Not named Disney nor Takahashi.
I had a poll back in March to determine what format the rest of my work this month beyond ATP would take. The winner was a large story, plus Making Waves and one small story if possible. The Small story should be done sometime tomorrow - RL issues back during the third week of the month held me up big time. This story, needless to say, won the big story poll. FILFy, of course, won the small story poll but won't be updated this month. No way would I be able to get that out without another week minimum. AGGC came in second but due to RL issues and the fact the next chapter is looking to me more like 22,000 words rather than the 10,000 words I thought it would be, will not be updated for now.
This chapter has been edited by Hiryo for his Ranma mastery and myself via Grammarly. Of course, Grammarly isn't perfect, Still, i can hope there aren't enough mistakes to hinder your enjoyment of the chapter.
Chapter 21: Muddy Reunion
It was a sign of his self-control that Sidious was able to keep smiling and talking, wheeling and dealing with his fellow senators even as he felt the Force shift once more. The Veil of the Dark Side was still in place of course, but some Dark Side user, indeed several of them had died. Not at the same moment, but close enough that their deaths reverberated with each other, creating a ripple he could feel even here. And there were only two effects that could have occurred.
Even as he kept moving through the soiree Sidious slowly, carefully reached out, his own Force Presence occluded by his mastery of Force Stealth and the mental discipline which allowed him to interact with the Force without giving his identity away. It wouldn't have worked if any Jedi were in the room or even the building, but thankfully none had been invited or thought to crash, this meeting of pro-Centrist senators, and there were none elsewhere Sidious knew. It was a small, ostensibly unimportant party to celebrate the birth of a son to the Senator of a major Core World. But in actuality, there would be several new alliances made, and four agreements to back the creation of a new naval depot, one that wouldn't officially exist until right after hostilities were declared. The fleet Kuat was slowly constructing in their hidden yards, something all those who knew about it felt was simply a precaution instead of a necessity, would need such supplies.
And then Sidious felt the true death of Set Harth. It was faint at this distance even with the Veil, but he had spent enough time around the other Dark Side user to have a good grasp of his presence within the Force. So he felt the man's death, felt his Force Presence disappearing after the death of someone of the Light, their deaths almost occurring instantaneously. That was interesting, and the death of the Light Side user was such that Sidious could almost instantly tell that it must have been a Jedi of some significant strength. Could that have been the Togrutan who is fornicating with the Chaotic Locus?
The next instant, however, Set Harth's death actually registered and he knew the man had died forever. He had simply not been able to send his mental self through the Force to one of his clones. No, the Light Side user's presence had somehow caught Harth's own Force presence, holding it in place until Set could no longer protect himself from the debilitating nature of being a Dark Side user set loose into the Unifying Force, which tore him to pieces after a few minutes.
Eventually, Sidious and the party around him ended, and he made his way out still projecting an air of urbane if tired poise. Once he was able to do so, he moved up to his office, and then down the secret passage into his throne, where he quickly began to click through a few programs on a few computers, each of them monitoring live newsfeeds sent over the HoloNet, trying to figure out what had gone wrong and what had happened the first place.
The plan that Set Harth had shared with him had looked as if it should work, and the man was known for taking precautions, ways to retreat. The use of the Sith creations, the bugs, the use of that creature Savage, a creation of more Sith Alchemy and Dark Sister 'mysticism' from Mother Talzin, the number of true professionals like Durge and the Anzati among the rest of the dregs from the Hutts, all of it had looked very good. So what happened? What new factor allowed the Chaotic Locus to live and Set Harth to die?
After a few minutes of fruitless searching, Sidious wasn't able to get an answer that day, or even the next day. Damn it, my spies on Shili are only tier three, I did not have time to place my own tier two spy there. No doubt Harth did, but they would have no way to contact me beyond a message to an already existing tier three agent.
Sidious had four categories for his spies. Tier four spies were simple corporate, social or other sorts of rumor-gatherers who sold their information to anyone. Sidious had agents like that on nearly every world in the Republic, but their information was barely useful. Tier three worked a similar sort of way, but their information was more reliable and they answered solely to Sidious through hundreds of cutouts, none knowing about his business or who he really was. Those, he had slightly less of but still enough to blanket the majority of the Republic. It was simply a matter of getting one in the position to do the most good.
Tier two was composed of specialized intelligence agents, sent out on specific missions who could get in touch with Sidious through a series of specific codes in the Hypernet Network. None knew his real name, or business, but did know enough of their own areas of expertise to be useful. Tier one were spies who knew Sidious and would only act on his orders, either to report or to take more direct action. They were his true assassins, silent killers who could then simply fade away. He only had a handful of them and even that handful was relatively new to his service, having been quietly culled from the Republic Espionage Service as it grew over the past year. Their use would grow, but at the moment they were a new resource.
Regardless, Sidious had no idea what had occurred on Shili now. But that didn't mean he could wait to deal with the fallout. So, what have I lost? he thought, leaning back in his throne room, the stone underneath and the darkness all around him allowing him to gently sooth his initial anger and rage at yet another plan to remove the Chaotic Locus failing.
Not much in terms of the Great Plan, Sidious finally decided. But, losing so many specialists leaves me with only two true tools I could shift to focus on the Chaotic Locus or on specific Jedi. Worse yet, Talzin may cause trouble. It was she who loaned Set Harth two of the people that died there, a Dark Sister of some sort and that beast Savage. I will have to be on the watch for that. Just because her agreement was with Harth is no reason to believe she won't look elsewhere, even if she too has no idea of my actual identity.
Yet even as he realized they hadn't lost anything truly important in the long term, Sidious felt himself at a loss for the first time in decades of scheming and plotting. He just had no idea what to do this with the Chaotic Locus now. He wanted him gone, he wanted him dead. He wanted the Chaotic Locus gone, and all the Jedi trained in his technique, which had made them become so much more dangerous to the long-term grand scheme of things.
Yet how to go about killing him? The poison had proven to be ineffective. Indeed, the three times that Sidious his subordinates had attempted it in the past, the target hadn't even seemed to notice. Although, I will want to have a recording of how well the Blood Bombs and Fear Mongers did. If one cannot get poison into the Chaotic Locus's system through food, perhaps gases will be more applicable.
Long-range sniping? Ranma's durability was such that any man-portable weapon wouldn't work, not disruptor, nor missile or grenade. Hmm, perhaps an orbital bombardment. That isn't something that even a pirate gang would ever do, but it could come to that once war breaks out. Or a dedicated fleet perhaps along with some means to shadow their ship, and then ambush them in space? Despite Set Harth's issues with that manner of attack that still seems the most viable way of removing all of the Chaotic Locus's abilities and skills. True his ship is formidable, but even a formidable ship could be overcome by numbers, surprise, and sufficient firepower.
Yes, he thought to himself, that is the only way forward. I can no longer afford to lose any more of my personal agents. It needs to be an overwhelming response. The only remaining agents I can afford to lose and which could act against the Locus without having thoughts of betraying me are Vos and Ventress. Ventress is going to be too important as Bulq's Padawan going forward. And Vos's treason to the Order is a dagger poised at thier heart which I need to use at the most opportune moment. Yes, I think the time for subtlety has passed.
With that in mind, Sidious called Sora Bulq, on their secure secret Hypercom link. It would take the Jedi breaking Coruscant's own uplink system before they could find even a hint of these communications and that they would never be able to do without his becoming aware of their attempts first.
The other Jedi Master had impressed Sidious with his emotional control, and his loyalty to the Great Plan since being turned, and Sidious had found that the man was a source of good instincts and some sound reasoning. It was not to the point where Sidious trusted him of course. He was a Sith and Plaqueis' demise showed what occurred when a Sith trusted even another Sith. But Sidious at least could rely on Tyranus' professionalism.
"Something has happened," Sora Bulq said without Sidious needing to say anything. "I felt a shiver in the Force as if both darkness and light has been snuffed out, one almost over the other. What exactly happened?" Master Bulq asked calmly.
"That is what I sensed as well along with the death of Set Harth." From there Sidious explained what he had felt and suspected, finishing with. "And it all implies that the Chaotic Locus is still alive. I can feel its effect on the Force even now, still enlarging the chaos within the Force as we speak."
I understand, and I sympathize with your anger Master Sidious. However, I think you are going about this the wrong way," Tyrannus replied thoughtfully.
"What do you mean?" Sidious asked, looking at Sora Bulq through the Hypercom thoughtfully.
Tyranus hid a smile. Normally Sidious would never take suggestions, even good ones, advice perhaps, but never suggestions. But he seems to be in the proper frame to take one now. "Master Sidious, at this point I believe you have done all you possibly can without revealing yourself or the true nature of the Great Plan to kill the chaotic focus. All that has occurred is but pinpricks either way, and he is still around. I believe, that concentrating on him is, in fact, a mistake."
"Explain," Sidious snarled, anger rising within him but controlled as always.
"I simply mean that every time you concentrate on him, you give the Chaotic Locus a chance to hurt us in turn. I believe that the Chaotic Locus is more dangerous the more of our attention is on him, and not on the Jedi Order. We must keep our eyes on the main prize," the other Sith replied.
Sidious frowned at that, thinking hard. "I had given Set Harth the duty of dealing with the Chaotic Locus, because I had determined much the same thing," he confided, an odd thing for a Sith to do, but on such a small scale it hardly mattered. "Are you saying that now that Set Harth is dead, I should not spend any of my own time dealing with the Chaotic Locus? That I should instead… ignore him?"
"That is exactly what I am saying Master Sidious," Bulq said, with a bow from his waist that was visible through the pickup. "Continue to attempt to spy on his movements that's only good common sense, but otherwise ignore him for now. As strong as the Chaotic Locus is, he cannot win a war on his own. He cannot survive an orbital bombardment. He can be dealt with in time."
Sidious thought for a moment. It made good logical sense, now that Sidious had lost all his current pawns. I need to understand that the time when the Chaotic Locus's immediate removal would cause the Great Plan to go more smoothly has passed. He has already created an impact and will continue to do so to those he interacts with. But now, now putting more forces in his way, forces, which I can ill afford to lose anyway, would be folly. I have lost this phase of the game. The board, however, is still mine. And as long as I stay hidden, that will remain the same. The pieces can only harm one another, not their game master, regardless of a storm of chaos appearing on the board.
"Very well," he said at last. "That makes some sense I suppose. I will approve of that idea. However, I want a dedicated flotilla of military ships ready and waiting, capital ships and starfighters both, all dedicated vessels. They will have no other duty other than to follow the sightings of the Wild Blade. That ship is so distinctive, that simply paying 10,000 credits for any sighting of it will be a simple matter."
"Very well master," Sora Bulq said, clapping his hands together and bowing again from the waist. "Is there anything else?"
Sidious paused, thinking tapping a finger against the side of his armrest. "Yes…" he said slowly. "I believe that we have about another month and a half, perhaps as many as two months before the war begins, no longer. Both sides are too primed to be held back longer than that. Until then, we need to make certain that no further communication clues that could lead to the Sith Order can be found. To that end, there is a motion put before the Senate at the moment to pull the military forces away from the Hypernet Uplink Center and replace them with units of local security led by Jedi. I will require a few attacks on uplink centers, pirate bands for the most part, but anything that I can use to justify keeping those forces in place. Beyond that, there are a few other matters to discuss at present."
His equilibrium restored, Sidious dove into the machinations small and large, with new energy and purpose. The Chaotic Locus alone cannot cause enough of a change to halt the Great Plan. He will die, along with the Jedi and the Sith will be the only ones left standing.
OOOOOOO
As the Wild Blade left Shili behind, Ranma spent a few minutes in the cockpit working out the route to this old depository of knowledge with Tune and the Jedi. It turned out that much of that area was susceptible to large-scale gravitational shifts, and regular astromech droids had a lot of trouble figuring out a route through. They could do it, unlike through the nebula surrounding the Hapes Consortium, Shaak said as if Ranma was supposed to know what that was, but they would have to stop nearby to download as much information about the area as they could. This would force the Wild Blade to stop in a decently industrialized system. Exactly the kind of place the Wild Blade would draw attention.
"Luckily for you, however, you have so many Jedi here," Aayla teased, smirking at Ranma and Shaak.
The momentary sadness that they had all felt at Master Yaddle's passing had passed now, although Ranma noted that young Barriss still looked a bit out of it despite whatever talks or ceremony the Jedi had the night before. He made a note to talk to both youngsters the next day if their own masters didn't do it for him, although he judged that Ahsoka wasn't nearly as bothered by the violence as Barriss was.
Shaak hadn't noticed anything with Ahsoka, instead of staring at the star charts. Master Unduli also looked somewhat more thoughtful and introspective although that was not abnormal for her.
"True enough," Ranma said aloud, turning away from looking at the two masters. "Was that a hint to get out of your hair then? It is kind of packed in here after all."
"Unfortunately yes," Shaak said a faint smile replacing her frown, turning and giving him a loving kiss on the cheek. "This is one thing your own brand of Force powers cannot help with my love," she said, ignoring the audible gagging noises coming from Ahsoka and the somewhat bemused expressions on most of the other Jedi crowded into the cockpit.
With a sigh Ranma stood up and then abruptly leaned down and kissed Shaak hard, flipping a finger towards Ahsoka and the other Jedi, which he'd long learned was a universal gesture here in this dimension. "See you in a bit Shaak," He whispered, pulling back and winking at the flushed, but amused Togrutan Jedi who winked back, her black eyes sparkling with good humor now rather than whatever had been bothering her and the other Jedi, her cheeks and the white marks around her eyes creasing as she smiled.
"Gah, get a room," Aayla mocked goodnaturedly.
