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Chapter 6: Like a Muscle
All around them in the thin atmosphere of Sanctuary, formerly Imperial droids, their ownership memories reset with help from Lilstrand's override codes, were doing their duty of assembling the prefabricated parts of an IM-455 garrison base. Outfitted with rebreathers, Harry and Arden were lending their wands to the cause as well. Unaccustomed as they were to the less than ideal atmospheric conditions, these protections had been deemed prudent; still, the Dathomirian witch had already gleefully espoused the virtues of training opportunities afforded by thin air, reminiscing out loud about the times she and her sisters would take to the mountains she had once crossed together with him. Apparently, her tribe considered it the best endurance training available pretty much anywhere.
"Boss, what are we supposed to do about that fence?" Mercer asked, pointing toward a conglomeration of crates that had yet to be touched following their arrival on the surface.
"Put it up," the captain replied easily after taking the rebreather out of his mouth, even as he was throwing a wary glance around the flatlands, they had chosen to erect their base in. "We still don't really know what might be living on this planet other than us and the plants; Merlin, even the plants could be some weird kind of dangerous."
"Sure thing," the older man responded, already gesturing to a group of assembly droids, new recruits and Alliance volunteers standing idly nearby, waiting for Harry's verdict.
"What are we going to do with those droids after we're done?" Javoc inquired, sauntering over to them after finishing whatever task he must have been assigned. Just like Mercer, Leia and everyone else who was not named Harry or Arden, he was without a rebreather; it was only fair, as only the two who actually had wands were truly exerting themselves in the least.
"Sell most of them," Mercer answered quickly. "We'll keep a few for maintenance, maybe some additions we might want to make in the future; those things are rather basic though, no real way to reprogram them for that many other tasks. Won't get more than a few thousand credits, each."
"Keep them, then?" Javoc ventured amusedly. "We can deactivate them and dust them off when necessary; it's not like we don't have the space."
"You just want something to play around with," the first officer accused jovially. "Good thought, though. A few thousand credits are not much for us, not anymore.
Halting in her wandwork after levitating in place the particular nasty piece of defensive armament that was one of the base's three turbolaser turrets, Arden pulled out her rebreather and interjected herself into the conversation. "What would we ever need these droids for?"
"I'm sure we might want to upgrade at some point," Harry weighed in. "Maybe add a few buildings in a different colour."
"It is a tad drat, all this grey, is it not?" Mercer chuckled, looking around at the Imperial-grey almost all of the already erected parts of the base shared. "This place could use some black, maybe a few gold accents…"
By now, Leia, who had just been standing by to watch the dynamics between the crew play out with visible and growing mirth obviously decided she had to add something as well. "You will not paint a building I happen to plan to be spending a lot of time in entirely black, not even if you add a few golden accents. Harry might have accepted your reasoning for the ships, but this is not a ship, so come up with a different colour scheme."
"Fine," the former officer grumbled good-heartedly, before pulling out his datapad and doing what looked like he was superimposing a number of different designs over an image of a deployed garrison base he must have sourced from some Imperial propaganda flic, complete with the cheering crowd and some very content seeming Army soldiers standing guard in front of it. Having seen a few of these guards by now, Harry had his doubts they ever looked anything but supremely disgruntled when assigned the thankless, routine task of keeping away the populace.
"While he's off playing with his colouring holo, anything we can do to help?" Javoc asked into the round, indicating himself and Leia; the latter, still without a wand, was unfortunately only of limited use in the construction work, as without a proper focus, she was somewhat lacking in precision.
"You can take a look at those TIE racks, find a way to modify them for our M14s," Harry replied immediately, for it was a task he had had niggling him in the back of his mind for quite a while now. "We'll keep some of the TIEs for scouting the planet and maybe the rest of the system, but I don't want any of my people flying one of those death traps into battle. If you could come up with some use for the rest, that would be great, too."
