I am not named George or Rumiko.
As this chapter is being posted, that should tell you which story won July's poll. This allowed me to bring the political side of things with the Mandos to a close.
This has been betaed by Michael once again and I think he did a great job despite the size of the chapter, so please thank him for his work!
Chapter 13 Pushing the Bad Button
The clan conclave was held in the ancient auditorium in Keldabe, the same that Bo had used during her initial meeting with a few scattered aliite (clan) leaders when she first started her push. Entering next to Bo Katan, Ranma looked towards where Master Plo was already sitting at one of the three prepared seats for the Jedi on the sand of the auditorium's floor. They had to be specially prepared, since the Mandalorians had no procedures in their history that allowed for outside observers at an event like this. Of course, it wasn't the only part of this conclave that was new, just the most initially striking.
Here and there, scattered throughout the room, were small floating recorders, but the actual reporters were also sitting down on the floor, locals to one side and intergalactic types on the other. There, though, the chairs and tables looked far less haphazard, since the clan conclave did have a place in it for recorders.
For some reason one of the intergalactic types was glaring at Master Plo Koon, who didn't seem to notice. Indeed, he had his eyes closed, his legs pulled up under his rear as he meditated.
Ranma and Shaak exchanged a brief look, then they turned away, with Shaak moving over to join Plo Koon. At the same moment Ranma moved, leaping from where he stood to land on the balcony in front of Bo and Clento before slipping into an empty chair between them. He moved so fast that the hovering recorders weren't able to turn to him in time to record the amazing feat.
Not that most of the galactic types would've commented on it in any event. Ranma was, despite his protestations, slowly becoming known as a Jedi simply because he traveled with one. Thankfully, the newsies hadn't seen fit to interview him, seeing him as nothing more than a padawan, not understanding his importance to the Reborn faction. Their ability to understand the locals was practically nonexistent, though Ranma wondered how much of that had to do with their own preconceived notions getting in the way, and how much had to do with actually just deciding they didn't want to, given the way they wanted to portray the clan conclave and the two sides of the debate. He had only seen a few interviews of various NM types, not a one from the Reborn faction, or indeed anyone outside the bio-cube cities.
"How's it going?" he whispered, though both Clento and Bo heard him.
Bo didn't reply, looking away with a pout on her face for a brief moment that made her look much younger. "You're not still angry about being forced to leave Bessie behind, are you?" Ranma asked, nudging her in the ribs with an elbow.
"Of course not!" Bo replied, still not looking at him. "Why would I be cross that everyone else told me it would be stupid and pointlessly showing off to ride my Bes'uliik into the conclave? And don't call him Bessie; that's demeaning."
"That and the big beastie wouldn't have fit through the doors," Clento said from Ranma's other side, rolling his eyes. Women and their toys. "We're trying to show in this conclave that we are willing to work through peaceful channels to settle an internal matter, Bo, not show off or inform the rest of the universe that you've found a working Bes'uliik. I doubt even most of the Jedi would be happy with that information."
"I said I agreed with your reasoning, you old di'kut (Jerk). That doesn't mean I need to like it," Bo retorted.
"We all have to do things we don't like, ad'ika (sweetie, child)," Clento replied complacently, chuckling as Bo turned to give him a glare. Youngsters always hated being called that, and it seemed to get under Bo's skin even more than it would have the warriors of his own clan.
Seeing her glare was having no effect, Bo turned away with a growl, surveying the crowd. Not being allowed to make her triumphant entrance was not the only thing bothering Bo at the moment, if she was honest. She was actually having a case of nerves. She had spoken in front of more people than this during the campaign on Yavin and at a few other battles, but that was about combat and war, about planning, strategizing and other things of that nature. This was public speaking about politics and society, and looking around at the sheer number of representatives here was a daunting thing. Because not only were the all the clan heads here, including dozens of offworlders and various nonhumans, but hundreds of other people representing still more.
These were the unaffiliates, people who had turned their backs on the clan structure for one reason or another. Most of them were from the New Mandalorian group, representing various industries and other groups of that nature. Many others were simple pro-social leaders, the mayors of the cities scattered over the planet, both the NM's bio-cube cities and the older ones. Even the most traditional cities had some unaffiliates who belonged to no clan, and thus had to be represented here in some other fashion.
Clento took it upon himself to respond when he noticed his younger compatriot was in no state of mind to do so. "In answer to your initial question, Ranma, mixing our security division with the New Mandalorians' might've caused several headaches and at least seven fistfights that I know of over the last few days, but it also found at least two attempts at smuggling in neurotoxins, one bomb scare, and at least one person who did not agree with the idea of leaving his weapons outside for this debate.
"So in that department it's going quite well. The New Mandalorians' tact and organization, and our ability to deal with the individuals involved have seen us through so far." Clento actually smiled for a moment. "One of my own clansmen was involved in taking down one of the two groups which tried to smuggle in neurotoxins. An unaffiliated group who were trying to strike at lady Satine, for some reason. The interrogation is ongoing considering that episode happened this morning."
"They didn't have anything for or against the actual debate?"
"Apparently not," Clento answered, prevaricating slightly. "We will find out more in due course."
Ranma nodded and leaned back, watching as 'Duchess' Satine entered last as befit the leader of the government whose position was being debated, resplendent in her ceremonial robes. Bo stiffened at the sight, sitting up in her seat, her own armor buffed and shining with the colors of dark blue and silver, her helmet under one arm.
In comparison the three Jedi, now all sitting at one table, looked rather drab in their robes. But Ranma felt that their very drabness seemed to scream out the Jedi's purpose more than any kind of panoply: that they were here to see that the rules were obeyed.
Seeing all three of them together at one table caused a susurration of noise around them, as if not everyone there had understood that all three of the Jedi would be involved in the debate. Or rather, not taking part in the debate, Ranma corrected himself, simply making certain that it was as open and peaceful as it could be.
Lady Satine took her place in the crowd as everyone else had, while two large circular platforms were brought in, and the doors ritually closed, the two platforms placed in such a way that everyone could see them. Small screens turned on, hovering in the air here and there above the large crowd so that everyone would be able to see the two speakers beside each other.
At the same time an old man, easily the oldest person Ranma had seen on the planet, moved forward. He was obviously a Mandalorian of some kind, though he did not wear any armor. One leg was replaced by a cybernetic replacement, one hand was missing, and he walked with a limp. Standing in the center of the auditorium's floor, directly across from the Jedi he stared at them one after another.
Whatever he was looking for there Ranma didn't know, and from Clento's hiss Ranma discerned that the old man's stopping like that and staring at the Jedi was not part of the script. Makes me wish I had looked up more about what was going to happen here, but I just didn't care much about the actual organization of the debate. I've done my bit, the rest is up to the politicos, blech.
After a moment, however, the man turned away from the Jedi, staring out around him as he moved to one of the podiums. He tapped it, and it glowed green with a ring of brown light around it. Tapping the other one in turn, it glowed blue with a silver line of light around it.
"Matching colors?" Ranma murmured to Clento.
"They're supposed to match the color of the armor of the individual with each side using their podium one at a time taking turns between the two sides., I'll admit the color coding is s a little lost considering Satine does not wear armor and in fact rejects that part of the Resol'nare, the Beskar'gem, butit is traditional."
"Saying its traditional is just another way of saying it's stupid with bells and whistles," Ranma muttered, causing Clento to glare at him, though Bo cracked a smile at the quip.
With the lights of the two podiums as a backdrop the old man turned, his face appearing on all the screens scattered above the crowd. He pulled out a long sheet of actual paper and without further preamble began to shout out names from the list on it. As he went down the list men and women in the crowd stood up silently, not calling out, but there was a deep gong sound with each name uttered and answered. Even the unaffiliated and the other New Mandalorian backers observed the ceremony solemnly.
Ranma drowned it out, not caring really about their names or anything of that nature, only concentrating again as he heard a few of the titles of the unaffiliates. "You guys have unions and guilds? You, don't have a bounty hunters' chapter on the planet, do you?"
"No, no true Mando would ever put money on anyone's life like that, even the New Mandalorians. Taking someone else's money is, of course, a different thing entirely. But actually paying to have someone else solve your problem would be admitting that you couldn't deal with the matter on your own, and that would result in a tremendous loss of face," Bo replied, seemingly having gotten over her nerves now.
"And we wouldn't want that, would we?" Ranma murmured, his eyes slowly sliding shut as the names continued.
He woke up when the old man stopped, staring around into the crowd. "We are here in a time of great turmoil," he said simply.
His voice, Ranma now noticed, was deep and carrying. "Who is he, anyway?" he asked out of the corner of his mouth.
"The Ancient," Bo replied with a shrug. "Every clan keeps a tally of their warriors, and the Ancient is chosen by the oldest and most respected warriors on the planet. He doesn't have to be still serving, as in this case, but his words carry a bit more weight than they would if they were coming from anyone else."
They both fell silent as the man began to speak again. "The New Mandalorians have led us out of disaster. We all know what that disaster was," the older man said, pointedly staring over at the Jedi, smiling slightly at the crowd's reaction to that, though the Jedi remain unmoved.
"We also know that the decisions made here will have ramifications far beyond our home here on Mandalore," he went on, turning to glare at the newscasters before smiling up at a few out-system clan leaders.
"Put that out of your minds. This is not a debate to be made for anyone else. We must decide on the course of our people for the good of our people. We must decide whether the Resol'nare is to be set aside as the prop of an earlier, less enlightened age, as the New Mandalorians would have it, or must be changed, as the Reborn would wish it. Regardless, we must decide as a people, make our choice, and go into the future together, not as two separate peoples as we have become in the past few centuries."
With that he nodded once more, and without another word turned away, making his creaky way towards the stairwell leading up to where he had originally been sitting. Before the man could reach his chair, however, another susurration of noise caused him to turn. Ranma's eyes narrowed in speculation as Master Plo stood up, moving around the table the Jedi had been assigned, the table that had made them seem so much more like outsiders, just like the news agencies.
Plo moved to stand in the same position the old man had, turning in place for a moment to look around the triangle at all the people sitting above him. His Force senses reached out lightly, feeling the emotions of the crowd: the turmoil, the conflict, the anger, and quite a bit of hate, as well as confusion, trust, awe, and fear. I cannot combat the hate within their souls, but I can alleviate some of the fear, perhaps, and the original reason behind those two emotions.
And it was time to do just that. As the Kel Dor had known he would from the moment he understood how wrong the Excision had been. "You all know me," he said, his voice through the respirator coming out deeper and even more baritone than the Ancient. "You all know I am a Jedi. And I know your hate, and the reason behind it."
"The Excision, as the Republic calls it. The Dral'hanyour people call it, and since coming into this sector I have learned that your name was far more descriptive than the Republic's. For over eight hundred years, the Order has taught that the Excision was an ugly but necessary act to remove a potential threat to the Republic. We were wrong."
As Plo spoke, the crowd had been getting angrier and angrier. That anger, however. was snuffed out by confusion now, drowning out all the other emotions he could sense through the Force. Every man and woman there, even Bo and Satine. stared at Plo Koon, a Jedi master who had just said his order had been wrong.
Even Ranma was astonished. Holy hell, Plo, that was one hell of an opening gambit! Only his fellow Jedi did not look surprised, simply looking on calmly. The newsies were not at all calm, whispering heatedly into their receivers. I gotta wonder how that is going to be received on Coruscant… Plo did the right thing, but I think the Order might pay for it down the line if enough Senators actually care about what's going on here at all.
"We were wrong," Plo said again. "While you might have backed certain factions among the New Sith, that war had ended more than a hundred years before the Excision. Yes, you were gaining power out here. But there was a hundred years of relative peace between the Republic and your people. Which the Republic and the Jedi order ended with annihilation. An act carried out against a peaceful neighbor, one we might have warred with in the past, but which we had no data at that time to show was becoming a threat again. I could wish that our own records of that time were more concrete, to know the reasoning behind the Jedi Council's agreement to be part of the Excision, indeed, why we had pushed for it.
"But I do not know why. And I cannot go back in time and prevent it, nor can I make you forget it." At that Plo got down on his knees and bowed his head briefly touching the ground in front of them. "I can only apologize to the best of my ability."
From a politician this would have been nothing, mere words. But this was Jedi Master Plo Koon. A man who had taken on an entire town's worth of Mandalorians in hand-to-hand and beaten them down, killing none of them A man who had gone out of his way to help Bo in that same engagement. A man who had been hip deep in the organization of the conclave, who had gone out of his way to be open to questions by the New Mandalorians and Reborn alike.
Only a few of his missions before coming here had become known since, but those few were enough to add to everyone's understanding of the individual that was Master Plo Koon, warrior and statesmen. Coupled with that, there were more than a few there who had dealt with other Kel Dor, and knew of that race's concept of justice and honor. That gave his word impact far beyond what anyone else could've done, and for a moment shock overcame hate, beating it back as something like respect began to take its place in many of his listeners.
Slowly Plo stood up, staring around at the quiet audience. "Today, you will make a decision that will, despite what the Ancient said, have a major impact on the galaxy. As your people, in point of fact, are known for doing," he said dryly, and more than a few people there surprised themselves by chuckling. "Most of those impacts, despite what you may think, were negative, but it does not always have to be that way. You can stand as the New Mandalorians would wish you to, exemplifying a society that has moved beyond the barbarity of war. Or you could take on the role of defenders, shields for those who cannot defend themselves."
He gestured at the other two Jedi. "We Jedi are here not to involve ourselves, nor to influence your decisions. We are here to make certain that all of you, each and every one of you sitting before me or listening at home, has a chance to be heard, that this debate is held as peaceably as possible, and that your own traditions are upheld. I cannot tell you to ignore us but do not let that presence influence your decisions. Let the speakers and the merits of the two positions speak for themselves."
He held that pose for a moment, then nodded and returned to his place. Sitting down fluidly he leaned back, looking around him as if nothing important had taken place, his steel-capped fingers steepled in front of him as he waited for the first speaker to begin.
Duchess Satine continued to stare at the Kel Dor for a moment, but she was the best politician there, and she got over her shock quickly, pushing herself to her feet and moving down to take her place on her podium. For a moment she simply stood there, staring at Plo as she had throughout her walk, before resolutely turning back and facing the rest of the audience. She licked her lips for a moment then started to speak, and the debate truly began.
OOOOOOO
The debate went on for the rest of the day but Ranma blocked it out, leaning back in his chair and meditating as best he could. He only came out of his meditation to pay attention when one or the other Jedi would speak. Their voices would cut through the debate their calm tones calming individuals or calling the debate back to order after a particular shouted diatribe from the crowd. Several times the Jedi asked questions, forcing both Bo and Satine to restate their points in a more easily understood manner. For the most part, though, they simply made certain that everyone's voice was heard equally, calmed anyone who tried to shout over everyone else, and allowed the quiet to be heard just as much as those shouting.
The most glorious sound of all, however, was the ringing of a gong signaling a meal break. The sound of Ranma's true master, or, as other people termed it, his stomach, sounded on cue, but for once its roar went unheard over the sound of the crowd as it began to stand. Ranma, however, cut through them swiftly, his stomach leading him to the nearest food with unerring accuracy.
For her part Bo felt as if she had run a five-day marathon. Her throat so sore she wondered if she would ever be able to speak again. Moving away from the podium where she had just given the Reborn's closing arguments for the day, she ignored her sister's presence entirely as she moved towards the door. As the two leaders of the factions trying to sway public opinion, she and Satine would be allowed to leave first, followed by the three Jedi in their places as the debate monitors, while the news agencies would be left for last, so they could canvas the crowd for opinion pieces.
Outside in the small corridor reserved for the debate monitors and the two leaders, Bo watched Satine march off, her back ramrod straight, her eyes resolutely turned forward, not even looking at her sister. That was fine by Bo. Bo had heard Satine's voice enough for one day…hell, for a lifetime!
Turning at the sound of another set of feet, she found Shaak walking beside her. "Do you think that went well?"
"I think Plo dropped a kriffing bomb on us," Bo replied bluntly. "I hadn't realized that a simple apology could have that much impact. The debate is going much more smoothly than I had anticipated, and with far less acrimony tossed to either me or the NM's for having dealings with Jedi because of that.
"With that anger gone clearer heads are keeping calm at this point, which could lead to a faster resolution than I had anticipated, though I can't tell you what that would be. We're looking at maybe a few weeks' worth of debates rather than a few months, for which my throat is kriffing grateful!" Bo said with a shaky laugh, touching her throat. "Osik (Crap), but I need a drink."
Shaak chuckled quietly, pulling out a water bottle from somewhere and holding it out.
Bo took it, staring at Shaak quizzically, wondering where she had hid it, or if she had used some kind of Jedi trick to cover its being there. Regardless, she took a swig and nodded her thanks to the Togrutan woman. She found herself chuckling after a moment as a thought struck her. Holy crap, I'm closer to Shaak then I am to my own sister. And that is really saying something considering my feelings towards Shaak, which are at best neutral, though at times like this it is hard to remember why.
As they walked, Bo continued to paw at her throat occasionally, feeling drained and sore even with the water. Shaak noticed this and smiled slightly. "I had the opportunity in the days before I met Ranma to choose to be a Consular, a diplomat first and foremost, rather than a Guardian, a warrior first. I chose to be a Guardian, and even without my needing to keep up with Ranma I have discovered that I do not have quite the right temperament to be a diplomat. Or at least," she finished, allowing her smile to widen, "not the correct kind of bladder. I really need to piss."
The sudden crude joke caused Bo to crack out into laughter, and Shaak had to actually help her along for a few moments. Behind them Plo and Obi-Wan both smiled in their own way before Master Plo turned and followed Obi-Wan who was trailing behind Satine. Better to get ahead of things now than let the Council and the Senate becomes even angrier at me. Besides, if I make my own report it will be coming in on the heels of the reporters', and thus may stop opinions from hardening against me.
OOOOOOO
Plo Koon was not surprised to find that he barely had to wait a few moments before the local Hypercom's computer informed him he had call for him from the Senate. In point of fact it was a dual call, with lines merging on Coruscant from the Senate and the High Council. The callers were two senators and Chancellor Palpatine one the one side, and three Jedi Masters from the High Council on the other rather than the full group, which, Master Plo reflected, was telling. We are being pulled every which way these days, as my own presence here on Mandalore shows. Yet at the same time we are also doing more noticeable good, so I cannot find it in myself to lament how much more busy we are than the High Council was in bygone days.
"Masters, Senators. You no doubt have things to say to me," Plo said calmly, his voice coming out of his breath mask with the odd timbre the mask always gave his words.
The three Jedi Masters looked at him calmly through the image, which was not a hologram on this end. Mandalore did not have a large enough Hypercom relay to handle so many hologram signals coming in. Instead the faces of the individuals on Coruscant came up on a large screen in front of Plo with each face in a small square, enlarging slightly when the individual on the other end spoke.
Unlike the Jedi the senators did not wait overlong, though the Chancellor did look at Plo thoughtfully, as always poised and in control.
"What do you think you're playing at, Jedi?" spat Senator Bestina Tarkin, almost growling the words. "You're supposed to be looking out for Republic interests out there, not throwing our past actions under the orbital bombardment! You do realize that you are forcing our hand in this? If the Senate does not publicly state a similar feeling, we will be seen as evil and uncaring, even warlike!"
"At that point of time, we were. We both were," Plo said calmly. "It took me moving through this sector and looking at the reports of my fellow Jedi to realize how much long-term damage there still was from the Excision. Think about it Senators: we created a power vacuum, and further, destroyed much of the industrial capacity in the sector."
Plo leaned back, his hands disappearing into his sleeves as he met Tarkin's angry glare with his own serene control, his eyes, as always, covered by the protective lenses his race always had to use when away from their home. "Have you looked at some of the medical information I've sent back with my reports? Shaak and I were both quite clear on the fact that life expectancy on these planets wasn't even up to the level of norm of the Outer Rim.
"There are diseases at work on some of these planets that target children, diseases that were either created or evolved after our bombardment of their planets. Barely one out of every fifteen children on most of these planets reaches adulthood. Piracy is more prominent in this region than in any other I have seen in my time as a Jedi. And that is our fault for not staying around and rebuilding."
Senator Bail Antilles smiled, replying before his coworker could fire back. "I fully endorse the idea of the Mandalore sector rebuilding. I did read your report closely, and I agree some of those planets are in dire straits. But are you certain that the Mandalorians will be up to it, or will they simply wipe out more planets? There are atrocities in their past, even an example of a near genocide 250 years ago, and that was only a small faction of the Mandalorians rather than their whole society."
"The Reborn will at least remove the pirate threat and bring some law and order to the space ways out here. Once that is accomplished, they'll find an ability to expand into their old territories, I think," Plo said after a moment's thought. "Their leader, Bo Katan Kryze, is noticeably more concerned with the here and now of course, and it is still not clear that she will win this conclave. However, there are fifteen known clans that came in from out-system to be involved in this. That will give the Mandalorians both impetus to aid their fellows, and a decent starting point to rebuilding the worlds they come from."
Even if it did exacerbate the complexities of taking a poll. Each clan had to submit an accurate account of the number of warriors they had on their rolls for the final voting. The clan leaders could use those votes as they saw fit, but they had to be honest in how many warriors they had and submit to a survey of their numbers by a group of Reborn and New Mandalorians. Plo himself had been heavily involved in that process and had to leave Mandalore several times in the last few months to do so. This gave him more insight into the rest of the sector, but he couldn't deny that it had multiplied the legwork needed to make certain all the votes were counted.
The Chancellor spoke up next, holding up his hand as his fellow Senators made to speak. "A moment, please," he said politely, and Senator Tarkin actually paused, before leaning back in his chair with an angry humph. "I want to be clear on this. Your apology was not a mere sop to local opinion, it was an honest and heartfelt thing. We can all understand that, and I applaud you for it. But do you think it will be enough to offset the hatred that exists between you Jedi and the Mandalorian people?"
Palpatine chuckled suddenly, shaking his head. "Actually we can't even call them a people, or even a culture. Both imply that they are of a single race, after all, and they are not. Rather, it is a society, an ideology. I had not known that before this problem occurred."
As Plo nodded the Chancellor went on, nodding his own head slightly in acknowledgment of Plo's reply before going on. "But that, in point of fact, is my problem. Thoughts are awfully hard to change, Masters Jedi. This Reborn faction…I watched a recording of Miss Kryze's speech, and she sounds sincere enough. But she is trying to change a philosophy. How likely is it that she will succeed? Regardless of your own feelings on the matter or even what would be best in the short term for the people of that sector, we Senators have a responsibility to see to the defense of the Republic first and foremost. And if the Mandalorians will become a threat, we will need to act, regardless of the ethics of it."
Palpatine sounded apologetic about that, but firm, and he stared through the hologram at Master Plo. The Kel Dor Jedi had never dealt with the man before; the Chancellor had not been involved in the Stark Hyperspace War or any of the other large-scale problems that Plo had been involved in. However Plo could see that he was a rather forceful personality and hoped that the man did better in his position as Chancellor than his predecessor had in the past decade. The fact that he was at least asking for not only more information but Plo's opinion also spoke well of him.
"I believe that because of the demise of most of the Death Watch that the large majority of those most inclined to return to the path of honor through conquest have been removed, Chancellor. There are still those who want glory, who want to expand back to their old power base, but those can be guided, the nature of that honor changed. Yes, Chancellor, I think that the Reborn can lead by example and change this society," Plo replied.
He made no mention of the large carrot that was added to Bo's call for reform: that of gaining access to Ranma's skills. Bo was still being very careful about who trained with Ranma, and none of them were allowed to train other people without his say-so. And Ranma had made it known on that first day that he would have no pity for anyone who abused his training in the future.
The Chancellor leaned back with a thoughtful expression on his face, but Bestina took the opportunity to speak up again. "We're all talking about this like it is a foregone conclusion that the Reborn will win this election! That goes directly against your mission out there Jedi!"
"Master Plo's mission was decided upon by the Jedi Order, said Master Windu, speaking up for the first time. "The Senate passed on the duchess's request for Jedi arbitration. How we go about our missions has always been under our control, regardless of your opinions or stated orders. If you wanted to make certain the debate went your way, Senators, you should have sent your own delegates in rather than us."