"We did better than that, we got a ship," Ranma replied cheekily even as he turned away from Shaak, moving around the other Jedi and letting K'Kruhk take his chair, giving the others a lot more room. "But it also looks like we keep getting uninvited guests aboard too, more's the pity."
Ahsoka glared at Ranma's back while Aayla and the others chuckled. "Oooh, I just know that was directed at me."
Leaving the Jedi in the cockpit, Ranma picked up the head HK, where it had been previously balanced on Tune's dome top, bouncing it thoughtfully in his hand as he moved back into the main sitting area. "What am I supposed to do with you now?" he said aloud, before rolling the head along one arm, behind his head on head, and down his other arm like a football. "I mean seriously, that body of yours was one-of-a-kind man."
"Jaundiced tone: It was indeed and totally worthless in the end!" said HK. "Curious tone: And if I was a human skull, this would be bothering my sensors something fierce, master. Is there any point to it?"
"Beyond being a little fun? Not really," Ranma said with a laugh. "And some practice maybe. I might want to create some kind of ornament or toy out of the skull of the next Sith I meet, then whip it out in the battle after that. Just to throw the next group off their game."
"Admiring Response: You are a comedic yet cruel master, no wonder I like you," HK replied.
"Actually, I think that we can put together an even better body for him," said Dralshy'a the Arkanian Mandalorian, who was still nursing her collarbone and arm.
Ranma paused, twirling the head like on one finger as he looked at her, ignoring the now louder grumbles from the droid. "Better? Define better, Dralshy'a."
"Better: stronger, faster more reactive, possibly even with more added firepower. You might not know this, but a lot of rules about android construction and suchlike have been weakened since HK's body was made. You won't need a special permit or even access to the Jedi in order to build a new, even better body, just a lot of credits, and access to the actual parts or fabricators. And me," she added pointing at her forehead, "I've got some ideas up here and I think we can definitely improve him quite a bit. Not like you could improve a normal fleshy body of course, but something of that sort."
"And people wonder why your race is always looked at a little suspiciously," Janice drawled. "Girl, was that supposed to come across as creepy as all hell or did you just mean that point blank?"
The girl blinked, looking at her squad leader quizzically. "What did I say?"
That drew some groans not only from the other Mandalorians, but the Nova Guard and Ranma too, before the martial artist shook his head. "Right, I'll take your offer of help in designing a body for my already all too murderous droid, Dralshy'a." And then I'll probably chuck it under the door and forget it ever existed, Ranma thought to himself. There is just something a little too weird about how enthusiastic that girl is about the idea. And Ranma hadn't forgotten that the two of them had been occasionally thick as thieves after a few of the full combat training they had run. "Until then I want him hooked up to our weapons systems."
"Gleeful announcement: Truly, master!? You are undoubtedly the best master I have ever had. Even without a body, I will still be able to inflict grievous bodily harm on meatbags! If there is such a thing as droid heaven, this is mine."
"Are you sure about that?" Janice asked, only half-jokingly. HK truly didn't bother her any longer, and even the rest of the crew, bar the newest Jedi additions, had gotten used to his cheerfully violent air.
"I'm sure. HK may be a murderous little ball of barely controlled antipathy to all things living, but the same could be said for me when I'm angry," Ranma said with a shrug. He smirked thinly. "And you have never actually seen that, although you might've heard about it. Then he was smiling again the dangerous moment had passed as if it had never been and he simply laughed. HK's the best shooter among us and this will be useful."
"Will he even be compatible with the biological weapons and computer systems?" asked Cro, cocking his head quizzically to one side.
Ranma nodded. "Good question, let's find out the answer."
With the initial few dozen jumps under Tune's capable manipulators, the Jedi soon left the bridge, and Ranma spent a few minutes hooking HK's head up to the controls there, with mixed results. It turned out that even hooked up to the ship's controls HK couldn't control the plasma cannons or the Dovin Basal. But the torpedoes themselves and the numerous ion cannons he could control, along with two of the quad lasers. Ranma didn't want HK to control all of them, so he linked HK permanently to the Quad laser systems. That seemed enough for now.
Once that was done, Ranma went in search of Shaak, finding her almost immediately standing in the hatch into their room, staring quizzically inside of it. Ranma peered around her through the hatch and blinked. "What happened to our walls?"
"I don't know," Shaak said thoughtfully. "I thought at first it was some new extrusion from the ship, but it isn't intelligent enough to create something like that within itself." She reached forward, and tapped a knuckle against the wall, frowning. "It is wood of some kind, beyond that, I can't say. So perhaps that is what happened here."
"Is it important?"
"Probably not it's just unusual that's all," Shaak said.
"Is it liable to come alive and eat us?"
"Only you would think of something like that."
"You haven't lived my life," Ranma said with a laugh, before correcting himself. "Well, not all of it anyway. I could all too easily see this whole ship suddenly becoming a giant animal and trying to digest us."
Shaak laughed in return, shaking her head setting her lekku to sway lightly, a move that grabbed Ranma's attention in a very pleasant manner. "Well, I don't see that happening."
"Then… are you busy right now?" Ranma asked, one arm moving around her waist. He then gently stepped to one side and around, pulling Shaak forward and into the room with it.
She turned to look at him with a smile on her face. "Aayla is teaching Ahsoka and Barriss something about espionage I believe and K'Kruhk and Luminara have headed to bed for the night. The others have all returned to their room or are otherwise engaged. Why?"
"Well, it occurs to me that one thing most human societies and Togrutan societies have in common is the idea of wedding nights. And we're a bit overdue, wife…," Ranma teased, keeping his tone low, although he did have to force a grin off this face at calling Shaak that.
Shaak laughed quietly while a little thrill went through her at Ranma's term of endearment. "Ranma, those are only important if both the man and woman are coming to the marriage with their virtue intact. After all you and I have done together, that surely is not the case."
"Maybe, maybe not, although I have never understood the use of the word 'virtue' to describe that," Ranma said, pulling her into a kiss and a hug. He felt Shaak respond, her legs going around his waist, as her arms wound behind his head and he lifted her up easily. "I think you are still a virtuous woman, if not a maiden."
"Oddly sweet," she drawled between kisses. "Still you're right my husband," she said, her voice slowly turning husky, as Ranma worked on her neck and then and his hands kneaded her rear and lower back tentacle. She could sense his body shiver as her own had earlier, and her smile became tender for a moment before she kissed him again, licking her lips as she pulled away. "We do deserve a wedding night of some kind…"
The next day found the Wild Blade ten jumps from where they had been, small shifting little jumps, to get them away from Shili. That morning Luminara and K'Kruhk had found another, longer, jump towards their actual target. While the two of them were seeing to that, the other Jedi gathered with the rest of the crew of the Wild Blade together in the sitting area.
Most of those people were looking quietly smug, and Janice, in particular, was leaning back, her feet up on the table, and basking in the mimed clapping of the Nova Guard and her own people. Ranma wondered if they just walked in after some punchline or boast, but shrugged off his interest in that to look questioningly at Aayla. "What's wrong Aayla, didn't you sleep well?"
Shaak too looked at her friend quizzically. Aayla wasn't normally a vain sort of woman. She didn't have to primp herself up, look after her skin, or put on makeup as all too many humanoid women did to look as gorgeous as she normally did. But for some reason, Aayla looked almost frazzled this morning. Shaak hadn't been certain a species with no hair like a Twi'lek could look frazzled, she thought that was only a human thing, but, sitting down beside her lover and with Ahsoka on her other side she could only say that Aayla looked decidedly out of sorts. There were bags under her eyes, her lekku were twitching, her robe askew, and at first her gaze was almost exhausted before she began to glare at the two newlyweds.
Aayla glared back at them. "You! You two, do you have any idea what your nightly escapades does to an empath like me! I was warned by Master Unduli how bad it might be, I thought I was prepared, but that, that, gah!" She leaned forward hissing the words as she glared at Shaak, much of her normal Jedi self-control in stark abeyance. "Every time you, you got excited and started to reach your peak, I nearly did too!"
Ranma blinked incomprehension, while Shaak, and indeed more than one woman around the table, winced before she said slowly. "Wait, if, are you saying, do you mean to say that you didn't finish?"
"No!" Aayla growled, her blue face flushing a darker color, nearly purple. "I didn't! It got so bad I had to, to take matters into my own hands! And then as soon as I did that, you two would be at it again and the cycle would start over."
By this point, Ranma had understood what she was talking about, while Ahsoka and Barriss both still looked clueless and asked. "Um are we supposed to apologize for that?" he asked, looking over at Shaak.
It was all that Aayla could do to keep herself from launching the table at that. Luckily Ahsoka, with all the innocence and naivety of youth, decided to speak up just then. "By the way, did anyone do anything to the ship while we were on Shili. There were some noises I've noticed the ship had at night were no longer there."
That even Ranma got and Shaak blinking, and Ranma looked nonplussed as he glanced around. "Those wood panels… Janice, you um did you…"
"Let's just say that you and this one can get quite loud at night," Janice said with a smirk, flicking her fingers over to Shaak. "We figured that would be magnified now that you've officially tied the knot, and we didn't want to deal with it any longer."
Shaak flushed, looking away as Barriss finally understood what everyone was speaking about. "Wait, what!?" she yelped, her previous Jedi-like serenity disappearing under a teenage girl's embarrassment. "You, you mean you do that kind of thing every night!?"
"And sometimes during the day too. Or all day. Or whenever we can really," Ranma said smirking, pushing down his own embarrassment to mess with the furiously blushing green-skinned girl. On her species, the act created a distinct red tint to her light green cheeks and it was kind of cute on the teen.
"Bluh, bluu…" Barriss stammered, then shot to her feet her face almost as red as green for a moment. "Unclean! For a Jedi to be involved in such a, an immoral act!"
"As we are now married, common morality is actually on our side, child," Shaak replied dryly. "And my being a Jedi doesn't have anything to do with it really. I am Jedi, woman, and Togrutan, sometimes one of those takes precedence over the others. This does not affect my dedication to the Force. It simply means I go about serving that dedication in a different manner."
That seemed to flummox Barriss, while Aayla nodded slowly and Ahsoka looked thoughtful. Then Aayla glared at the two lovers once more. "That's fine and dandy, but could you at least not go at it like, like Chandrillian rabbits every night? I might be a Jedi but even my patience has limits, and you hopscotched past them last night!"
Shaak and Ranma both flushed at that and agreed to tone it down for a bit while Aayla was aboard, although both honestly thought it was a pity given their crew's thoughtful, if somewhat self-serving, gift. At that point, Ranma decided to change the subject. "Ahem so, now that we're stuck aboard ship again for…" he looked at Shaak expectantly.
She turned to look over to the corridor leading forward as Luminara and K'Kruhk appeared there. Luminara smiled back and informed them all it would only take about half a day to get to the Library world, though they would have to stop once more and readjust their course.
With that, the crew decided to split off into various groups doing different things. Shaak started to put all the starfighter pilots, through a series of exercises. This consisted of getting in and out of their starfighters, then running them through combat scenarios.
At the same time, Ranma decided to get to know the trio of new Jedi. Being Ranma, this, of course, meant sparring. When they realized this, Luminara and Barriss both looked torn, if for very different reasons. Luminara could all too easily remember how good the pigtailed warrior was. Barriss was honestly confused how sparring with someone would allow you to get to know the other person more than, of having a conversation would.
"Hah! The day this ruffian wants to talk rather than fight will mark the heat death of the universe," Ahsoka mocked good-naturedly moving to sit on the side of the sitting area as it shifted into the training mode.
"Ooh, that was a good one, both blunt, kind of funny and even new, well done. I'd give it a nine out of ten. HK?" Ranma asked, flashing a thumb's up to a suddenly flushing and embarrassed Ahsoka.
"Analytical Critique: I would personally give it a seven out of ten. The link between the apt description of my master and the insult against him was somewhat forced I feel. Although like my master I do approve of the actual insult," HK's voice said from where he had been temporarily removed from the cockpit. After all, in hyperspace, there was no need for the quad lasers and at least this way he got to watch some violence.
"Your approval fills me with self loathing," Ahsoka shot back, to which both droid and owner laughed.
"This is nice and all, and I think I might want to learn more about this trash talk technique of yours, it sounds a lot like Dun Möch, only far less vile in scope. But right now, you just gave me an excuse to try and take your head off Ranma and I want to take you up on it," Aayla interjected. She smirked, her lightsaber activating with a flourish as she tossed her robes aside, leaving her in the shift and the sports bra that Jedi ladies thought was so utilitarian and plain. On someone Like Aayla though, they became the height of sensual fashion, though she was amused to note Ranma kept his eyes on her face the entire time. "Consider my going after your big head as revenge for your thinking with your little head last night."
"Oooh! Nice one," Ranma intoned, while HK voiced his own agreement and the two young Padawans both just looked confused and Luminara mortified. It would have surprised her though to learn that she and Ranma were having very similar thoughts just then about Aayla: that even more than five years after the event it was nice to hear that Aayla could joke about such things given what had happened to her on Tatooine.
This didn't make Ranma want to go easy on her though, and he whipped out his light pike from his ki space, flicking the plasma blade into existence before flicking it this way and that. "Now let's see if you've got the skill to back it up."
Without a word, Aayla leaped into the air of the training room, bouncing off the ceiling and lashing out downwards towards Ranma who instead of taking the blow leaped up over it punching out with his free hand. Aayla rolled in midair, then they were on, their blades flashing into each other, while Aayla used the Force to combat Ranma's sheer ability in midair combat.