With a certain verve for helping out the young wizard always found inspiring, the two were soon off, leaving behind him and Arden to continue their work on the heavy lifting that magic was so incredibly useful for.
OOOOOOOO
"We've never really spent all that much time together, have we?" Javoc asked as he and Leia were making their way into the TIE hangar, or at least the parts that were already finished; The erection of these modular bases was easily and quickly done, but not that quickly.
"Not one-on-one," she agreed, already wondering where this was going. Surprisingly though, the young mechanic did not follow up on his question for quite some time, while the pair inspected the racks constructed to hold the Empire's mainstay fighter craft.
"Look, I just have to say this," the former Imperial finally blurted out, looking at her sadly. "I'm sorry that I was once one of the people who destroyed your planet, alright? When I joined up, I just wanted to do my best for the galaxy after all that chaos during the Clone Wars, but this…"
"It's alright," Leia replied, all the while smiling wistfully; it was her go-to reaction these days, whenever she thought of Alderaan, its lush fields and white mountains. Of the bustling capital that was Aldera. "If I wanted to blame everyone who was ever a part of the Empire for the destruction of Alderaan and the murder of its people, I would have to blame half the Alliance. You joined with proper intentions, then, when you saw what they expected of you, you had the courage to quit, despite the danger. Judging people because they liked the Emperor after they have been bombarded with propaganda their entire lives seems rather unfair, doesn't it?"
That seemed to give Javoc pause for a while, so the orphaned princess simply continued talking. "Obviously, those that commit atrocities must be held accountable, whether they're commanders or simple grunts, but I find it hard to argue that a simple Army technician who, in his entire military career, has only ever repaired vehicles would be to blame for the decisions of Tarkin, Vader and the like."
"Thank you," the deserter replied with about as much earnestness as Leia had ever seen him display. "I think… I think that was something I really needed to hear."
"Nothing to thank me for," she insisted evenly. "If we ever want to build a truly New Republic, we're going to need former Imperials, whether we like it or not. Now, let's get to what we actually came here for."
"Sure," Javoc chuckled in reply, back to his usual light-hearted self. "Do you have the dimensions for those M14s?"
Wordlessly, Leia pointed at the datapad he was still carrying around with him. "Of course."
After that, the two of them spent their time on the catwalks surrounding the TIE racks, measuring the space available and comparing notes in easy companionship. Now that he was more relaxed around her, the princess noticed that she actually might have quite the chance to form a good friendship with the young deserter, something she valued deeply. Beyond Harry and Arden, the latter of which especially held an almost violent disregard for her position both in the Alliance and the wider galaxy, it was often hard to get people to see past their preconceptions about the Leia Organa. In a way, it was not all that different from what her boyfriend had once told her of his youth.
"So, the width would be no problem, as I see it, neither would the height," Javoc eventually concluded, confirming his thoughts by way of glancing on the datapad. "Makes sense, with how wide and tall these TIEs are. Only problem is length…"
"Not necessarily," Leia interjected, leaning in to be able to look at the pad as well. "See here? The M14-X is almost exactly double the length of a TIE/ln. Couldn't you just remove every other rack? That way, they could hang behind each other single file, just like the TIEs."
The mechanic pondered her idea for a while and generally seemed to like it. "We'd lose half of our capacity, though," he opined finally. "Maybe take two of the three hangars and convert them, that's space for twelve M14s, leaving one for a squadron of TIEs, however we might want to use them."
OOOOOOOO
"Any plans on ships for our transporting business? I'd like a steady flow of credits as soon as possible," Harry, having returned from a nap shared with Leia after his exertion in continually levitating building modules around, asked the assembled core of his crew.
"Oh, you're going to like this," his second-in-command replied, grinning widely. "Iabaes?"
"Remember the factory you got sour fighters from?" the Mandalorian, clad as usual in her traditional armour, questioned; Harry nodded in response. Truly, it was a hard thing to forget, really. "Well, the Mandalorian resistance managed to go back in and take most of the machinery that was used to build the M14-X prototypes. Together with the plans, which you conveniently possess, they could certainly build more of them… for a price, I'm being told."