As Bestina blustered, and even Senator Antilles looked a little concerned, Mace turned back to Plo. "You will keep our neutrality, correct? Do you see any problems in that area?"
"Even the New Mandalorians have factions that don't like the Jedi," Plo admitted. "My public apology might have lanced that particular boil for now, but the underlying causes are still there."
Senator Antilles, the Chancellor, and Mace understood his analogy and even smiled, though the others looked a little blank, and Tarkin simply shook his head at the attempt at humor. Coleman Trebor and Eeth Koth, the other two Jedi Masters that were part of the discussion, looked blank, since their races could not develop boils.
"The Jedi are correct," Palpatine said smoothly, again beating Bestina to the punch. "We sent the Jedi out there and it is not our lawful place to order the Jedi to toe the party line. They are servants of the Republic as a whole, not any one Senator's faction, or even the Senate's. You can give them advice, you can even express your own opinions, but you cannot lawfully pressure them to follow your demands on a subject that at heart has nothing to do with the Republic unless you can prove to my office and the Senate that there is a clear and present danger to the Republic."
Bestina Tarkin looked as if he was about to burst, but Senator Antilles nodded while the Jedi all exchanged glances at Palpatine's political speech, but it was Antilles who spoke next. "What is your opinion about these two leaders? And why do they both have the same last name? They can't be related, surely?"
"They are actually sisters, Senator Antilles. I understand they were never very close, and then Satine was sent off-world into the Republic to school. After that they never reconciled, and I have to say that there looks to be no family feeling remaining between them."
After that Plo told the group his honest opinion of the two women, having honestly grown to respect them both in different ways. "I do not think that Bo Katan understood what she was getting into, but she has risen to the challenge well enough. Would she be able to act as a normal head of state? That is doubtful, but in point of fact the Mandalorians don't historically have a 'normal' head of state; the New Mandalorians are an aberration there. As for Satine, she is an excellent leader and has a strong hold on her own faction and a proven track record. Under her the economy of the various bio-cubes has grown, and I think she won the day's debates. I expect that the debate will be long and fretful, but hopefully we have dealt with the outbreak of violence well enough to make certain no more will occur."
"Nonetheless, my fellow Senators will not like this," Tarkin growled, leaning forward aggressively. "You Jedi are supposed to be our allies! And here you are forcing our hand, not following our orders…"
"They were not legal orders," the Chancellor said, his voice crisp as he glared at the man. "The only person that can actually order the Jedi to do anything legally is me, and I did not do so in this case. You may request that they look into issues, what they do after that is their own purview, as I've already said. Perhaps, Senator, you should look to your own sector before going out looking for trouble? I understand that even Eriadu is having issues with local race-based crime."
Tarkin glared at the image of the Chancellor on his end, or so Plo assumed given the way his eyes strayed to the side. Then he growled once more before flicking something, his image disappearing.
Senator Antilles shook his head. "Bestina's reelection campaign is not going very well," he confided to the others. "He might well be pushed out by one of his relatives, and that's a bitter pill for a man like him to swallow." Bail laughed, shaking his head. "I personally don't see why, I am looking forward to retiring when my own term is up next month."
"You will be missed by many, my friend," Palpatine said, a sentiment echoed by the others.
Bail smiled, acknowledging their well wishes before turning back to the subject of his fellow Senator. "Bestina is taking his vitriol out on everyone, and this issue is a bit of a hot topic for him because Bestina is also a bit of a historian. The Mandalorians might not be a threat now, but they certainly were in the past, and could become such a few hundred years into the future."
"Understandable, the past can teach us many things. But being tied to it, seeing only the history rather than the now, serves no one," Mace replied.
"He is not the only Senator that is hot on this topic," the Chancellor said apologetically. "For my part, I think we have far more issues closer to home then we need to deal with. I would like to see the New Mandalorians win this…this general election? I'm not certain I actually understand all of the principals behind how they are going to tally votes, but it is a sort of election?"
In point of fact it was, though it wasn't a straight vote. Rather the clans would hold an internal vote then each clan would move in lockstep in the larger debate. Their numbers would then be tallied and added to the total. Unaffiliates would do the same thing in their guilds, unions or other organizational groups, which included colleges and other centers of learning. This had been a problem, since the students could also have been tallied under their clans or their work place's unions. Still, Plo, Satine, and Bo had worked on that aspect, and had jointly come up with the method being used.
After Plo's explanation Palpatine nodded and went on. "In that case, simply make certain that everything is on the up and up, and that will serve me perfectly fine. I probably won't take part in more of these discussions," he went on apologetically. "As you all know I've been pushing to remove the trade Federation from the Army Rights Act, and that is taking up much of my time. It was also not mere hyperbole when I said there were other issues closer to home. But I have no doubt that other Senators will try to poke their noses in."
Senator Antilles laughed, acknowledging the point, and the Chancellor bade everyone farewell before signing off. Bail made some pleasantries to the various Jedi, admitting that he was still very much in favor of the New Mandalorians winning, but would also not push for the Jedi to try to control the debate any further. "We don't have the resources out there to subtly influence events, and I refuse to countenance a military intervention. So long as the conclave continues to be as scrupulously fair as you can make it, you will have no problem with me," the head of the Senate's Internal Activities Committee said, before signing off, leaving the Jedi alone.
Master Koth was the first to speak, looking troubled as he did. "You admitted that the Jedi Order was wrong. I understand your reasoning, and it was an astute move admittedly, but I cannot say that it is one I approve of." He looked over to his fellow Masters, but saw no aid there.
Mace replied, "My friend, we can only truly control what we ourselves have done. We cannot understand what Masters from that many centuries ago were thinking; we can only judge them by our own grasp of morality. Regardless of anything else, I do think that they acted without considering all the ramifications of the Excision. The reports on the rest of the sector…" Mace shook his head.
At that Master Koth frowned, but slowly nodded turning away from his friend to look back at Master Plo. Plo respected Eeth Koth both as a Guardian and as an intelligent individual. But it was a fact that the Zabrak was not the most flexible of fellows. He had always believed that so long as the Jedi Order followed its Oaths and listened to the Force they could do no wrong. He also, as Ranma well knew, had the empathic ability of a rock.
"Fear, too, is part of the dark side," Koth said after a moment. "And it is one of the most insidious of emotions. Perhaps the ancient Jedi Council did fall into it. I cannot say that I like the precedent your admittance creates, but I cannot say you were wrong, Master Windu is correct on that. And in any event, what is done, is done."
Plo nodded his head, and Master Koth sighed. "I will go and mediate on this matter, to see what the Force has to say about it. May the Force be with you, Master Koon." With that the Zabrak Jedi signed off, leaving the council chamber to seek out his own.
"It's going to play havoc at home. The news agencies have tried to rally up public opinion against the Reborn, with scant success thanks to how quickly the violence on Mandalore was dealt with, but the opinion on the Mandalorians is still very lukewarm, and I have no doubt that the Senate will try to turn your admittance of guilt about the Excision into an attack on their own positions. Still I can deal with that," said Coleman with a faint smile on his reptilian face. "Good luck, Master Koon. I have the feeling even if violence doesn't break out again you're going to need it."
He too signed off quickly to start preparing his response to said issue, leaving the remaining Master of the Order and Plo looking at each other. "You did what was right, though it remains to be seen whether or not you did as you ought," Mace said with a faint smile, causing Plo to smile in turn at the amusing bit of doublespeak. "Stay safe my friend, and give my respects to Master Ti, Obi-Wan, and Ranma."
"Why was Master Yoda not involved in this discussion? Surely as the only living Jedi who was actually in the Order at the time he could've given us some insight into why the Excision was launched?" Plo asked. It would not have mattered to the present very much, but it might have helped Master Koth deal with the ramifications of Plo's apology.
"We asked and Master Yoda told us he had only just been made a Jedi Knight a few years before the Excision occurred. He was busy on a mission elsewhere when that entire campaign was launched, so he has no insight as to why the Council at the time did as it did."
"It is odd to think that he was ever less than the Grand Master," Plo admitted, "but it is also somewhat liberating. The Force can lead us to the answers, but we have to be the ones asking the questions. We cannot always rely on the intelligence of our elders."
"Well spoken," Mace said with a smile. "May the Force be with you, my friend."
"And with you," Master Plo said, holding up his hand as Mace did the same before they both signed off.
OOOOOOO
In his alter ego's office Sidious leaned back, his hands clenched on his throne's chair arms as he tried to control his rage, his Palpatine guise slipping even with the added aid of his official robes and the light streaming in from the windows behind his desk. The Jedi are not reacting as they should!
The Kel Dor Jedi's public apology for the Excision was troublesome in and of itself. In the short term it would offset much of the anger directed to the Jedi that could have seen the Jedi and the Mandalorians at loggerheads once more. But that could be reversed in time. The Jedi and the Mandalorians were too different to truly ever get along in his opinion. Like wolves and sheep dogs, they could not coexist in the same galaxy.
During that meeting Sidious had actually told the truth for once, he was actually contemptuous of the idea that this Bo Katan Kryze woman could change how the Resol'nare was viewed in the long term. Those systems of tenets and beliefs had made the Mandalorians the society it was, turned them into wolves and launched them at the throat of the galaxy over and over again. There was no easy way to change that, and the younger Kryze woman was naïve to think she could.
But in the long term, the fact that the Kel Dor was willing to make that announcement in the first place shows a worrying amount of flexibility. It is only one indicator, he told himself as he finally got his anger under control. But I need to make certain it is only one. Else the cracks I want to cause, the fission within the Order might not occur.
I will need to identify and target the Jedi Masters who are showing the most flexibility, regardless of any other abilities they possess. That and the Kel Dor is a dangerous fellow in and of himself. The Kel Dor and the Togrutan woman, though that is also because of her…relationship with the Chaotic Locus, need to die during this mission.
Sighing, Sidious leaned back, mentally preparing a few orders for his apprentice before turning his attention back to the rest of the work he wanted to get done today. Later that night he would have to get in touch with his apprentice and make certain that the woman understood she could not fail again.
OOOOOOO
As Bo had predicted, the debates went on for the next few weeks without much let up. Luckily after that first day, they only occurred in the afternoon and evenings, letting the debaters have some time for themselves every morning. Violence continued to occur here and there, scattered across the planet, but it was small-scale stuff for the most part now. The initial response to the violence seemed to have quelled much of it. But there was still a lot of tension in the air, even if far less of it was being directed at the Jedi. The Republic, unfortunately, was still very much an outsider here.
Sometimes Ranma and Shaak would be out and about in the mornings. They sometimes chose to explore the planet, or visit some of the cities. During these excursions they would be questioned by the locals, most of the questions dealing with the debate, while others were of a more personal nature. Other times they would join the Reborn or spar between themselves. Regardless of what they did, the mornings were the time the two spent together, and thus both guarded that time vigorously, something that surprised their fellows at first.
"I'm sorry?" Obi-Wan said, looking at Shaak askance. "I thought it a simple enough request. That company was the one that made that little truck the two of you used. Talking to their union leader about what a return to an expansionist footing could mean for their guild in comparison to the status quo is in keeping with what we have been doing all along, making certain everyone knows the facts, good and bad."
"Yes, it would be, and I would have no trouble doing so. It is the timing that is an issue," Shaak replied, turning her head slightly to watch Ranma return to their table, their party consisting of herself and the other two Jedi at present. Her species' equivalent of a period had begun that morning, and Ranma had replied to it in a way that would have made her fall in love with him all over again if such a thing were possible, becoming more solicitous and understanding, while at the same time giving her massages both mornings and at night, which did wonders for her body's aches.
Ranma put a plate in front of her and another cup in front of Obi-Wan, to which both nodded gratefully while Plo Koon looked on stoically. Kel Dor could not survive without their gas masks in oxygen rich environments, and so he could not eat without returning to a specially prepared room. Kel Dor had to sustain themselves on fluids entered into the mask via a feeding tube like Plo Koon was doing now. "The timing?"
"He wants to meet in the mornings," Shaak replied, causing Ranma to frown at the other two Jedi before she gently squeezed his leg. "That is time we prefer to spend on things other than dealing with the debate."
"It's our time in other words," Ranma replied bluntly, taking her hand under the table and squeezing it back for a moment. His thumb then began to gently run over the back of her hand, a tender touch that caused a faint blush to come to Shaak's cheeks, though she got it under control quickly.
Chuckling Plo Koon nodded his head. "We will take that into account going forward then. Far be it from me to get in the way of your relationship."
"A most enlightened attitude, Master Plo," Shaak replied, a faint smile on her face.
Sometimes, of course, their time together was interrupted by things they couldn't ignore, such as one morning when the Republic reporters finally got their head out of their asses and realized that Ranma and Shaak Ti were affiliated with the Reborn. The two of them were having a languid breakfast together, with Shaak sitting in Ranma's lap on the sofa as they fed one another a local breakfast delicacy that looked like little pastries, but which tasted more like sausages, when Tune's voice interrupted them. "Master, mistress, there seems to be some kind of disturbance by the landing area's entrance."
Sighing, Ranma leaned back as Shaak moved out of his lap, letting her thigh and hand slowly caress his lap for a moment as she did so, evoking an immediate response which Ranma had to ignore as he turned his attention to the nearest speaker. "What kind of disturbance, Tune?"
"The reporter kind, master," the droid replied, his child-like voice sounding far too world weary for a real child of that age. "Several of the intergalactic types are out there with a few scattered hover-recorders. They are trying to get past… Correction: they have gotten past the security area and are now making their way towards us across the tarmac."
While the Wild Light was parked in a public landing zone, all civilized spaceports had security around them just in case, not just because of things like contagion or other similar issues, but because ships' engines were destructive things if something went wrong, even if that something was caused by age or stupidity rather than malice. "Moments like this are why having some guns capable of firing stun bolts would be nice master."
"You've been spending too much time around HK," Shaak quipped as she stood up, pulling a reluctant Ranma to his feet. "Now, how should we handle this?"
Once on his feet, Ranma sighed but decided to see if they could get this over with quickly with as little hassle as possible. "Tune, use the external speakers to find out what the hell they want. Tell them your mistresses are still sleeping. Let's see if we can throw them off the trail."
With that Ranma moved over to HK, smacking the large and currently offline droid on the shoulder. "Wake up, LD; we've got a show to put on."
The droid came online, its shoulders straightening and its eyes lighting up. "Disgruntled query: LD, master? And what do you mean show?"
"Lazy Droid, and as for a show, we have a pack of reporters to put off the scent," Ranma replied before hopping into the shower, turning it on cold. This activated his curse, of course, and also killed his libido for the moment.
A few minutes later Shaak hid inside the cockpit watching on the external monitors with a communicator in her hand connected to an earbud Ranma was wearing hidden by her red hair. With that done, Ranma and HK moved down the gangplank and out to meet the reporters who had not been put off with Tune's attempts to protect his mistresses' time. The redhead was very obviously tired, rubbing at her eyes as one hand moved through wet hair, her clothing clinging to her damply. She looked almost childlike, certainly non-threatening, though the large security droid that tromped beside her more than made up for it.
The odd dichotomy of the sight of the two took the reporters aback for a moment, which allowed the redhead to get in the first word. "Whaddya want?" the redhead almost whined, before actually smacking her cheeks in an attempt to wake up further. The cuteness was almost visible in the air around her, but it wasn't enough to throw the reporters off further.
"Brian Foster, Kuat Intergalactic," said one man pushing another man out of the way, the one that Ranma had recognized as the reporter who had been glaring at Plo Koon the first day of the conclave. "Jedi Knight Shaak Ti is supposed to be aboard this ship. Is that the case? Why is she associating with the Reborn faction, the group of Mandalorians who want to go back to their warlike ways?"
"And can we have your name, miss?" asked another reporter, a handsome younger man who made to move forward to shake the young woman's hand, only to stop as the security droid raised its rather large gun.
"Eager Tone: Please keep a socially acceptable distance between yourselves and my mistress at all times. If you do not I will be forced to take action," the droid intoned, gesturing with its gun that the man should back away.
Ranma shook her head. "Um, the name's Ranko. As for Master Ti being here, she sometimes stays here, sometimes doesn't. As for her being involved with the Reborn faction, I thought that'd be obvious: she's involved so that the Reborn can't go back to the old 'honor through conquest' ideal."
"But isn't that a fallacy?" Another reporter leaped to the attack, deciding to see what kind of answers they could get out of this girl. "If the Mandalorians return to the ways of this Resol'nare, then they will certainly return to their warlike, aggressively expansionist ways at some point."
"You're a middle-aged human male, isn't it certain you'll eventually go bald?" Ranma quipped, eliciting a laugh from a few of her listeners and an angry expression from her interlocutor. "I think ya need to do more research. For one thing, sure they might eventually become aggressively expansionist as you put it, but only after they expand back into the rest of this sector, and outside one planet and various pirate bands that are apparently 'governed' by an organized criminal gang, they won't face any violent opposition to that. And expanding their control into the rest of the sector will take decades, probably more given how little infrastructure those planets have. Didn't the out-system speakers start to state their opinions and questions yesterday?"
"They did, but that doesn't change the facts," Brian said gamely. "The Mandalorians' history is enough to show them to always be a clear and present danger to their neighbors, and Knight Shaak Ti is still involved with the faction that most wants to."
Ranma sighed, shaking her head like she was trying to talk to a simpleton, while Shaak Ti began to coach her via the earbud. "Again, your facts are just wrong. The Reborn might be the ones pushing for a societal and governmental change, but the tension between the regular Mandos and the NMs was already there. The outbreaks of violence that led up to the conclave and the little spurts still appearing here and there should be proof of that. There were already factions that wanted to return to the ways of conquest, but Bo Katan Kryze and her Reborn have started to control that tendency, giving it direction. And if the changes Bo Katan wants to make to the Resol'nare are approved and added in, that control might become permanent."
"So are you also involved with the Reborn faction? It certainly doesn't seem as if you and Knight Shaak Ti are keeping to the Jedi's role of neutral intermediaries," said the man who had been glaring at Plo Koon. Ranma tried to remember his name, Thomas something?
"There ya go, twisting words again. I was just stating facts, not saying that was my own position. As an outsider I don't have a horse in this race really, though I am involved with Bo Katan because of a promise my brother made to train her in some of our people's techniques. I actually think that Duchess Satine's NMs are a great idea."
That bit of prevarication mixed reality and falsehood equally, though that last comment was just a baldfaced lie. Ranma's curse was even more unbelievable than most Force powers were to the uninitiated. No one in their right mind would believe any rumors about it, not even if they were backed up by video evidence. Such things could be doctored, after all, and so long as the 'cover up' didn't become too widespread, people would sooner believe that than the idea that an individual could change genders at a drop of a bottle of water. The idea of his two forms being siblings was much more believable.
Further, it put some basis to the various recordings of both his forms training with the Reborn and gave a reason for it, though the importance of 'his' involvement would be lost on anyone who didn't come from a warrior culture. This included the reporters in front of him, who had no idea why Ranma's techniques and abilities acted much like honey would to attract people to the Reborn faction, where Bo would spring the changes she wanted to make to how the Resol'nare was interpreted on them.
"And what is your connection to Knight Shaak Ti, miss," asked the handsome reporter, eyeing the girl up and down while her attention was elsewhere. The droid was somewhat off-putting, but he could at least enjoy the view.
"My brother and I became acquainted with Master Ti on a mission against the Hutts on Tatooine. She became interested in our fighting styles and how much we can negate Force techniques there, and we've been traveling together since. She teaches my brother to use what little Force power he has in return for our training her in our styles," Ranma replied, again mixing truth with lies and not coming any closer to the real reasons than he had to.
"Are you sure you're not a politician, Ranma?" Shaak's voice asked in the redhead's ear. "You are far too good at mixing truth and lies like this."
Ranma womanfully ignored the desire to turn and glare at the ship, or better yet march inside and lightly torture Shaak for that comment. Instead she allowed her eyes to narrow. "Now, if ya don't have any more questions get the kriff off my front yard. HK, if they don't move off in two minutes, feel free to shoot them in nonlethal places."
"Pitiful moan: Master, you never let me have any fun!" HK replied, his weapons, all of them, coming up and aiming at the reporters.
"The public has a right to know the truth, Ranko! What are the Jedi hiding? Why are they so calm about the idea of the Mandalorians returning to their old ways!?" Brian shouted even as he and the others backed up.
Ranma turned around from where she had been about to enter the Wild Light, shaking her head. "The public in the Core wouldn't care a damn if you lot weren't trying to use the conclave as a way to get more ratings. As for the Jedi, as far as I know they ain't happy about it at all, but they also know they have no right to enforce their own ways of life on other people. That'd make them no better than the old Mandos." With that she turned and left the reporters to try and whine their way past HK with absolutely no success.
"That was well done, Ranma, I am impressed. You covered yourself, your relation to myself and the Order and didn't give them any real target to call you out on. However Plo, Obi-Wan, and myself might have to make a few public statements in the future to cover the way the Order is handling things," Shaak told Ranma, meeting the diminutive redhead in the sitting area after the ramp had closed.
"However, I have to admit to being rather dismayed at how the reporters have been so unwilling to understand local conditions. They came here with the story they wanted to record already in mind and refuse to deviate. I have not dealt with reporters like this before; most of the reporters I have dealt with before were honest enough, certainly apolitical. It was their editors you had to watch out for. But this group…" Shaak trailed off, shaking her head.
"Meh, those recordings go out live, and didn't Plo say that Coleman Trebor was watching the news they were reporting closely to make certain that they were reporting the truth?" Ranma asked, moving towards Shaak. "The more prejudiced they seem, the more they shoot themselves in the foot."
"True. It still disturbs me these particular reporters were chosen to cover this story by their higher-ups in the first place." Shaak sighed. An instant later she tried to leap away as Ranma suddenly began tickling her sides. "KYAH! Ranma, what…"
"This is for the politician crack, Shaak! Just stand still and take your medicine!" Ranma said, her hands disappearing in a blur of motion. "Saotome-Ryu secret attack, 'Death of a Thousand Feathers!'"
Shaak squealed once more, leaping away as she tried to put both distance and furniture between them to little avail. Ranma eventually caught her, and the two of them fell back onto the sofa where the tickling segued into an intense make out session that left both of them panting and not wanting to leave the ship for the rest of the day.
After that the reporters actually did begin to get better in only reporting facts rather than trying to spin said facts, and they didn't bother the Wild Light again either. Shaak and her fellow Jedi began to hold question and answer sessions every evening after the debates ended, which gave the reporters more information to work with. But to their chagrin, and those of some of the Senators who had ordered them to Mandalore, the lack of violence and the endless debate seemed to sap all interest from what was going on out here in the boonies. Soon enough most of them were recalled, leaving only two of the more serious political reporters in place.
Other times, the interruption was actually funny.
Shaak and Ranma had been working on teaching Ranma how to read Galactic Standard when Tune interrupted them. The little droid had been outside repainting the ship, an arduous and time consuming task given its uneven surface, that had taken up much of his time since the conclave had begun, but which also left him close enough to the ship to be on guard for other things.
HK, however, was on patrol around the ship at present, which should have been enough to either deter or take care of any threats. So it was with more curiosity than concern that Shaak and Ranma looked up from their discussion to watch Tune roll up the ramp, warbling and shifting to one side and the other as he moved towards Ranma.
"You know I can't understand you without my wrist computer, Tune," Ranma said shaking his head. "But I take it something is happening outside?"
The droid paused, then nodded, his entire body tilting forward for a moment. Then the dome that acted as the droid's head turned entirely around and he raced back the way he had come.
"I think he wants us both to come outside," Shaak mused.
"HK, anything going on out there?" Ranma asked into a communicator set on top of the table in front of them. "Neutral response: Negative, master. There is nothing combat-related going on, though there is a local historian of some sort pestering me at present. Hopeful query: Permission to engage?" HK replied.
"No, let's see what he wants first," Ranma replied, leaping at the chance to get away from the books for a time.
Shaak shook her head sternly. "You can't keep running away from this forever, Ranma. Sooner or later you will need to learn to read Galactic Standard."
"Yes, but today is not that day!" Ranma caroled before leaning over and kissing Shaak with enough passion to take her breath away for a moment. He then hopped off like the Energizer Bunny on steroids. "Come on, let's go see what's going on outside."