Aayla was a practitioner of Ataru Jar'Kai, easily the most mobile and simply bounciest Lightsaber style. Ranma hadn't faced a pure Ataru user before this, nor had he fought someone who wielded two lightsabers before. But Ranma enjoyed being mobile in a fight just as much as Aayla did, and his reflexes were even faster.
The two of them simply bounced around the room from one end to the other, their lightsabers flashing and smashing against one another. At one point Aayla bounced between the walls, moving all around Ranma as he tried to do the same thing to her. At another point Luminara, who was watching from the sidelines, found Ranma using her head as a brief handstand before kicking off the wall above and behind her head to somehow twirl around Aayla as she attacked, his own lightsaber nearly taking her head off. Aayla couldn't get a hit in, and Ranma chose to slow down to her level and do the same. He was just having too much fun.
Eventually, they did have to stop, more because Aayla became exhausted. The two of them looked at one another and then began to laugh. "By the Force but that was just a lot of fun!"
"Heh, yep, that was good. That's a really fun style to fight against although as ya could see it was kind of too similar to my own to get through," Ranma said, somewhat apologetically.
Aayla waved that off, getting to her feet on shaky legs and moving over to stand with the other Jedi in the hatch to the corridor faced aft. Keeping up with Ranma had pushed her considerable endurance up several notches beyond what she was comfortable with and she had been forced to use the Force to increase her speed to a level she'd never achieved before. Reaching Luminara, it was with something approaching glee that she tapped the Older Mirialan Jedi in. "Tag, you're it. Good luck. I have a feeling you're going to need it."
Luminara sighed, her own green lightsaber floating up from her belt to be caught and activated as she caught it. "I rather think you're right about that."
Luminara and Ranma stood across from one another, each of them waiting for the other to move. Then when Ranma did, Luminara barely jumped over his spin kick, which would have at best thumped her ass to the ground. Fast! I knew he was fast after seeing him spar with Aayla but I barely had any warning from the Force!
And unlike with Aayla, Ranma wasn't using his aerial style exclusively. Instead, he was using that style and something that looked like Djem So but a full-body version of it: all aggression, quick moves and trying to attack, moving into a series of unstoppable slashing assaults with his light pike, interspersed by kicks, punches, and thrusts of the blunt end of his pike.
In response, Luminara slipped entirely into Soresu, her preferred lightsaber style. It was a style focused entirely on defense and wearing out her opponent, though in this instance Luminara knew that was unlikely to occur. Still, if I can.. what!?
She watched as Ranma shifted his entire style in a second into something like a modified Soresu, designed to pull her out of position. Between two exchanges her lightsaber was off center, leaving her open to a punch that smashed into her chest and lifted her off the wall throwing her backward. Before she could recover, Ranma's kick flashed by her head, the meaning clear: if he had tried, he could have kicked Luminara's head right off her shoulders.
"I, wha…what was…" Luminara gasped, astonished. She glanced over and found Aayla still working on a water bottle she had grabbed earlier, looking as if she had only finished a third of it, and her body was still showing the lines of sweat that had grown as she and Ranma sparred. "How, how long…"
"About ten minutes Master," Barriss said, shaking her head. "I thought you might be able to drag things out as Aayla did, right up until he changed styles on you."
While the others gaped at him, Ranma shrugged. "Meh, it isn't as hard as you believe."
Actually, it kind of was, Luminara reflected. To change from one martial arts style to another you had to change the way you thought fundamentally for the duration of the battle. It was something only the greatest duelists attempted and fewer still could accomplish, and to actually see it in action was somewhat humbling. "I think I need to meditate on the nature of pride and hubris for a time," Luminara said ruefully. "I knew I would lose, but to lose that quickly is something else."
With that, she bowed to the others and moved back to the Jedi's room aboard, with K'Kruhk following. Aayla went the other way, heading towards the hanger bay to join the exercises there. She might not be the pilot that Anakin Skywalker was purported to be, but she was still a good one.
This left Ranma with the two Padawans, who shared a gulp as they advanced towards him, assuming it was their turn to take their lumps and not looking forward to the experience. Or rather, Barriss wasn't, Ahsoka had learned by this point that Ranma was, despite being a jackass and far too snarky for her liking, was a good teacher. But to their surprise, Ranma turned off his light pike and then, to make it even clearer, he sat down in the lotus position, gesturing them to join him.
"Don't worry you two," Ranma said with a laugh. "I just got through beating on my two victims for the day, anymore and I'd be acting like a bully."
"It's amazing how you can be both insulting and yet reassuring at the same time," Ahsoka said moving forward to obey Ranma's gesture, sliding into a meditation pose while smirking at him. The two of them had pretty much buried the hatchet in terms of how they viewed one another while on Shili. To her astonishment, Ahsoka had discovered she rather liked Ranma. Oh, he was a horrible influence on her and she knew it, there was no way she'd ever become a normal Jedi with him around. But then again Ahsoka thought as she finished sitting down. I don't know if I was ever cut out to be a normal Jedi anyway. Master Ti isn't exactly normal either, come to think of it. Although how much of that is Ranma's influence and how much of it is her own ideas…
Setting that thought aside, as well as the idle thought of whether or not Shaak's idea of taking the Old Oath would become the new normal for the Order going forward, an amusing if somewhat impossible thought, she watched as Barriss joined them, the other young Padawan's eyes slightly narrowed. After all, Barriss had just seen her master, who was one of the better-known lightsaber duelists in the Order even if it wasn't her specialty, be taken apart by Ranma in about a quarter of the time he had spent sparring with Knight Secura. "Why did you do that?" she asked, as she sat down.
Ranma cocked his head quizzically, and she gestured over her shoulder towards where her master had gone to meditate in her room. "If you could have ended the fight with Master Secura at any point, as I think you could have, why didn't you?"
"Actually, I couldn't," Ranma said with a chuckle. "First, Aayla and her dual sword technique threw me for a bit, considering that I've never had to face a Jedi who used that technique. In fact, the only person who's ever used that technique was me for a time," Ranma said pointing at himself. "Second, she also needed a bit of an outlet from this morning's frustrations."
This caused both girls to blush, as they remembered the real reason for said frustration. It was one thing to know that Aayla was an empath, it was another to know that she could pick up on the emotions of such personal moments without even trying, or even apparently wanting to.
Ranma looked away too for a second, coughing into his fist, before turning back and going on briskly. "Anyway, Aayla also uses much the same style as I do. She could learn a lot from me in that area and sparring with her would always be a good thing for both of us. Sparring with Luminara, not so much. She doesn't rely nearly as much on reflexes as Aayla does, she uses the Force a little too much for that, and I don't know exactly how much she is going to be able to get out of training with me, other than in speed and perhaps footwork.
"So you really thought that all out," Ahsoka asked, cocking her head to one side.
Ranma chuckled. "Kiddo, I might not act all stuffy or full of myself as all too many people do, but I am a martial arts master. I have learned, adapted and made on my own more styles than I could list off in a good thirty minutes. Is it so surprising that I was able to think about that kind of thing?"
"Not surprising that you were able to, surprising that you did," Ahsoka replied bluntly.
Ranma held his hands up to his chest as if she had just taken a blow to it, then shook his head before turning serious. "All right, enough of that. Time for serious talk. Can I take it as a given that your Masters talked to you about the Second Wedding Disaster and your parts in it?"
Both of them cocked their heads, but after a second they figured out what he meant with that term and nodded. Ahsoka spoke up first, shrugging her shoulders. "I think part of the reason why my master wanted to take me on an akul hunt with her was that she wanted me to get used to the idea of fighting for my life in person like that and what it could mean, on both sides. I'm not happy that I had to take a life, but I'm happier to take that life than to let other people die, including me. It doesn't mean it was bad or that I should glorify in causing death, just that it's part of the way the universe works. Sometimes to defend life you have to take it. But we should never do so easily."
"Yeah, that's one of the things I'd hoped they had talked to you about," Ranma said with a nod, looking down at his hands and clenching them into vastly dangerous fists for a moment. Then he looked over at Barriss. "I don't know how much Luminara has told you about me, but I am strong," Ranma said without any kind of pride or false humility in his tone it was simply a statement of fact. "I could and have shattered mountains, crushed boulders. I could take out HK and make him into some kind of interesting artwork rather than a working android very easily." As they heard the metallic noise equivalent of a huff came from the droid's head nearby, Ranma continued. "It is so, so easy for me to take a life that it is literally frightening. But I do not want that to ever be so easy. I cannot allow myself to think like that."
"Just like we cannot allow ourselves to think along those lines thanks to our lightsabers," Barriss said, also trying to put into her own words what her master told her without seeming to parrot it back. Ranma seemed to want to see the fact that they had taken in rather than simply listened to what they had been told.
"You got it," Ranma said with a nod, before once more becoming serious and looking at her. "So ya both've learned one of the most important lessons of your first brush with combat. Still, I can tell that something about that fight is still bothering you both."
This came as a revelation, and the two young girls looked at one another, trying to figure out what about that fight bothered the other girl before replying to Ranma's query. This went on for some time until Ranma grew bored (okay, so maybe it hadn't been that long) and sighed, pointing at Ahsoka. "Ahsoka you first."
Ahsoka scowled, crossing her arms. "I should've done better," she said almost angrily, though it was anger directed at herself. "We're Jedi! We're supposed to be sheSSS!"
She broke off with a hiss of pain as Ranma suddenly reached forward, and flicked her forehead hard. He didn't do so hard enough to leave a welt but certainly hard enough to make Ahsoka cringe in pain and hold a hand up to the point he flicked, her scowl becoming a pout.
"You're not a Jedi yet, you're a kid still," Ranma said bluntly. "Also Jedi are not the be-all and end-all. You're tough… most of, well, some of you anyway, although I think most of ya spend too much time meditating not enough time training. The point is being a Jedi doesn't mean you're infallible, it doesn't mean you're unbeatable. Any one of the Mandos on this ship could probably take you in a straight fight Ahsoka. For most, it would be hard as heck, and you might take one of their limbs off. But they could still do it," Ranma said, with a deliberate callousness that made both girls flinch, further driving the fact the lightsaber was a weapon that all too easily lent itself to such things. "And then there's Janice and Cro who could take you apart with ease, and I bet you know that."
Ahsoka nodded, but she didn't look mollified.
"There are just some situations where Jedi's strengths and abilities can't come into their own. And sometimes you will come up against opponents who are stronger, tougher, just better than you are. That Savage guy that Shaak dealt with was one of those. In fact, I bet she would tell you that if she hadn't had the training I've given her over the past five years that he could have beaten her. He was born and bred, possibly even modified to kill Jedi. So stop dumping on yourself about not doing your part, you did your part and more."
The young Togrutan pouted for a few minutes, but Master Ti had very bluntly told her the same thing during the talk directly following the battle. It had yet to really sink in before this but finally, it began to as Ranma watched. Ahsoka was after all quite young, and the young often have a very inflated opinion of their own abilities. But the girl was also quite clear-headed and knew the truth when it smacked her in the forehead.
Barriss on the other hand, just looking at her during the conversation with Ahsoka told him that her problem was somewhat worse than Ahsoka's. "And you?" he asked softly, looking at her with a little more compassion than he had looked at Ahsoka.
"It should've been me!" Barriss blurted out suddenly, looking almost distraught. "I should've been the one to die!"
"What makes you say that?" Ranma said, more to gain time to get over his surprise at the sudden outburst than anything else did.
He didn't react as the door to the Jedi room opened, and Luminara came out, her footsteps soft, her eyes almost immediately locking on Barriss. Ahsoka noticed, but stayed silent, something that Ranma had also noticed, and approved of. "Isn't it obvious?" Barriss said. "Master Yaddle was, she was the chief librarian for hundreds of years before becoming part of the Council, she, she was our teacher when she was younger, she was important to the Order! She was powerful and wise and she died protecting me! I'm just a Padawan! And because I wasn't good enough, she had to sacrifice herself for me."
"Okay, I'm going to take this apart into pieces," Ranma said, giving Luminara a little handshake as Barriss looked down at her hands.
She paused frowning but crossed her arms and almost glared back at him. Every inch of her body language said without words that he had better handle this very well indeed, or they would be having words.
Ranma rolled his eyes at that, before reaching out to gently ruffle Bariss' head, causing her to look up at him. "First," he said once he was certain he had her attention. "Yes, Master Yaddle was old. But part of being old is that you shoulder the burdens that you don't want those younger than you to handle. That includes dying."
He held up a hand as Barriss made to protest. "I'm not denying that in the 'grand scheme of things'," he said, making quotes in the air, "that the Order is going to miss Yaddle more than it would you. That would be a lie and you wouldn't believe me anyway. But, do not think for a moment that Master Yaddle would regret her choice if she could speak to us now. Part of being older is that you shoulder those burdens as I said, and sometimes, that means taking a blaster for someone else. You think I wouldn't die for Ahsoka here?" he asked, gesturing to a suddenly surprised, then very oddly happy Ahsoka. "That Shaak wouldn't die for someone else? That's part of what being a martial artist is all about, what part of being a Jedi is all about, sacrifice. We fight for those who can't. And you were overmatched," he finished bluntly, like someone pulling off the bandage.
It caused Barriss to flinch, but she nodded anyway, acknowledging the point that was what he wanted at the moment. "Second, don't make the mistake of thinking that she went into that fight assuming that she would be a martyr. No, she went into that fight knowing what could happen. And third, judging by what Shaak and others said when she passed on, Yaddle took a Sith with her that could well have come back and fought us again. That guy you all fought, Set Harth? We've dealt with him before. He had some kind of odd Force technique which allowed him to somehow transfer his mind and soul to a clone somewhere else in the universe."