"I wanted to clear this with you, Boss," Mercer interjected. "But I think we could share the plans and offer to pay for the raw materials. We would be hard-pressed to find anyone else as trustworthy, capable and willing to help us as the Mandalorians, especially not for any price even approaching reasonable."
Harry mulled the proposition over for a while, yet eventually, there was only one potential sticking point as far as he was concerned. "If we do this, without any exception, these plans do not leave the resistance movement," he demanded, absolutely no square given in his tone; everybody around the room seemed to understand how absolutely serious he was about the issue. "Until now, we've only ever given out a downgraded version but for this, we would have to share the entire schematics. I really don't want to know what some unscrupulous pirates might get up to with a few of these, let alone the Hutts or Black Sun."
By the shudder of his shoulders it was clear that Mercer who, among many other things was second-in-command of a bounty hunting outfit, whose main income included pirate hunting, was not fond of the idea, either.
"That can be arranged, I think," Iabaes, who by merit of her being the only one of them they had on board, had become their expert on and liaison to the Mandalorians, replied. "We'd have to ask, obviously, but it sounds like a deal they would be agreeable to. And once a Mandalorian gives you their word, they will keep it at any cost."
"Then if they agree, that's what we do," Harry decided, happy to square away that particular headache. In truth, he was glad to be able to have the fighters built by an ally, rather than having to rely on some sketchy shipyard with questionable morals. "And the transports?"
"I was thinking we could go with YT-2000s," Mercer, at whom the question had been directed anyway replied. "Their plans were leaked before the full production run could ever begin, so you can easily find them. We modify the schematics to our needs, then commission what we need from a shipyard somewhere in the Mid Rim, preferably someone who has a reputation to lose should they try and screw us over."
"Modifications?" Nothing was bound to get Arden more interested than the possibility of discussing the various weapons one could, with enough credits in hand, bolt onto a ship, save perhaps talk of magic/the Force. Or maybe hand-to-hand combat.
"Not what you're thinking, sorry to disappoint. Those things are well-armed and -armoured already," the former lieutenant," interceded, before she had a chance to get too riled up. "I was thinking of a better hyperdrive and some modifications to the docking rings that would allow the fighter escort to dock, without losing the ability to also dock the transport to larger ships or stations. Not exactly cheap, but especially tinkering with the hyperdrive later on can make things… interesting."
"Do we have the credits for that?" Harry questioned, surprised; after all, if hyperdrives were cheap, every ship would have a class 1.
"Oh yes," the older man announced confidently. "With what we got from the Alliance for that cruiser, we could probably buy even more, but we should probably play it safe for a while."
Harry took a few moments to file away, what he had heard; a steady stream of income would be nice, and from what Mercer had said, setting it up would not be taking much longer. They seemed to have enough reserves to keep operations running for quite a while, which was most definitely a good thing. Now, they just needed something to pass the time, while preferably making the galaxy safer and earning some money. "Arden, any new bounties?"
Looking somewhat bored with the completely weapon-less conversation, the witch pulled out her datapad and began scrolling through the publicly listed contracts. "Ah, a few things… war criminal with five million on his head called 'the Butcher of Montellian Serat'… ooh, that's not pretty. Hasn't been seen for years, though, so we'd have to sniff him out, which honestly sounds like a waste of time, and rather boring if you ask me."
She continued to scroll down a bit, until something caught her attention again. "Got a madman who thinks he's a doctor, sentenced to death in… whew, 12 systems, not bad. Smugglers, deserters, righteous people who barked up the wrong tree."
Another few moments passed, until finally, her eyes go a certain gleam to them that told Harry she had found something she liked. "Well, since we're moving up in the world, how about taking out an entire pirate crew for the very reasonable price of one million credits, plus any other outstanding bounties on any members of the group."