Blinking rapidly, it took Shaak a few seconds to come back to the here and now before she scowled lightly, pushing to her feet to follow her lover out of the ship. "That is the very definition of a dirty trick, Ranma!" she said, smacking him lightly on the elbow.
"Meh, my style isn't called Anything Goes because we're always nice, love," Ranma said, reaching down to take Shaak's hands. The two of them stood for a few seconds simply smiling at one another in the shadows of their ship, before turning and moving over to where HK was holding a human male up by the back of his armor.
It was almost painfully obvious that if this man had ever been a soldier, that time was far in the past. He only wore the chest plate, as many Mandos who were not chiefly soldiers seemed to, but it hung off him like a tent he was so emaciated. His hair was lank and done up in a ponytail that fell down his back, and his face was so wrinkled it was obvious he was a near contemporary of the Ancient. He also had tiny spectacles set on his nose, and he seemed more fascinated by HK's head than scared he was being held in midair by the droid's effortless grip.
"An academic of some sort/A nerd," Ranma and Shaak said as one, before looking at one another and chuckling, disengaging their hands and moving toward HK. Ranma cocked his head thoughtfully, smirking at the man who was being held at about eye level. "So, you comfortable hanging there, old man? Want a drink or anything?"
"Oh no, this is simply fascinating! My good man, are you the owner of this amazing droid? Such a fascinating find! Why he must be… Do you have any idea? That is, where did you find him? And such an odd body shape. No wonder no one suspects. Why, it's only from this close that I was certain as to his identity!" the man gabbled, smiling pleasantly, if absentmindedly, at the human man and Togrutan woman.
"Erm…I found his head, if that's what you mean, on Coruscant in a shop several hundred levels down from the current surface level," Ranma began, somewhat nonplussed at the old man's response.
To one side Shaak listened, her eyes narrowed, as a thought she'd had when Ranma had bought the head came back to her. Just because Ranma doesn't believe in using the Force to guide his steps doesn't mean the Force leaves him alone. Just like how it sent us to Yavin because the Force wanted us to deal with Exar Kun's ghost.
"Ahh, hmm, I wonder how it arrived there, what stories it could tell! Oh do excuse me; My name is Dr. Abram, Ancient History professor at Noriou'al College. How do you do?"
Very well, doctor, thank you. This is Ranma, and I am Master Shaak Ti, as you no doubt know," Shaak said, stumbling for a moment over her title, still not used to introducing herself like that.
"A Jedi, really? Here on Mandalore? Astonishing! I had heard some odd news reports or other about some kind of government thing, but can't say they really registered as all that important." Shaak's eyebrows rose in surprise at that while Ranma simply gaped at the absentminded academic. "So, HK-47 has appeared once more and again is owned by a Jedi. Oh dear, I do hope that the rest of that sorry tale…"
"Irritated threat: HK doesn't like being talked about as if his auditory sensors are not functioning, or perhaps is simple background furniture. HK believes that the spindly oh so breakable human should remember in whose grip he's currently in," the droid growled, his voice taking on a slightly more dangerous tone than normal as he hefted his claw hand, shaking Dr. Abram up and down.
"HK will stop talking in third-person or Shaak will slice HK in half," Shaak replied tartly, though Ranma was laughing at the droid's irritation. "Doctor, suffice it to say we have no idea what historical importance you seem to be putting on HK's head. Could you please enlighten us?"
"Oh, yes. I suppose it wouldn't be obvious given the modifications. But I would have thought that you, HK, and I do apologize for my previous rudeness, would have been able to educate your current master of your previous ones?" Dr. Abram asked, pushing up his spectacles and staring at the droid intently.
"Mollified reply: I have very little of my long term memory capacitors remaining, and all of those which were undamaged during my last deactivation are devoted to combat. Intent speculation: But all this means that you know who my previous master was?" HK asked.
"Oh yes. The Jedi Revan, the general who stopped the Mandalorian Wars and then bequeathed the helmet of office to Canderous Ordo, one of the best and most brilliant Mand'alores we've ever had. He united the clans after they had shattered with the death of the previous Mand'alore at Revan's hands," the man said, smiling brightly. "HK was seen in practically every battle Revan fought in, large and small. He was even instrumental in recovering the mask of Mand'alore, which we still have on display in our museum in Keldabe."
Shaak blinked in shock. She had studied Revan or rather that which she could during her time as a padawan. There was much of that period that was not open to the majority of the Order, and even more that was simply no longer known. That was what happened when your libraries were destroyed several times in the intervening thousands of years.
The tale of Revan, as she knew it, was one of many which showed the pitfalls of hubris in Jedi. Revan was a normal Jedi at one point, albeit a powerfully gifted one, who felt the Mandalorian Wars were a threat to the entire Republic and the Order, and who gathered a large following within the Order to combat them. He was lauded as one of the greatest Jedi at the time and a peerless general. He had later fallen to the Dark Side through a series of events, rather than any one calamitous fall, and left the Order. After that he became a Sith Lord for a time and led a war against the Republic that lasted for decades in various forms before he somehow returned to the Jedi Order. But again, the amount of facts left from that time were few and far between, so how he had done so was beyond Shaak's knowledge.
For his part Ranma merely nodded. "Huh, that explains why someone tried so damn hard to finish you off permanently, HK. Ya seem to be destined to be involved with Mandalorians and Jedi. Weird."
"Oh my word, yes. But you say your long term memory is damaged?" Dr. Abram looked almost like a child who had been promised a mountain of presents for Christmas only to open them all and discover they were all full of coal.
"Unapologetic drawl: Unfortunately, yes. My cranium was so badly damaged that it was a wonder that young meatbag Anakin was able to get me to work at all, let alone retain enough skills to remain excellent at my task of dealing out death and destruction. I am so sorry that my near-destruction does not allow me to answer your idiotic meatbag questions about events so far in the past they can't have any effect on the here and now," HK replied, flexing his claw open and dropping the academic on his rear.
Ranma turned to look at Shaak, who was simply standing there, staring at HK with her eyes narrowed in speculation. Ranma realized that the name Revan meant a lot more to her than he had thought. Or is it the odd coincidence of me finding a droid that was associated with Revan that bothers her?
Leaning in Ranma murmured, "Something you want to tell me?"
"Perhaps it is just an odd coincidence, but I have to wonder if the Force wanted you to find HK for some reason. You are ,after all, creating as much chaos as his actions… I think I need to share this with Master Yoda; he said something once that could pertain to this. But it isn't the sort of thing I want to talk about over the Hypercom," Shaak replied, shaking her head apologetically as she answered, her voice equally low. "It's also not something I want to speculate about. Sorry, Ranma."
"Meh, so long as it doesn't tie into some ancient prophecy like that 'Chosen One' nonsense Qui-Gon went on about or missions of great importance or anything of that nature, that's fine by me, Shaak," Ranma replied. "Just tell me what you can about HK being involved with this Revan guy and what it could mean to us here and now and that'll be enough."
"That is, that is so disappointing! I had hoped, that is… Oh wel,." Dr. Abrams said, shakily getting to his feet. "I don't suppose you could enlighten me about that period from a Jedi's perspective? That would be something, anyway."
"I am afraid not, Dr. Even. The Jedi Order's library doesn't have much from that far back. The Jedi were almost wiped out during that period, after all, and several times since. That is one of the few known facts which is indisputable. That, of course, also halted for decades any attempt to regather information that had been lost from even earlier against the Sith Lord Exar Kun and the Mandalorian crusaders," Shaak said with a faint sigh.
"Oohhh…" Again the old man looked like a kicked dog before shaking it off. "Still, in any event at least I was able to feed my curiosity if not my academic desires. Thank you anyway." With that he walked off, still pouting as if he hadn't just dropped a bombshell on Shaak much like Plo Koon's to the conclave.
Ranma turned to her, one eyebrow raised in query. "So, Revan. Tell me about him. HK, you want to listen too?"
"Uncaring response: Negative master. I have no desire to listen to a past that is no longer my own. I prefer to live in the here and now." With that HK turned away, resuming his patrol around the ship. "Hopeful aside: I do hope however that something more exciting happens soon. This meatbag political nonsense is becoming irritating."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Ranma returned, before looking over at Shaak, who nodded and led him back into the ship. Despite her own lack of information on the subject, what Shaak could tell him was enough to get Ranma to agree with her that it was very strange that he had found HK's head. "In my world there was a common curse, 'May you live in interesting times.' This seems to be the Force's way of telling me that that's my fate despite my refusal to let the Force guide me."
To that comment Shaak could only agree, though she reiterated her desire to check in with Master Yoda after they were done on Mandalore.
Despite these interruptions, Ranma and Shaak still found times for one another. Occasionally they even went out for late night dates, taking the Wild Light up into space and simply floating around for the rest of the night, returning to the surface as late as possible.
Ranma woke up after one such day, one arm around Shaak's camisole covered chest, his hand cupping her breast lightly. She could have broken away at any time, but she didn't. Instead Shaak seemed to revel in spooning like this, at night most of the time. When she didn't she told him so, and one or the other, chosen by a simply game of rock-paper-scissors, would go out to sleep on the couch, which wasn't exactly a hardship anyway.
Apparently even those nights of needing some time alone would have struck most Togrutans as odd: they were a very communal species, which carried over to their relationships. Shaak was very unusual in that she preferred to be alone at times. But Ranma was fine with that, since it allowed him to do the same.
But then there were nights like this, where they slept in the same bed, which had its own issues. The two were still getting used to that, and sometimes woke one another up tossing and turning or when Shaak accidentally poked Ranma with her montrals.
Looking over at the clock, Ranma noticed he had woken up about an hour before they would normally wake up. That, and the sight and feel of Shaak's body had Ranma feeling a little…daring.
{Lime Warning:
Ranma gently untangled his legs from around Shaak's, pulling his arm out from under her at the same time. Then he leaned over, kissing her neck, trailing tiny kisses down to the top of her chemise as she rolled over, stretching out into the area he had vacated. Her lips had been formed into a frown after Ranma had moved away from her, but that turned into a smile as she felt Ranma's lips on her body.
Despite that feeling, though, she did not wake up. Shaak's period had ended two days ago, but she was still recovering from it, so tended to sleep more deeply than normal. She didn't feel Ranma getting up slightly, nor did she feel Ranma's hands start stroking her skin through her chemise, both her stomach and chest, though she did let out a low moan when his fingers brushed over her silk clad nipples.
Smiling tenderly Ranma moved down Shaak's body, trailing tiny kisses on her lekku, which started to twitch under his ministrations. Then as he reached the bottom of her white chemise he pushed it up to reveal her core at the bottom. She isn't wearing panties! Ranma thought gleefully
For a moment he just knelt there, taking in the view in front of him. Shaak's body always fascinated him, from her montrals down to her toes, which were slightly different than a human's though he would be hard pressed to say why besides her skin color. And the way her flower, so starkly white against her red skin, also added to the impact.
"Shaak," he whispered before leaning down, trailing his lips and tongue along the bottom edge of her chemise, then down to her flower. There, after a second's hesitation, he let his tongue move first around her flower. He could feel her petals pulsing under his tongue while Shaak began to mumble and move in her sleep, letting out little cooing sounds that made Ranma grin, though it didn't take his attention away from the task at hand.
Nectar began to slowly accumulate on Shaak's now budding flower, and Ranma lapped some of it up, taking it into his mouth getting used to the taste. It wasn't nearly as bad as he had feared after reading about cross-species relationships on the Hypernet. It was like a kind of tangy sauce almost.
Ranma stroked his tongue up Shaak's cleft again, trying to find out what she enjoyed the most, his hands trailing down from the tips of her lekku to her waist, then the inside of her thighs. Once there one hand just stayed there, gently stroking her skin as the other equally gently began to stroke the exterior of Shaak's clitoris, playing with her vagina's petals.
Above him Shaak was still asleep, though she was now twitching and tossing from one side to the other, her mouth letting out little moans and sighs as she did, her lekku and fingers twitching. When Ranma let one of his fingers actually enter her flower, Shaak came awake with a gasp, her eyes slightly wild as her hands reached down to grasp Ranma's head, her fingers working into his hair. "Ranma, ahh, ohhh, oh wha, aahhh."
"Just go with it, Shaak. I've been wanting to try this for a while…" With that Ranma dove in with even more enthusiasm, his tongue and fingers working in unison to drive Shaak crazy.
Shaak moaned again, but was unable to form a coherent reply as Ranma continued his ministrations. By the Force, why in the name of all that is good did the Order think abstaining from relationships was a good idea!
"Raaaanmmma!" She shouted, as Ranma stuck his tongue into her just as his finger found the tiny nub of flesh at the top of her vagina, tweaking it. Shaak came, her hips rocketing up off the bed, while Ranma continued to lick and finger her, moving with her, heightening and lengthening the sensation.
Eventually Shaak used her grip in Ranma's hair to pull him up into a searing kiss, before flipping them around so that she was on top. "My turn…" she whispered huskily, breaking the kiss and making her way downward.
Lime end}
At that moment the alarm clock went off, and Tune's voice echoed from the nearest speaker. "Master, mistress, you asked to be woken up at this time to get ready for a breakfast meeting with Miss Kryze and Mister Pol."
Shaak, who had just started to nip at Ranma's bare chest, the feel of his muscles shuddering beneath her causing her libido to rev up once more, growled before pushing up off of Ranma, shuddering as she tried to center herself in the force. Ah, that could be why. Certainly acting on my anger has never seemed so natural before.
With a faint sigh she leaned down to kiss Ranma languidly, their tongues out and playing with one another for a moment before she pulled back. "Rain check?"
Ranma nodded, watching as Shaak moved back from the bed, dropping the chemise to the floor and reaching for the far more utilitarian underwear she normally wore. Feeling Ranma's eyes on her she turned, only to stop, her head cocking to one side. "You're blushing? You just, I think the term is you just went down on me. We've made out so often I would have trouble giving an exact number, and we have slept together the next best thing to naked. Why are you blushing?"
"It's just, you're so damn magnificent Shaak. It always takes my breath away. I love you, you know?" Ranma said, standing up and moving towards her. Shaak flushed in response to his heartfelt words and met him halfway.
Before the resultant kiss could become heated, however, the door to their private quarters opened. "Bored drawl: Master, mistress if you could stop your disgusting meatbag reproductive dance for once, the tin can asked me to remind you that his is supposedly an important meeting, despite it being coached in terms of one of the interminable meatbag need to ingest the flesh of lesser animals."
HK barely had a brief second to realize that maybe he should find a tact program and start using it when he was flung sideways by a kick to the head that made his sensors blare a warning about the state of his neck. He looked up to see Ranma standing over him, his blue eyes flashing. "HK, there is an old saying from my world. When the ship is 'a rockin' don't come 'a knockin.' When our door is closed, I do not want you or Tune to interrupt us for anything more important than impending life threatening danger. Understand?"
'Respectful fear: Er, yes master, I will commit it to long term memory."
"Thank you!"
But there was no life threatening danger. No attempt on the ship or their lives and, for once in his life, Ranma was happy that his life was relatively peaceful. Others, however, were not happy with the peace that seemed to have broken out across Mandalore and began to make plans to see to it that it ended...
OOOOOOO
Satine leaned back in her chair, putting down yet another dataslate that told her an unpalatable truth. I never knew how many old Mandalorians there were! I knew, of course, that they were out there, but even all of the other cities combined don't have the population of even one of my faction's bio-cubes, and so few of them were not under New Mandalore control before this. I discounted the clans entirely, and I never even realized there were still offworlders who followed those, those barbarian tenets of the Resol'nare! But there are far, far more clans out in the hinterlands of Mandalore than I expected, and more out-system clans too.
And now because my party has never had anything do with them before, they are a block against us in this conclave. Worse, many of my own unaffiliates are changing sides for various reasons.
Another dataslate told the tale of those people and why they were doing so. Some were changing sides because they were young and were bowing to what Satine thought of as peer pressure. Others were looking at the idea of expanding the Mandalorian's influence into space as ways to also expand their own businesses or otherwise get rich as she thought of it. Others were surprisingly joining the Reborn because they honestly wanted to help the other planets in the sector.
Regardless of their reasons, the total numbers told a very unpleasant tale. Worse, that bore might've been wrong to address me in such a way, but his actual words were spot on. And now I need to think about how to address it.
Looking over at a servant near the door she asked calmly, "Could you please find Jedi Kenobi for me, then please send a communication to Master Koon and Master Ti, and finally send a message to my opposite number, please."
Several hours later Ranma and Shaak arrived a few moments before everyone else on Satine's invitation list, sitting down together on one side of the table before facing Satine, while they waited for the others. With Satine were her chief political and economic advisors, both of whom were important leaders of the New Mandalorian party.
Plo had been in a city on the other side of the planet going over the city's plans for the upcoming vote which would signal the end of the conclave. He had ousted several people in the Reborn faction who had been trying to pad their numbers and had nearly been attacked for doing so, but had managed to arrest them without leaving piles of bodies behind thanks to his Force powers and hand to hand skills. The clan in question would have egg on their face for some time and the clan head had been forced to step down in favor of a distant cousin. It wasn't the first time during this conclave something of that nature had occurred, though this was the first time a clan leader had been implicated in the attempt.
Soon Bo and her own most important advisors, Pol and Clento, arrived, sitting on another side of the table from Ranma and the Jedi, all three resplendent in their armor of burnished blue and silver. Bo insolently put her feet up on the table in front of her, staring at her opposite number. "What's all this about, Duchess?" she asked, the address coming out with a sneer even if her face looked drawn and tired. "I for one like to have some down time, and this meeting is interrupting it."
Satine glared at her, then her eyes tracked down to the feet propped on her table. "Remove…your…feet…from…my…table!" she enunciated clearly, her eyes flashing.
Bo sneered, but then Pol reached over and smacked her shoulder. She glared at him, then sighed and pulled her feet down. She wasn't here to needle Satine, no matter how much fun it was.
"While Bo might have been less than courteous in how she asked, I too have to wonder why you have called this meeting," Shaak said, staring at Bo, who scowled and looked away. She was tired dammit, and all the political crap was fraying her nerves. Was it her fault she wanted to taunt Satine?
"I've been going over the numbers, and if the poll analysis I have from this morning is accurate, once the conclave ends the Reborn will oust the New Mandalorians as the government of Mandalore," Satine said bluntly. That caused a shiver of shock through a few of her listeners, though not those of her own party to whom she had already talked about this. One of them had been appalled, but the other was a tried-and-true politician, and understood why she was broaching the subject now.
Clento understood too. He was the most experienced leader in the room, and he jumped to the appropriate conclusion first, though he eased his way towards that conclusion rather than announce it. "And you don't see that changing?"
"No. However the numbers indicate that the victory will not be as widespread as you might have been hoping for. Furthermore, while my party may only take 32% of the voting, we control something like 75% or 78% of Mandalore's economy. We build things; we make things; we create and design. We also control nearly all of the colleges and places of higher education. That will not go away once you win."
Bo simply nodded her head, all her earlier reticence leaving her expression. She made no mention of the fact that while the NM's might have been acting as a world government, they actually hadn't been, certainly not in terms of the total population. They had simply been accepted as such by the Republic, not the locals.
That didn't matter now, because Satine was right: the NM's controlled a large portion of the industrial capacity of the planet, and that would be needed in the coming years. "You're saying that even if we take over, and thus reinstall the Resol'nare as the guiding pillar of our society, there will need to be allowances for non-warrior Mandalorians, both as people and to give them voice in our government."
"Exactly. Your message of a return to barbarity and so-called glory through conquest might have attracted enough souls to allow you the win, but I will not be a party to handing over governmental control of this planet to you unless you guarantee the rights of my people to continue to live as they will." Satine tried to sound firm, and she did for the most part, though there was more than a hint of bitterness to her voice as well. She hated to admit that the idea of violence and expansion had more of a hold on her people than the path of nonaggression and peace.
Bo's eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched visibly for a moment as she leaned forward over the table towards her sister. "It has never been about returning to our past ways of expansion, or earning glory, though I'll admit to some of that. It has always been about honor and the Resol'nare."
At that word Satine and the other New Mandalorian leaders couldn't keep their scorn from their faces, and Bo pointed at them angrily. "That right there! That is why you could never win the majority of our people over! The Resol'nare is not an outmoded concept as you would like to think. It is the pillar of what makes a Mandalorian a Mando in the first place! We are not a race; we are not a culture; we are a society built upon the tenets of the Resol'nare. You people spit in the face of what makes us who we are!"
Satine scowled, knocking Bo's finger out of her face. "And it is the Resol'nare which made us conquerors, which made us hated, the enemy of everyone else."
"No, what did that was how the people of the time interpreted it, and, it has to be said, the fact that the Sith found us so easy to manipulate," Bo admitted. "There are no Sith out there anymore to influence us subtly or otherwise. And the changes I want to make to how the ideal of Ara'nov and Ba'jur are seen will make certain that there is no return to the idea of might making right. I want to expand the ideal of Ara'nov to include the defense of others, not just ourselves, and that actually has seemed to catch on better than I hoped. As for Ba'jur, education will make certain that we not only know of our own histories and how to fight, but also of other beliefs and people, and that they too have value."
"So you say," Satine replied coldly. "I remain unconvinced. Nor have you addressed my main concern with that little speech."
Reining in her temper with difficulty, Bo sighed, leaning back and kneading her forehead and nose for a moment with one hand, her face wearier than most of those there had seen before. It wasn't so much a weariness of the body, though. Given her ongoing training with Ranma that was a factor too, but it was mostly a weariness of the mind. "We can…we can set up some kind of two party system, like with these debates. Maybe have the NM's be given, what would they be called, cabinet positions? Advisory roles, with a real voice in the government, whatever their position. But the Reborn, or the Mandalorians, whichever we call ourselves going forward, will be in the pilot's seat."
"That is a good starting point, I suppose" Satine said grudgingly. "If you agree on your honor to stick to that ideal, I will work towards an organized and above all nonviolent exchange of power. We've never had one of those before," she said dryly. "But there is a first time for everything.
"I promise to look after the interests of all our peoples, not just those wearing Beskar'gam and who follow the totality of the Resol'nare," Bo Katan said solemnly, tapping her finger against her armor over her heart before doing the same thing over her forehead. "I swear on my ijaa (honor) as a warrior of clan Kryze and leader of the Reborn."
The two sisters looked at one another, and Ranma, who was wondering why the hell he had been asked to come here in the first place, looked between the two of them. Geeze, I've never seen siblings like these two before. Their characters are so alike in so many ways, but what they believe in, how they act and how they see the universe, is so different it's bizarre. Even Ranma could tell while there was no great hate or loathing between the two sisters, they were simply too far apart in how they viewed the universe to ever see one another as family again. And given how much emphasis the Mandos, both traditional and new, put on family, or aliit, that was sad.
"I will accept that, I suppose," Satine replied, breaking their locked gazes. "In that case, we should make a start of it." Satine pulled out a series of dataslates, and the group began to get to work.
OOOOOOO
Soon after the meeting between the two factions' leaders the conclave was indeed beginning to wind down to the point where the voting would occur. The system for that was now fully set up, and both leaders had come out to publicly say they would back whatever decision was reached. Tension ratcheted up once more, but there was little in the way of violence to go with it outside of a few fist fights, as everyone waited for the conclave to officially end and the voting to begin.
That the end was in sight meant the conclave only really occurred during the afternoon and a bit of the evening. This in turn let Ranma and Shaak have more time to themselves. The two of them decided to go out on a date, an idea which had sprung into their minds when Ranma mentioned offhand, "You know, I think it's been about a year or so since I arrived in this universe. Should we do something to celebrate?"
The two of them thus decided to go out to one of the older cities on the planet they had not yet seen, a northern port city called Vhetin'lac, or Snow Port. It was an amazing place in many ways: a place of random snow sculptures the size of houses and small, warm cafés. It was also a major shipping and fishing industrial hub, though that aspect didn't interest Ranma and Shaak.
Ranma had decided to go out in his female form once more, since while a lot of the locals had seen him in either form, they hadn't yet connected female Ranma to Shaak Ti. This made it easier for the redhead and Shaak, who was dressed once more in the cloak Ranma had made for her and local pants and undershirt, to move around the city despite neither of them wearing anything that could be seen as a nod to the Mandalorian need to wear armor. For her part Ranma was dressed in a simple but good silk shirt button down which emphasized her curves, something she hadn't known it would do until transforming, and matching black pants. Both women were getting admiring glance from the locals, but no one actually tried to bother them.