Barriss gasped then Ahsoka explained more about what Ranma meant for her friend, telling her about Shaak and Ranma banishing Exar Kun's Force ghost. Then how they had been ambushed by Set Harth in space with a fleet of pirates behind him, and how they thought then his presence had matched the person they had fought on Vjun, which had been a well-laid ambush. "Just like the attack on us during the wedding was. If more of us had been closer to the cake, we might all have been killed like Samor, Kriss, and Jethro," she finished.
"I'm not denying that Master Yaddle's death is a tragedy," Ranma said softly as Ahsoka finished speaking. "I'm not denying it shouldn't have happened. I am rejecting the idea of it being your fault unequivocally. And even in her death, she served the Order and the universe as a whole. I also think Yaddle would much rather have taken that burden on herself then let you do it. Does it suck donkey balls? Yes. Should you grieve about it, fuck no."
Ranma's crude words caused both girls to blush, and looked away. Despite their Jedi training, they were not used to such language. Something that Master Unduli made note of, and wondered if perhaps that they should get them used to it in some fashion. Dan Möch is, as Aayla said earlier, a valid, if somewhat Dark, tactic.
For now, Luminara decided it was time for her to step in. Reaching the youngsters, she went down on her knees behind Barriss, pulling her back into a hug that startled the other Mirialan just as much as her presence did. "Ranma is correct. Celebrate Master Yaddle's life. Celebrate her teachings, take them to heart, carry a little bit of that memory inside. But let your grief and your self-destruction go. We Jedi can grieve, we Jedi can remember the good times but we cannot allow ourselves to destroy ourselves through what ifs."
After a few moments, Barriss nodded, her face clearing. "Thank you, Master," she said, over her shoulder to her own master and then bowing her head towards Ranma as her master let her go and stood up. "I, I feel much better now I think."
"Good," Ranma said, standing up lithely from where he had been sitting in the lotus position. "Now, that that talking crud is done with, it's time to get exercising!"
Ahsoka groaned knowing all too well what that entailed, but Barriss nodded seriously, hopping to her own feet suddenly filled with the nervous energy and an urge to be doing as she finished internalizing what been said. Her guilt was gone now, replaced with a determination to make the life that Master Yaddle had protected, her life, worth more than it was now.
After Ranma had gotten both girls started on a series of exercises, Master Unduli moved to stand beside him as they watched, the girls doing sit-ups against the far wall. After that, they would use some of the weights aboard the ship to build up more muscles and then Ranma would start them on several dozen unarmed katas before going through four sword katas.
"Thank you for that, I hadn't realized the depth of my Padawan's guilt about what occurred during that fight. I should have," Master Unduli said, castigating herself somewhat.
Ranma waved that off then looked at her quizzically. "Why didn't you? I mean, it seems a kind of thing that you and Shaak would both notice normally."
"The phrase there is 'normally'," she said with a wry chuckle. We were all a little distracted." Ranma just looked at her, and she sighed. "We had hoped for something to occur during our meditations on where we are going," she said obliquely, then as Ranma still looked confused, she sighed and spelled it out for him, "We had hoped that the spirit of Master Yaddle would still be able to guide us, able to tell us that our choice was correct or perhaps lead us to another clue, but it didn't happen."
"You think that was a possibility? I mean, I know there are Force Ghosts, but would a Jedi leave one behind, and if so, would it even be able to communicate with us without taking someone over?"
"I have no idea how we would communicate, but there was the hope we would," she said, sighing slightly. "But that did not occur. I fear that in Master Yaddle's containment of Set Harth's spirit, Master Yaddle's own spirit has passed on permanently through the Force."
Ranma slowly nodded, not having even thought that was a possibility and rather regretting himself now that it didn't happen. The Force did seem to be guiding them to Ossus, but if that was to deal with some issues there, or because it generally would help them, he didn't know. That not knowing was irritating the heck out of him now. I am getting really sick and tired of having a target on my back and not being able to reciprocate!
OOOOOOO
Master Fay and Kit Fisto arrived on the planet Jabiim in the Phelleem Sector without any fanfare while Shaak and Ranma were just starting the winnowing process for Mandalorians to take with them. The planet was a mud ball, or rather, at first glance it was. Given the latest survey that Kit had read, that had indeed been all Jabiim was for centuries. But recent findings had discovered that there were monstrous deposits of various rare metals of all sorts on the planet. That was a very recent survey, in the last four months in fact.
But beyond that, the place was indeed, simply a mud ball. The weather was horrible with near constant rain, mixed in with truly torrential downpours. The planet was almost entirely covered by mud, glutinous, thick, deep mud. It was a wonder that any kind of civilization at all could exist here, but it did and even had cities, of a sort. Even leaving the landing area the rain and mud slowed Kit and Fay down as they moved deeper into the city, an odd warren of high tech buildings and hovels barely etched out of the rock of a mountain.
Jabiim also had political troubles. The planet had been dealing with pirate problems for a long time without any aid from the Republic, despite the fact that they had pleaded for that aid more than once. This had begun a large secessionist movement, which had gotten worse since then because the planet's inhabitants, all human, had been dealing with a new kind of plague called brainrot, which was spreading throughout the planet's population very quickly. By this point, a single man, a hard charger named Alto Stratus was leading the local anti-government types, who was a fiery, impassioned orator and apparently a very good organizer as well.
Master Fay, of course, didn't care anything about the background of the political factions, or the fact that one of them was denouncing the Republic and the Jedi in particular. All she cared about was helping the sick and injured. She and Kit walked into the main hospital of the capital city within minutes of their arriving on the planet and she just as quickly went to work without even acknowledging the locals at first. She simply went to work on the sick, kneeling beside the bed of the first sickbed, laying her hand down on the young man's forehead.
Within seconds, as doctors from all around hurried forward to either shout at her or get this crazy woman away from the sick and infectious person she'd just randomly touched, the man she was working on began to visibly improve. His clammy, all too white skin started to show marked improvement. His breathing became easier, and the sores on his face and shoulders started to decrease in the severity of how red and puss-filled they looked. His eyes too started to track, rolling back out of his head as he fought back the urge to cry as the pain he'd been dealing with disappeared.
"Wh… how… what…who, who are you?" the chief doctor asked, staring at the woman as she stood up, rolling her shoulders and cracking her knuckles as if she was preparing to do combat.
Fay turned to him, and her gaze was like a glare from a searchlight, causing him to flinch and back away. Only then did he realize the woman was actually dry, despite having come in from outside recently. "I am Master Fay, Jedi. And you, Magister Morris, will assist me. We have much to do to defeat this plague."
For the next forty minutes, Fay barked orders to the staff all of whom raced to obey as she moved to the next patient. The fact that she was able to heal the plague, even though they didn't understand how, gave many of them hope that they had not had before. Wherever she had come from, this otherworldly beauty was a godsend, and none of the hospital staff were willing to question it. Soon she had everything organized, getting rid of the heating pads and many other things that the locals had thought they could fight the disease with and had slowly begun to figure out how best to truly combat the disease through normal means as well. With each patient Fay healed her knowledge of the plague, its vector, symptoms and how to fight it grew.
About two hours later, as Kit was still standing guard nearby, their arrival was noticed by both sides of the conflict. A conflict which had, according to what Kit had already found on the local information net, become violent unfortunately.
They were first visited by a local dignitary, who was surprised at their presence, and almost embarrassingly grateful for it, saying that, "Now that there were two Jedi here, then surely Stratus and his goons will be forced to surrender or run for outer space!"
"We are not miracle workers," Master Fay said, even as she pulled her hand away from the suddenly cured young boy, the boils on his face and the blindness in his eyes having faded as she worked on him. "We are simply here to help. And until this plague is wiped out, I will not speak of any other issue," she said firmly, standing up and moving to the next patient even as she began to speak to the doctors. "I think I have finally begun to analyze how to fight this disease. First, we will need clean water and lots of it. Then I think a dose of common aspirin to start, that will let me figure out where in the muscles the disease hits first after moving on from the brain. After that…"
From there she got technical, and the local politician slowly began to lose his ability to follow what she was saying. Even Kit could barely understand it. But then again, I haven't ever been trained as a doctor. It might be best to let Fay do her thing while I do mine.
With that in mind the Aqualian Knight turned to the local government rep, but before he could ask him to explain more about the political and social situation on Jabiim, the door to the hospital room they were working in banged open, and a large, heavily muscled man stalked in. He had long dirty brown hair, and a long, only somewhat trimmed beard, with beads in his hair here and there, a serious, furious expression and deep, penetrating and quite intelligent eyes. And he actually did stalk, Kit thought, watching the man with his head cocked to one side. It was evident that he thought he was dangerous, and that he was extremely angry at the moment.
Still, Kit kept his hands away from his lightsaber. There was no need to further aggravate the situation after all. Not just yet. "Greetings," he said nodding his head politely to the man. "My name is Kit Fisto. And you would be?"
"Ahem, t, this is Alto Stratus," the odious little politician said, somewhere between obsequiousness, fear and disdain as he looked between them. "He's.. um…"
"I am the leader of the Revolutionary Front and I can speak for myself, you useless waste of skin," The man interrupted, glaring the other fellow into silence. He then stalked forward, getting right into Kit's face, although Kit didn't back down, simply looked at him politely, a dry smile on his features. "So, you would be the Jedi who just arrived to tell us all our problems are not important or build character or are mere illusions are you?"
"One of them," Kit said with a nod his smirk slightly widening at the other man's aggressive words. "Unfortunately, unlike my fellow Jedi, Master Fay, I do not have the healing arts," he said gesturing towards where the woman kneeling between two beds. Now that she knew more about the disease, healing those afflicted with it was easier and she was now healing two boys at once now, one hand on either of their heads. And she was even talking to the doctor standing behind her about the types of medicines, and perhaps local equivalents that they needed, not making much headway on the local equivalent side of things alas. It was very hard to grow medicinal plants on a world where the local language had no word for soil, only mud though.
The man looked at Master Fay's direction, his features softening just slightly as the boys healed as he watched, before hardening again. "And why have you come?! Is it because like the rest of the Republic vultures you have learned that while her bones and flesh might be of mud, our planet's heart is of steel? Our planet has suffered," he said, his voice rising with both fervor and anger. "Our planet has suffered for generations! For generations we have been left to die, drowning in mind, pirates, slavers and this brainrot plague!"
He went on, gesturing towards Master Fay, "This is but the latest horror we have had to endure. And only now, now when the galaxy has learned that we have something of value," Alto spat the word "does the Republic, the body that is supposed to govern us, to look out for us, only now does it deign to acknowledge our existence!"
"If you are expecting me to apologize I will give you one. But, there are over a fifty million inhabited systems within the Republic and there are less than eleven thousand Jedi," Kit replied with a sigh. "We cannot be everywhere we are needed, and even then sometimes the wrong Jedi is sent on a mission that would require more abilities or skills. It is only because Master Fay has an exceptionally profound connection to the Force that we are here now."
"But that does not mean that you cannot be held accountable!" Alto shouted back before calming somewhat. "I find your timing suspicious, and I find that the Jedi all too often believe their own rhetoric."
"Gentlemen," Master Fay said suddenly, looking up at the three of them, her voice stern. "This is not the place for discussion." She looked at the angry local. "Your name is Alto Stratus correct?" she asked, showing that despite the fact that she had been visibly listening, she had been able to follow the discussion somewhat."
He nodded, once and she went on. "Very well, you have genuine grievances, I will hear them, as well as why you think that taking up arms against the local government is the way forward. But not here and not now. I think we can all agree that the sick and dying should be our priority?"
The man grunted at that, then seemingly mellowed looking over the doctor. "Has she figured out how to fight the disease?"
The doctor looked up from his notes, tapping the datapad thoughtfully with a finger. "It, it seems to be anyway. Finding local equivalents to a lot of this medicine is going to be exceptionally hard if not impossible. And possibly impossible in several cases, but I think we definitely know how to combat it now."
"And if we can't find local equivalents?" the local politician asked, poking his fingers together as Alto began to growl, his hands clenching his eyes as he stared down the long, long rows of sick and dying.
"Then I will be extremely busy for quite some time," Master Fay said, finishing with her current patients, "while my companion, Knight Fisto, will see to getting the medicine we need." The words might have been given as an aside, but there was no doubt they were an order and Kit nodded brusquely and asked, politely for access to the Hypercom.
Over the next weeks, then a month, then two, Alto and his fellows were astonished by the Jedi and quietly worried too. Kit didn't seem able to do much, always following the other master along, but he was able to secure a deal with another planet nearby for much of the medicine they needed. But Alto felt he had a handle on his abilities. His chief worry was the other one, not as a physical threat, but a moral one.
Master Fay simply continued on, moving from one hospital to another, never seeming to sleep or tire. She didn't even seem to eat and her work and selflessness were such that none of the locals could find anything in her to fault. Not even Alto, although he tried. She was after all the Jedi, a self-righteous tool of the Republic and he was positive that this nonsense about the Force directing her and Fisto to his planet was just so much bunk. Yet, even so, Alto was a patriot, and he could not deny the help she was giving his people. He would wait until the Jedi proved they were just as fallible just as venal as everyone else was, then he would deal with them.
It took more than two months of hard work – after all, while Jabiim might be made of a thick layer of mud over a core of steel that didn't mean the population was small - but finally Master Fay and the locals, with the help of the medicine Kit had been able to procure for them, started to turn the tide against the brainrot plague. It would be a number of years before it was completely eradicated in the planetary population, but it would happen. And it wouldn't have, if not for the Jedi.
Alto knew it, and he hated that knowledge. He hated the fact that the Jedi were here now, and he hated the Jedi Order in general for their self-righteousness and the fact they had never been here for his people before. But now that the disease had been dealt with, the two Jedi would be forced to face the rest of the ways they had failed the people of Jabiim and he had used those months to prepare for this in various ways...
