Chapter Twelve

Every pair of eyes in the room were on Blake as she stood before a star map with a ponderous look about her. We'd spent the last few hours aboard the Patch discussing our next move, and only now had things gotten to the point of making decisions. Before now the talk was about our new responsibilities as members of Ruby's crew.

Nora and I were to stay in the same quarters, something that I'm positive had made Nora relax quite a bit. The others would be distributed evenly, Weiss would go to Ruby's, Blake to Yang's, and Pyrrha would share a space with Jaune. Weiss had protested in Pyrrha's defense, naturally, citing that Jaune and I should be the ones to share bunk space so we could keep the sexes separate, but Ruby was insistent that the two of us be placed together – something about Nora had given Ruby the notion that without my constant presence, the Patch would explode. All things considered, it wasn't necessarily an incorrect notion.

"Well? Are you going to tell us what we're chasing after?" Weiss broke the silence in a carefully constructed voice. In place of the venomous tone she'd used earlier today when talking about Blake was a tone that screamed forced politeness. She very obviously disliked Blake despite her apparent change of heart regarding her fate, but at least she stopped talking about her like she was a beast.

"Would you find it so easy to talk about a lifetime of regret and suffering? I must decide where the relevant information is in this case. If you'd given me more than a few hours' notice before putting me on the spot I would have prepared a dossier, but for now I ask patience." If she felt offended at Weiss' general attitude towards her, she didn't let it show. "I suppose I'll begin with what I was privy to. A decade or so ago, my mentor and I were placed under an influential Sith Lady tasked by the Brotherhood to experiment with methods of subjugation. I suspect the goal was to cut off as many Republic supply lines as possible, thus the beginning of her experiments with the Grimm."

"You're referring to the beasts we encountered on Dantooine?" Pyrrha interrupted.

Blake nodded in response before elaborating, "Yes, those were creatures turned into the Grimm by the Dark Side of the Force. Last I remember they were still working out the problems with the transformation process, but when they finish the Brotherhood will have a weapon that grows in response to negative emotion. When I left, Adam, my mentor, and I were being sent out to seed the Grimm in small populations to test the creatures' effectiveness. We would approach a small colony in Republic Space, set loose the Grimm, and clean up after they were done."

Looks of terror filled the room, beside me Pyrrha gasped and across from me Ruby's mouth drew into a line.

"You're talking about committing war crimes! Slaughtering innocent people! How could you bring yourself to do that?" Weiss' agitation towards Blake had turned back into full blown disgust, her voice once again being carried by a cold, envenomed tone.

This was what I'd been waiting for – before now I had no reason to sympathize with Blake, but in the same vein I had no fantastic reason to distrust her. Many people around me had talked at length about Blake's desire for redemption, but I had yet to see concrete evidence.

But now her past was catching up to her, presumably painful memories getting torn open by a Jedi warrior, the very thing she'd been trained to destroy. Now she would react, her eyes would briefly allow me to see into her very soul.

"I know what I did."

Five words were spoken, but much more was communicated by the woman spending a fraction of a breath in mourning. The demeanor of forced calm was lifted for so brief a time, you would have missed it if you weren't looking for it. Behind it was Blake's soul, and it was indiscernible.

Pain was ingrained into every path, far deeper in some places than others. Her soul moved like a cloud of black gas constantly suffocating whatever light that may have once had control. Below the rippling gas were were two pools of blood, but even they were confusing. One of them, the larger of the two, simply existed with no emotion surrounding them, not contributing anything to the cloud above. The smaller pool sat in stark contrast. It spewed out more of the smoke that clouded Blake's soul than any one thing I could see in that moment.

I knew in a heartbeat that she carried some of the lives she took with her everywhere.

I knew in that single brief moment that Blake was worth my trust. That Blake was worth the second chance.

I stood up to command the attention of the group for the first time in hours and the table fell quiet.

Every pair of eyes were on me as I stood beside Blake in an act of solidarity.

"We are not here to pass judgement on the past. Judgement was rendered hours ago, and we decided to absolve her. She gets the clean slate we agreed on."

I left no room for argument. No suggestions, not even an ultimatum. There was no choice in this matter, and the table understood that.

Across the table, Ruby grinned and murmured something in her language, "Seen-fett-een," prompting the corner of Blake's mouth to raise ever so slightly.

"Ren's right, the decision was approved by Republic Military command, it's as good as law now."

It was nice of Pyrrha to speak up in support of me, but she wasn't the voice I expected to hear now. My eyes drilled into Weiss', making my desire clear to the Jedi. After a moment, her gaze fell in shame and the words that were expected from her fell heavy from her lips: "I'm sorry, Blake. That was uncalled for."

She didn't mean it entirely yet, but it was a start. I returned to my seat victorious, the mood around the table returning to what it had been before talk of genocide.