Staring up at one ice sculpture, Ranma smiled, shaking her head. "It looks like a small cross between a T. Rex and a polar bear. Weird critter."
"Presumably some kind of local apex predator," Shaak said, surprising herself by feeling a surge of interest in the idea of hunting such a beast. Being with Ranma had made Shaak far more aware of her Togrutan instincts, and Shaak had surprisingly found herself thinking like a hunter at times. Hunting and killing the akul whose fang she wore on her forehead had given Shaak a view into those instincts, but she had always ignored them before.
"I wonder what it tastes like," Ranma mused.
"Hah. The Ranma motto: go to interesting places, fight fascinating beasts, and eat them," Shaak teased, before pulling the pouting redhead into a hug.
The two of them moved on, taking in the sights like a pair of tourists, though said trade didn't seem to have any representation here. The city was a sprawling place of low-slung domes like igloos, though they were made of ferocrete and steel rather than the towering spires or square architecture of the human majority of the planet. Humans still dominated this city, but the city had far more aliens than most of the other cities Ranma had seen. The domes themselves were painted white or varying shades of blue, with signs here and there pointing out this or that store or restaurant.
The port itself was worked into the city in a series of large wharves, each of them having a few buildings built on them, with the ships able to enter the domes from the sea. Here and there were a few outdoor cafes, the sitting area kept warm by actual braziers stuck into stone fire pits.
But the big draws for the two lovers were the fact no one here seemed to recognize them and the statues. Some of them, like the first one they had seen after coming into the city (they had parked the Wild Light nearby), were of beasts. Others were of castles that would not have been out of place in the Medieval Ages, built two stories tall, some of them, with dozens of local children running around and on them, sometimes even adding stones to them in places. Others were of people or ships. One group seemed to be from a favorite local TV show, giant robots of all things, though of course the statues weren't exactly gigantic.
Shaak waved at a few kids who had stopped to look at her, respectfully but with interest plain on their expressions. She was probably the first Togrutan any of them had ever seen. She then smiled, pointing past them to a tiny outdoor café situated right on the edge of the large wharf they were currently walking on. "That place looks promising."
Nodding, Ranma followed her over, only to stop as he heard a whistle from nearby. Looking around she saw a ship coming in from the ocean with four men lining the side of it. Oh great, sailor boys making port. Reaching out she took Shaak's arm by the elbow, hurrying her along, in no mood to deal with them. "Come on, I'm getting hungry!"
Shaak had heard the whistle as well and simply nodded. The two women moved into the small heated area of the café quickly, sitting down at a corner table. They had time to order and start talking about ice worlds Shaak had seen by the time the crew of the ship had moored their boat and come after them.
One of them was a large tattooed fellow wearing the traditional chest plate most Mandalorians who weren't fulltime warriors but who also weren't affiliated with the New Mandalorians seemed to wear. He was actually the only one of the group who did; the others had vambraces and greaves on, but not the main chest plate for some reason. But it was the large fellow who was the leader or so Ranma supposed since it was he who opened his big fat mouth. "Hey there babes. You looking for some fun?"
Ranma looked at him blankly until she felt a brief tendril of the Force touching her mind as Shaak reached out, using her Force powers to translate from the local language of Mando'a. She did the same for the four locals, shaking her head. "I'm afraid not, we already have plans, hence our being here."
"Oh come on now, I'm sure you lovely ladies could make our night in port memorable, and vice versa!" the man said, leering down at Shaak's chest.
The Jedi merely raised a sardonic brow but Ranma took matters into her own hands. Growling, Ranma moved so that she was actually sitting on Shaak's lap rather than next to her as before. She leaned back laying her head on Shaak's shoulder as she glared at the four toughs before spitting out some of the few local phrases she'd learned from Bo, ironically, to deal with situations just like this one. "Copaani mirshmure'cye? Mhi solus tome! Usenye gar Sheb! (Are you looking to be smacked around? We are together! Get out of here, you ass!)"
Shaak smiled and hugged Ranma around the middle while leaning one of her montrals against the top of Ranma's head. "While I would have been somewhat more polite, she is correct. You have nothing to interest either of us."
The large man seemed to be in danger of exploding, given how much he puffed himself up, and he moved forward as if he was about to try and loom over the diminutive redhead. But one of his fellows was rather more respectful, and grabbed him by the shoulders. The others seemed to agree with him, and they dragged the armored man off.
"Huh," Ranma mused, while behind him Shaak was having a difficult time stopping herself from breaking out into laughter. "I honestly didn't think that'd work. I'd thought I would have had to smack him around a bit."
"Sometimes people can indeed take a hint if you deliver it with a large enough hammer," Shaak quipped. Then as the redhead tried to shift back to her original seat Shaak fought to put a frown on her face, her arms tightening around the shorter girl's waist. "Where do you think you're going?"
Ranma looked back at her in confusion, and Shaak leaned down, kissing her gently. "Since you crawled into my lap, I think it only fair you have to stay there for the rest of the meal." The blush this woke from Ranma was utterly priceless to Shaak, and the rest of the meal was enjoyable for both of them.
The next day. much to their dismay, Ranma and Shaak could not contrive to spend their mornings together. With the announcement that the conclave and the debates were coming to an end and a resolution reached, the Jedi were as busy now as they had been during the original outbreak of violence, but instead of staving off terrorist acts or other crimes they were busy giving speeches and meeting with disparate groups.
As a non-Jedi Ranma was exempt from this, though he was roped into joining Bo and a group nearly composed entirely of her own Night Owls. She hadn't seen a lot of them over the past few days, and that wasn't a good thing considering how close she was to all of them.
Shaak, in contrast, was scheduled to meet with a group of New Mandalorian delegates. They were concerned (read as horrified) that the Jedi were not backing the NM's position in these debates. Most of them had thought they would do so subtly, if nothing else, but the three Jedi had been scrupulously honest in how they monitored the debate.
In fact they had been so honest about it that Plo Koon had to deal with several screaming episodes from Senators back on Coruscant about not following his orders. He would listen to them, and then nod politely saying the equivalent of "Thank you for your insight, Senators," before cutting the connection.
"You would think that they would learn after the third or fourth time he did that exact same thing that Plo had no intention of listening to them," Shaak said as the two of them prepared to leave their ship/home once more.
What was more amusing and somewhat more troubling to Shaak Ti was that it had been a different Senator twosome each time. It seemed as if the various political blocks back on Coruscant were oddly united about the idea of the Mandalorians becoming a threat once more. It was amusing, because it was obvious none of them had shared how the Jedi had ignored their "orders." And at the same time it was troubling because so many thought the Jedi mere diplomats that could be ordered to follow the Senate's orders on how they should go about their lawful duties.
This concern was made worse by other things Plo had passed on about his discussions with the High Council and how their attempts to both revamp the temple's security and make the Order more independent from the Senate were going. Luckily Coleman Trebor was being his usual competent self in keeping public approval behind the Jedi's actions both there and elsewhere, so Plo Koon, Obi-Wan, and Shaak's own actions were in no danger of being officially censored by the Chancellor or the High Council, the only individuals who could lawfully do so. But it was a sign that Dooku's original complaints about the relationship between the Order and the Senate were far too accurate.
"If the Senate wanted to get involved in this, then maybe they should have sent some of their own delegates? Of course doing so would have made it clear that the New Mandalorians are a puppet government, so maybe not doing so was the first sign of intelligence in the species called politician that I have seen in this universe," Ranma said, trying to sound like Shaak for a moment, winking at her.
"What about Padme?" she asked archly, though her lips quirked into a smile at his spoof of her own speech pattern.
"Gets a pass because she's a kid, and her moments of intelligence were outweighed by her moments of gross suicidal stupidity," Ranma said once again in his own tone. "Seriously, she was acting like Lois freaking Lane in those American comic books."
Shaak cocked her head quizzically, watching with a faint smile as Ranma's eyes tracked down to her dangling lekku at the move. He truly is fascinated by them, isn't he? "I don't get that reference."
"Some news reporter in a fictional comic book series that always was trying to get the scoop despite how much danger it was for her personally. She only survived beyond a few comics because the people creating them decided that she was the love interest of the superhero in it," Ranma supplied.
"Ouch. I didn't think Padme was that bad, but I suppose if she hasn't learned from recent events she could perhaps become so," Shaak muttered, then pulled Ranma down into a kiss by his ponytail at the top of the ramp. "I'll see you later, all right?"
Ranma nodded, his eyes gleaming at her, and she smiled up at him for a moment before leaving the ship. As she did so Shaak centered herself in the Force, allowing the normal Jedi calm demeanor to settle over her again as she left the Wild Light. As she did she felt a brief tremor of something, something that she should be able to sense, something that told her today was somehow important.
Still walking forward Shaak stretched out her senses again, trying to find the feeling of whatever it was, but couldn't. The veil of the Dark Side was over her sight, blocking her from truly understanding what that feeling was. Despite that, however, she knew that today was important somehow. That something would happen today.
Ranma watched her go for a moment before turning inside, grabbing up his Light Pike and placing it in his ki space before heading off. "HK, stay here. I don't think we'll need you over at the training center today."
"Ironic tone: A pity, master. I was looking forward to showing up more meatbags who think they can shoot properly."
"You have a built-in targeting computer and reticule in your eyes," Ranma said, pausing at the top of the loading ramp. "Not that I really care, but I don't think that's actually very fair."
"Arrogant huff: Master, don't blame my superior by design mechanical form for your race's evolutionary shortcomings. If you meatbags wanted to be able to shoot properly, you should try to come up with some kind of organic targeting lock. Or emplace a mechanical one during birth somehow."
"Now you're just being stupid." Shaking his head with a laugh, Rama left, the Wild Light's ramp closing behind them at Tune's command.
A few moments later he stepped out of one of the local taxis and entered the training area the Reborn had taken over. They were met inside by Bo and a few of her Night Owls. "About time! Come on, I've got a lot of energy I need burn off before heading back into that dar'yaim (hellish) kriffing hall," Bo growled, reaching out and pulling Ranma along.
Ranma let her do so, shaking his head slightly as he nodded at her fellows. Claire winked at him, and the other Night Owls, Tess and a few others, all nodded. But Claire was just like that, overly friendly and flirtatious with everyone. It was as much a mask as Ranma's own country attitude at times, hiding the deadly warrior within.
The training area was empty of anyone else, and Bo immediately ordered Ranma to start sparring with them one after another, then all combined. After a few hours all of them save Ranma were gasping, sweat-soaked, and exhausted. "When I said I had energy to burn off I didn't mean to imply you should burn off so much I just want to kriffing curl up and sleep you sheb (ass)!" Bo groaned from where she was leaning against a wall, greedily drinking down an electrolyte drink that would put Gatorade and other drinks from Earth to shame.
"You asked for it," said more than one voice including Ranma's, but it was Claire who went on, her eyes twinkling in vindictive pleasure as she stared at Ranma speculatively. "Although, it does give one furiously to think. Ranma's endurance, does it transfer over to other things?"
Ranma flushed, looking away. There had been a time that that kind of comment would've gone right over his head, and indeed thinking about it he had heard similar things several dozen times during his time at Furinkan from men and women both. Now, however, he understood it, though he still didn't quite know how to deal with such comments other than to ignore them.
"I doubt it," said another one of the Night Owls, chuckling and getting in on the ribbing more to get back at Ranma for running them ragged than anything else. It wasn't the first time he'd done so, but defeating all of them in spars so often was still rather humiliating. "Only experience can really build endurance between the sheets, just like in anything else."
"Actually we haven't been between the sheets. On top of them, yes, but not between," Ranma said, before his eyes widened at what he had just let out.
The Night Owls closed in quickly seeing weakness. "Oh, is that how it is! Funny, I haven't noticed Shaak walking bowlegged yet. I assumed that she would be, given the size of the gun you're packing judging from that specially designed cup!" said one girl.
"It's a pity that you decided to keep to one woman. I could deal with the curse," said another woman, her tone rather thoughtful. "The best of both worlds sort of thing, after all. Though I suppose if you went for human women at all, Bo would have been able to get somewhere with you."
"If I actually tried, I might have," Bo said tartly. She had not joined in on the fun, though she was grinning at Ranma's embarrassment. "But by the time we met he might as well have had a tattoo or spur mark on him from Shaak Ti."
Togrutans took marriage very seriously. Though it was falling out of favor, traditional Togrutan couples would tattoo small clan marks on one another, normally a circle or triangle shape with a small personal mark growing out of it in some fashion. The tattoo would be on the inner thigh or the center of their chests normally. This was one of the things both Ranma and Shaak had found out when they were looking for information on coupling between human and Togrutan, but none of those relationships had led to marriage, and neither had brought up the idea yet.
Despite that Ranma was seriously considering the idea of marriage in the future, something that astonished him when he thought about it given his past. He had no idea what a spur mark was though, and no desire to find out since it sounded damn painful.
"Excuses," said one of the others airily, smirking over at her boss. "Or is it just because she's a redhead?"
"Orange," Ranma replied quickly, able to at last return or at least redirect a jab. "My female form's redheaded, Bo's a ginger."
"Whatever," said the same woman, still chuckling. "So do you have a hair preference? Would you prefer blondes, brunettes, or is it the bald thing that does it for you?"
"I bet it's the tentacles," said another woman thoughtfully. "They were certainly a factor when I brought Cral'Edara home to join the clan."
Ranma flushed at that since it was a little too accurate for his liking and turned away.
"Oh don't be like that," said Tess, at last joining in on the fun. Indeed the others had been wondering why she hadn't before this. As he turned Tess tossed some water from her drink bulb in his face. "It's just girl talk, and you're uniquely suited to join in, aren't you?"
Eventually they let Ranma go, and after a shower and a change of clothing Ranma and Bo left the training complex. Outside the complex they found Tess waiting to head to the meeting hall with Bo. She had purchased a local hover car, a bright red number with something in the local language depicted on one side of it that caused Bo to stop and groan and Claire and a few of the other to laugh. Tess turned to them from where she had been talking to a street vendor who had just handed her some food, a smile on her face.
Then the car behind her exploded, and Tess disappeared in a ball of fire, heat, and debris.
"Tess!" Ranma shouted charging forward, but an instant later he had to dodge incoming fire. Most of it hit behind him, but other bolts hit the ground between them and the place his friend had just been standing.
"Death to the would-be oppressors! We'll never be conquered by you again!" shouted a few voices from nearby, and suddenly the street was full of blaster bolts and shouting and screaming people as the locals, those both wearing Mandalorian armor and those not, dived for cover.
"Claire, take squad one and move to the left! Shalla, take squad two to the right! Take the fight to the skies!" Bo shouted while diving for cover, cursing the fact she didn't have her backpack with her as two grenades impacted the ground right in front of her previous position. Unlike the other Night Owls she was ready to head straight into the meeting hall, where weapons were not allowed.
Still, the Night Owls got over their surprise with the speed of veterans and ascended into the sky in different directions, spreading out and firing back at the attackers. They concentrated their fire on the attackers who had taken up position on the nearby rooftops. But there were others charging out from hiding places all along the street, firing at Ranma and the cover Bo was currently using, a large ferocrete planter holding a large tree.
For his part Ranma pulled out his light pike and charged forward. Activating his light pike quickly he deflected blaster bolts towards his opponents with one hand as his other hand dove back into his ki space pulling out his the skimmer blaster and returning fire. It's more powerful bursts cut through the fire and smoke from the various explosions impacting two of their attackers. Another explosion however took place right in front of Ranma, and he was forced to dodge backwards.
When that dissipated he charged forward again to kneel at his friend's side only to find that Tess had died in the initial explosion. While her torso had been marginally protected by the explosion by its armor her head had been caved in from a large chunk of shrapnel and then burned to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.
Ranma leaned down, gently closing her eyes before turning away and leaping towards the nearest attacker, his light pike slicing through one of them from head to navel. A second later the butt end of the pike slammed with enough force to liquefy another attacker's chest hurling him backwards. The man didn't even have time to scream before his heart and other internal organs were simply pulped by the blow.
But there were still others out there, and Ranma turned his light pike once again between him and their blaster bolts trying to return fire as best he could while the Night Owls began their deadly dance of fire and maneuver against a few other Mandalorians who had apparently joined forces with these other offworlders.
"I want at least one prisoner, Ladies," Bo said grimly, her eyes straying down towards where Tess's body lay. "Beyond that, make them pay."
The Night Owls answered in the affirmative as they went about the brutal business of slaughtering their attackers. Between them and Ranma down below, the attackers slowly began to realize that they had targeted more than they could shoot. But Ranma stopped as his communication device shouted at him. "This is Master Plo Koon to anyone listening. I request assistance in Tru'cala at the mayoral tower. I repeat…"
"HK! Get the Wild Light up and running! I'll meet you hallway between my current position and yours!" Ranma shouted, turning away and nodding briefly to Bo who had just grabbed a rifle from one of the downed attackers, having made her way through the smoke and fire.
She nodded in turn. "Go, we can handle this on our own!"
Ranma nodded and without another word leaped up onto the nearest rooftop and away towards where the Wild Light was already visible in the sky and getting closer. Fuck, if this wasn't an isolated incident, how many other attacks are going on? And why!?
OOOOOOO
Other attacks were indeed going on at the same time. Many of the leaders of both sides were targeted, though these small attacks were quickly shut down by local authorities. But several of them succeeded, killing several of the smaller scale leaders. Alex Roger of the Reborn faction as well as several New Mandalorian leaders died due to planted explosions, and several other clan leaders were nearly assassinated by long range fire.
Satine was attacked on the threshold of her own palace by a similar IED. Only Obi-Wan's being there saved her from an explosion, the Force warning him that it was about to occur with barely enough time to grab Satine and hurl her to the side, but not with enough time to save himself.
Obi-Wan's feet left the ground and he was hurled backwards, his body screaming in agony worse than what he had felt during and after his second confrontation with 'Darth Clone Face.' Despite that, however, Obi-Wan flipped to his feet, his lightsaber activating to block incoming blaster bolts coming towards him from the hover truck that had just slammed through the palace's front gate and was rocketing towards him.
He deflected the blaster bolts into the truck's front, hitting something that caused the hood to the truck to explode, killing the repulsors keeping it in the air. After that it plowed nose first into the ground, before disgorging several armed attackers who rushed forward in Mandalorian armor complete with helmets and guns, but no jetpacks. "Down with the peace-loving bitch! The code of the conqueror forever!"
Oh joy, more fanatics, Obi-Wan thought, his mind mired in a haze of pain. Even so, he stood in front of Satine, his lightsaber ready, meeting the charge while behind him Satine grabbed up a stun gun of her own and began to return fire.
OOOOOOO
Master Plo was also dealing with an attack on his own person as he exited the municipal center of Tru'cala, a city which had been a hotbed of discussion between the two factions up to this point. The city's mayor was walking beside him when the wall to one side exploded, not as if someone had tried to place a bomb on the other side to take the two men out in the ensuing explosion, but as if someone was trying to bring the side of the building down on top of them.
Unlike Shaak or Obi-Wan, however, Plo Koon was a master of telekinesis. He reached out with both hands, directing the Force to grab the falling debris, holding it in place. But the weight of it and the fact there were so many pieces he had to grab at once was such that he couldn't hurl them away, only hold them in place, slowly going to his knees.
But the locals were quick to react. First the mayor and then dozens of other locals began to help. Then the first responders arrived, pitching in and removing the debris as Plo held it there, putting out a few fires inside the building and generally trying to make the area safe.
The attackers, whoever they were, showed up at that point, seemingly bent on causing as much death as they could. They opened fire on the crowd of locals, killing several. However Tru'cala was close to Keldabe, and Ranma, Bo, and others arrived with the Wild Light, leaping out from on high as HK laid down suppressive fire on the attackers.
Watching seven of them die before he even touched the ground Ranma yelled, "Damn it HK, what about 'suppressive fire and I want a few prisoners' didn't you understand?!"
"Sulky rejoinder: Master, they are suppressed are they not? Dead is the same thing as suppressed in most cases. Besides, there are a few still alive."
Scowling, Ranma let the rest of the small fight to the Mandos with him, figuring that since most were still in the air they had a better view of the attackers, who were now trying to run, than he did. And there was a bit of trouble right here he could help with a lot more than any of them.
Reaching Plo he tapped the Jedi on the shoulder where he knelt, then reached out and grabbed the largest chunk of debris, hurling it away from the Jedi and the crowd with ease. Thanks to Ranma's prodigious strength and the number of hands the debris was soon settled elsewhere and Plo stood back up, flexing his fingers and cracking his neck to one side, then the other. He nodded at Ranma. "Shall we move to Shaak Ti's location swiftly? I fear these attacks were launched on all of us."
Ranma nodded, and before Plo could blink behind his protective lenses he had been hustled aboard the Wild Light where Ranma promptly told Tune to punch it. The ship left a supersonic boom as it raced for the city where Ranma knew Shaak was scheduled to be.
OOOOOOO
The worst attack, or perhaps the most professionally planned out, came against Shaak Ti. None on the planet would ever discover this, but in terms of targets she was she was considered the most important by the individuals pulling the strings. The rest were secondary targets at best, even the other Jedi and the faction leaders.
First were a series of fires spread out across the city to spread its police force. Then they put up a scrambler to block all outgoing communications around their target. After that they attacked directly with ruthless dispatch and cold calculation.
As the attacks began Shaak was meeting with a group of New Mandalorians in a hotel's amphitheater in another city. This particular band, which numbered about two hundred or so, was comprised of worried young men and women and older married couples with their children, who were not worried as much as she had thought about the Jedi's position when she described the meeting to Ranma, but rather their own.
Specifically, they were true pacifists who wanted nothing to do with violence of any kind, not even in their own defense, and they were worried that their children or even themselves would be forced to learn how to fight as that was a mandate in the Resol'nare. These were people who were retired, currently not part of any unions, or in jobs that didn't have one; true unaffiliates who had been unable to elect a spokesman or get a place in the conclave. There were small groups like this in every city, though for the most part they felt their worries had been addressed already in the conclave. This group hadn't, and had wanted a Jedi's assurances to their concerns about that point and others if the Reborn faction won the conclave.
They were nearly finished when her Force senses warned Shaak of incoming danger a bare second before the door and inner wall came down in a series of explosions. Someone had taped penetrating explosives to the inner wall, while a slightly less powerful explosive had been used on the door, more to cause chaos than because it was really needed since the door was rather weak by design. At the same time screams and cries of combat reached her through the rubble.
Reacting instinctively Shaak used the Force to grab the bystanders and push them toward one of the walls away from the explosions, with one hand directing her Force power there as her other hand directed another Force Push trying to redirect what little of the explosion's power came through along with the rubble back into the hole it had formed. The exertion cost her, but Shaak shook it off grimly. Activating her lightsaber she charged forward as men and women, both locals and offworlders, charged through.
Most of them looked like gangster scum, the sort you would find in most ports, brought in to this attack to no doubt be cannon fodder. Even Mandalore had such scum, in if not abundance, in enough numbers to make them useful. But among them were others, a few locals and a few better armed individuals who stood out from the crowd.
One of the aliens was a Trandoshan dressed in a pilot's jumpsuit and wielding a heavy disruptor rifle in one hand and a large vibro-knife in the other, almost long enough to be a short sword. Another was a young man, possibly around Ranma's age, dressed in heavy armor and a turban for some reason. He also had a large disruptor rifle, a heavy thing that looked like it was supposed to be the heavy weapon in a squad of infantry, much like the Trandoshan's, though in his case he had to use both hands. The two of them represented the heaviest armed individuals there, but the others made up for it in sheer numbers.
Shaak met their charge with her own, her lightsaber leaping out and decapitating one man before slicing another in half before they could fire on the people she was here to meet. Her thinking was that they were here to cause as much death as possible, though their overall goal wasn't one she could guess.