Freed at last of her duties as a healer, Fay quickly arranged or started to try to arrange a meeting between Alto and the local planetary Governor to occur at just about the same time that Ranma and Shaak were having their wedding. The planetary Governor, however, turned out to not even be on the planet. He and his family had fled to a nearby world, leaving behind his second-in-command to run the place, using taxpayer money and his own resources to buy a trip out when the plague first started to be recognized as such. He left a number of locals behind but had still been nominally in charge, acting much as the Senate did, simply using the Hypercom to send in his orders, when he felt the need. But eventually Fay was able to convince one of his local deputies to meet herself and Stratus in an open, public, and above all, nonviolent meeting. Since Stratus's group had been using violence and been subjected to said on and off for more than a year before the Jedi arrived, this was no small consideration. In fact, Kit had to sit on the government when they tried to outlaw Stratus and his Free Jabiim movement, wanting to label them as a terrorist group.
The meeting was held in a massive town hall, not in the central government or double governmental building, but someplace that seems to have preceded them, looking more like a local meeting hall done very large than anything else. Fay was surprised that it was going to be so public at first and asked why.
"No force tricks! No Jedi powers! Convince us with your words," Alto said coldly. "No manipulation, no more lies, no backroom deals. This will be public and everyone will see the Republic and the Jedi for the self-serving evils they are."
Fay simply nodded, walking into the large hallway with Kit behind her as she reviewed what Kit had found out about the Free Jabiim group, their goals and what they were willing to do to reach them. Beyond his shouted rhetoric, Alto and his people wanted to turn to the Separatist faction for help. He wanted to deal directly with the Trade Federation and break off from the Republic with them. Master Fay honestly didn't have a problem with that. She couldn't care less about the Republic as a whole. Fay dealt with people, not monstrous governmental bureaucracies like the Senate, or the Republic as a whole.
No, what she cared about was peace, and trying to keep it here on Jabiim. When the plague began to spread the locals had set aside their conflict for now, yet those differences of opinion still simmered under the surface. And the moment she entered that hall she knew that was possibly not going to be a goal she could meet here, not even with her considerable skills. The hate and anger she felt from Alto, as well as a lot of the people here, not just those wearing Free Jabiim beads in their hair, was almost a physical blow. And it wasn't hate just directed at the Republic, but at her personally, as a Jedi.
Of course, this was something that she had run into before. It was a very rare Jedi who could honestly say that had not run into someone who hated them and what they represented at some point in their career. But this does not bode well she thought, as she calmly entered the hall with Kit behind her.
She paused momentarily, looking around them as the crowd grumbled, and many of them seemed to want to get in her way. She simply cocked her head to one side and the crowd slowly subsided, like a classroom that had suddenly realized the teacher was standing there, staring them down. They shuffled out of her way, and Fay continued on towards the stage at the far end of the hall.
"We are in enemy territory Master Fay," Kit said quietly into her ear. "I would suggest you be ready for anything."
"I am always ready for anything the Force brings us," Master Fay said calmly. "But I believe that you, in particular, should be wary of certain physical threats perhaps."
"I am always ready for what the Force brings us," Kit parroted her own words back to her, making her lips twitched just slightly.
A few minutes later she stood on the podium, nodding to Alto and the government rep, a large, swarthy man named Vergil Cumulus. Alto frowned, looking them up and down. "You don't wear lightsabers? I knew you did before Aqualian."
"I do not," Kit replied. "This is a peaceful meeting, and I felt coming armed would simply exacerbate matters. Neither Master Fay nor I am here to fight. If my not wearing a weapon will help in that, I will do so."
Of course, that was a white lie. While Kit wasn't wearing his lightsaber, he did still have it on his person. Ki pockets were such useful things after all. Kit could only create a small one but it still fit his lightsaber well enough.
For a moment they were silent, then she spoke before either man could, taking command of the meeting subtly. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen. For those who don't know me, I am Master Fay, Jedi. We are here to discuss the planet of Jabiim and the troubles that have been occurring here, the Republic's role in those troubles or lack thereof, and then the opinions of the people who would lead this planet going forward, as well as what that would entail."
With that, she turned to the two locals. "I believe it would behoove us all to become acquainted with everyone's position on this point as this moment. Who would like to go first?"
Astro was no fool and saw instantly that Fay was trying to set herself up in the role of arbitrator, but he didn't let that happen. The instant he started talking, Alto linked Fey to the Jedi Order and its connection to the Republic, making certain that everyone there knew she was a representative of the Republic, the foreign body that he wanted to kick off Jabiim. He verbally acknowledged the way she had helped with the brainrot plague, but then attacked her for it, calling it, "At worst a calculated act of goodwill in order to win over the hearts and minds of Jabiim. At best, a salve on our wounds in order to make us think that the rest of our wounds were not so mortal, not so deadly!"
What followed that opening salvo was perhaps one of the hardest political discussions that Master Fay had dealt with in the last two hundred and twenty years. That was a very specific number because she could well remember one, two hundred and twenty-one years ago, that was actually far harder, one that had pushed her mental and emotional control to the limits. This one was simply close, but didn't try her patience quite as much, simply because she knew that the locals did have honest grievances against the Republic, and she wasn't about to try to brush that aside. Her acknowledgment of that, and the fact that the Republic owed Jabiim something, almost but not quite undid Alto's aggressive tactics.
She spoke eloquently about the role the Jedi play, about how they had perhaps failed here, while the Republic certainly had, but that the Jedi were not gods, her soft voice cutting through the turmoil that Alto bombastic rhetoric had created among the crowd. "The Force does not work like that. It is simply another tool, one that forces on our way of life. But we cannot solve all your problems, we cannot be everywhere at once. Do not blame us for being mortal."
"A government is supposed to look after all its constituents equally! If a government cannot, or is unwilling or simply plays favorites it needs to be overthrown! Should that not be the same if the Republic has failed us? If we are ruled without representation, without aid, without benefit, then what good is the Republic? Then what good is the Jedi who serve the Republic? You are held up as all-knowing, all-seeing defenders of the law, order and the common man, but you were never here! Your vaunted Force ignored us, forgot about Jabiim until, like all the others, you discovered we suddenly had something to offer!"
"I cannot speak for the Republic," Fay said, still calm. "I can only speak for myself and the Order. The Order is not special just because of the Force. The Order is special because of what we try to be. What we try to represent. And that is nothing more nor less than peace and the right of all individuals to live as best they can. We do not always succeed, we do not always truly understand how best to proceed, how best to achieve those goals. But the fact is, that we do try and can anymore be asked of anyone?"
"It can if you then deny us the right to make our own decisions!" Alto shouted back. "If you and the Republic demand our allegiance yet give nothing in return!"
For all of Alto's fury and hate, Fay was calm, not cold, not distant but firm and unyielding. She attempted to distance the Jedi from the troubles the planet had faced, tried to make certain that the locals knew the Jedi Order was not omniscient. She did not respond or attempt to defend the lack of aid from the Republic. Nor did she defend the planetary governor, something the actual government representative noticed. He, in turn, tried to defend the local government and the Republic, but in comparison to the other two, he was a literal nonentity, having none of Alto's flair for public speaking or raw emotion and none of Fay's natural charisma and will.
After more than an hour of discussions which ranged from specific laws and events – the Trandoshan slavers that had hit the planet two years ago and a series of laws that forbade planets below a certain industrial level to have their own space-based military – to wider topics like whether or not the Republic was evil or the local government for serving them or the Jedi, the two of them were slowly running out of points to discuss.
And judging by the crowd, it looked almost as if Master Fay was slowly getting through. Not to Alto, he was stone granite, his hatred of the Jedi a palpable thing in the air around him that she could not change. But, the crowd, both supporters of the government and Alto as well as the neutrals who had yet to choose a side were responding to her words. She really had won a lot of goodwill with how she dealt with the brainrot plague. Fay could sense it, even if she wasn't consciously using her Force powers thanks to Alto's demands.
Yet it was because she wasn't consciously using her Force powers that both she and Kit were surprised when the doors to the meeting hall flew open, and a large troop of police and government officials barged in. All of them wore heavy body armor and wielded stun batons or rifles. They trooped in and spread out quickly, the ones with guns leveling them over the heads of the crowd towards Alto and the others on the stage. From within them, one man with a microphone shouted, "Alto, Stratus by order of Senator Vupress, you are under arrest for sedition and terrorism! Come along quietly or else we will be obligated to use lethal force!"
Vupress was the Phelleem Sector senator, although that was all Kit or Fay even knew of the man. Still, these men were wearing body armor like the Senate's security forces, blue and white, and they didn't look local, none of them having the long hair or pasty skin the locals had after generations spent on a planet that only saw five days every year where it didn't rain. To the locals, this could only be a sign that the Senate, the Republic, had decided to step in and take over.
That did it. That relit the powder keg despite all Fay's efforts up to this point. The crowd roared, there were shouts of "down with the government", "down with the Jedi", "down with the Republic!"
Others surged towards the two Jedi, but were halted as Master Fay raised a hand, and pushed it forward as if she was pushing open a door. A wave of Force Push hit them and pushed them to the sides before carrying on to slam into the armed troopers and they were hurled backward off their feet.
But the damage was already done. "Down with the government shouted the crowd, down with the Republic!" These shouts would be heard around the world, with events here having been broadcast everywhere.
She turned to look at Alto and was almost surprised not to see a look of triumph for his face. Instead, while he did look content, he also looked somewhat sad. "You realize I had nothing to do with that. And I, as the Republic representative will disavow both the local planetary governor and the Sector Senator for ordering that."
"I realize that you think that would help," Alto said, before looking at Kit then back to Fay, his face hardening. "But I don't believe that the Jedi would be above such tactics even if you as an individual would be." Alto clicked his fingers together, and ten men at the back of the stage, who had stood unmoving all this time, pulled off their cloaks to reveal Trade Federation Battle droids. "Units one through four, join the crowd and kill the Republic Security forces. Units six through ten, cover the Jedi."
He turned back to Fay, his anger fading just a bit. "For what it's worth if more Jedi were like you…," he cut that off, looking between her and Kit, "and will you surrender as well?"
"So are you going to attempt to kill us out of hand?" Kit asked instead of replying.
"A part of me would dearly wish to. Despite your words, you are still both Jedi, representatives of the system I hate!" Altos said the earnestness in his tone and matching his anger. "But I won't. You have earned your lives at least. For now."
"The right to live as prisoners?" Kit asked moving in front of Master Fay between her and Alto. "Do you honestly think that capturing us will force the Republic to help you more than it already is willing to? If you do, I am afraid you will be disappointed."
"No, not at all. But over the last few months, I had time to contact the Trade Federation about more than just sending droids to my aid. I asked them for information on you, Fay," Alto said with a shake of his shaggy head as he looked at Master Fay. "You're apparently some kind of legend among the Jedi Order, just as much as in the Outer Rim and Unknown Territories. All that makes you even more valuable as a hostage than a dead martyr."
Master Fay seemed to consider this, while Kit's faint smile widened into a near manic grin as he moved his head and shoulders around, preparing for battle. "Perhaps that could work if Jedi were given to such sentimentality. But why do you think that you will be able to take us in the first place?"
The androids behind Alto leveled their guns at the two Jedi and Kit widened his stance slightly, grin still on his face. But otherwise, he kept his concentration on Master Fay and Alto. This was much of a battle of wills as it was a battle martial ability.
"Because you care for these people," he said simply. "And you don't want them caught in the crossfire, as they undoubtedly would be."
Master Fay blinked, then looked around at the gathered crowd. "Hostages both ways then."
"That's right," Alto said with a nod. "I'm not happy about it. In fact, I detest the necessity. But, if the choice is to let the two of you simply leave, go back and make your reports to what's going on here, or taking you captive and making what I can of it, I know what I will choose."
"Yes," she said sighing slightly. "Yes, I rather believe you do."
Something about that line made Alto scowl, but he didn't know why. But before he could think about it, Kit decided to butt in his smile gone as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Master Fay I have to protest. While I understand the necessity of protecting the lives of those locals unaffiliated in this conflict, surely we have a duty to escape. Letting ourselves be captured doesn't seem to serve any point. Especially since I could kill Alto while we're getting out of here?"
"And what would that serve? Slaying Alto Stratus at this moment in time would not stop this war. His faction would go on, and several more leaders would start up almost immediately. His faction has the moral high ground right now, it was the government not them who broke the peace of this negotiation. No, we need to wait until the public outrage has calmed down and until help arrives," Fay replied.
"Oh good, I wanted to make certain that you had a plan going forward before agreeing to this," he said, suddenly cheerful again, something that startled many of the guards around him and he turned to them, holding out his arms as his Lightsaber seemingly disappeared under his sleeves. "Do I get handcuffs? This is my first time to be a prisoner and I want to do it right."
OOOOOOO
Ranma and the crew of the Wild Blade arrived within Ossus' star system and quickly began to survey the system as well as the planet they were here to explore. They had after all been ambushed recently, and none of them were willing to put up with that again. Eventually, they decided that there was nothing here that could threaten them. "However," the Sergeant said, "I think we need to unload the starfighters and get some practice with them. We've only faced one fight and that against automated defenses. We need to train more."
That both Shaak and Ranma agreed with, so before heading down to the planet they disgorged the starfighters into space. The only ones left from the rest of the crew were Dralshy'a and HK. The two of them and Tune would remain behind on the ship, guarding it while the others explored, as soon as they found a place to set down anyway.
Ranma flew the ship now, while the Jedi all used the Force to figure out where to go from here. "According to our records, the library itself should be somewhere underneath a mountain, I just did not anticipate there being so many mountains here," Shaak said somewhat apologetically.