Ruby took Weiss' apology much more energetically then the rest of us. In the brief amount of time I'd spent with her, she seemed drawn to positivity, a strange characteristic to have as a mercenary.

"Glad I didn't have to force it out of you, Weiss! There'll be none of that aboard the Patch. You're vode an now – comrades all. Now let's get back to getting a plan going so I can get us out of this system and Yang can make some dinner!"

"Right, well I suppose I can move on to the important parts now that we all know what's at stake. The Dark Lady and her Acolytes are always on the move, so tracking her through normal means is impossible – even for me. The easiest way of finding her is to go through her right hand, a man called Roman Torchwick. Torchwick handles everything that the Lady needs him to; from enlisting outsiders to claim essential worlds for the Brotherhood the old fashioned way to deploying Adam and I. If we could find him, we'd be guaranteed a shot at finding the Lady, or at the least, her acolytes."

Pyrrha voiced the question everyone wanted to ask: "So how do you plan on finding him?"

"He's used many different groups to take worlds from the Republic, none of them a part of the Brotherhood. He claims that the Brotherhood's rank and file troopers are too big a warning sign for the planetary defense forces, but I think he likes the flair that some of the mercenary groups give off. He's contracted with Mandalorians often, could we find a way to use that?

The question was directed at Ruby who looked stunned for a moment. Surely the notion that the Brotherhood uses Mandalorian mercenaries wasn't surprising to the woman, she herself has admitted that the Sith pay better than the Republic ever could.

After a few moments, Ruby found her voice and responded, "Did you know what clan any of them were from? Any symbols on their armor that might be an identifier?"

"The only one I ever met was a smaller group. There was four of them, and they managed to subjugate a small city on one of the Mid-Rim's moons. The leader had silver armor with some sort of bird painted on his chest, if that's helpful."

"I don't recognize it, but there are only so many Mandalorians kicking around. I'll have my buir ask around, anyone else have any ideas?"

"What if we just went somewhere Torchwick 'subjugated' recently? There's got to be at least something there." Weiss' idea had merit, but there was a large flaw in it that was immediately pointed out by Pyrrha.

"You want to just waltz around a Sith controlled world? We'd stick out more than a bantha in the senate!"

"Not necessarily, the people of these worlds support token garrisons, just large enough to keep the population under control and out of Republic hands. As long as the Jedi keep the mysticism down and the commander wears non-standard issue armor, we should be able to blend in fine. Especially with the Mandalorians, Ren, and Nora." Blake moved a hand into the galaxy map, pointing to a system about a day's travel from where we were. "Here, Generis. Torchwick took it earlier this year, but I never found out why. It's a small world, no major cities, nothing of obvious tactical importance."

"All that suggests the planetary garrison would be rather small." Pyrrha leaned back a little, obviously relieved that she wasn't going to be talked into running around on New Korriban.

"It's settled, then. I'll punch in the coordinates for Generis, everyone else take a break. Get to know the Patch, unpack, and do your assigned duties. We'll come up with a plan in a few hours."

Like that, the group started moving away from the table, eager to get up and walk around. Everyone but Blake, that is. Blake just sat down in front of the galaxy map and studied the holographic surface of Generis.

Nobody bothered her, she looked like she wanted some time to herself.

Life on the Patch sounded like it would be simple to adjust to; after all, it was remarkably similar to life aboard a Republic Navy ship. As long as you complete the duties assigned to you, you were free to spend your time doing whatever you like. As Ruby had yet to post today's duty roster, I decided my time would be best spent stripping my blaster and getting to know my new roommate for this posting.

My roommate, Jaune, was a far different Jedi than Weiss; embodying almost every ideal the Jedi were known for. From what I'd seen, he was patient, non-aggressive, and wise beyond his age. It was him, after all, who first saw through Blake, and him again that campaigned most actively behind the scenes to ensure our decision. In addition to all that, he was extremely easy-going most of the time. Comparing all of this to Weiss and you got two very different schools regarding the Jedi's place in the galaxy.

"Isn't that the same model they issue to the enlisted soldiers?" I'd also found out Jaune was also surprisingly well versed in a number of subjects, his side comments almost always being puzzlingly accurate.

I turned around to see him in the door of the armory, his eyes focused on the blaster rifle in my hands. Remembering to smile before responding, I set the brush and blaster barrel down to wave him over. "Hello, Jaune! I didn't know you knew anything about blaster rifles, Weiss always seemed to look down on them as clumsy and generally beneath her."

Jaune returned my smile and walked over to sit across from me, "Weiss and I had very different masters, I suppose. You never answered my question, though."

"Oh, well, I suppose you'd be right! I've had this rifle since I enlisted, I think that the regulations have changed since then, but he's a well-built piece of equipment – I've never really needed anything else."