The attackers seemed to flinch at her swift response, then rallied quickly, turning their attacks against her alone, which suited Shaak just fine, though the speed with which they did so was telling. She slid into a Shien form and mindset for a second, deflecting their bolts back at them as she moved forward, trying to create a bottleneck in the center of the room. It was too wide for that, and the breach in the wall was equally too wide for that to succeed, but she hoped the people she had been talking to had enough sense to escape out the emergency exit at the back of the amphitheater.
Half of her attackers actually closed with Shaak wielding Vibro weapons and blasters, while those armed with rifles stayed back, firing at her with little success thanks to her mastery of Shien. They had to stop as the first group got too close, but that group realized quickly that closing was the worst thing they could have done. She moved among them like a dancer, her lightsaber humming, moving everywhere at once, cutting, slicing, and hacking, while Shaak dodged or redirected fire. Using both the Force and her montrals to feel her opponents' attacks, feeling each coming before they even launched them Shaak Ti, was a one woman wrecking machine.
"Stop! Stop, curse you, Jedi, stop!" said a loud voice, but Shaak ignored it for a moment. An attacker went down in front of Shaak and she turned to block a blaster bolt before glancing towards the speaker as the few remaining fools who had tried to close with her tried to desperately back away.
"Stop," said the Trandoshan again, "or they all die." He and the man in the turban had moved around the main battle and were now pointing their guns toward the New Mandalorians Shaak had been speaking to.
Around the two of them were four more thugs, standing between the group of civilians and the emergency exit. Shaak deduced that they must have been waiting outside and simply came in when the civilians opened the door from the inside. At their feet were about a dozen bodies, men and women who must have been the first out the door only to be gunned down. The remaining civilians were huddled together, shaking with fear.
Shaak stood there a moment, and her attackers paused too, moving further back and surrounding both her and their hostages from all sides.
"Good little Jedi." The Trandoshan's lips flipped back to bear all his teeth in a smile that was pure predator, anticipating his next meal. Next to him the human also sneered at the Jedi, his face alight with a sort of dark joy.
Through the Force Shaak could feel the emotions of these two standing out from the crowd of anger, hate, and fear as the attackers looked around them and realized how many of their fellows she had already slain. They had started the attack with possibly around fifty. Now they were down to less than half that. At the same time, battle was still going on elsewhere in the hotel, the noise of it doing nothing to calm their nerves.
In contrast these two were enjoying this. The Trandoshan was in his species' version of a berserk ecstasy. There was nothing he wouldn't do to kill Shaak, she knew. The other felt almost like a psychopath to her mind. He reveled in carnage, even the amount of destruction Shaak had wrought on his fellows amused him. But he also wanted to win, and would certainly gun down the New Mandalorians if she tried to attack them.
"I take it you're here just for me, then," Shaak said, trying to buy some time as she thought of what to do. But there were too many guns on her and on the New Mandalorians she had been meeting with now. I could deal with one group or the other with Force telekinesis, but if I did I wouldn't be able to stop the other from acting, there are too many of them. And they are too high strung for me to attempt to redirect their minds with so many innocents here. I need to think…
"You're right, Jedi," the young man said. "The Hutts offered a lot of money for your head, so much that even with the Mandos angry at us we'll be raking in enough to disappear."
"Enough talking!" spat the Trandoshan, looking angrily at the young man for blabbing that out. "Your lightsaber on the floor now, or they die. Where is your loyalty Togrutan, to your precious oath or to yourself?
"My loyalty is where it has always been," Shaak said, even as she deactivated her lightsaber and let it drop from her hand, placing her hands into her sleeves and standing there calmly while her lightsaber rolled away. If it moved with a bit more impetus than it should have had, no one noticed I need to look into carrying a second weapon as Ranma does in his 'ki' space. If I live through this, anyway.
Despite the fatalism of that thought, Shaak was calm, centered in the Force, accepting of whatever happened and prepared to act. "I am a Jedi. If my life will buy the lives of others, I will spend it gladly."
"Such weak sentiment," said the lizard. With that he turned his weapon away from the locals, immediately beginning to fire at Shaak with the others following suit quickly. She stood there, more thankful now than at any time before that she had gone through the repulsor-based toughness training and even the earlier method of toughening up her body. The blaster bolts burned through her clothing and impacted on Shaak's skin, the heat of them hurting quite a bit, but they didn't penetrate, and the heat dissipated quickly.
Even the two with the heavier guns couldn't get through her durability. Disruptors like theirs relied more on the gas in their ammunition cartridges than their rifle's battery, causing more damage but burning out quickly. That those kinds of weapons were illegal in nearly every Republic system was immaterial, of course.
Thanks to Ranma's toughness training those bolts hurt horribly, burning her skin here and there, and one to the stomach made her double over for a second, but they could not penetrate to do any lasting damage. Shaak didn't even cry out, keeping the pain at bay with the Force as she concentrated on her new plan, straightening slowly to look at her attackers calmly.
A second later the barrage cut off, and the attackers stared. The Jedi still stood, her robe burned and in so many tatters it was close to falling off, but still in one piece and still very much alive.
"It's some, some kind of Jedi trick!" said the young man in the odd headgear, shaking his head as he switched out the disruptor's gas magazine. "Get the skimmer's gun in here, we'll try that next! If that doesn't work, we'll plug the bitch's mouth with a thermal detonator!"
One of the locals had been firing at something outside further down the hallway which led to the conference room. At that order he turned, moving into the room with a malicious grin at the Jedi visible through a crack in his visor. In his hands, which were both metallic looking, making Shaak realize he had prosthetic arms, was a blaster like the one Ranma used, only even heavier.
Shaak stared at his weapon, and after moment closed her eyes, centering herself in the Force once more, a faint smile coming over her face for some reason as she did. When it comes to ways to die I suppose this isn't the worst I could choose.
It was an image that none of the locals would ever forget: a Jedi willingly sacrificing herself for them with a faint smile on her face and a look of serenity. It was a act that was recorded by a local newsagent who was among them having wanted to interview Shaak Ti without her knowing she was being recorded. That image would be broadcast across the planet and beyond soon enough, joining the other moments of heroism that had occurred this day.
Before that future event, however, several things happened in the here and now.
Unbeknownst to any, Shaak's lightsaber had rolled forward toward her attackers for the last few minutes. It now activated at a gentle Force touch and under the guidance of her mind leaped up into the air. The blade sliced two of the terrorists in twain before circling around towards the two who seemed to be in charge.
At the same time, the man toting the heavy gun fired a stream of large plasma bolts lashing out towards his target. Shaak grit her teeth as the bolts slammed into her, but she kept her concentration on her weapon, pushing it further around in its dance of death. Shaak's durability was not up to taking hits from that large of caliber a blaster the bolts seared into her stomach, shoulder, and thigh in a diagonal down her body
The Trandoshan was cut in half by the spinning lightsaber blade right under his chest, but the young human was able to duck under that attack, frantically trying to grab the lightsaber out of the air. Before he could, the locals, buoyed by the Jedi's sacrifice, charged forward. The men and women piled the remaining attackers under, smashing the turban-wearing man and his few remaining fellows into the floor, hammering them again and again with their fists and feet. This included the man with the heavy weapon, who went down under a mob of unarmed and enraged civilians.
At the same time the local police force had also finally broken into the hallway leading into the amphitheater and also came in from the emergency exit in a coordinated pincer movement. They gunned down several other attackers before they could kill more than a few of the civilians for attacking their fellows. But the damage was already done, with dozens dead and with the Jedi perforated by the heavy weapon.
As more police swarmed into the room and the last attacker fell Shaak collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, her eyes rolling back in her skull as she fell into oblivion.
OOOOOOO
The aftermath of the scattered attacks was possibly not as the instigators of the sudden wave of violence would've hoped. Not only did few of these attacks succeed, but the New Mandalorians and the Reborn worked together to swiftly interrogate the prisoners taken and follow up any leads, showing heretofore unseen levels of cooperation the world over to determine what really happened. Even Bo and Satine got in on the act, publicly stating their belief that this had not been an attack by either of their parties, but instigated by some outside force, even shaking hands about it on live broadcast.
Much of the physical evidence and more than a few of the bodies pointed toward two clans from the far south of the planet being involved. They had been among those who wanted to return to the old ways, and been most vocal about the Jedi being involved in the debate at all, even as moderators. The Reborn moved against them with violence and vigor, crushing them both in a series of short, violent battles that left none of the warriors of either clan alive. The children of those clans were taken in by others swiftly, as were their few noncombatants, who had apparently not been involved in the violence. At the same time more evidence of who had funded and supplied the clan's weapons was found in the clans' scattered holdings.
On the other side of things the New Mandalorians began to trace the money trail as well as the weapons several of the attackers had used. Within a day a report was on Satine's desk. and she read through it before looking up at Obi-Wan. He appeared very much worse for wear, swathed in bandages from his own near mortal escapade. The initial explosion had burned half his body, including one of his hands up to the elbow, with second degree burns. Then during the ensuing assault, someone had used a very low-tech but horribly effective weapon, a small IED that was packed with nails. Obi-Wan had saved Satine and two of her palace's security team, but had taken several of the nails to his own side. It was only the fact he had slowed them with a Force Push that had saved his life at all, but several other security officers had not been so lucky.
Seeing her knight in such a bedraggled and injured state caused sorrow to well up within Satine, but she pushed it aside for now. "An ignoble part of me had hoped that the carnage over the past few days would have shown everyone that violence itself could never be a true indicator of our people's way forward, so I could repudiate my agreement with Bo Katan. Instead, the fact that an outside force went out of its way to interfere in our internal matters like this has done the exact opposite."
"I am sorry, Satine," Obi-Wan said softly, shaking his head. "I would truly like to live in a universe where nonaggression and peaceful resolution would be the norm. But we do not live in that universe; all we can do is work toward that future with whatever tools we can."
For a moment the two of them were silent, and then Obi-Wan asked, "What is Bo-Katan going to do?"
"Bo has the same information I do, so she will act as the dratted Resol'nare tells her to, of course: attack. Besides which, someone, I have no idea who, has already leaked the information to the public: that the cartel out of Hrything was involved up to its eyeballs. Many of the attackers and almost all of the weapons and explosives were traced back to there, along with the combat drugs used by many of the attackers. My investigators and Bo Katan's all agree the shouted slogans were not worth the air used to shout them, even if those two clans' warriors believed them." Satine shrugged. "I could wish for a peaceful solution, perhaps removing Lazlo or whatever his name is and installing a true legal government somehow, but that's not going to happen."
She looked at Obi-Wan, her eyes narrowing. "Beyond the fact we didn't want Mandalore to devolve into chaos or civil war there was one other point that Bo Katan and I agreed on surprisingly. We didn't like the amount of subtle and not-so subtle pressure the Senate attempted to bring to bear on you Jedi to influence the conclave. I can almost understand why they did it, since the Republic honestly doesn't have any other handles it could use to influence events out here, bar a full military intervention. But I would like to know if the Senate is still against the upcoming societal and governmental changes."
"In other words if you're likely to see attempts at economic sanctions or that direct military intervention you just mentioned?" Obi-Wan asked dryly, amused by Satine's 'politician speak.' "I believe Master Koon spent half of this afternoon discussing events in a joint meeting with the Senate representatives interested in this affair and the High Council. The Senators are, of course, appalled at the outbreak of violence, and many of them demanded you put off any decision in the clan conclave until enough time has passed between these violent events and the decision so that it is not influenced by said violence, but wiser heads have prevailed."
Obi-Wan smiled wanly. "Chancellor Palpatine was once more involved personally, and he controlled the conversation most adroitly, turning the Senators' attention back to more localized, i.e. important, events while also applauding the actions of the Order, our personal heroism and how we went about our duty here. So officially, the Senate will take a wait and see attitude toward Mandalore and the Mandalore sector as a whole."
"Unofficially?"
"The Jedi Order has no idea at present," Obi-Wan said with a sigh. "Personally I feel the Senate as a whole probably won't do anything. You might see various sectors trying to impose sanctions or other ineffectual acts, and one or two Senators might push for more active observation. Most of them, however, know they can't project power out this far from the Inner Rim except militarily, and there is no way any such action would be taken without a majority vote."
Satine fell silent for a few moments, fiddling with some of the dataslates on her desk before looking back up at Obi-Wan, broaching another subject. "What of Ranma and Knight Ti? How is she?"
"Ranma is uninjured, though he has yet to leave Shaak's side, while from this morning's medical report Shaak is out of danger. I believe at the moment that is where Master Koon is as well."
OOOOOOO
Master Plo actually had yet to arrive at the hospital where Shaak was being cared for. Bo had, and had just relayed to Ranma the same information that Satine had been sharing with Obi-Wan. "Transportation will be an issue for my forces, of course, but part of me is actually thankful for Lazlo's attempt to interfere here since it gives the Reborn our first target."
Ranma nodded, not looking up from where he was looking at the information on the dataslate she'd handed him, and Bo coughed somewhat uncomfortably. When he learned that bounty hunters had attacked Shaak for their bounty, Ranma had gone cold somehow, almost emotionless. His eyes, which were normally so bright and lively, were now dark, blue stones with all the life leeched out of them. The difference between his normal outgoing, happy-go-lucky manner and this cold, almost robotic persona was startling, and rather terrifying. And is it just me, or is it cold in here?
"It will be a long-term campaign once the orbitals have been smashed, of course, what they have of them, anyway," Bo went on hurriedly, her voice sounding strained to her ears in the cold silence of the hospital room, heretofore broken only by the hum of the monitoring machines. "We'll then have to secure a beach head then somehow garner local support," she went on. "But…"
"But while that attack may take the source of the majority of the attackers out, it does nothing about the bounty hunters or their guild," Ranma said, speaking up before she could go on, even his voice cold, emotionless. "Bounty hunters who chose not only to attack us, but planned how to go about attacking Shaak after deciding she was the easier target of the two of us, up to and including hostages. Is that right?"
"That's what the one survivor from the attack on Shaak says," Bo replied, proud that her voice had come out normally despite how very worried she was becoming about Ranma's state of mind. His tone was so…so cold.
Ranma nodded, setting down the dataslate lightly on a chair next to his, though when he lifted his hand off, Bo had to wince. His fingers had crushed the edges of the metal dataslate in one of those effortless shows of power that always reminded Bo that Ranma all too often held back, even in his spars with Shaak Ti.
He stood, staring down at Shaak for a moment. Her eyes were closed, of course, given her comatose state, while a small artificial lung machine had been placed over her face, and intravenous tubes were placed here and there on her body. Shaak's stomach, lower intestine and one of her lungs had been perforated by blaster bolts in the final attack on her. Her shoulder and thigh had been hit as well, though those wounds were minor in comparison to the internal injuries.
Those gut injuries were why Shaak was laid up here with a suit filled with bacta covering her upper body. Out here in the Outer Rim there were very few individuals or even governments like the New Mandalorians that could afford a full bacta tank. Bacta packs like the suit Shaak was in were slower, exacerbated by the fact that internal injuries were already slower to heal than external ones, but Shaak would be fully healed eventually.
The locals had paid for Shaak's medical care out of their own pockets. Shaak's sacrifice had done almost as much as Master Koon's apology to not so much do away with the hatred of the Jedi among Bo's people, but to garner them equal amounts of respect. The Jedi would never be loved here, but they could be respected rather than simply abhorred, and that would be enough.
For her part Bo was torn. Given her one-sided rivalry with Shaak, even putting aside the feelings Bo still had despite herself for Ranma, she should have felt perhaps not triumphant, but at least neutral towards the Togrutan woman being injured. But Bo didn't. She felt strange. She didn't like seeing Shaak lying there like this, not one bit. It felt almost unnatural. Not, at least, she hastily added to that thought, from someone else's hand rather than my own, anyway.
After a moment Ranma turned away. "Shaak'll wake up in what, six, seven days, right?"
"Something like that. She'll still not be ambulatory for a few more days after that, while the doctors make certain that everything inside has healed properly and removed any lingering bacta from within her body. There's always a chance with internal injuries that they won't, or further complications due to that last issue."
"I'll be back by the time she wakes up," Ranma said with a nod, his voice and face still with that cold, emotionless edge even now. Bo reached out for his shoulder then stopped herself letting her hand fall away.
Bo Katan Kryze didn't ask him what he was going to be doing. Tess and the others who had died in these attacks would be avenged when Bo and the Reborn assaulted Hrything. But the Bounty Hunters' Guild had to pay too for letting their members attack a Jedi, or hell, anyone, in such a dishonorable fashion. Ranma would see to that. Bo understood. That kind of retribution was very much in keeping with the Resol'nare, which had no equivalent of turning the other cheek. So she simply nodded. "I left a box of toys that you might find helpful by the Wild Light's ramp with HK, Ranma. Good hunting.
Ranma twitched his head in acknowledgment of that and marched out of the room without another word.
Outside Ranma saw Plo Koon walking down the corridor. Plo stopped, waiting for Ranma to reach him. When he did and Ranma made to pass him without another word Koon held up a hand, the metal tipped fingers tapping once on Ranma's shoulder before his hand stilled. "Where are you going?"
"To get some payback and to make certain the Bounty Hunters' Guild knows they won't get away with this kind of shit in the future," Ranma replied, not turning to face the Jedi. This left the two of them talking to one another side by side, yet with both of them looking towards opposite directions of the corridor.
"Vengeance is not the way of the Jedi," Plo remarked, not so much against the idea as simply commenting. "Retribution is somewhat, but only against the true target."
Most Jedi might have thought it their duty to stop Ranma from going on what amounted to a vigilante campaign against a Senate backed organization, even one such as the Bounty Hunters Guild, which was seen by the Senate as a necessary evil. But Plo Koon was a Kel Dor, and his race's idea of justice was a simple one: an eye for an eye. The term rough justice was applied to their ideals rather often, and Plo Koon, for all his training as a Jedi, still followed that ideal. So he did not try to stop Ranma, merely warned him about the dangers of giving in to the desire for vengeance.
"How many times do I have to say it," Ranma said, his voice almost whimsical, but there was nothing whimsical about his face or body language which was still radiating cold to a degree Plo could physically feel through his hands, the metal on his sensitive fingers actually beginning to sting. "I…am…not…a…Jedi. The Bounty Hunters' Guild might be able to wave away their involvement in issues like this by saying, oh so-and-so was not a member in good standing, or was no longer involved with the Guild, thank you. I don't care about that. They were involved. Some chapter of the guild allowed that bounty onto the books. They will pay."
Plo had very good self-control, so he did not shiver at the tone of voice Ranma had, though his eyes narrowed behind their protective glass as he examined the youth standing beside him through the Force. There was nothing there, no response to the young man's rage, no hate or anger visible through the Force. It was as if Ranma had shut off all of his emotions, and Plo suddenly realized that was far more worrisome than simple Dark Side fueled hate or anger.
Ranma wasn't reaching out to the Dark Side; he wasn't drawing from the Force at all. But he had shut himself down to an extent that he more closely resembled an automaton than a man. And that, coupled with the cold he was putting out, was alarming. If Ranma's normal desire to rein in his physical abilities has disappeared along with his emotions that is a very worrisome thought indeed.
"If an innocent dies in your attacks on the Bounty Hunters' Guild, that will make you no better than them," he said at last, turning to look at Ranma for the first time in this discussion.
Ranma also turned his head, staring Plo in the eye for a moment before slowly nodding. "I'll make certain that only bounty hunters feel my response to this event," Ranma said, his voice still cold but acknowledging Plo's concerns, at least. "You may be sure of that."
Plo nodded, squeezing the other man's shoulder once more, then let his hands drop and continued his way towards Shaak's room.
OOOOOOO
From his position at the bottom of the Wild Light's ramp, HK watched his master march up into the ship and turned to follow him automatically. HK's thoughts were rather more like Master Plo Koon's than either would have liked to think. Though where Plo was shocked and wary at the change which had come over Ranma, HK was interested. There was a cold calculation to Ranma's eyes now that was a complete turnaround from his more laid-back nature, and he radiated cold. Indeed, as HK moved to take up position behind Ranma as he entered the cockpit the droid's heat sensors detected a decrease in temperature. Astonished thought: I wonder how he's doing that.
Tune, too, noticed Ranma's entirely different attitude as he sat down, his face devoid of any expression. "Tune, can you calculate the fastest route to this planet?" Ranma asked while plotting in a planet's name and coordinates into the computer.
His voice sounded…not robotic, but utterly emotionless. If Tune had been a human of a similar age to his actual build, he probably would've shivered at that tone. "Yes, master!" He would not have admitted it, but Ranma sort of scared him at the moment. Tune had known for over a year now that Ranma was dangerous, his abilities quite literally superhuman. But Ranma was always happy, smiling, and enjoying life. This Ranma was something else entirely.
"Good," Ranma said, then looked over at HK. "During your time on the Hypercom have you ever found an especially important chapter hall or organizational point for the Bounty Hunters' Guild?"
"Respectful answer: Negative, master. The Bounty Hunters' Guild might be legitimate in the eyes of the Senate, but that doesn't do anything to combat their public persona, something that is only helped along by acts like the attack on the mistress. Each chapter is autonomous, and many are mobile, the better to be able to skirt both sides of the law. Even the meatbag Cradock the Trandoshan, the Guild's formal master, keeps on the move like that with his personal chapter of the Guild."
HK raised his normal hand, waving it side to side. "Purposeful supposition: However, my data indicates that whatever their home chapter, chartered bounty hunters are required to at least stop in and make a courtesy call on the nearest chapter house. If we attack the chapter house on this planet, as I speculate you mean to, we will possibly be able to find out which chapter accepted the bounty on the mistress."
"Excellent. I'd've hated to simply wipe out chapters one by one until we found the chapter leader responsible for this," Ranma said coldly, leaning back in his chair. "Do you have that calculated yet, Tune?"
"Yes, master. Shall I inform the port authorities we're leaving?" the astromech droid asked, his vocorder's voice hesitant.
"Yes. We're leaving now," Ranma said as he began to power up the ship. A moment later they were leaving Mandalore's surface, heading up out of its atmosphere and away. After a moment Tune asked, "I had thought that the Bounty Hunters' Guild had refused to take bounties on the Jedi. Is that not against their history of working with the Republic?"
"I do not know," Ranma said, his voice still so cold that Tune's receptors began to feel a literal change of temperature around him as HK had earlier. "I do not know, and I do not care, though it could be true since every time they've attacked Shaak she was with me, so it could be said they were attacking me. I want to send a message to these bastards. They fuck with my friends or any innocents, and I will fuck with them back."
HK nodded, saying nothing, though he was thinking, Impressed observation: My master has a temper, or perhaps two stages to his temper. Better for all if he is shouting and raging, better still when he is having fun and playing around. This serious and deadly control is something else altogether. And HK was glad to see it.
"Master," Tune said hesitantly, who was not at all happy. "You realize that any action against the Guild should probably go through the Jedi Order? Or perhaps even the Senate? They are a Senate mandated group, after all."
"They're apparently a Senate mandated group so long as they don't act against Republic interests. How has that been working lately?" Ranma asked, his words sardonic though they did not match the still cold tone. "And maybe even under these circumstances I should be working through the Senate or the Order, but right now I aim to misbehave."
It took the Wild Light three short jumps and one rather longer one consisting of around forty minutes calculation and four hours in hyperspace before the ship came out of space in the system which housed their first target. Fontomo was a fairly unsophisticated Mid Rim world built around several dozen large agricultural hubs and two large space stations. It had a few ancient looking patrol craft moving around its orbit, and between it and a small dust ball of a world there looked to be some kind of small bio-cube.
One of the ancient craft homed in on the Wild Light just as it reached orbit. "Incoming ship, this is the Dawn Crusader," a cocky, very young sounding voice said over the intercom, which Tune had opened without command. "State your business in our star system or I'm afraid I'll have to open fire on you."
HK shook his head slowly. "Aggrieved professional pride: That meatbag should be flogged for that kind of radio discipline, but I suppose allowances must be made for young meatbags who have never been away from their unimportant system."
Ranma didn't reply to HK's droll quip, clicking on his communicator. "This is the Wild Light. My name is Ranma, and I am here for retribution." With that he clicked the com off, and under his hands the Wild Light dove like a fish into the atmosphere at an angle that the older patrol craft couldn't match, racing toward one of the cities below them.
"Tune, where is this Bounty Hunter Chapter Hall?"
