dreadnoughts in the process of battle while losing none of Sagura's taskforce but all of Saftry's. In the long run, this was a success. I have high hopes the Katana Fleet will be getting refitted for some time," Hadrim continues succinctly. Twenty-six of two hundred down and even more were damaged to varying degrees. Better than I'd feared we'd do.

"For the next five days we will be maintaining a defensive position at Rudrig and patrolling the nearby systems until a new garrison force can come up to take over our post. We assume the Katana Fleet will be keeping out of action, but we will not be trusting that until we can confirm they've made no new actions along the Tionese front. In the meantime," Hadrim says and taps a panel on the table that calls forth a star map above the table. The map zooms in on the Greater Tion and then to Dellalt.

"The Admiralty Board believes that Dellalt will be the Hutt's next major target. Reconnaissance has indicated a build-up of forces at Agon Nine, including a Procurator-class battlecruiser. Adding that to the two Azalus-class dreadnoughts with their initial invasion force, they now have three super-heavy warships a jump away from Dellalt," Hadrim adds grimly. Three ships the Rim Alliance has no immediate counter for. The Inexpugnable class is durable but more of a carrier and command ship than a proper warship. A large enough number of Valors and Centurions could beat them, but there's no chance we get to throw our heavy ships against them without them putting their own heavies on to support.

"Another major battle so soon? That's a bit reckless, isn't it?" Maeve'synda asks. The other commodores nod in agreement.

"They're just as inexperienced with full-scale war as we are. Might be they think to hammer blow us into submission. I'm more surprised they're ignoring Dac, the shipyards are still going to be a problem for them," Commodore Abrig replies with a shrug.

"We've got an advantage holding Dellalt, the system's too fortified to be cracked easily. Between the fleet there and the orbital defenses the Hutts would pay in blood for taking it, if they even could," Commodore Amira adds in. Hadrim nods.

"Which is why we are keeping our eyes open for the possibility that this might be a feint. We cannot, however, afford to not take this seriously. If Dellalt falls the Hutts will be able to flank our forces at Wyndigal. That will push the defensive line back to Murkhana, Caluula, and Mintooine, which the Hutts could shift forces between faster than we could at that point and have less prepared defenses. The distance to other worlds of Greater Tion will also be lower, raising the risk of them bypassing our defenses. Which is why the 12th Fleet will be moving to Dellalt in anticipation of an attack," Hadrim says, giving a quick nod to me.

"Master Sarat's Battle Meditation has been clearly demonstrated as effective in turning a smaller group into a reliable fighting force against superior opponents. The Admiralty Board believes that if she were to use her Battle Meditation on our heavy ships, we might be able to confront the Hutt's super heavies on a more level playing field," Hadrim explains, and eyes turn to me. I keep a neutral face, but the idea is interesting.

The firepower difference won't change, but if we can get an accuracy advantage at range, then enough Valors and Centurions working in concert could maybe beat them? Or more likely force a dreadnought to retreat to recharge their shields. Maybe we'd get lucky and cause some fractures in their troops. None of their big fleets are truly unified, being collections of forces from various kajidics. If one of them pulls back, the others are likely to as well.

"What about the Atgeirs? I heard we were getting a trio of them," Maeve'synda says. Hadrim shakes his head.

"We are, but they won't be ready in time for the timeline we expect them to attack, we've only just gotten the crews sent out to begin familiarizing with the warships. This attack could come within the next ten days," Hadrim answers. Then, he turns to me.

"Master Sarat, you will be going ahead of the fleet aboard the Beacon to join up with Admiral Thach just in case our timetable is off. What matters the most is that your Battle Meditation is there to coordinate the fleet in a worst case scenario," Hadrim says to me. I nod slowly, makes sense. I tap my fingers against the desk as a cold feeling begins to settle over me.

Why attack such a heavily fortified position? Are they really that foolish as to think that just because they have three super-heavy warships they can take on nearly three hundred Rim Alliance warships and win without heavy casualties? Something seems off about the entire thing. It's too reckless, too much risk for too little gain.

"I find myself agreeing with the commodores. This doesn't seem like the kind of move the Hutts would be making right now. Not unless they've got something we're not aware of," I say at last. Hadrim looks to me as do his commodores.

"That is something we are concerned about, but without further intelligence we can't begin to say what they might be planning. The Hutts have their council, but they have been traditionally antagonistic towards each other and competitive. It could be that someone more aggressive convinced the others or they're looking to weed out rivals in an acceptable way," Hadrim answers in a completely non-reassuring way. I don't buy it for a second. They've been building up to this for years, and it's far too early for internal divisions to start crippling them.

"Master Clee Rhara's squadron will be there to support the defense as well as six extra wings of Starfighter support," Hadrim continues, which does reassure me a little. Maybe it's just nerves, but I doubt it. I need to consult with the Temple. Perhaps someone else can shed light on the possible plans in motion.

"Will I be sent back to the Beacon for this assignment?" I ask. Hadrim shakes his head.

"No, you'll be sent to the Spirit of Ash to coordinate in safety. There'll be an entire platoon of soldiers assigned to you there to ensure no boarding actions get to you or to evacuate you should the worst happen." Hadrim answers. Well, okay then. I suppose that makes sense, Hadrim and the other commodores continue talking while I continue to think.

They've got a ton of bounty hunter and other underworld types on their payroll. Maybe they've got a crack army of boarding specialists they're planning to unleash, but that makes even less sense. Mass boarding actions aren't really a thing, especially not in a battle like this would be.