"That would make for some great publicity," Mercer mused out loud. "If we're seen dealing with a high-profile pirate group just before we launch our own business specialising in secure transport of goods and people… that would definitely b ack up our claims. Where are these pirates, then?"
With a predatory smile, Arden turned the datapad around before repeating what she had read and inferred. "Seems Mandalore has lost favour with the Empire recently, so if Mandal Hypernautics suddenly has a pirate problem, they have to contract outside help."
OOOOOOOO
The time spent in transit to Mandalore was used by the crew in a number of different ways; while Javoc was occupying the hangar, tinkering on one of the TIEs that would no longer be occupying the racks inside the base on Sanctuary and Corsek was training some new recruits on the shooting range, Harry, Arden and Leia were spending their time on magic training. Unfortunately, and much to her annoyance, the princess remained without a proper focus through which to shape her magic. In an effort to allay that frustration, the wizard who was doing the teaching had decided that they should simply all work without one, as well; being disarmed was a much less worrying prospect, he had reasoned, if you were trained to fight without a wand.
"The way Obi-Wan described it, it's not all that different from using the Force," he explained as he and Leia were watching the Dathomirian happily move around crates with a wandless levitation charm. "At least the mental aspect; if you're expecting to fail, you're likely to fail. The difference is in who's commanding an action. With magic, it's you who shapes what is happening, you who direct the energy, not the energy itself that you have asked for help, somehow."
Leia nodded in what he hoped was understanding and returned her attention to the crate she had been trying to work with; a determined frown etched into her brow, she once again raised her hand and intoned clearly, "Wingardium Leviosa."
A meagre five centimetres was all she got from the crate before, accompanied by a groan of exertion from the witch-in-training, it crashed to the ground at the exact same spot it had sat in before, its guileless existence in that very place enough to visibly frustrate the princess even more.
"Why does it take me so much energy?" she complained, staring at the offending piece of logistics equipment. "Arden can let hers fly for minutes and wherever she wants."
"Arden," Harry interceded, before things had a chance to get heated, "has been training with the Force her entire life and with magic for many months before you started. You got this faster than most of my classmates in school did, even with wands."
"And how old were they?" Leia questioned bitingly, dashing his hope that she might simply forget to ask.
"Fine, they were eleven," he admitted reluctantly. "But they had all the advantages you now lack, so deal with it and take the compliment."
Though she looked at him slightly rebelliously, thereby giving the wizard a new appreciation of old Kenobi's patience as a teacher, she did not complain further. Instead, Harry simply let her do the same thing again and again and again.
"After the Jedi training was so… slow, and with how instinctively I reached out to your enchantments, I thought this would be easier," she explained, looking at her teacher contritely.
"Channelling magic is something you train your body to do, the same way you train your muscles to contract," Harry explained with a knowing nod, while all three of them were floating around their assigned practice material; by now, Arden had added a second and third crate to increase the challenge, Leia was using two as well, and he himself was floating around four. "The effect of training seems to be coming more easily, more quickly, and I have yet to find a limit; I did notice that I'm progressing more slowly though, so I'll probably reach a limit at some point."
By the time he continued his lecture, the exercise had changed again; now, he and Arden were taking turns in firing low-level jinxes at one of the other two, while the third got a small break. The one under fire would attempt to stop their training partner's magic by moving a smaller crate in its way.
"Now, for this one, I don't really know how much it actually does," Harry admitted, even as he watched what looked like a rather strong tickling charm impact the already dented side of a cargo crate. "So, you're kind of like my test subjects, congratulations. I hope this helps with training precision."
"I like it," the Dathomirian declared, just as another jinx was leaving her wand and sailing past Leia's defences to turn her hair a delightful shade of orange. "Gives me the opportunity to try out some of the funnier spells that I don't reserve for Mercer."