"Top six stories of the McInnes building, master, in The'cmu'l. Coordinates for the city to follow," Tune replied promptly, having already connected to the local Intranet to find that information quickly. With Tune's direction they found the city swiftly, then the actual building, a tall one connected to a few others nearby by short, thin walkways. "The target building is the one with antiaircraft guns to our port side."
Ranma nodded, turning that way, lighting up the top of the roof with his targeting reticle. At that moment a shiver of regret that Shaak wasn't sitting next to him hit Ranma, but he ruthlessly ignored it. The Soul of Ice, which he had fallen into accidently as he tried to control himself after hearing about Shaak's brush with death, allowed him to do so with ease.
A second later his quad lasers lanced out, stitching the anti-aircraft guns on the buildings' roofs, themselves being quad lasers, and shattering them in succession before they could activate. "HK?"
HK was already gone, knowing the master would not use the proton torpedoes or the ion cannon unless he had to. After all, the more times you used a secret the less of the secret it became. The hatch opened, wind whipping around the massive droid with a force that would take most humanoids off their feet, but his clawed feet locked down magnetically. He raised his shoulder mounted cannon firing down with a concussion missile which impacted the roof seconds later.
The roof exploded, and he leapt out opening up his communications as he dropped down to the ground. "Joyful shout: I've made a hole, master. You are clear to go!"
Behind him Ranma unlatched himself from his pilot's chair, nodding to Tune. "Keep us circling until I call for you, Tune. Don't fire back against any of the local police forces that try to fire you, simply take it on the shields but dodge what you can, of course."
"Yes master," Tune said, grateful that he would not be involved in any actual bloodletting.
With that Ranma raced through the ship, shouting, "Close the hatch in five, four, three, two, one!" With that Ranma dove out, flipping himself through the air as two bounty hunters, who had come out onto the roof after his initial assault, opened fire. His dive actually carried him below their arc of fire, and he quickly pulled out his own massive rifle, blasting away at them.
He wished for a moment that it was a slug shooter, since then Ranma would have been able to use the recoil to slow himself down. As it was he had to flip himself twice more as he passed through the hole that HK had made, which was still spurting smoke and electrical sparks everywhere, the concrete around the hole shattered and slowly falling down into the hole.
He landed in a bar of some kind with several scattered bodies here and there and a door ripped in half to one side. HK must've gone that way, Ranma thought to himself, his thoughts still cold, still subsumed by the Soul of Ice. Ranma couldn't bring himself out of it, not that he was trying really hard. For this, cold calculation was much more dangerous than red hot fury.
Activating his light pike, Ranma cut through the floor before turning it off and returning it to his ki space. He was not doing this as an ally of the Jedi; he was doing this as Ranma, lover of Shaak Ti, and he did not want the use of that weapon to bring the Order trouble from his actions.
Leaping up, he brought his foot down, kicking hard into the floor which he had previously cut into with the light pike. The piece of floor collapsed under him carrying Ranma downwards, and he kicked off as soon as he was through to the next level, hurling himself away from it as people opened fire on the opening.
There were fifteen frantic bounty hunters below him, as well as four dancers or possibly hookers, Ranma didn't know which, in one corner. Ranma landed in the middle of four of the bounty hunters, his hands and fists flashing out, smashing weapons and bodies hurling them away. Two of them dropped their weapons as his hits landed, shattering their neck muscles, some kind of alien with an external skeleton. Ranma grabbed their weapons and turned hosing half of the room, killing five more hunters even as he pushed himself away. Rolling into cover Ranma dropped the guns quickly, then leaped up again out of the cover to close with the six remaining.
Once he was within hand-to-hand range, only one of them was able to block his first punch, and that one failed to block a follow-on sweep kick that took his legs out from under him. A hammer kick descended, crushing his skull into the ground.
One of the others who had tried to play possum jumped on Ranma's back with a vibro knife, but Ranma turned quickly, his hand moving into a knife formation and pointing up, laced with ki. The blow blew through the man like a cannon round, exploding his center of mass and sending bits and pieces of him everywhere, covering Ranma in blood. But he was so deep into the Soul of Ice he didn't even notice or care, only turning away slightly so the gore did not get into his eyes.
With that Ranma looked around, staring at the four exotic dancers or something that must've been busy on the poles scattered around the room before his attack. The sight of their terrified fearful faces staring at him caused Ranma to blanch, the Soul of Ice shivering around him. No, no. I am a martial artist, a defender. I am not a monster, not a killer, not someone to be feared, I won't…
With that Ranma's Soul of Ice finally cracked, and Ranma gasped, his emotions coming back in a whirlwind. He grit his teeth, turning away and grabbing one of the poles, his fingers bending the metal under his grip before he was able to control himself. Anger, hate, love, worry, concern, all of the emotions he had been feeling since hearing about the attack on Shaak hammered through Ranma then.
A corner of Ranma's mind somehow noted that he should be thankful that he did not feel the odd reverb effect that the Jedi did, that he had to consciously reach out for the Force rather than always have the Force flowing through him like they did. That would have been bad, he thought to himself, shuddering at the very idea.
He turned to the group of dancers and shook his head again, holding his hands up to show they were empty. Not that after what I just did that will really reassure them, Ranma though sardonically."Do you have anything to write on, like a permanent marker or something?" he asked.
All of them shook their heads. "You know the way out of here?"
One of them, a Twi'lek girl, nodded, and he nodded back. "Well, I suggest raiding their pockets for any money they've got and then getting out of here. This fight's not over yet."
Realizing he meant them no harm they all moved out from the bar they had been using as cover while Ranma pulled out his own permanent marker, something he had picked up on the Kashyyyk during his prank war with the Jedi younglings. Then he moved over to the few bounty hunters who he had just knocked out, writing messages on their foreheads and faces before stripping them of their clothing. Then he tied each of them in turn to the dance poles.
While he was doing this the dancers had actually taken his word and began to search around the dead bodies for credits chips and anything they could sell. They didn't come away with much, however.
Seeing this Ranma sighed, reaching into his ki pocket and pulling out several thousand credit chips, tossing them to the girls. "Take those, and hopefully find a new line of work. I can't imagine any girl would actually choose to do this for a living if they had any other way to make a living."
Two of the girls shrugged their shoulders, indicating they didn't really want to answer that question, though one of them was smirking slightly as she did so. The other two looked at one another, then grabbed up as many of the credit chips Ranma had tossed as they could. One of them was the young Twi'lek girl who, Ranma thought, was only a few years older than him.
A second later the doors banged open, and HK entered, causing all four of the womenfolk to squeak as HK paused, staring at Ranma's work. "Amused acclamation: Both humiliating and terrifying, an excellent synergy, master." Like Ranma, HK was liberally dabbed with blood here and there, as well as cuts and a few seared segments showing where he had been hit by blaster bolts.
"Informative statement: The remaining bounty hunters are holed up in what looks to be their Chapter Master's room, a small alcove on the floor directly below us. The first three floors are holding cells and penitentiaries."
"That's an odd layout, isn't it?" Ranma asked his brow furrowing.
"Experienced tone: Not really, master. The nearest rooftop to the west of us is a landing area, and it has an extrusion which can connect to the lower-level of this one. I doubt the meatbags of this chapter house have anything whatever to do with the rest of this planet. This Chapter Hall is simply a strategic location to them."
"Understood," Ranma said with a nod, and HK noted that he was no longer radiating the cold that had so startled him before. Logically HK knew that was probably a good thing, but probably not as fun for him personally.
"Do their defenses look as if they'll be able to stop us?" Ranma asked as the girls quickly moved around HK and made their way out of the building.
"Droll response: Doubtful master, very doubtful."
Moments later the two of them advanced down the stairs and towards where the bounty hunters were holed up. Four of them had tried to move away from their defensive position to find the attackers, but Ranma dealt with them easily, leaving them unconscious and tied together head to crotch with the same messages he had written on the survivors of his initial attack.
"Awed joy: Master, you truly do know how to make enemies."
"Actually when we left Mandalore I was thinking more along the lines of mountains of skulls than humiliation, but that can wait. This place isn't important enough to make the real start of our terror campaign," Ranma said, and for just a moment HK could detect a hint of coldness there, a controlled fury.
They eventually made their way from the entrance to the long hallway leading to the Chapter Master's room. "Analytical observation: Master, I am detecting at least seven heartbeats, as well as two sets of moving servomotors. Logic would then dictate they have at least two combat droids, size indeterminate, and seven meatbags."
Ranma nodded, gathering himself, and then launched himself around the corner of the room into the hallway. "Moko Takabisha!" he shouted, sending a massive sphere of cerulean light hurling from his hands even as he continued his leap, moving out of the doorway. HK moved in his wake, both hands full of blaster rifles as his heavy cannon came up off his shoulder opening fire at the same time.
Down the hallway were two heavy, blaster-rated ferocrete blocks pulled there from somewhere, or perhaps they were routinely here to provide a last ditch defensive position. Using them currently were four humans, three aliens and two attack droids of a configuration Ranma hadn't seen before . The droids were as large as HK, hunched back without hands, but with twin disruptor cannons on their arms under a large, forward jutting head. They sort of reminded Ranma of something he'd seen in an American film once, something about a robotic policemen. It was only a glimpse of a poster though, so Ranma couldn't be certain.
HK's heavy cannon targeted those two robots as they opened fire, while HK dodged back out of the doorway, but too slowly. Several blaster bolts hit his armored frame, leaving burn marks and tiny indents, and one of the more powerful disruptor cannon blasts almost ripped the heavy cannon off his shoulder. Another nearly took his claw hand off. But one of the droids in turn collapsed to the side, its head gone, while Ranma's initial attack had destroyed the other, incinerating its head and much of its torso.
A second later the two of them had to move back as the bounty hunters hurled grenades of various different types. The explosions went off as one, wiping out a lot of the wooden frame of the doorway and cracking the wood of the floor underneath, but both their targets had reacted too fast.
Before the bounty hunters could realizes this and before the smoke of the various explosions had time to clear, HK and Ranma were back in the doorway, with HK in the lead for a moment. HK opened fire with the blaster in his normal hand, his knees bending at Ranma's shout of, "Duck down, HK!"
As HK's accurate fire took out two of the remaining bounty hunters, Ranma leaped up over the towering droid, bouncing off the ceiling of the corridor and back down into the remainder, dodging their frantic fire with ease. Two bounty hunters were knocked unconscious quickly, while the others responded better, grabbing at knives and trying to fight back. But it didn't do them any good, Ranma knocking all of them out with a few punches to the head or chops to the neck, their own attacks so slow it was ludicrous to Ranma.
Turning around Ranma lifted the ferocrete block out of HK's way, easily hurling it behind them through the still smoke-filled door. As the droid moved to stand beside him Ranma asked, "Would you care to knock for me HK?"
While the droid moved around Ranma, the pigtailed marital artist knelt by the comatose forms of the bounty hunters. Two of the humans and one of the aliens, a mask breather whose species Ranma wasn't familiar with, were alive but unconscious, while the others were not, dead from shots from HK in three cases. The last alien, a short mousy looking creature Ranma recognized as a Sullustan, had been crushed by the body of one of the large combat droids.
After tying up the three survivors with their own clothing, Ranma once more pulled out his permanent marker before writing out the messages 'murderer, child killer, terrorists, coward' and so forth on their bodies. Those messages and 'Ranma was here' on every face right over their forehead, so they wouldn't be able to forget who had done this and why.
By the time he was done with that, HK had moved around the last concrete block, using his battered claw hand to lift and toss it out of his way before reaching for the door with the same hand. The claws ripped into the steel of the door, and with a squeal of his servomotors he pulled the door off of its railings before being forced to use it as a shield for a moment as several disruptor bolts slammed into the interior side of it. "Wry observation: There seems to be someone at home, master."
"Who the kriff are you!?" shouted a voice from inside as Ranma moved to the doorway. "This is the Bounty Hunters' Guild, bastards! There'll be no place you can hide in all the universe after this!"
"You people chose to take out a bounty on a Jedi and go about it by taking hostages and attacking innocents," Ranma shouted back, his blue eyes going cold once more before he shook his head, pulling back from once more falling into the Soul of Ice. "You should've been prepared to reap the whirlwind."
"What?! No we didn't!" the voice inside shouted back, his voice querulous as well as shocky.
Ranma quickly moved into the doorway, dodging the incoming fire by ducking underneath it for a moment, a piece of rubble he'd picked up flashing out from his hand to impact the man inside before he could duck underneath his desk again.
The Chapter Master's room was quite small in comparison to what Ranma had expected, lined with data slates in a library to one side, with a few trophies on the other wall and a large reinforced metal desk set into the center of the room backed by a large set of windows. The guild master was a Bothan, a race Ranma had seen a time or two and had no interest in getting to know any better. He wore a rather decent looking suit with a bandoleer of throwing knives on his chest and a blaster holster currently empty at his waist, the weapon spinning away into a corner.
"You're no kriffing Jedi!" said the alien, his voice lowering into a low growl as he tried and failed to get his fur to go back to normal rather than standing up in a sign of fear. That was something only another Bothan could have recognized, but that didn't matter, as to most Bothans only the opinions of other Bothans and personal power really mattered. "The Jedi wouldn't retaliate like this, not before working through channels, and certainly not so…so ruthlessly!"
"If I wanted all of you dead you would all be dead," Ranma said simply, moving towards the man, plucking his throwing knives out of the air as the man hurled them at him desperately. After the first three the Bothan seemed to get the point and stopped, backing away rapidly as Ranma advanced, only to watch in something approaching shock as Ranma lifted his entire desk and hurled it to one side with almost lazy ease. "You took a bounty on Jedi Master Shaak Ti, who was residing on Mandalore recently."
"My chapter certainly never did!" the Bothan replied harshly, trying to regain some dignity and failing. "We can't take bounties on Jedi! That goes against our agreement to work with the Republic. If we do something like that, the Senate would repeal our charter, and we'd be no more than outlaws!"
"And yet the weapons they used, the bounty hunters themselves, all passed through this chapter. We captured their ship, and their astromech droid supplied us with the ship's last few jumps." Ranma held out a holographic disc, which showed the dead faces of Bossk and Dengar.
The chapter master jolted as he recognized them. His eyes, which looked like a very odd cross between a dog's and a cat's, widened in particular when he looked at the Trandoshan's image. "Bossk, Dengar," he whispered their names, shaking his head. "They, they were after a Jedi?! They only said…Bossk told us…that is…"
"Someone else, some other chapter master in your guild authorized this bounty if you didn't," Ranma said, his voice slipping into that cold monotone that HK recognized from before they had left Mandalore. He held that tone for a moment before he shook it off. "Who? Where did the authorization come from? Give me a target, or I'll simply keep attacking chapter halls like this until I get the information I want."
The effect on the furry alien was everything that the hunter killer droid knew it would be. He quickly moved as far away from Ranma as he could, pinning himself against the wall of windows, his eyes wide as if he was staring at some kind of giant predator. Which, HK reflected, was remarkably astute of him. Far more astute than most Bothans would be, since he wasn't spouting threats or trying to buy his way out of trouble, something the few Bothans HK had any memory of dealing with had done.
"W-Wait a minute!" With that the Bothan hurried over to his table, picking up a data pad there and cycling through it quickly, while Ranma watched, crossing his arms and tapping one foot impatiently on the floor. After a moment the man looked up, his alien features twisted into an even more fearful look than it had been a moment before.
Ranma thought he knew why and spoke up quickly. "Look, if you give me the information I can guarantee that whatever guild master or chapter master or whatever the hell you call it, whoever authorized that bounty isn't going to be around to bother you again. So why don't you give me that information now, and we can both walk away from this?"
After staring at Ranma then over at the droid that had accompanied him the Bothan shuddered, nodding once,. "The Crimson Nova. I'll give you the coordinates of where their space station is. It, it's nothing to do with… I, I really, I mean, we didn't know! We were just told she was a Togrutan, that was all, there as part of some Republic group or other to watch the Mandos. We didn't know she was a Jedi!"
"I'd suggest looking into why people are given bounties before deciding they're worth going after," Ranma said coldly. "After all," he said pointing at his own face, "you have a bounty for my head too, don't you?"
The man nodded hesitantly, and Ranma went on. "Mine was placed on me by slavers," he said, not wanting to mention the fact that at least one of those bounties was from another source. "Not from the Republic, not from the Senate or anyone else legal, but from the fucking Hutts. You need to start choosing your clients better or somehow start to manage who can buy your services and how you bounty hunters can go about your business, or else your entire guild will be just as bad as the fuckers you're supposed to be hunting down."
Ranma looked into the man's eyes, his eyes becoming lighter and deeper, with a blue that seemed to pull at the Bothan's soul for a moment. "I will destroy this Crimson Nova group. That will be enough for now. But if any bounty hunter tries to come after Shaak again or kills an innocent to get to me, I will randomly choose another chapter of the Bounty Hunters' Guild and wipe it out, man and woman, do you understand me? I left at least half of the people here alive…" Ranma paused then, looking over at HK, the coldness receding from his eyes, "Didn't I?"
"Analytical assessment: Perhaps a little closer to a third, master. After all, I was not taking prisoners and I ran into at least twelve of them myself moving down from the top floor along the stairwells."
Ranma nodded and turned back to the man who was staring horrified at the droid. "All right, a bit closer to a third. How many chapters does your guild have? How many chapters can it lose before it stops being able to act as a guild at all?"
"You can't, you can't do that!" the Bothan whispered in fear before trying to straighten up in an effort to regain his courage. He hadn't even listened to the provisos Ranma had given him. "The Senate, we're a Senate chartered guild. The Senate would never stand for it!"
"You lot are supposed to have some kind of code you follow to stay on the good side of both the Order and the Senate, but most I've run into don't seem to care about that. How's that working out for them these days? If the Senate can't police you, that makes you no better than a criminal syndicate. Especially if you're willing to take on any bounty so long as you're paid. Money doesn't make right, remember that."
The man stilled, staring at Ranma, then Ranma turned away, flipping the Bothan the bird and moving away out of the room. HK leaned down so that his faceplate was close to the alien. "Arrogant warning: Pray that we do not have to come back and finish the job, meatbag. Because if we do, I will do so gladly. I do so hate to leave enemies alive regardless of the reasons. "
OOOOOOO
The Wild Light performed a small random jump away from Fontomo to another, somewhat nearby empty system designated solely by a random number, stopping there for a time as Tune calculated the best route to their true target. "Master, it will take us at least two days to get to this space station. While the time in hyperspace will not be overlong except for the initial jump into that sector, the system the space station is located is in the middle of a nebula, which will force us to make many small separate jumps, and I will have to stop and calculate each one," Tune said eventually, his tone far happier now that his master seemed to have returned to normal.
"That's fine. I need to spend some time meditating anyway…on a lot of things, really," Ranma said, letting out a faint sigh as he leaned back in his chair in the cockpit. "So long as you think we can get back to the Mandalore within a few hours of when Shaak is supposed to wake up."
"Introspective interjection: I believe you are missing the point that the tin can was trying to make, master. It is almost certain that this Crimson Nova chapter will be prepared for us when we arrive," HK cut in.
Ranma let his shoulders rise and fall just once to show his disdain for that idea. "Let them. However ready they are, it won't matter a damn. We can use those days to plan too, after all. Tune, get us situated for the jump. HK, you think you can repair that hand and your cannon?"
"Certain tone: If I remove that one damaged blaster barrel, I should be able to simply replace it. The hand will take some more work, but given that it is only the fine motor functions that have been damaged, it does not matter as much."
"Good. Tune, will you need me in the cockpit for those jumps?"
"For a few of the last ones, master, yes. We might need evasive maneuvering. I will inform you when we arrive at that point, however," the droid replied, not having made any comment about HK's tin-can comment, but plotting revenge for later.
"Good." Ranma waited for a few moments as Tune calculated their first jump, then eased the ship around into position before activating the hyperspace engines. After that he left Tune in charge of the ship and headed back into the sitting area. "Let's open Bo's bag of gifts, then I want some food, and then I need to meditate, damn it."
HK followed him quickly, interest radiating off the droid. Ranma opened the box Bo had left for him outside the hospital, reaching inside. He found two handguns, one disruptor grade rifle, one of the Mandalorian wrist rocket launchers complete with two rockets, and a jet pack.
The box did not include a helmet or armor. Evidently Bo knew that Ranma wanted to go in as himself rather than as some random warrior. And frankly any kind of armor she had access to wasn't as good as Ranma's body was, so that was all right. Shrugging his shoulders, Ranma placed the blaster pistols on his hips. Once they were placed to his satisfaction Ranma began moving around the sitting area quickly to get used to them being there, jumping up and down before kicking out a few times, readjusting the pistols' holsters to make certain they stayed in place.
He wouldn't normally wear them at all; Ranma preferred to go unarmed or with his weapons in his ki space rather than out and about since he thought it escalated things all around to be visibly armed, especially with guns. But for this mission the ability to get to them quickly was a telling point. "The rifle's yours HK, and you think you can use this jet pack?"
"Prevaricating response: My legs have ventral thrusters on their backs, master. They already give me some maneuverability even in zero-G. The jets could allow me far more maneuverability in that environment, however. You have a plan, I take it?"
"A start of one, anyway," Ranma said with a smirk and another shoulder shrug. "First I'm going to pull a trick out of the Jedi's book. Shaak explained to me a few times how the Jedi are sometimes able to calculate hyperspace jumps on their own and come much closer to planets and other things than even astromechs like Tune can. I'm not used to using the Force in that manner, but there's a first time for everything."
The hunter killer droid stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. "Philosophical observation: Slamming into a black hole, asteroid, or sun would at least be a fiery and rather painless way to die, master. And it would allow us to take the meatbags that are our current victims by surprise, so you have my full support in this."
"Heh, that's one way of thinking, I suppose," Ranma said with a smirk. "Though I don't intent to die. You wouldn't happen to have a schematic of this space station or whatever or the original dreadnought it was supposedly converted from, would you?"
"Wry rejoinder: Why no, master. I don't have that specific data in my incredibly erratic long-term memory."
Ranma frowned. He didn't want to access the Jedi information network for that kind of thing as it would implicate the Order in his attack. Not that he thought the Order itself would have an issue with that, but the Senate might, and he doubted everything between the Order, his friends in the Order, and the Senate was sunshine and roses at the moment, anyway. "We'll need some way of getting some more information, then. For now, work on your repairs. I have some things I need to think about."
Taking up a meditation pose on his bed, Ranma began to think hard about what had happened since he had first heard of the successful attack on Shaak. Part of his reaction had been because the first reports he had gotten said that the 'Togrutan Jedi' had died in the defense of a few civilian hostages. Hearing that had made Ranma's already frayed self-control, thanks to the death of Tess and more than a few others with whom he had become friendly, deteriorate further.
This was made worse by his first sight of Shaak being carried off by a medical team, her body limp and still as he reached her, taking her limp hand in his and trying to sense if she was alive or dead. Indeed, Ranma had gone further, trying to push out his own ki into her to jump start the healing process, but it hadn't worked. With Shaak comatose Ranma had been unable to forge a connection between their body's ki reserves.
All the times they had been together, all the emotions he had felt towards her since meeting Shaak for the first time had rushed Ranma all at once. It had been like Ranma was being torn in different directions, this way and that. Hate for those who had attacked her; grief, sadness, fear, loss; it had all come tumbling into Ranma more than he'd ever had to deal with before. Ranma had tried to control them, but as he had also been reaching out to see if he could sense Shaak's life force, for once he found himself caught up in the reverb effect the Jedi had to deal with.
He had far more experience with controlling his emotions than the Jedi, of course, and he had fought them back down, which was when Ranma knew he had made his mistake. Instead of simply fighting them then escaping the city to work through the emotions, Ranma had entered the Soul of Ice to keep them at bay.
But there was a reason why Ranma had not fooled around with the Soul of Ice since arriving in this universe: with ki and chi being all mixed into the Force here, he had been worried about what the Soul of Ice would be like. And Ranma had been right to be leery about it. Instead of letting him simply subsume his emotions under another hard layer of control, the Soul of Ice had acted like a void and absorbed them, sucking them all away from him, pushing them out into the Force around him thanks to his attempt to connect to Shaak's ki. And then it had drained not just the emotions he'd been dealing with, but all his other emotions. The Soul of Ica had allowed him to function but it had removed all his inhibitions and self-control making him more ice than man.