"This planet has obviously seen far better days," Ranma said, reaching out and taking her hand while continuing to pilot the ship with the other.
That was putting it very mildly indeed, Ahsoka thought as she looked out the viewscreen at the planet below them. Most of it was brown, brown and the gray of stone, with very little water, although what there was seemed to be clear, dark blue. The atmosphere looked to be breathable too, but then there were obvious craters practically left over from old bombardments of the planet, many of which had created deep calderas. And in a lot of places, there were odd remnants of old damages the kind of which Ahsoka had never seen images of during her education in the temple. Then it hit her: they looked like damage caused by blaster bolts or lightsaber strikes that didn't quite burn through.
"Are we sure that this library is still here?" she asked, feeling a little queasy as that last realization hit her. What the heck happened here?
"We are," Luminara replied with a nod. "It was still being used occasionally after the Great Sith Wars. Indeed, there have been reports of Jedi coming here occasionally over the years, both before and directly after the New Sith Wars. Or at least, to the planet itself. The library…" she paused. "That I am not certain of."
"'Found again'?" Ahsoka parroted. "How does one lose an entire planet?"
"All too easily I fear," Shaak said dryly, with a pointed look to Ranma and the others, all of whom understood her point.
But it was K'Kruhk who took it upon himself to answer the younger Togrutan's question. "This planet was one of many that suffered in the wars against Exar Kun, a fallen Jedi and his Sith Brotherhood. At one point he caused a solar scale detonation in the Cron Cluster."
"A supernova," Ranma translated, to the dry looks of everyone there as he seemed to shudder a little.
But K'Kruhk went on. "The supernova was supposed to destroy this planet, along with all life within the cluster but all it did was push Ossus out of position and eventually out of its own home star system. We only rediscovered it by accident about 40 years later thanks to the Lady Nomi Sunrider and by that point, of course, the planet was almost entirely forgotten by the rest of the Republic."
As they flew, K'Kruhk and Master Unduli took turns to explain the history of the Great Sith Wars, with Shaak interjecting what she had gleaned from battling the ghost of Exar Kun in her own mind. Ranma, in turn, told them about the pyramids they had found on Yavin 4, something that interested all the other Jedi, as well as the deformed creatures that they had been forced to fight there as well. That led into a discussion on how Exar Kun had gleaned such strength from the hate and fear of the campaign Ranma, Shaak, and their friends had run.
Eventually, it was Aayla who spotted what they were looking for. She twisted around, pointing in one direction and smacking Ranma on the shoulder. "That way, I believe that the library is over there. Or… at least what we are here to seek is in that direction."
The mountain they found didn't actually look all that different from any other mountain around them until they were close, hovering over it. Only then did some of them notice that there were ledges here and there, artificial ones carved out of the mountainside with what looked to have once been beds for flowers, possibly foodstuff and other things of that nature. Here and there were even the remains of walls, long since eroded, but the stone of the walls base were still standing, and even paths.
"Yep, that looks like the entrance to an all-important library for sure," Ranma quipped. "And now for her next trick, the lady of the blue skin should try to find us a place to land."
That took a while since they had to find a place where not only could the Wild Blade land but the near-squadron of starfighters. Eventually, they found a flat area near the bottom of the mountain, which looked as if it had recently had a forest fire of some kind, their landing crushed several large stumps down underneath the ship. From there, they left Dralshy'a, HK and Tune on guard of the ship, before making their way up the mountain.
As they went up, they found evidence of recent civilization here and there among the shattered remains of the past, mostly in the form of votive offerings. These were little items of beads or leather wrapping, a few daub paintings on leather, feathers and dozens of tiny stone arrow or spearheads. Some of these looked almost new, and Ranma looked at the others. "I thought there weren't any people around here."
"Evidentially we were wrong," Shaak said simply. "Perhaps there were bands of survivors or the crew of some crashed ship perhaps?"
Luminara disagreed saying any such would not have been able to create a stable society, whatever the technological level. "No these are certainly the descendants of survivors of the original population. I dare say they might have turned away from the stars on purpose at one point, and then simply been unable to rebuild their homegrown technology. Survival conditions would then have forced them down a more primitive path. And without the ability to pass on how technology worked and so on…"
Ranma shrugged unconcern. "Whatever, let's keep going."
The trek up the mountain wasn't arduous for any of them, even the two young Padawans, given all of the training they had already had in their time as younglings. "Although if we were doing this with our hands, I would certainly be having much more issues. Ranma really is a slave driver isn't he?" Barriss said to Ahsoka.
"Welcome to my world," Ahsoka said with a wan chuckle. "Both he and Master Ti believe in training, training and more training. They had me doing these exercises for my arms for more than four hours once, and then we went on a hiking trip around Mandalore for the rest of the day. And when I say hike, I really meant a run. It was not fun."
"How can you say that?" Aayla said with a laugh, stopping beside the two younger girls as she stared around. "This is amazing! A true adventure of discovery."
"Adventures are things that happen to other people," both Padawans answered by rote. There were lessons to make certain that the Padawans did not allow their enthusiasm to get the better of them and that line was used rather often in those.
Aayla laughed. "Aw, you're no fun."
Barriss shook her head and looking over at her quietly smiling master, her face confused. Not two days aboard the Wild Blade and she had been exposed to more smiles, joking and laughter from Jedi than in the rest of her life combined. "Master, I thought, that is…"
Master Unduli sighed. "Barriss, while my own connection to the Force has forced me to control my emotions to a far greater degree than Aayla or Shaak that is a personal decision. You need to make such a decision yourself. Do not assume that you will be like me simply because we are both Mirialan or because I seem to be closer to the Order's ideal. If you wish to become a Jedi more in the mold of Shaak or Aayla, that is up to you. I will respect your decision, although you will need to be aware that others will question it."
Barriss frowned. "But, but don't emotions get in the way of even creating a connection to the Force in the first place? That is what we have always been taught before this."
"And it is true, but only in a certain way," Shaak said as the trek up the hill continued. She even turned to look at the others walking back up the mountain dodging around a rocky outcropping and then hopping over a tree stump, moving through several votive offerings left on the other side without touching any of them. "You must be careful when reaching out to the Force in an emotional state because doing so often reverberates those emotions back to you. Reach out in anger, in hate, you feel them stronger and stronger. Reach out with compassion, you feel that too. It is about control young Barriss, not about the abstaining from emotions, but the controlling of them. Feel the emotions, do not let them control you or your actions."
Ahsoka nodded at that, having learned that lesson already, a process begun several years ago and finished by Shaak Ti in the weeks since she had become the older Togrutan's official Padawan.
"…I do not know if I agree with that," Barriss said after a few minutes. "You speak of the Old Oath in comparison to the Oath as it is administered today. The revised Oath has kept the peace for a thousand years."
"No," Ranma said coldly, cutting into the discussion with all the subtlety of a battleax through a table. "It hasn't. It's merely let you believe that it's been peaceful because you lot decided to lock your emotions away and yourselves up in your ivory tower."
"The Order might have been peaceful internally," Shaak said with a glare towards her unrepentant lover, "and might not have been forced to deal with internal politics as much as would otherwise have been the case or with emotional entanglements or divided loyalties. That is not the same as peace I'm afraid and nor is it a time of peace now. After the Wedding Disaster, I would think that…" she paused as Ranma guffawed next to her. "Darn it now you even have me doing it now!" she muttered, smacking him on the shoulder.
"I, I see...," Barriss said, thinking hard. "I will meditate on this. Just so long as that one," she pointed at Ranma, "doesn't tickle me again." Ranma had done that this morning when she had been slow to start following Ahsoka in a few exercises. Barriss had proven to be horribly ticklish and having little to no defense against it.
"I make no promises," Ranma said with a laugh. Then he began to hop ahead of them, leaping up towards the distant rocks, climbing up them and then leaving away. He even had his arms crossed behind him and acted entirely too much like a giant hyperactive bunny for the seriousness of their discussion.
Shaak chuckled, and began to follow, her Jedi robe billowing in the wind of her passage.
"Ah well, if you can't beat him…" Ahsoka groaned, then began to follow them, her own jumps far shorter, and not nearly as acrobatic, but she made up for that with enthusiasm, and soon she was grinning and having fun with it too. Aayla instantly followed while K'Kruhk ignored them, moving up the trail at a steady, ground devouring lope.
"Well, shall we?" Master Unduli asked, gesturing after them She asked looking at her padawan.
Barriss looked back at her, then very deliberately smiled. "You have to admit it looks like fun master," she said, and the two of them started to leap after the others.
In this manner, the Jedi and Ranma – with K'Kruhk somehow not nearly as far back as Ranma had thought he would be – reached what had to be the entrance of the library. It was a giant doorway, set about halfway up the mountain, set into the very side of it, the metal set deeper into the stone. The door looked like a blast door, was almost undoubtedly thick, very heavy looking, with no discernible hinges. The sides of it disappeared into the side of the stone of the mountain itself.
"Well, if I was an ancient Jedi repository of knowledge, I suppose I would want a door like this too," Ranma said with a whistle, looking at the door thoughtfully, before moving forward and smacking one fist against it. This didn't even register as a thump, and he whistled, before frowning thoughtfully. "Very thick."
"I imagine that it was supposed to be designed in such a way that it would make looting the library within impossible. At least for non-Force users at any rate," Aayla said, smiling slightly.
"Could you move to the side Ranma?" Shaak asked politely, although her attention had shifted away from the door almost the moment they got up to this small terrace. Nearby to the door, there was a giant ancient and gnarled tree, and it was calling out to her. Indeed, she could detect that it had a larger Force presence than any other tree she had ever seen, even the monstrous Wroshyr trees of Kashyyyk.
Still, she joined her Force powers to the others, and they reached out to the door, feeling it out, looking for weaknesses, looking to see if the controls to the door were still active somewhere behind it. Eventually, they found nothing, and then started to strain, trying to pull the door to either side into the recesses designed for it. But the door was so big and heavy, the Jedi quickly began to tire.
"It weighs more than a starfighter," Aayla snorted, pushing forward with both her hands now.
"When did you try to lift a starfighter?" Shaak asked, her tone almost conversational despite the strain they were all feeling.
"Long story, tell you later," Aayla replied.
Ahsoka and Barriss started to drop out of the Force gestalt and Ranma caught them by the shoulders, gently tugging them backward. "All right," he said, clapping his hands so loud it sounded like a thunderclap in front of the other Jedi's faces. "That didn't work," he said brightly. "Shall we try both your way and my way combined now love?"
"Be my guest," Shaak replied with a chuckle.
First, Ranma walked up to the door and slammed a glowing blue fist home into it, which dented the metal something fierce. He did this three more times, but to his surprise, denting the metal was all he could do. It was just too thick for him to break through. I could see about my vorpal blades, but… "Lightsabers?"
Lightsabers were able to penetrate the metal, but they didn't cut into it far enough to reach the other side. We could have slice chunks of it off," Luminara said pulling her lightsaber back with a sigh. "And considering that we want to leave this place somewhat still defensible against vagrants and burglars, that is not an option."
"Cut me a hand hold then," Ranma said, gesturing to one side of the door. "You're positive that the door is supposed to slide to this side, right?"
The Jedi nodded, and he grumbled then pointed down at the bottom of the door, repeating his earlier statement. "Then cut me a handhold, and let's see if we can move this bad boy!"
Eventually, with Ranma grunting and straining, the Jedi and the martial artist were able to push the doorway back into its recesses, with Ranma gasping in air as he hefted it into the air. Even with the Jedi taking a majority of the weight off him, the damn thing was heavier than a tank. Eventually, they had gottenthe door open enough for them to enter, but they didn't do so immediately, many of them knowing about the dangers of entering a newly opened crypt and the stale air within. The fact this let Ranma rest, breathing on his hands and growling under his breath was beside the point. The others also waited and rested, taking on some water and food as they waited.
"So what will we do when we get in there?" Ranma asked. He had no experience searching a library for information like this after all and didn't honestly understand what a library, in this case, could mean anyway. Huh, come to think of it, have I been in a library at all since coming to this universe? Museums yes, memorials, yes…libraries, no. Huh. Funny.
"I think we should split up in teams of two at the minimum," Master Unduli said firmly, laying a gentle hand on her Padawan's shoulder. "There could be predators within which have gained access from some other, smaller entrance, the ventilation shafts for example."
Ranma shrugged unconcern at that, while Shaak frowned, her eyes trailing over to the tree, as they had been doing since they had stopped working on the door. "Actually, I think I would like to commune with that tree for a time. The rest of you should be able to find what we are here for without me."
"Are you sure?" Ranma asked looking at her quizzically. "I mean I know you like plants and all, you've tied me up enough times with vines but…"
"Gah!" Aayla snorted out some water, shaking her head. "Ranma keep that kind of thing to yourself please! I so do not need to know more about your marital playtime than I already can sense!"
"Huh?" Ranma asked, while Shaak simply blinked in confusion and Luminara began to giggle behind one hand, causing her Padawan to stare at her in shock.
"Never mind," Aayla said, gesturing Shaak to answer Ranma's original question.
"There is something unusual about that tree, it's a mystery I wish to get to the bottom of," Shaak replied with a faint smile.
The others looked at her then back to the tree, and only K'Kruhk could figure out what she was talking about. "It does seem to have quite a large Force Presence," he mused. "Interesting. Would you like some help?
Shaak shook her head. "Thank you but no, I think your help would be better served inside."