"Glad you like it," the wizard replied, before sending a quiet 'Finite' at his girlfriend's hair. "Now you levitate…"
OOOOOOOO
"Manda'yaim," Iabaes said wistfully as she looked out of the windows of the bridge onto the planet below; only two short days after their departure from Sanctuary, the small flotilla of one corvette and twelve starfighters (the carrier had, as had always been the plan, been left behind in deep space a few lightyears away) had achieved orbit around the homeworld of the Mandalorian people. Its oceans that reminded Harry of the pictures he had once seen of Earth from space were shining a deep blue in the approaching daylight of the eastern hemisphere, while on the western hemisphere the lights of cities still shone in the night.
"What does that stand for?" he asked the warrior woman standing next to him, watching the sun rise over her home planet, still under the clenched fist of occupation by the Empire. "Mand'yim?"
"Manda'yaim, home of the Mand'alor," Iabaes corrected him. "Simply the name of our world in my native tongue of Mando'a. The planet is named after the Te Sol'yc Mand'alor, Mandalore the First. Driven from their original homeworld, they tamed a new one, brought down the giant mythosaurs and took their sundered enemies' likeness for their seal. Do you remember the logo of MandalMotors?"
Harry simply nodded, unwilling to intrude upon the moment of quiet contemplation his friends seemed to be having. "That's a mythosaur, or rather one's skull," she explained with a certain pride in her voice, pride of her people and their history; soon though, that pride was marred by a certain sorrow. "We overreached, though, and often; brought a whole lot of death over the galaxy."
A few breaths were simply shared in silence before she reasserted control over herself. "Nothing to be done about it now, ancient history," the warrior eventually declared, all of her former wist- and thoughtfulness gone, replaced once more by the stoic exterior she usually wore. Alongside her armour, of course. "Come on, we have a company to contact."
Thrown off by the sudden shift in mood, Harry did not react until she was already halfway across the bridge to the communication station down in the trench. Quickly, he dashed after her to at least listen in on the call when it happened, though he had little illusion about which one of them was better suited to dealing with this particular contact. When finally, the call went through, it was indeed Iabaes who spoke, now under the curious ears of literally every other core member of Harry's crew.
"Su cuy'gar, burc'ya," the Mandalorian on the other end of the line said what the captain could only guess had to be some kind of greeting by the way their own Mandalorian repeated it back at him.
"Basic now, burc'ya," she continued agreeably, though her voice showed she would not waver on the issue. "I have friends with me who do not speak our tongue. We are here for the bounty on those pirates that are raiding Mandal Hypernautics' shipments."
Now with a slight shiftiness to his tone, the man on the other end of the line replied, "I will patch you through to the head of security. Ret'urcye mhi."
Once again, the group had to wait for a while before they got a connection; when the call was picked up this time around, though, it was by a very different kind of person. In what way, Harry was not sure, but the difference was already apparent in their very voice.
"Yes," the man greeted without preamble in a very noticeable core world accent, leaving out even a simple introduction. "What is this about?"
Sensing that, in this isolated instance of dealing with a Mandalorian, he was probably better suited, the captain interjected before Iabaes had a chance to respond. "The name is Vincent Dash, I'm here about your pirate problem; any data you would like to share with us, maybe the route of your next shipment, so we have something to go by?"
"Burst transmission; one million credits, nothing up front and not one credit more, unless you bring them to us alive," the brash voice dictated coldly. Down at the station, the operator manning it nodded her confirmation of the incoming transmission. "For every one of them you bring us alive it's another 10000 credits. The convoy will be expecting you."
"Ori'buyce, kih'kovid," Iabaes muttered under her breath as, without another word, the connection was cut, and though Harry had no idea of definitively knowing so, he had a good idea it had not been complimentary in nature.
"Charming," Mercer simply deadpanned, glancing at the communications station.
OOOOOOOO
Su cuy'gar, burc'ya. = Hello, friend.
Ret'urcye mhi. = Goodbye; literally: Maybe we'll meet again.
Ori'buyce, kih'kovid. = All helmet, no head. An insult directed at someone with an inflated sense of their own importance and authority.