Luckily I brought myself out of it in the end, but even that was harder than it should have been. It was like I couldn't even realize anything was wrong until those dancers looked at me with such fear. It didn't exactly take me over, not really, but it damn sure affected me more than I like. And I nearly slipped into it again a few times afterward when I had to control my anger. That's not good. I'm going to have to be very, very careful I don't slip into that state of mind again; it could be even harder to break out of it a second time.
With that thought, Ranma began to deal with the emotions of Shaak's near death experience and his grief over Tess and his other new friends dying. He let them out in a controlled fashion, then thanked the fates that Shaak had not joined the others in death, before promising himself that the first thing he would do when he saw her next would be to kiss her senseless for worrying him, then try to come up with a way to show Shaak how much she meant to him.
At the next jump Ranma had to access the local Intranet, first looking up any information about the Crimson Nova's space station. It turned out, however, that it actually hadn't started as a space station, or rather the original place hadn't been custom built as a space station. Instead it had been converted from an ancient dreadnought, which Ranma imagined was the equivalent of a cruiser.
HK was even able to find a historical schematic of the original dreadnought this space station was based on in the online archive of a university. This gave them an idea of the power output the converted ship could sustain, as well as the exterior weapons it could theoretically have and the number of people it could safely hold.
Added to this HK had at one point in as he put it, "my no doubt storied if sadly forgotten past," been on refitted space stations, and knew how much interior space would be taken up by the, as the droid again put it, "various meatbag needs such as food, air circulation, and water."
"Further," said HK, "they have no doubt added to the superstructure over time. The original ship was rather small, and no amount of refitting could make it house the number of meatbags found in most bounty hunter chapters."
They played around with the old schematics over the next few days, trying to figure out where those targets places would be. They also worked on a plan, which made HK rather gleeful in its simple but efficient bloodthirstiness.
Ranma took breaks from these planning sessions to meditate, reaching out to the Force as Master Fay and Shaak had so often tried to teach him. It was hard for Ranma because he was not mentally capable of opening himself up entirely to the Force like the Jedi were trained to do since birth. He was able to use the Force to recharge himself if needed, and he had learned to also return that energy later under Master Fay's tutelage, but reaching out for it and asking for guidance like this that was entirely new.
And unfortunately the Force didn't seem to be cooperating. Instead of telling him a single answer when he was able to get anything at all, it gave him hundreds, all disjointed flashes of information and knowledge which Ranma promptly ignored, pushing it all to the side. Ranma had no interest in knowing his path or what actions he should take or whatever the Force was trying to tell him. He would make his own path forward.
Dammit, he thought, somehow sending that thought out into the Force, I just want to know if I'll be able to calculate the damn jump! Ranma groused, once more taking up a meditation pose as the Wild Light continued on its way.
OOOOOOO
Sheev Palpatine looked up from where he was sitting in the Chancellor's semi-formal receiving area, leaning back in his chair and gesturing the three Jedi to join him. "Well," he said, his tone philosophical. "That was interesting."
The three Jedi in front of them all stopped for a moment taking in the Chancellor's appearance. His suit and uniform looked immaculate, but his face showed a harried sort of air completely at odds with his normal controlled appearance. This was compounded a second later as he threw back a tumbler of fine Savareen brandy as if it was water.
At their looks he shrugged his shoulders, setting the empty tumbler aside. "The debates on this issue have been particularly vociferous, which, coupled with everything else my predecessor left me to deal with, has made me rather regret I was elevated to this office in the first place."
Master Gallia nodded her head, indicating she agreed with that sentiment, as did Coleman Trebor. The Vurt Jedi master was there instead of one of the other political specialists because he understood how the media worked better than most, while Master Dooku was there for his military knowledge. Normally that would have been a task given to Master Bulq given he was assigned to the Temple as a teacher, while Master Dooku was otherwise assigned to some kind of special assignment which Palpatine wasn't supposed to know about.
He did, of course. Sidious also knew that Dooku and Master Windu were not making any headway whatsoever in finding any connection between Darth Maul and the legacy of Darth Bane, the Sith who had survived following the Rule of Two. He had long ago set up his assassin's past to confuse anyone looking into him, with thousands of false leads and with nothing concrete that the Order could find.
As the three Jedi sat, Sidious took a brief moment to look at all of them. Not with his foresight; he didn't want to chance that with three Jedi Masters of their caliber so close to him. He trusted his Force Cloak and the Veil, but why take chances since even his physical senses could tell him that all three of them looked harried.
Master Gallia was easily the worst. Her normally immaculate appearance was somewhat in disarray just like Sidious's own, but in his case it was a carefully contrived look rather than reality. There was obviously no sweat on her, Jedi could control their bodies to ignore heat cold and perspiration to a certain extent if they so wished, but even so she looked tired.
In contrast the far older Master Dooku looked exasperated. His eyes were narrowed, the hand resting on his lightsaber flexing, certain sign of irritation in the dueling Master. Yet there was also a faint smile on his face, as if he found amusement in this latest issue with the Mandalorians, or perhaps the maddened response to it in the Senate.
Coleman Trebor, on the other hand, looked almost as if he was enjoying himself. His eyes were alight on the sides of his pointed, angular head, his face almost beaming for his species, and there was a certain frenetic energy to him. The Vurt was the most dangerous at this moment in time, Sidious knew.
Trebor's connections to several intergalactic news agencies and companies made him a threat to the ongoing, if incredibly subtle campaign to alienate the common man from the Jedi among the Core Worlds. It had to be subtle, of course, or else the Jedi would recognize it. And it had to seem spontaneous, or else they'd start looking for connections. And it couldn't be too widespread, or even that would be a sign of someone trying to control things. But that campaign had been in place for centuries, and Sidious knew he only had to tweak that campaign occasionally to keep the machine running.
But to Sidious's irritation Trebor had already started a counter campaign, not so much making the Jedi out to be heroes, but simply informing the public about what the Jedi really were about: about their Oath, about what they could and could not do, and what their place was in the Republic. Among the Core Worlds it hadn't had much of an effect just yet, but Sidious was watching public sentiment there just in case.
After a moment Palpatine shrugged his shoulders. "Well, this was a hard fought victory, my friends, but a victory nonetheless. The Senate will not move against the Mandalorians militarily unless they prove themselves a threat. That was the best we could hope for, really, though I can't say the same for all of our disparate species and special interest groups. A few of them might strike at the Mandalorians themselves, and since the Mandalorians are not a part of the Republic, what we can do to stop such is limited."
"I think the Mandalorians can handle any small group like that so long as the Senate Navy isn't involved," Dooku said wryly. "The Reborn certainly have an organizational structure already in place, and if they can build up enough of a military force quickly they'll be able to defend themselves."
"Is the Jedi Order truly happy about this?" Palpatine asked, allowing a bit of a question and worry into his tone. "I have to admit to being unhappy with the idea of the Mandalorians taking up their own ways even under this apparently more enlightened methodology. While the New Mandalorians were not exactly important in the great scheme of things, they at least kept the lid on the Mandalorian culture for us. If they were to go back to their conquering ways…"
"That sector needs the Mandalorians, or some other strong hand to pull it out of its slide into anarchy. The debates over the past few days in the Senate have proven that the Senate is unwilling to extend itself to that extent, so we can hardly turn around and say that the Mandalorians can't do so instead. If they move against the planet Gargon then we'll have to revisit this issue," Dooku replied.
"As for the Jedi Order, we are watchful and wary, but the apology for the Excision had to be made, and I believe Masters Ti and Koon did an admirable job in both keeping us as neutral parties and redeeming the Jedi in the eyes of the locals there. They have, after all, allowed us to emplace a Sector Jedi there for the first time, and agreed to allow said Jedi to watch their campaigns going forward," Gallia said smoothly.
Despite her smooth response, it was obvious to Palpatine that Gallia did not, in fact, believe the words she was saying. Nor did the Trebor seem overly happy, his ebullient air dissipating for a moment, though Dooku's eyes were shining with some kind of satisfaction, the source of which Sidious could not detect.
"While angering quite a large portion of the Senate," Palpatine said shaking his head. "I understand the reasoning behind the decision to remain neutral out there. I even applaud it as it showed a keen understanding of the local pressures. But you lost several friends in the Senate because of it; you can't deny that."
"No, I can't," Gallia said, shaking her head sadly. "Nonetheless, the Jedi's adherence to justice was maintained. That is the important thing."
"Justice and political reality rarely coincide," Palpatine said, sighing and leaning back.
"I have to congratulate you, however," Master Gallia said, actually smiling at the Chancellor. "You played this very well and have come out in a far more powerful position. Your Moderate Oversight faction has most definitely grown."
"Yes, hopefully that will allow me to enact some further changes to how the Senate is run and the overall bureaucracy." Palpatine's face turned grim at that. "I do not want another debacle like the Trade Federation trials."
Nute Gunray had gotten off with a slap on his wrist and a few years of home confinement after the embargo of Naboo, which was fine given how he had been acting as a moderating force during the invasion. But it had taken months to charge the former executives, and half of them had somehow disappeared from their jail cells during that time, while the trials for the rest had been restarted several times due to allegations of hung juries and bought judges. Sidious had them all killed, of course, but no one else, not even Gunray, knew that
Worse from the Jedi's perspective was that the attempt to repeal the Arming Rights Act had failed. The Senate had been unwilling to let the Trade Federation alone be removed from the act, and they really did need defenses on their ships, which were the sole trade ships seen in dozens of Outer Rim sectors. And the others who had recently been added to the rights refused to go along with their own disarmament just to remove the weapons from the Trade Federations.
"The Republic judicial system needs a vast overhaul at the senatorial level," Trebor said with a nod. "If you do nothing else in your tenure as Chancellor, if you can accomplish that you will go down as one of the greatest men to ever hold that office."
"That is one thing I'm aiming for. That, and more control over groups like the Tech Union and the Trade Federation, as well as enlarging our judicial branch so we can stop relying on the various groups and sectors to police themselves. The recent rise of hate groups is proof such is needed," Palpatine sighed as the Jedi all nodded.
The fascist groups rising scattered around the Republic were draining a lot of the Jedi Order's current numbers away. They were making some headway against the violent groups, but that did surprisingly little to combat the growing racial tensions in the Core and portions of the Inner Rim.
"But we're getting off topic. So, who will be chosen to watch this Reborn faction as they grow into power?" Sheev asked, visibly turning back to the current subject.
"The Duchess Sabine has promised to oversee a gradual and controlled change of office. Knight Kenobi will remain on planet until the changeover is complete, along with Master Plo Koon. Then they will be replaced by another Master and padawan pair, who have yet to be chosen."
The first sector Jedi for that sector," Palpatine said smiling. "A true coup, that. The locals' agreeing with that idea put forth by Bo Katan was a major point in my faction's decision to not get involved."
And it would make acting against that both the Mandalorians and the Order later on easier if Palpatine could create some data to show actual collusion going on between the groups. Such an alliance would terrify many in the Republic, despite it having been more than a thousand years since the Mandalorians were an actual threat.
What the Jedi didn't realize was that while his moderates had indeed gained ground during this campaign, that was because most of those senators were now personally loyal to Sidious rather than the moderate position. His own power base had grown because of that, and he could act somewhat more openly now in certain areas like the judicial system, which he would have completely under his control soon enough.
Any corruption there then would be his, serving his purposes. It wouldn't be precisely what the Jedi had thought, but there would be a marked improvement from their point of view, furthering their impression that Palpatine was someone they could work with going forward from here on, as well as a political force to be reckoned with. And I will soon even have that busybody Antilles out of the way.
"I hope this Mandalore issue does not come around to bite us all, in the long-term," Palpatine said now, allowing his face to frown for a moment. "If it does, the Order will be vilified for your stance, and my own position weakened harshly."
"The future is as the Force wills," said Gallia, shrugging her shoulders, though her eyes showed her worry. "We will see the future when it arrives; borrowing trouble in the now will do us no good."
After a few more moments of discussion about how various senators had reacted to the ongoing debates in the Mandalorian system and the final outbreak of violence there, Palpatine signaled the end of the discussion by standing up and stating he had to get on with the rest of his workday. As the Jedi were moving towards the doorway Palpatine said, "By the way, allow me to give you my condolences on the loss of Master Ti. I did not know her well, of course. I had only met her briefly right after the Trade Federation's embargo of my home planet ended, but she struck me as an intelligent and forceful personality."
Dooku turned back, smiling widely. "Your condolences are premature. Master Ti will pull through her wounds, something we are all thankful for."
"Praise the Force. That is the phrase, yes?" Palpatine said, his face now smiling though inside he was railing at the news. "That is good news." Palpatine's face shifted into a concerned gaze. "Though there is also a report I have from a Mid Rim world called Fontomo of someone attacking a chapter house of the Bounty Hunters' Guild? Senator Boradull's own daughter apparently saw the attack, and saw fit to contact her father about it, hence why I heard about it."
"That would be an ally of the Order, not a Jedi himself. He has some specialized Force techniques that we are trying to slowly merge into our own," Dooku said hesitantly, a little startled at how Ranma's actions had just popped up.
"I see," Palpatine said, frowning thoughtfully. "That sounds rather odd, but I won't comment on it. The Jedi Order's business is its own, of course. But I would ask you to pass a message on that in the future acting unilaterally like that is something the Senate will frown on."
Dooku winced, while the other two Masters stood, their faces showing no emotion. "I'm afraid that Ranma is a sort of uncontrollable personality, and Master Ti was a close friend of his. Indeed, her mission these days is to essentially keep him out of trouble. And the Bounty Hunters' Guild assaulted her in an underhanded fashion, taking hostages to her good conduct."
"Ah, if there was actual evidence of that, that these were truly bounty hunters and they acted in such a manner, then it becomes more understandable. Yet even so this Ranma fellow and the other injured parties should have worked through official channels rather than turning vigilante. There are laws in the Republic, after all."
"We will inform him of such, as soon as it is shown that this Senate and the Republic as a whole are able to control the Bounty Hunters' Guild. The bounty hunters were not just implicated, they admitted it in front of the hostages they were using at the time," Dooku replied, his voice turning cold.
Sidious inwardly cursed, not because that could ever lead back to him, which was impossible, but because if the bounty hunters were proven to have taken such a bounty and chased after it in such a way, the Jedi and the Senate would have to move against them. Even trying to mitigate their actions behind the scenes would lose Palpatine quite a lot of political capital, and he could never do so openly. Like taking bounties on senators, there were some things that the Senate would just not abide from the Bounty Hunters' guild, though that did not, of course, stop illegal bounty hunters, more assassins than anything else, from taking such jobs anyway.
"I see," he said, allowing his lips to form a grave line. "In that case, whatever actions this Ranma took I will unilaterally allow under Republic law. If you ever contact him, tell him good luck for me. Terrorist acts like that need to be repaid, after all."
All three Jedi thanked him for that, and he watched as they left before turning back to his room. He waited a few moments then moved over to one of his new office's interior walls. Reaching out through the Force with a tiny tendril of power he pulled a latch on the other side of the wall which allowed him access to his hidden throne room.
Sitting down in the chair there after changing out of his formal robes, Sidious sighed, leaning back as he let the last vestige of his Palpatine guise fade utterly. I did not get everything I wanted out of this. The Dark Side take the Chaotic Locus! The Togrutan female should have died, at the very least. Beheading the Reborn would have been an excellent addition, but no, neither occurred. Worse, the Jedi Order seems to have succeeded in calming the hatred between their order and the Mandalorians. I would never have imagined such a thing was even possible. Yet the Reborn are still too weak to be a threat.
For a moment Sidious thought about the future when his clone armies would be active in the galaxy, and let a thin smile appear on his face. The genetic clones of the greatest warrior of their society, against the society itself. I wonder what the outcome would be? Of course my legions will be limitless in number, but the bloodshed would still be very great, as would the irony. It would be even more delicious if the clones are commanded by Fett himself.
Sidious's thoughts moved on, much calmer now. Despite none of the Jedi on Mandalore dying, others have died elsewhere, which is serving my purposes. That, and the cracks between the Senate and the Jedi Order are growing, and my apprentice successfully extricated herself and our more useful pawns. True, she was forced to kill her alter ego, but that body double she prepared in advance certainly served its purpose. I also have more than enough information about this Ranma's training and speed technique to re-create them to a certain extent, though that energy shield he was able to create will probably take me years to devise a Dark Side equivalent of. And there is no hint of my involvement anywhere. As the fools said, my position as Chancellor is stronger now than it was.
At a faint touch of the Force a hologram of the Republic came up, a far more complete one than most anyone else could've gotten. Even the Jedi Order wouldn't be able to match it as their databases were missing several planets, including Kamino, Wayland, and a few others that his order had hidden in the past and made a point of deleting from any records. At another gesture the Republic's icons began to change. They showed those planets he controlled via political or economic means, those planets whose leaders knew his overall goal (few and far between, of course), those planets whose loyalty he could count on, the planets that were loyal to the Jedi Order, and those upon which his control was limited, like Alderaan.
Those he controlled grossly outnumbered the ones he did not, but they grew further and farther between the more you moved out from the Core Worlds. His influence out there was more sparse, but also somewhat more important given his ongoing plans. The Tech Union, the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, the Banking Clan. The four powers I will use to form the Separatist movement in the future. Three of them already answered to Sidious, lock, stock, and barrel, and the Commerce Guild would come around within the next few months, though he would soon have to send Komari Vosa as his 'advisor' to their current group of leaders.
After a moment's contemplation of that map he shifted it once more, watching as one planet in particular glowed bright red, the color he used to denote a specific interest. Other planets were already glowing the same color, but he concentrated on this one for a moment.
There Master Bulq was acting on a hint he had passed on to find a wayward Jedi padawan who had given herself to the Dark Side after her Master had died during their attempt to bring several warring warlords on that planet to heel. The power of that padawan was one he had felt in the Dark Side, marking her as more powerful in terms of raw strength than even Vosa. He had done so while meditating on the collapse of his plans on Mandalore, as if the Force itself was aiding him to make up for that debacle. Truly, it is my destiny to ascend to the position of Emperor and wipe out the Jedi!
While Master Bulq would be unable to take that young being on full-time as his padawan given Quinlan's ongoing reeducation, that padawan would disappear for a time from the Order, staying away from the temple and everyone else. During that time Palpatine would finish the work he had begun, turning Bulq, the padawan, and possibly even Vos to his purpose, while also moving the Great Plan forward. He would then use Bulq, Vos, and Vosa as his hidden blades, while making the padawan into his mailed fist, his assassin as Maul had been.
"Dance on your strings however you wish, Jedi," he thought to himself as he allowed himself a moment of dark humor. "Do whatever you wish, move however you wish. The future belongs to the Dark Side, and thus, to me."
Indeed, I could also turn the Chaotic Locus's rampage to my own ends. Judging by my reports about it, the Chaotic Locus is not very analytically minded. If so, I could both warn the Crimson Nova he is coming, and provide them some weapons from a few of my underground contacts. Yes, they might well serve to finally kill it for me…
OOOOOOO
The Force remained recalcitrant during the next few jumps and right up until the moment where Ranma would have to put his possible skill to the test. He was once more on the bridge as he had been for the last few jumps, and Ranma had already seen what Tune had been talking about in terms of this being a nebula.
For one thing the backdrop of stars was bright, with far more stardust than he had ever seen before. There was literal color out there between the thousands of stars. For another, the star systems were younger. All of the stars were far younger in their lifespans and closer together than anywhere else he had been before.
And they had way more junk in each star system. The entire nebula was known as a major mining center for the rest of the Republic, with a lot of starships moving in and out, mining here and there on small planets, and even asteroid mining. But all of that junk, the stars and the scattered wayward planets which seemed to change hands between systems every few thousand years, made for an ever-changing astronavigational mess.
Their target was supposedly orbiting a gas giant whose gases had been mined out several hundred years ago, but before that had been a decent gas mining operation. The ship might have actually been involved in the operation at some point, but it must've been left behind or sold before winding up in the hands of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, and in particular the Crimson Nova chapter.
This chapter was one of the larger branches of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, with over a thousand long-term members and a few hundred bounty hunters who were affiliated with both it and one of the other chapters. Ranma didn't care about that, it was enough to make a fight of it, sure, but he had an objective and he would see it through.
With a sigh Ranma nodded over to Tune who had already turned the ship in the proper direction for the hyperspace jump into their target system. "My turn, huh?"
"Sardonic drawl: Of course it is, master. You, after all, said you would be able to do this."
Ranma scowled, but bent his head in acknowledgement. His hands cocked over the controls ready to input the coordinates, he closed his eyes and reached for the Force, and this time this time the Force actually gave him a response. Okay, he thought, obviously the Force really doesn't want to try to control me. Or rather knows it can't control me now beyond a certain point? Whatever, unimportant right now. It's not like I'm going to ask the Force for guidance often or anything like that.
Still, it's giving me an answer now, and that is the important thing. With that, Ranma began to input the coordinates, his mind's eye seeing the destination. It was weird, strange, and very unusual, but he could deal with it.
Nonetheless, Ranma input the coordinates then looked over at Tune seriously. "We're going to be coming in right on top of it. HK, get ready by the ramp. The moment we come out of hyperspace I'm opening it and you're going! You know what to do."
"Ecstatic glee: Raise hell, cause chaos and carnage, master. You are just too good to me!" HK declaimed, then turned without another word making his way back to the landing ramp.
"Tune, once I blast our way inside I'm going to land the Wild Light wherever the hell I can. I'll try to aim for an actual landing bay, but don't hold high hopes for that. After that, after I disembark, you'll be in charge of defending the ship however you see fit."
"Understood, master," Tune said, his tone telling Ranma that he was unhappy with that prospect. On the other hand, his tone was firm too. Tune liked Shaak as well, and knew that this place was the origin for, if not the actual bounty, the place that agreed to take said bounty.
Ranma nodded and hit the button. A second later they jumped into hyperspace. Fifteen minutes later they came out, heading almost straight towards the Crimson Nova's space station with barely five kilometer's distance between them, which was the equivalent of spitting distance in space.
The gas giant behind the Crimson Nova's rig was monstrous, three or four times the size of Jupiter and was far more orange and purple then Jupiter or Saturn was in the pictures Ranma had seen back on Earth. It was ringed and possibly surrounded in large areas by debris, within which was the target.
The space station which was their target was the largest chunk of metal in orbit, and didn't look at all like the ship it had been originally, having been added to over the decades so that it was fifteen times its original size. Yet it was a speck in comparison to the gas giant it orbited. But it was large enough to take the Wild Light's attempt to ram it and survive relatively intact.
Tune let loose a loud electronic squawk of alarm, and Ranma cursed, pulling up on the controls, aiming between two of the nacelles at the back of the original dreadnought, flipping open one of the screens that hid the ion cannon from view as he began to fire. Kriffing Force, trying to get me killed, I swear! "Go, HK!" he shouted.
Instead of powering up his shields Ranma opened the landing bay. If he had been looking back at the hatch into the cockpit he would've seen a warning light showing that it had detected that there was now no air beyond the cockpit for a moment. Already in position by the landing bay HK rocketed out using the jet pack strapped to his larger than average back towards the space station below them just as the Wild Light crested over the back of the massive ship.
His jump jets carried HK straight down onto the retrofitted space station, where his claw like feet clamped on magnetically. Looking around he detected the nearest weak point in the armor, a turbolaser turret that was even now turning to try to track the wildly swerving Wild Light. Swiftly HK fired one of the small Mandalorian rockets at the turbolaser.
The weapon's barrel shattered under the blow, and HK rushed forward quickly, or as quickly as he could using magnetic grapples for feet. Then he began to rip and tear at the surrounding turret making his own entrance into the ship.
Elsewhere Ranma juked and dove under and around incoming fire, returning fire with his ion cannon, and shutting down whole swaths of the space station's defenses. The original dreadnought's shields were energy guzzlers and slow to bring online, hence why this particular design had been mothballed hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. Having had other junk added to it in such proliferation had not done anything for that, and there was only a faint heat signature to indicate that the shield generators were coming online. Ranma also noted several dozen starfighters out beyond the gas giant's orbit where he supposed the normal hyperspace jump-in points were located.