So it was that Ranma and the others left Shaak outside. Ranma took point, leading the way inside until they got to what Luminara said was the first library hall portion. It was a massive hall, easily ten stories tall, after they exit the short passage. From what they could see from here, the sides lined with alcoves all the way up, small little cubicles cut into the rock. On the floor were bookshelves every 10 feet or so from one side to the other, going straight up to the ceiling. The hall disappeared in the distance, further than the light from their lightsabers and flashlights could go.
It was quite obvious that no one has taken care of this area for a long time though, because many of the paperback books, scrolls, data slates, and other things were strewn around the floor. There was also what looked like some kind of slime trail to one side of the doorway about as wide as a man's arms. "Great," Ranma grumbled. At the sound of his voice, there was a skittering noise from the dark, and he smiled thinly. "Well, at least ya were right about that Luminara. There are animals in here."
"I can sense the minds of both prey animals and predators. There must indeed be another way in, at least for small animals anyway," Luminara replied.
Ranma nodded. "Okay, so while you guys search I'll see what I can find on him about those animals."
"You just don't want to do research," Ahsoka accused.
Ranma bopped her on the nose. "You are so right kiddo." He frowned though, reaching down to pick up one of the cylinders from the floor of the hall. "What are these things?"
"Those would be data cylinders," K'Kruhk supplied. "They are an old style method to store information."
"Hmm this place, it almost looks organized still. How far back are we looking for?" Barriss asked, running a finger down a row of actual paper books. She had never seen any of them before and found the look of them, the feel of their tight, old leather, a new experience. Ahsoka was more interested in what was on the floor, thinking it must be important if it hadn't been put away. She was currently gathering them up, putting them in a pile by the door.
"Anything from near to the end of the New Sith Wars, we would prefer astrogation data, but once we start using the Force we can narrow it down," Luminara murmured, looking around them. "Or perhaps there is some way we could take all this information with us? I had thought this place would be far more damaged, like a mix between a mausoleum and a ruin."
"We're kind of cramped on the Wild Blade as it is. If you lot think you can sleep with your room piled high from these data cylinders, books and what-all, that's fine but don't even think about piling them anywhere else," Ranma objected, shaking his head.
"Besides, there is an issue with that concept." With that, K'Kruhk gently took Barriss' hand in his large mitt, gently pulling her away from the books. Then he pulled one out, and a pile of dust came out as soon as he did. Barriss coughed and spluttered while K'Kruhk put the empty book back and turned to the others. "None of these books will be useful. Also, I believe that ancient data cylinders were so large because they had internal power sources for their tiny holo-projectors. I would wager most of these have lost much of the data on them thanks to internal damage.
Ranma heard a skitter out in the dark and turned, flashing his light pike around, only to stare at something that looked like a scarab beetle except twice the size, light gray and without the pincers. "And does anyone want to bet those things and others like them found something to sustain themselves down here? Up to and including wires of all sorts."
"Then we are indeed left with the Force," Luminara sighed. "It at least was able to nudge us to come here, it should be able to help us find what we need to know."
"Yeah, you lot do that, I'll be looking around for a bit," Ranma said, waving the others off and moving deeper into Ossus. Those little scarab guys got in somehow, and they didn't leave that large trail we found near the entrance. Something else did, and then it retreated into the dark while we advanced.
Not four rows later, Ranma paused, listening to a snuffling somewhere nearby. At first he couldn't find where it was coming from, but then he looked up, and spotted something moving in the darkness well above them. He cocked his head to one side, staring up at the thing and only one thought came to his mind then. "Damn, you ugly. I mean, I know most times the line a face only a mother could love is really cutting, but in your case I doubt even your momma would like that ugly ass mug."
It really was too. The thing hanging from the roof had the legs of a spider and at least some of the thorax of one, but its head looked like that of a bulldog who had lost every fight it had ever attempted, complete with cheeky jowls, a tiny bit of drool around the mouth, and several dozen mismatched eyes.
It stared down at him, and Ranma could almost see its thought processes. It was the top of the food chain that was obvious given its size, although Ranma did wonder if it lived in here alone or it had a mate somewhere. Kami, and ain't that a nightmare fuel sorta thought. It liked to eat, Exhibit A being a larger gray scarab beetle being chewed on at present and the stare it was giving him told Ranma the thing wanted him on a platter. The light was bad, or at least that was what Ranma thought it was thinking since before this it had shied away from the light of the lightsabers and the flashlights they all wore on their waists, and now it was trying to not look at his light pike.
Then as Ranma, with a grin on his face, turned off the light pike, its hesitation ended. No light equaled dinnertime. It leaped down quickly, far faster than anything its size had a right to move, and yet oh so slowly in comparison to Ranma's speed. He laughed and leaped back onto the bookshelf behind him bouncing upwards his light pike blunt end swinging. "Welcome to the world beyond the well little froggy!"
The blow smashed into the thing's side and sent it flying through the air to splatter elsewhere in Ossus. Looking in that direction Ranma leaped up to land lightly on top of a nearby bookshelf, before racing along the top of them towards the sound. He found the dead thing whatever it was, and K'Kruhk staring past another shelf that had evidently done yeoman's work as a shield, keeping the things puss and goo from splattering him. The large Whiphid looked up at him, one furry brow cocked. "Your work I take it."
"Yeah, sorry about the splash there. Any luck?"
"Not much, no. I think we need to narrow the search down, but doing so is going to be very difficult." K'Kruhk shook his head, a feat that always looked weird to Ranma's eyes since it really did look more like warthog doing the same thing than a human.
"Eh, more power to ya. And if you see any other examples of the Truly Ugly call me. I'll be searching around for them for a while." With that Ranma leaped back the way he had come, racing along on the top of the bookcases and out into the dark beyond the lightsabers and flashlights.
Outside while the search was going on, Shaak was getting in touch with the tree in front of her. The tree truly was unusual. Not only did it radiate in the Force to a great degree, but there seemed to be a kind of deep-rooted awareness somewhere within it, buried deeply, Despite that, Shaak knew instantly that this individual was ancient, VERY ancient, far older than any mind she had met, even Fay or Yoda.
The mind inside the tree was somewhat reluctant to wake, almost somnolent, unwilling to rouse itself. It was something like a coma patient who had been perfectly happy to remain asleep. But she was doing so slowly when she felt something else. They were eight of them, then ten more, all minds, simple minds for the most part, but sapient minds. The locals who left all the votive offerings. Ahh, and now they are encircling me. Angry that we have trespassed on their sacred mountain perhaps?
Without even opening her eyes from where she laid her back against the tree, Shaak plucked the communicator from her belt. "Ranma, fellow Jedi. The locals are here and they are getting a bit restless. I don't want a full confrontation, so if someone could come out to help with a show of force, I would be most appreciative."
Hearing that Ranma broke off his search and loped off in something faster than a jog but not a sprint, devouring the distance between the deeply sunk library and the entrance easily. He was followed by Ahsoka and Barriss and then the others. As Ranma exited out into the rest of the world beyond the entrance, the locals attacked from well out of what should have been their range. They used long throwing spears, hurling them from various hiding places. Ranma actually had to acknowledge their skill in hiding at least, he could barely spot anything and that was knowing where the spears had come from.
Setting that observation to one side Ranma leaped forward and up, grabbing the spears he could out of the air, using them to block the others smashing them aside as he noticed that the spears were thin, reedy things. So how'd they toss them so far and with such distance too?
At that point Ahsoka attacked, leaping out from the library door as she activated her lightsaber, a bright green blade slicing through several more spears before she leaped into the long grass they had been hurled from. She then lashed out with a Force Push, a technique she had been working with her Master on lately. Four of the locals, all humans of young to middle-aged were hurled backward with a cry of pain and shock. Despite that though, others closed, warily staring at the green blade in her hands.
"Remember no killing," Ranma admonished, even as he sidestepped another spear, catching and hurling it back with its spear tip missing to thwack into a local, causing him to groan and go to his knees. "Try not to use your lightsaber on their bodies, killing these guys would not be at all the act of a Jedi, would it? Anything else is fair game."
As Ranma spoke the word Jedi, Shaak, still meditating with the tree, felt the presence within roused a bit. Good grief, could that be it? I feel rather ludicrous now trying to force him to wake up by connecting to him via the Force.
At this point, more than half of the attackers were trying to get past Ahsoka's defenses. But with Ranma's injunction, and the discussion she had with him a while ago she didn't use her lightsaber lethally. Rather, she attacked the weapons of her enemies, their clothing and the sandals on their feet. They were held on by twine, and when the twine was burnt through, the local lost the shoe, slowing them down and throwing them off balance. She also attacked their belts, which kept their pants up.
This, alas, caused her issues an instant later as a native somewhat older than she was but certainly not all that old either leaped at her. She dodged back, slashing at his front as he came, clipping and searing through his belt. He stood there, his club in his hands as his pants fell around his ankles, showing that the natives went commando.
"AHH!" Ahsoka shrieked. "Oh god, I so did not want to see that." Leaping away she stared at anything else around, utterly mortified her cheeks nearly white from the power of her blush.
Ranma started to laugh while the local looked confused, only to shriek himself and cover himself. "Huh, again, being an observer to this sort of thing is kind of hilarious."
Then the other Jedi were there, and moving forward to join their fellows. Lightsabers were ignited, but not used. "Can you understand me?" Luminara asked, gesturing to one of the locals. "We are Jedi. We are not here to harm you, rather we are here to seek knowledge.
At those words, the spirit within the tree reacted almost jolting out of its somnolence, and Shaak smiled, standing up from where she had been leaning against the trunk of the giant tree. "Indeed, we are not here to fight, nor are we here to take over your sacred mountain," she said smacking the tree with every word, sending brief pulses of the Force through the tree at every touch. "We are Jedi, and we have come to seek knowledge… ancient one."
The term 'ancient one' seems to throw the locals off, and they looked at her in confusion wondered what she was saying. The other Jedi too looked at Shaak, but K'Kruhk and Luminara also stared at the tree. They too bowed their heads towards it. "Ancient master, we seek counsel, and we have come far. Please awake and give counsel," K'Kruhk said, his voice deep and sonorous.
For a moment, nothing happened, and the natives, frozen into immobility by Shaak's strange words and the fact they had understood them, started to reach for their weapons, either to run away or to fight Ranma didn't know, but he cocked one fist while glaring at the oldest of them all, cracking his knuckles explosively. That seemed to go on for a while, and then Ranma realized that it wasn't the noise from his knuckles that were still reverberating around the area. No, the tree Shaak had been meditating by had come alive.
Its trunk started to creak groan and move, bits and pieces of bark sloughing off to the ground, as something stirred within. The process took a while, but eventually, there was an outline of a face there, and the mighty roots of the tree started to shake, as the owner of that face shook its legs out. A second later, the tree started to lose limbs, leaving only two behind, thin and gnarled like the limbs of an ancient man, though the face was such determining, an age was impossible. There were lines there that could possibly denote age, yet they were, coupled with a skin that looked almost like that of a newborn tree.
"You are Jedi?" the voice said, a subterranean voice, a cavernous voice, a voice deep and yet also warm. "It has been a millennium since a Jedi intelligent enough to see what was in front of them strode this land. Name yourselves please travelers from afar, and as a test, tell me mine as well."
"Great master," Master Ti began, bowing her head towards the ancient Jedi, even as she realized who this had to be. "I am Master Shaak Ti, the younger Togrutan over there is my Padawan, Ahsoka. The human with the pigtailed is Ranma, and the two Mirialan ladies are Master Luminara Unduli and her Padawan Barriss. The last of our number are the Jedi Knights K'Kruhk and Aayla." Both of those worthies bowed, as Shaak continued, "I greet you Master Ood Bnar. I see that rumors of your demise at the hands of Exar Kun were greatly exaggerated."
"You have made a study of Exar Kun?" the Neti master said, frowning suddenly as he looked at Shaak. "Studies like that can lead to dangerous waters young one. And I sense that you too have brushed with Darkness, although, I also sense far more, more Light and more Living Force within you than I have felt since I met young Nomi Sunrider."
"Ah, I have brushed with that specific darkness I'm afraid," Shaak said wryly, rising from her bow even as she kept her arms crossed in her robe's long sleeves.
"What do you mean?" Ood Bnar asked cocking his head to one side, even as he finished pulling himself out of where he had been rooted to the spot for untold millennia. "Surely Exar Kun is long dead. I felt what I thought was his passage long, long ago, when I was but new into the healing cycle of my people." The ancient Neti master looked a little sheepish for a moment. "It is how my people are able to heal from practically anything, but there is always the danger of falling asleep, of becoming more tree then Neti. I am afraid that it can even happen to Jedi, and as sorely wounded as I was by my former student's assault, and then the supernova I could not fight it. But tell me, how long have I been asleep?"
The Jedi exchanged glances, and finally, it fell to Master Unduli to reply. "I believe, that perhaps you should prepare yourself for a bit of a shock, master. You have been asleep for more than four thousand years."
The ancient master blinked the deep-set crevices that seemed to work as his eyes then sighed somehow looking even more embarrassed. "Yes well, I suppose that could happen to even the best of us." Now could you please explain your line about dealing with that particular darkness? If Exar Kun is still around in some fashion, he would be a terrible danger to the universe."
Ranma shook his head and pointed at Shaak, pride in his face and tone as he spoke. "No worries on that score, Shaak here exorcized that particular ghost."
Shaak rolled her eyes at that, but as the locals seemed to in awe of them now, bowing and scraping towards the tree, she began to explain their story. First she covered what had occurred specifically with Exar Kun, and what was known about how he had cheated death, before going into how she and Ranma had used Yavin 4 for their own ambush of various bounty hunting groups, only to run into Exar Kun and his Dark Side warped creatures. How the hate and anger of the fights there had seemingly helped him regain his strength, to the point where he attempted to take over Shaak's body, to live again.