"Fascinating, I suppose this is almost your lightsaber, isn't it? Do you mind?" He motioned to the parts I'd scattered around the table, all of them now well cleaned and dry. I had to admit to being a little curious about how much Jaune knew about how blaster rifles worked, so I motioned for him to do as he pleased with the components.

"Of course. The lightsaber comparison is pushing it a little, isn't it? I never had to build my blaster, just keep it properly maintained."

Jaune closed his eyes for a minute and took a deep breath. A moment later, the components to my rifle began floating in front of him, slowly fitting into each other perfectly. After the rifle was completely reassembled, it began to reverse the process. After a few minutes, the components were once again sprawled out on the table between us. A brief breath and Jaune reopened his eyes and continued our conversation as if he hadn't just made my rifle assemble and unassembled in the air in front of me.

"Maybe so, but you've made plenty of modifications of your own. No stock rifle fits together this well, your rifle feels much more…personal than any of its peers."

It took a few seconds to recover, but when I did understand the words he had said to me, I could feel a faint blush rise in my cheeks. I wasn't very good at taking praise of any kind, it always felt undeserved. "Thank you, but I stand by my previous comment. The modifications I've made are all simply a part of routine maintenance, any proper soldier could attest to that."

Jaune smiled and put his hands up in mock surrender, "I suppose you're right about that. Anyway, I'm glad I found you, Ruby finally posted the duty lists…err…well they're more like the result of Ruby, Blake, and Weiss finally hammering out the details of the mission. Here."

He handed me a piece of flimsi with the crew of the Patch sorted into groups with different jobs: Yang and Nora would interact with the locals, Ruby and Ren would attempt to get friendly with the local Sith Garrison, Blake and Weiss were tasked with looking into the area surrounding the village, and Jaune and I were tasked with getting information out of the local law enforcement agency.

"I was afraid that they wouldn't be able to put something like this together in time, I'm glad to see that I was wrong. We're to play sheriff, then?"

"Not quite, I brought along the files available to us: it seems that the local law enforcement is more of a small planetary defense force; emphasis on small. They have an outpost in the village, yes, but it seems to be staffed with only the command structure of the organization, the rest of them stick around the various smaller settlements in the area."

"How long do we have before planetfall?"

"About eight hours, give or take thirty minutes for landing procedures. I assume you want to learn all you can in that time?"

I nodded as a response, I had only gone into enemy territory without a full briefing once before and I don't plan on making the same mistake ever again. "I suppose I'm most curious as to why the defensive force is a separate entity from the Brotherhood garrison on the planet."

He scrolled through his datapad before handing me the device to read, "Traditionally the Brotherhood of Darkness cares very little about petty crime. Sure, their definition of 'petty' is pretty different from ours, but as long as it doesn't impact army operations, most backwater worlds are allowed to keep almost every faucet of their governments intact – the Sith have no interest in bureaucracy, they only seek to rule."

"I'd heard as much from others, but it's good to have it confirmed by a Jedi padawan. You've almost certainly seen more of these places than I."

"Heh…well, you'd be wrong on both of those stances." His hand wrapped around his neck as he reached for his braid. A braid that…wasn't there.

Oops.

How could I have missed that? Of course he'd been promoted, Weiss was even treating him like an officer now! The only words that could leave my mouth were those of a frazzled NCO:

"I'm so sorry, Sir! I meant no disres—"

His hands flew up to wave me off, "It's fine, Pyrrha, I don't want anyone to treat me different just because I finally took full responsibility for my abilities."

"Ah, well..." I put on my best congratulatory smile, "Congratulations, Jaune, I'm glad to be able to work with a full Jedi Knight on this operation, it's a rare honor."

"Seriously, don't mention it. I doubt the others really give a vervikk's tail about my promotion, and despite Weiss acting happy for me, I'm sure she's a little bitter. Just act like I'm just another member of the crew, ok? Please?"

"Well, in that case, what did you mean by not seeing many of these sort of places? Surely you've been on a few of these planets before."

"Not really, Weiss and I aren't attached to some Jedi Lord – we're from the Temple. The Council has made a point to stay as far out of this as they can, we've only seen battle a few times. My master and I actively avoided it."

"Why would you do that? You're a phenomenal warrior, having you on the field could save dozens of lives!"

"Heh, I suppose…" He slouched a little, obviously uncomfortable. Maybe pressing him on this wasn't the best way to prepare for a mission.

"Alright, well, shall we get to it? I'd like to start by going over local flora and fauna, just in case we get stranded somehow."

"Is that likely?"

"No, but it's always best to be safe."

When he got down to it, Jaune was extremely good at retaining information, as the hours passed and the materials relating to Generis' different legal systems, cultural oddities, anything that would potentially help in our mission. When the ship landed, we'd be ready.

Sorry for the wait on this one, College is the world's largest and most expensive time sink. Just know that there will be updates to this story, and I will not abandon it.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the erratic-ness,

DtheTrain