Swiftly realizing the danger, Ranma targeted the shield generators with his ion cannon. These were small bulbous tubes or cylinders laid out lengthwise, sticking out slightly from the hull here and there. Ranma couldn't tell which had been part of the original dreadnaught's design, and which had been added later with the rest of the junk. Regardless, the ion cannon short-circuited each of his targets in a blast of electrical fire, which flared for an instant in the dead of space. Ranma also used his quad lasers to good effect rolling here and there to fire down on the unprotected turbolasers and quad lasers that were trying to hit him in turn.
He couldn't dodge all of the incoming fire, though, causing Ranma to realize that a single person could not fight using the Wild Light as well as two. Of course, that's partially why I'm here. If Shaak was still flying next to me I wouldn't've come here in the first place.
But Ranma put the space station between him and them for a moment. He kept the sections which he had already pretty much demolished facing behind him at all times so he didn't have to deal with incoming fire from behind, then began to target the incoming starfighters slightly beyond their own range.
Three of them died to his quad lasers, another to one of his proton torpedoes and then he was in and among them. "Tune, watch our shields. Redirect energy from our ion cannon. Shut that down for now and pull it back in," Ranma ordered, grimacing as the dogfight began. Normally he would've been able to do that, but concentrating on both firing and flying was difficult enough as it was.
"Affirmative, master," Tune replied, then went on quickly. "HK reports that he has infiltrated the target. The interior security seems to sub-par at the moment according to him, but he believes that is 90% because of surprise rather than lack of weaponry or knowledge. The bounty hunters are all well-armed and seemingly have interior defenses as well."
"In other words I need to finish here quickly or he'll be overwhelmed?" Ranma asked, turning two weird looking Uglies into so much shrapnel with a single burst from a quad laser that strafed them both out of space behind him. With the two dead he turned the ship around on a dime to dive below several others as they tried to come at him from every direction. Six more blasts from each quad laser, and six more old looking starfighters died.
Among the Uglies were a few far more dangerous ships: a few Cloakshape fighters, two modern-day Sprites, and several larger ships. One was obviously a yacht, another looked like a custom patrol ship. Another was a little heavier than the others, some kind of Corellian designed merchant ship, Ranma thought. Whatever it was it wasn't built to look pretty, being a small hammerhead design, with large weapons systems up on the front and thrusters at the back, but for all that it was rather maneuverable.
Realizing that it was probably the most dangerous threat Ranma locked it up with two proton torpedoes and sentenced it to hell in a burst of protonic fire. He then stitched up the yacht after a series of exchanges that pushed the Wild Light's shields into the yellow for a moment. That loss seemed to put the fight out of the seven ships remaining. They all retreated quickly towards the space station, moving to take up defensive positions above the portions that still had weapons.
Ranma, however, didn't bother closing with them once more. He corkscrewed around until he was facing them and gunned the engines. As he accelerated towards them, he locked up each one in turn firing a single proton torpedo, destroying them before they could turn back towards him.
"Return power back to the ion cannon and trot it out Tune." Almost immediately Ranma noticed that doing so took their shields down from the yellow into the red. That dogfight had taken it out of the ship more than he had thought, but that was all right.
The space station couldn't rotate, either because of the damage Ranma had already done, or because it lacked the maneuvering thrusters to do so given all the junk that it consisted of. Regardless it was a weakness Ranma exploited once more. With another proton torpedo Ranma smashed open the entrance to a hangar bay on the damaged side of the ship, entering quickly and letting the Wild Light settle down onto its landing gear without even engaging the rest of the space station's defenses.
Sensibly the locals hadn't decided to try and defend the landing area, instead letting Ranma enter and pulling back their defenses to more defensible positions. On the interior of the hanger bay was a large interior hatch which was currently closed, but it opened as Ranma neared it before closing after him automatically, showing him into the interior of a large airlock. Hmm, now either that is a program or other they haven't been able to do anything about, or they have a trap prepared and want to lead me to it. Hmm… Yeah right, with my luck it's obviously the second one.
As if to give that thought further emphasis the interior door opened quickly only to close behind him after he stepped through with a clang and an ominous sounding groan. Inside the gravity was still on, which meant HK hadn't made it to his objective. "HK, where are you?" Ranma asked into his wrist computer/communicator as he pulled off his rebreather.
"Crisp report: About two floors away from my initial objective, master. I have run into heavy resistance."
Ranma frowned, thinking of where the droid would be from his current position as he raced forward, only to stop at the first intersection. "Ahh, there we go!" Instead of trying to defend the intersection, the bounty hunters had pulled back in each direction from the hangar bay and now laid down a withering hail of fire from all three directions.
Bouncing to one side Ranma bounced again up off the wall in an effort to dodge the incoming fire, but he was hit multiple times in those first few seconds, since the bounty hunters were simply trying to fill the space with blaster fire, an enfilade rather than aimed fire. His durability, however, was up to this challenge, and he returned fire with both of the pistols Bo had given him as he continued to bounce around, starting to cling to the walls and ceilings for brief moments of time.
His return shots were aimed single shots impacting the bounty hunters gathered to one side of the intersection. As the last fell he raced forward towards it, taking more shots in the back which caused him to wince before he dived into cover, turned and began to return fire.
"Holy hells, what kind of armor is the kriffer wearing!?" shouted one voice.
"Who the kriff cares, pour it on. Eventually his armor or whatever will break!"
"I didn't even see him wearing any armor! It's just his skin; so much for his being human!"
Amongst these shouts the group from the direction Ranma had initially been going came out from behind cover, moving towards the intersection. They began using the corridor's edge as cover to fire around it at Ranma, while Ranma fired back towards them and the fellows from the third direction.
Realizing how close this second group was Ranma stopped trying to fire with one blaster. Flipping it up into the air he grabbed at his belt with his now free hand, throwing a thermal grenade forward before grabbing the blaster rifle out of the air and hurling himself up and over the concrete block that he had been using as cover following the grenade.
"Look out, back off!" The grenade exploded while that group rapidly tried to back away, getting in each other's way as they did. Ranma ran into the smoke and fire of the explosion, getting in amongst them and leaping sideways down into that corridor with them to get away from the third angle of this defense.
Fists struck like hammers, legs like pistons, and even those aliens naturally stronger or faster than humans, such as a few Trandoshans, one mangy black-furred Wookie, and a few others, could not stand against Ranma in close combat. Grabbing two of their bodies he hurled them out into the corridor containing the last group. The bodies slammed into a few bounty hunters who had broken out of cover to try and take him under fire once more then Ranma raced on.
Behind him the few remaining defenders tried to move after Ranma, hoping to catch up and maybe take him from both sides when he ran into the next defensive post. But Ranma was gone when they rounded the corner. "Wh…where'd he go?"
"Look for some grates or a loose plate. Or maybe he hid among the bodies back theEEEE!" Suddenly Ranma wasn't gone, appearing out of nowhere right in their midst, his fists flashing and legs smashing out as he came out of the Umi-Sen-Ken. Within seconds the last bounty hunter went down, his thorax, he was a kind of bug alien, crushed.
All of the bounty hunters here were similarly dead, a marked remove from Ranma's normal habit of incapacitating most and killing only a few. Ranma might not have given into the Soul of Ice, and as such it did make him feel rather guilty, but given the actions on Mandalore, not guilty enough to stop him from wiping out this entire chapter of the Bounty Hunters' Guild.
After a moment spent staring at the bodies, Ranma raced on. Idly he wondered if he should just disappear into the Umi-Sen-Ken technique entirely, but decided not to seeing as he wanted to pull some attention away from HK. But given the amount of garbage, refuse, and other stuff that he was moving through, it didn't seem necessary just yet.
The next defense Ranma ran into was far more serious than the first. It was at another cross section in the ship's corridor on this floor, but it also had a spiraling staircase leading up and down in one corner and had been redesigned to look like a large amphitheater.
"There he is! Fire!" An instant after he came within sight of the location fire came at him from practically every direction within it. The defenders were hiding behind ferocrete blocks, and they were also far more heavily armed than the first group. Skimmer rated blaster rifles, SAWs, a few quad cannons set up on pintle mounts, several portable concussion missile launchers, and surprisingly one portable turbolaser. It looked as if someone had stripped it from an old tank or something of that nature and put it on a tiny mount. Ranma didn't know how they'd come up with that, but it was certainly deadly.
"Damn it!" Ranma ducked back into cover, but that cover, a door leading into a small garden of some kind, disintegrated under a blast from the turbolaser. The blast liquefied the door and portions of the corridor, and Ranma hissed in agony as the molten metal hit his arms, quickly backing away pulling it off along with portions of his skin.
My durability isn't up to that! Luckily Ranma's healing factor kicked in quickly, the wounds healing as he watched. Sighing he raced forward again, disappearing into the Umi-Sen-Ken technique between one step and another.
"Where did he go?!"
"I don't krfiffing know, yah spasmer! Everyone stay in position, damn your eyes! Zac, take three people and move forward. See if you can find him. He might've just retreated entirely, trying to get around us to get to that damned droid that the others are pinning down." This last was spoken by a large alien that looked wolf-like, like a Shistavian but not quite. He was obviously older than the first speaker, a gangly looking humanoid of the same race as Master Poof, who Ranma had met briefly on Coruscant.
"Sure, but it'd take him way out of his way. They're nearly finished with that damned droid anyway, so even if he is it won't matter!" said another bounty hunter, a human this time.
"Moron, we'd still have to hunt him down, you know!"
Ranma appeared again, coming out of the Umi-Sen-Ken technique in amongst the group that had two concussion missile launchers, deciding that they were the greatest threat. Ranma could survive a single turbolaser blast, but being hit by concussion missiles might be a little worse, especially given the fact there were several of them as opposed to the one turbolaser. But even as he laid into them, destroying both missile launchers and killing several of them, Ranma forgot one thing: that bounty hunters with their backs to the wall like this were just like any other scum, and would willingly throw each other under the bus.
The group with the portable turbolaser turned on that position quickly, and Ranma howled in agony as the turbolaser's beam of plasma found his side, hurling him down the corridor. Pain, agony like nothing Ranma had ever felt seared his skin and shattered bones from the sheer impact of the weapon. But he was healing even as he rolled away, his healing ability up to the task if far slower than normal given the severity of his wound.
He lashed out with a finger at a wall, growling "Bakusai Tenketsu Revised!" then leapt forward into the mass of cylinders and fizzing electronic cables as more fire crisscrossed the area he'd just been in. Okay, I need to get out of here and cloak. Can't let them find me as injured as I am… With that thought Ranma started to smash his way through the walls to one of the other corridors leading into the amphitheater.
Smashing through the guts of the ship like this wasn't quiet, and the defenders in that corridor were ready for him, or they thought they were, anyway. When the wall right behind their position exploded, they'd already turned in that direction. But Ranma wasn't there, their blaster bolts hitting nothing.
"Just fire!" shouted one of them, immediately following his own suggestion. Even the turbolaser fired at the space where they thought Ranma should be just in case he had some kind of Jedi trick that could make him invisible.
Ranma, however, had retreated slightly and came into the same meeting area again from a different direction, blasting open the wall directly in front of a group of bounty hunters who were defending their fellows' backs. "GAAHh, he's over URghgh!"
The exploding wall perforated their bodies and they went down as Ranma leaped over their dying bodies into the other group with the turbolaser smashing it with a "Moko Takabasha!" A sphere of cerulean energy lashed out, blowing up the semi-portable turbolaser as he closed with the rest. His body still healing from the turbolaser blast he hadn't been able to dodge before the bounty hunters lasted a lot longer in close range than most would have normally but that didn't matter. With Ranma no longer limiting his strength and speed they were still no match for him once he got within arms' reach.
Moments later the last of these defenders went down, and Ranma pulled out his radio again, his skin still badly blistered from that blast and a few more cuts bleeding here and there from vibroblade strikes, but still fit to fight. "HK, did you hear that bit of action?"
"Distracted tone: Yes, master. I think you are about three hundred feet to the left and one level above where I am currently pinned down. I regret I cannot break out without risking sufficient damage to my person to render me inoperable until repaired."
Ranma nodded. "Don't worry, I'll be there in a moment."
Still limping and with one rib stubbornly refusing to heal properly, Ranma moved on more much more slowly now. After leaving the amphitheater behind via one of the spiral staircases he slipped once more into the Umi-Sen-Ken and didn't run into anymore defenders until he came upon the group pinning HK down. Before they knew what hit them he was in and among them, and within moments he had cleared the corridor. "HK, it's clear now."
At his words HK came out from hiding behind yet another one of the ferocrete blocks. The droid's claw arm hung limp at his side, once more damaged, and his anything goes shoulder cannon was now completely shorn off. But he still had a blaster in his hand, and moved forward with alacrity, showing no significant damage to his torso or legs except for a few burn marks here and there on his robotic hide. "Respectful approval: Excellent work, master. Should we still follow the plan?"
"Have you been able to download a schematic of this place?"
"Aggrieved tone: While I was able to access the ship's computers, they do not have one on file, master. Nor is there any kind of engineering sector. I was able to find and shut down one of the lesser power generators, master, but not the gravity emitter. Upbeat report: however there are few places on a ship this size where such a device could be stored." Gravity emitters did just what the name implied, they created gravity on ships and space stations. The larger the ship, the larger the emitter had to be, though no gravity emitter was small enough to fit in a starfighter.
"That sucks. Still, are you good to split up again?"
The droid clipped his blaster rifle to his thigh guard for a moment with a magnetic strip, then began fiddling with a piece or something on one of his shoulders. A second later his claw arm twitched, coming alive again, though it spritzed every time it moved to the left side, and didn't seem to be able to move far in that direction. The claw itself seemed stuck in the open position too. "Analytical response: I am about at about 89% combat effectiveness, master. I have also dealt with over three hundred hostiles at this time. Might I inquire as to your own kill count?"
Ranma shrugged, keeping his emotions in check through control rather than the Soul of Ice once more. "Something like that. Not nearly enough yet. Anyway, I'll go that way," Ranma waved vaguely in the direction he remembered being the one which would lead him to the front of the space station. "You head the other, and we both start breaking shit, 'kay?"
HK nodded agreeably, and the two parted ways.
The rest of the battle against the Crimson Nova was somewhat anti-climactic because of two things: one, the bounty hunters seemed to have used most of their heavy weapons during that second attempt to ambush Ranma, and two, Ranma used the Umi-Sen-Ken technique almost continuously to get in amongst them. Once there, the bounty hunters would throw what honor they had out the airlock and would turn their heavy weapons on one another, but they did much more damage to themselves than to Ranma.
Twice Ranma was still tagged by concussion missile explosions, and his leg was mangled at one point when someone actually used an anti-tank mine, killing himself but also wounding Ranma badly. But even with that wound Ranma won that fight, and by the time he found more bounty hunters the damage had been healed.
Ranma's charge towards the front of the ship and the bridge, or rather the place where the bridge used to be and where the guild master's room was now, brought in all the remaining bounty hunters scattered around the ship. Ranma ran into over five hundred more bounty hunters in the next few hours, whereas HK only ran into a bare two hundred, cutting them down quickly before destroying his objective. "Gleeful pride: Master, gravity is going off line in four seconds!"
Ranma and HK could both move in zero-G much more easily than most of the bounty hunters could, and after that, the fight was pretty much over.
"Tune, did any of them try to escape via survival pods?" Ranma said into his communicator, the thing crackling with static thanks to the intervening hull.
"Negative, master. In fact I've done a survey of the outer hull of the ship as we attacked it, and I have only found a single survival pod. It is situated near the front of the ship, and it is obviously old but also not part of the original ship."
Ranma nodded his head slowly, holding onto a wall for a moment before kicking off it, heading forward once more. "Good." After a few more small clashes he finally reached the large doors leading into the bridge.
The area around them had refuse strewn in places and a lot of rust, as well as a grease trail indicating that the doors must have stood open at one point. But at the moment they were closed, with a single body left on the floor in front of them. The body in question was a middle-aged man who had been missing an arm prior to his death, a single blaster bolt through the chest being the cause of said death. This wasn't the first dead bounty hunter Ranma had seen, the bounty hunters having turned on one another, possibly a few wanting to parlay with him while others wanted to try and hold out, but that was only a guess.
This man's death, however, seemed far more deliberate, as if it had been a message to others. There was, in fact, a message carved into the man's bald head as if by a knife or claw. Trying to read it with his limited ability with the local written language, Ranma remembered the times Shaak had tried to teach him the language, only to feel another pang of grief at her injury before he pushed it down for now. "Cowards die first, or die now, something like that… Well, they were right about the first thing anyway."
Moving back, Ranma put his back against a wall, hooking his legs into a bit of piping that stuck out of the floor there, then launched his hands forward shouting, "Moko Takabisha!"
The cerulean blast of ki, or Force, slammed into the door, and Ranma kept up the attack, powering it into a beam of energy rather than the normal sphere. Ranma estimated that it took about thirty seconds for the ki attack to burn through the heavily reinforced security door, which was enough to make him feel the drain, but not enough to worry about.
As he had expected the defenders inside were ready. They opened fire the moment the ki blast dissipated with even more weapons than Ranma had seen so far, including two more semi-portable turbolasers. Over the cacophony of the barrage two voices could be heard shouting encouragement of a sort. "Kill him or die ourselves, it's that simple, you kriffers. We will prove we are the strongest!" shouted one, while the other shouted, "His bounty will buy us a fleet to replace the Rig if we can only take it!"
After a brief second Ranma launched himself forward, spring boarding up over the now incredibly mangled doorway. The two turbolasers couldn't recharge before he was in the room, his hands lashing out to either side. In one hand he held a blaster pistol, which stitched the controllers of one turbolaser to pieces. The other hand launched another Moko Takabisha, hitting the other portable turbolaser's rear.
It exploded taking with it several of the bounty hunters on that side of the room, and Ranma kicked off of the ceiling launching himself to the side and down into another group, kicking and lashing out, bouncing here and there, using each attack or block to move around in zero-G like he was born there, while the rest of the bounty hunters couldn't move nearly as fast despite most of them having magnetic boots.
Two of the bounty hunters made a fight of it, closing with fang and swords. They were both of the same race, one that looked enough like a feline to make Ranma start as they charged him, but not enough, thankfully, to send him running off in terror. After all they were walking on their hind legs and shouting actual war cries rather than wordless snarls. One was a massive male, dwarfing Ranma by a few feet, with black fur and wielding a sword in one hand. The other was a svelte looking female slightly shorter than Ranma with brindled fur of orange and white. "Kill the karking Jedi!"
"I'm not a Jedi. A Jedi would try to take you scum alive," Ranma said coldly as he matched their charge with one of his own. He grabbed the male's outstretched arm, flipping under it and kicking out hard enough to shatter his head, using the momentum to hurl himself back toward the female.
She had a disruptor in her hand, trying to aim at the insanely quick Jedi, moving remarkably quickly in her magnetized boots to dodge out and away from Ranma's lunge, shrieking in fury in her own tongue. Before she could hit Ranma, however, HK arrived, gunning her and several others down, ending the fight.
Ranma stared down at her, then over at HK. "Find the one who's supposed to be the guild master."
HK pointed his gun at the female cat-like alien. "Amused drawl: this one matches the physical discretion of the chapter mistress, master. The guild's image of her will have to be updated on account of half of her face now missing."
"Good. Now let's see if their communication systems are still up. See if you can open a communication to whoever the hell is supposed to be in charge of the Bounty Hunters' Guild as a whole."
Moments later Ranma was staring into a computer screen set to one side of the bridge, which had been turned into a hangout of the chapter mistress and her closest cronies, or so Ranma assumed. It was certainly cleaner and had been better lit than the rest of the ship, though that wasn't saying much.
The Trandoshan on the other side was older looking than any other of his race Ranma had seen so far, with gray scales almost in places, not green or brown, and he looked as if he had scars upon scars on his shoulders and face. "You are not the chapter master of the Crimson Nova," The Trandoshan said, then blinked at something off-screen. "You are the bounty, Ranma."
"There is no more Crimson Nova chapter. I just killed it," Ranma said bluntly. "The Crimson Nova chapter master authorized a bounty on Jedi Master Shaak Ti. They attacked, then held hostages, forcing her to lower her weapons before trying to gun her down, killing twenty five civilians during the attack along with ten first responders. I take offense to this, both the civilian losses and the tactics."
"You lot can come after me one-on-one if you want, or three hundred on one, I don't fucking care! When you harm innocents I will strike back, and when you take on the Jedi like that all bets are off. I destroyed the base they used to resupply themselves before arriving on Mandalore, and then tracked the bounty authorization here. They were ready for me, and I bet the entire Crimson Nova chapter was here on hand when we arrived. Certainly the numbers we've seen match that. It didn't save them."
Ranma leaned forward. "They became the hunted. Pray you do not give me an excuse to hunt again. Understood?"
The Trandoshan, whose name was Cradock, was not used to being intimidated. But as Ranma was talking, HK had held up the dead body of the chapter master in the background, and he could see the room beyond the droid. The amphitheater/party hall/meeting area that had been the workspace for the chapter master of the Crimson Nova was littered with bodies. There were only the two of them, that attack droid and this warrior…against over one thousand bounty hunters.
He wouldn't, of course, take their word for it, but he would act at least as if he did for now. And if the story was true, well one of the creeds of the Bounty Hunters' Guild was no bounty was worth their own lives, and that certainly seemed to be the case now. Besides, if a bounty hunter had taken on a bounty for a Jedi he'd have enough fecal matter coming his way anyway soon enough. It wouldn't be the first illegal bounty taken, but it would be the first high-profile one since he had disbarred Aurra Sing's membership in the order. And did not that poisonous bitch also die recently, right after this human's bounty first appeared?
With a brusque nod the alien cut the connection, and Ranma turned away. Let's get out of here, HK," he said, suddenly tired, more tired than he'd been in a long while. Healing his body after so many wounds and blasts had taken a lot out of him, and his stomach told him he needed to be refueled in no uncertain terms, growling at him like a monster.
It took the two of them about ten minutes to traverse the space station back to where Ranma had left the Wild Light. Astonishingly none of the bounty hunters had tried to attack the ship, but Ranma wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. A moment later Ranma put on his rebreather again, and the two of them made their way out to the Wild Light.
As they were moving out of the hanger bay Tune said, "Master, I had a thought. The Bounty Hunters' Guild could come back and still use this base. It's a powerful one, after all, and a very decent hiding space, especially if the engines could be repaired."
"What would you suggest?" Ranma asked. "We don't have enough proton torpedoes left to destroy it unless we find something inside that'll cause a secondary explosion."
"We don't need to, master. We just need to destroy the rotational thrusters. I analyzed it, and those thrusters are all placed on the inner edge. They are why the space station is keeping orbit over the gas giant and can't move otherwise. Destroy them, then push the ship slightly down towards the gas giant, and the planet's gravity will do the rest."
Ranma nodded, and followed the suggestion, using the ion cannon to burn off more of the outside of the ship, and then used proton torpedoes to attack weak points, shattering segments of the space station. Almost immediately he began to see a noticeable difference in the space station's altitude as it was pulled, at first slowly, then faster and faster into the gas giant's atmosphere. Ranma watched for a few moments until it became obvious nothing could save the station, then sighed, turning away. "Let's go, we're done here."
End Chapter
I know the Rig, the Crimson Nova ship, wasn't nearly that large. No, I don't care. Given the size of the Republic, having a chapter of bounty hunters number a little over a thousand isn't a stretch, and no way could they all, or even a large number of them, live on a ship the size of the original rig.
I hope I mixed politics, violence, and the random romantic moments/Ranma style comedy well in this chapter, and that you all enjoyed the chapter. I had a devil of a time coming up with ways to show the political side of things without trying to sound as if I was either trying to fix everything or reinvent the wheel.
As always, if you enjoyed it please leave a review. I am particularly interested in whether the bits of scattered politics were enough, since I didn't want to delve into them too much but also wanted to show enough that the reader could understand what was going on.
From now on, Ranma and Shaak will start having more of their own adventures, while events elsewhere continue as in canon, so I won't have to continue to deal with politics. Well, not after a final bit with the Mandos anyway. I'll also be able to start introducing more characters that can actually challenge Ranma.