A new technology they plan to unleash? Wait, when did Sidious have the Death Star designs? They don't have an Eclipse-like superweapon they've been hiding, do they? We'd notice that, wouldn't we?

If they come out of hyperspace with a superlaser equipped Procurator, I'm going to lose my mind. They better not.

But the Hutts are known for an eclectic and sometimes exotic collection that could include a megabomb big enough to destroy a planet for all we know. The subject of their exotic hoards are popular enough to have their own little genre of literature and filmography, and the Hutts are often eager enough to play that up.

A vague memory of powerful ancient droids in their possession strikes me, but I can't remember the specifics. Hopefully Vexxtal's rampage will have put them off using too many droids, but I'm not counting on it.

"Will I be moving to the Dac sector if this all does turn out to be a feint? The shipyards there are going to be the biggest threat to Hutt victory," I ask. It still seems daft to me that the Hutts would avoid the massive shipyards preparing to churn out heavier warships for the Rim Alliance navy.

"If we can keep them supplied," Abrin whispers so quietly I almost don't catch it. Is the situation that bad? Surely not. Hadrim glances at him, and the commodore straightens, chastened. Whatever the truth of the matter, it's not my place to ask right now. I have my own duties.

"If needed, the 12th Fleet's postings are flexible at the moment. You will need to be ready to move from the Spirit of Ash to the Resolution in a moment's notice if word comes along that the Hutts have changed targets," Hadrim says curtly. I nod, and he takes that as good enough. He doesn't spare much attention to me after that as he outlines planned formations and strategies on a holographic map of the Dellalt system.

I stare at the image, letting the floating icons of the defense fleet burn into my mind. There's a good number of Valors and about half a dozen of the new Mon Calamari cruisers. Add that to the Inexpugnable command ships and the dozen or so Centurions, and we should be okay for firepower.

Despite that, that wriggling worm of uncertainty roots itself deeper in my chest. Something doesn't feel right about this, the Force is warning me of something, but I can't decipher its meaning. A pall has been cast over the galaxy, great obscuring curtains that have left me blind to the movements of the enemy. There is something I'm not prepared for, but without more information I can't even begin to guess at what it might be.

The rest of the meeting is a formality for me. I've no place in it, and no perspective to offer. But I listen, taking in the subjects of battle strategy and formations. Even if I'm not formally commanding anything, I've hope that knowing some of the process might help…somehow?

But, I think I'll be making a call to Naboo about my concerns and see if they have any additional insight. Someone better at this than me might be able to do something.
____________________________________________________________________________

Dellalt, 31BBY. Aboard the Spirit of Ash.

"They're coming," Ambra whispers. The Sene Seeker seemed relieved when I first arrived with the 12th Fleet, but now the Sene Seeker's nerves seem to have once again become frayed by the approaching fight. I can feel it too. There's a scent of distant fire approaching inexorably as if I were standing at the edge of a forest while a roaring blaze approached the treeline.

"Alright then, we'll roll out the welcome mat," Admiral Alroy Thach declares with grim anger. I don't like that he's in command. He has seniority, and he is the local commander, but I can feel the anger at his prior defeat, the fury and desire to avenge himself. It's not a far leap from that to doing something stupid for pride.

"It'll be fine, Viera," Ilena whispers behind me. Tomas stretches further behind her, his wan-shen at the ready. My call to Naboo was answered with equal confusion and uncertainty, but not inaction. Six more Jedi knights including Ilena who happened to be nearby, alongside Tomas, were assigned here to help.

It gives more peace than it probably should, six more Jedi in a space battle, but I still feel like there's something coming.

"Can't you feel the darkness coming?" I whisper back urgently. The distant bonfire is getting closer, and hotter. No comforting flame of warmth and life, this is hot and heavy, scalding and choking, eagerly licking at and consuming whatever it can reach. This is the flame of destruction.

From the bridge of the Spirit of Ash I glance at the nearly three hundred and fifty strong fleet waiting to meet the oncoming attack. There's heavy cruisers, from the big Centurions and fully-armed Valors to the compact Mon Calamari cruisers, frigates and destroyers, corvettes and multiple carriers holding thousands of starfighters and bombers. Master Clee Rhara's squadron is out there as a bulwark against the encroaching darkness, but it feels like it's not enough, levees and dams against a tsunami.

"Ships dropping out of hyperspace," the comms officer turns his head to report. He's a Twi'lek, with scarred lekku and a burn mark on his neck indicative of a former shock collar, aura set in a grim reflection of focused anger. I wish I knew his name, but I haven't had the time to get acclimated yet.

"You're on, Master Sarat," Alroy grunts, heading for his chair. The interdiction mines pull them out far afield, giving us plenty of time to see them coming and plan. Just another signal that this should've been a bad idea for the Hutts to attempt.

So why bother?

The opposing fleet is similar in number to our own. The two Azalus-class dreadnaughts and the single Procurator sit at the center of the fleet, surrounded by their escorts. I sink to the floor to begin my Battle Meditation.

We're fine. We have the defensive advantage and half a dozen space stations bolstering our firepower. So why am I so ill at ease?

A strand of darkness drifts across the tethers of the Force, teasing the edge of my perception with its cruelty and malice. The apprentice? A foolish belief that he could turn the tide on his own? Certainly within the realm of a Sith's foolishness, but even still I don't think the Hutts would've gone for it.

I bite my lip and sink into meditation. I've got a battle to coordinate. I have to trust the others to do their work.