"Wait, if you and this one were both there," Ood Bnar said slowly, gesturing with a long bony finger towards Ranma, "Why then did he tried to take you over? I can sense the Living Force within you both, but his is stronger. You must have a truly gifted connection to the Force young man," he added, looking at Ranma thoughtfully.
"Not a connection at all actually," Ranma said with a laugh. "Or at least, only occasionally, see I use the living force within me exclusively, I don't reach out to the Unifying Force at all.
"Astonishing!?" the Neti master exclaimed. "Is such a thing even possible?"
"Last I looked yeah," Ranma said with a laugh.
"Trust me Master Bnar," Ahsoka said dryly "that's not the only bizarre thing about him."
"Let's not shock the old wooden guy with too many surprises at once okay?" Ranma said, glaring at Ahsoka who just grinned impishly back at him. "No water gun for you."
Seeing Ood Bnar's confusion, Shaak laughed quietly. "That alas is another long story…"
Later that day, with the ancient librarian's aid and their Force powers, K'Kruhk and Luminara quickly began to go through the library, narrowing their search down swiftly, then going through each data cylinder, crystal or dataslate, using the Force to try to discern some information. They had found lots of little bits and pieces about how the Sith might have survived, a Rule of Two under Darth Bane, a Sith from the New Sith Wars. Without knowing about the fact the Sith really were out there most of the hints would have seemed hearsay and rumor, but since they did, it gave them insight on a few important points: the fact there were always two true Sith, and one would be hidden at all times to continue the Sith legacy. And that the Sith had developed their plans since nearly the moment the New Sith Wars ended.
Ood Bnar also was able to give them insight on some things about the Sith themselves, how they thought, how they would act, how their use of the Dark Side inevitably had an impact on their minds and bodies. "It does not matter how in control a Sith might be. How logical they attempt to be in a way to offset their Dark Side urges. There were several Sith in the Sith Wars who acted in such a manner, and they were all very dangerous. But their actions were still touched by the cruelty and desire to release their hate and anger that all Sith feel. They might not even be aware of it at times, but it will be there. And in that, they prove the weakness of the Dark Side.
While they were doing that, Ranma and Shaak spoke with the locals and went so far as to go to their village. This took some time since the locals didn't live on the sacred mountain, but in a small, very well hidden valley nearby. They spent several hours working with them, or rather Shaak did. Ranma helped out around the village to make it more livable, even helping to divert a nearby stream to be closer. Ahsoka and Barriss also helped, with Ahsoka working on the buildings and Barriss helped with the wounded.
They came together later that evening to compare notes, Shaak having bowed out for them all rather than joining the locals for a feast. "I feel we could be here for lifetimes and we would still be learning from the past things that have long been forgotten."
"Yeah, well I prefer to learn as I go, forging my own way forward. Now, did you find anything!?" Ranma asked. "Because while knowing your enemy and all that is good, I'd prefer to know where he's set up his secret base or whatever, and then bring it down around his ears."
"We have the star charts of the time of the New Sith Wars," K'Kruhk soothed. "Now we just need Tune to go through it and compare it to the latest Republic charts."
That night Ranma and Shaak returned to the ship while the others remained with the locals speaking to Ood Bnar. The Mandalorians and Nova Guard were likewise off the ship. With Aayla not there, they felt they could indulge a little, as they hadn't been able to since she had joined them.
Later that night, Tune woke them up, suddenly. "Master, Mistress, I have already begun to get a few hits, I am afraid there is going to be a lot of changes in the thousand years since this was created. I need another way to narrow it down."
"We will be up presently," Shaak said then found Ranma's hands creeping up her bare side before gently coming to rest on her breasts, his fingers twisting and working at them. "Or perhaps," she broke off in a breathy moan. "Aahh, mmm, perhaps we should wait for that until the morning Tune. Just, mmm, just keep compiling a list of differences and then look to see if there are reeeaason, reasons for them."
With that, she clicked off the intercom and turned kissing Ranma fiercely, flipping one leg over his waist.
The two of them joined the other senior Jedi in the cockpit, which once more was rather too crowded for Ranma's liking, but since this hopefully wouldn't last long, or at least wouldn't involve him for long, he could put up with it. And they needed to be up here to see the information Tune had discovered on the main screen, as well as let him talk. The astromech droid did so for quite some time, ending with, "but these two hundred and fifty names don't have reasons for their no longer being around I can see or have access to, they are simply not in the modern data. However, I cannot narrow it down."
"Hmm… let us look at types of star systems and where they are. I think we can conclude that the Sith would not hide within the Republic proper, so nothing within the Core World or Expansion Region territories," Luminara began.
"Unless they go very deep into the Core, where navigation is next to impossible because of how many gravitic currents there are," Shaak warned.
"I think that this place would be in the Outer Rim territories," K'Kruhk cautioned. "Any change to the star charts of more populous regions would not go unnoticed."
"True. So that limits it down to a hundred and seventy-two. Helpful, but not as helpful as we could have hoped. I think we are back to using the Force."
Ood Bnar nodded, but asked the simple question, "Do any of these names mean anything to anyone here?" None did, and he nodded slowly. In that case, we need to figure out where you will all go when you leave here."
"When we leave here?" You will not come with us Master Ood Bnar?" Aayla asked.
"I will not. There are a few young Force-sensitives among the locals, even that young boy who Ahsoka made a bit of a fool of in your aborted moment of combat. They will need to be trained to use their powers, to not give into their Dark instincts, to control themselves. And I rather think that the library may become more important in the days to come. I do not know why, but the Force is telling me that is the case," Ood Bnar replied. He then smiled, his wooden features shifting into a wide smile. "Besides, you and your friends hardly need another Jedi along, and it is not as if I was ever a mighty warrior either. You will find your own paths forward with the Force young ones, as should always be the case."
With that the large Neti master turned and moved off, walking through the ship and back out into the light of the morning. The rest of the Jedi looked at one another than Ranma who smirked, shrugging his shoulders. "Don't look at me. This is your gig, guy and gals, I'll just get a meal together for when you're done. The locals were telling me about something that sounded like a deer around here, and that it makes good eating too."
With that he moved out of the cockpit, leaving the Jedi behind. They then adjourned to the main room to use the hologram device set into the table there. Sitting around it, they had Tune create a program that sent the names up and around them in a jumble. From there, The Jedi mediated for more than half the day, trying together to get through the Veil to try to see where they should go. Forcing it like that, no pun intended, didn't work, not with the Veil in the way. Aayla and Luminara reluctantly pulled out of the meditation, sighing and shaking their heads as they looked at one another.
At that moment Ranma raced up the ramp, a large example of the local deer over his shoulders shoulder. "Yo you lot, how're you doing in your search for our first real target?" Ranma paused, moving over to touch K'Kruhk, and then Shaak on the shoulders. "Hey you two, what's wrong?"
It was only then that Aayla and Luminara realized the two of them were frowning, their knuckles clenched in their laps rather than the normal meditative look of serenity. Both quickly stood up and moved to join Ranma. Luminara touched the first one then the other on the forehead, her eyes closing for a moment before frowning. "They are gripped by a Force Vision but..."
"Like the one that had Plo Koon passing on info that led us into a trap?" Ranma interrupted. "Then we need to get them out of it right?"
"No!" Aayla and Luminara both said, with the Twi'lek actually smacking his hands away from Shaak. "If they are still trapped in the vision interrupting them might harm their minds."
Luckily for Ranma's blood pressure, Shaak and K'Kruhk slowly started to come out of the vision a few minutes later. They first looked at one another, then around at their concerned friends before Shaak began to speak. "Whatever you have found, I am afraid it will need to wait. I think we have a new mission, one to…" her lips quirked wryly, "Once again, rescue an old friend."
While Aayla and Luminara just looked blank, Ranma got it at once. "Fay and Kit?" When Shaak nodded, he groaned. "Okay, what've they gotten into now? I swear, they might not get into as much trouble as us but…"
"They do seem to have gone for quality over quantity approach," Shaak said with a wry smile, getting to her feet and hugging Ranma quickly before moving around him towards the cockpit. "Tune, I need you to go through your records about planets with more mud than any other single feature. After that, send out a call to the others, we need to leave. Now."
OOOOOOO
Sidious was positively gleeful. It was literally all he could do to keep himself from rubbing his hands together in almost un-Sith-like delight. The foolish bitch Fay had walked right into the arms of one of the most virulent anti-Jedi groups out there, and one whose leader was among those Sidious felt was most dangerous thanks to his tactical ability, proven by how he had created his Free Jabiim movement, and the Nimbus Commandoes was quite high. Any normal force, even of Jedi, sent to Jabiim would run into a tremendous amount of difficulties.
Now he had different groups shouting at him for what they should be doing, but no clear consensus within the Senate, 'tying his hands' hah! Some of the separatists were offering to act as intermediaries, in order to get Master Fay freed. Others were demanding she be tried and executed for her part in creating such a situation, while Loyalists wanted a strong response from the Republic that the Republic could not be seen to give in to terrorists, and that was all these Free Jabiim revolutionaries were. Others were saying that they should wait until Stratus had created the changeover in government he wanted to do, and then simply treat with Stratus once he was the head of the government.
The lack of a demand for some kind of military response from the Jedi was also concerning to many who didn't really understand the whole no attachments rule that the Jedi always harked on about. Of course, Sidious understood it and knew it was one of many weaknesses that could be exploited. Still, the Jedi were going to respond, which was of course why he was now currently meeting with four High councilmembers.
With this audience and after the day his public persona had, Sidious felt it right to portray the best example of a tired, strained politician as best he could, sighing theatrically as he looked at them all as he repeated the Senate's position. "…So we cannot be seen to treat with them, but we also can't be seen as to browbeat them. And we can't seem to even think about showing favoritism towards Master Fay just because she is a Jedi. It is, needless to say, an extremely precarious position."
"Understand we do the various influences you are under, when faced with an issue such as this, hrhrhrm," said Master Yoda, nodding his aged head as he sat across from the Chancellor on a stool.
Beside him, Master Plo Koon growled a little, his hands folded in an almost aggressive manner quite unlike the Kel Dor's normal appearance. It was evident that for some reason Master Fay also meant something to him beyond being just another Jedi. Adi Gallia also looked almost distraught. That was interesting and implied that Fay's loss would hurt the Order even more than he had anticipated. But Mace Windu and Yoda were the ones doing all the talking.
"So, you are saying that the Republic will not act? Will this not prove that the Separatist's concerns, the ones which state the Senate is too big to care about all its constituent planets, are warranted?" Mace asked, almost but not quite pulling off the air of a disinterested observer.
Sidious had to tip his hat to the attempt if nothing else. "I am saying that the Senate as a whole will not authorize any attempt at military intervention. We are more than willing to send delegates to try to talk them into releasing Master Fay and this other Jedi, I'm afraid I don't know his name as I do Master Fay's at this point."
"Kit Fisto, a Guardian he is. Odd it is, that allowed them to be captured, he did," Yoda murmured.
"At least he was still alive at any rate," Mace said, his brows furrowing. "And yet the demands from this Stratus fellow say they were both taken captive?"
"Apparently," 'Palpatine' replied, although he too wondered about that. Master Fay was not a combatant, in fact, the mind boggled at the very idea, and yet, that didn't mean she couldn't defend herself. And Kit Fist was one of the Jedi who had trained personally with Ranma, if for only a short amount of time in comparison to the Togrutan whore. How then did were they captured? For now, he set that minor mystery to the side, looking at the four Jedi. "What will you do?"
"That is something the Council will debate upon," Mace said with a sigh and a bow of his head.
"…If the Jedi Order requests it I could, I feel, go around the Senate and order a military intervention, but it would have to be a full takeover, nothing less would do to both save face and aid the Jabiimi people in this instance." Sidious shook his head, the very picture of a demoralized, irritated moralist having to deal with the prideful and petty concerns of those around him.
"That it will come to that, we do not think. But, Jedi Order, allowed to act in this instance we will be? Direct provocation this was, aimed at the Order above even the Senate it was," Yoda said.
"I believe that yes, the Senate would simply be happy to have this issue resolved, however that occurs," the chancellor said making his tone weary instead of exalted, which was what he felt. "Really," he muttered for added effect as he looked out the window, "I have to wonder why I ever wanted this job in the first place. It seems to be one of the most thankless tasks in the universe."
"On the contrary Chancellor, I can think of thousands that are more thankless," Master Plo Koon said as they all stood up. "That is precisely the number of Jedi there are in the universe after all."
Sidious watched them go silently, his face grave until they existed, then he allowed his face to twist into a sneer. "Not for long," he said. With that, he exited his official office room and moved down to his secret throne room, inputting some commands to Tyranus.
He told the Weequay Sith what was going on, then said simply, "I want you to personally distance yourself from any discussions on this issue, we want you to keep the appearance of being a moral individual driven to extremis by what you perceive as rampant corruption for at least another month, and if you have anything to do with Master Fay's kidnapping, or as is to be hoped, death, that will dissipate like the wind. Her fame since her intervention on Thyferra has only spread, even among the Senate, curse it."
"Agreed, and while I am doing that, I presume that you want the separatists to move in troops?"
"Indeed. I do not think we will see any true violence here. But I do not want Fay to be able to get away, even if that means sacrificing Stratus and Jabiim this early in the war. Is that understood?"
"She does represent a unique threat to the Great Plan, and a type of Jedi that needs to be dealt with. I will see to it. Though…" Tyranus turned and looked at his side for a moment. "Hmm, there is a Techno Union flotilla in that sector already, refueling at Alliga. And the Techno Union would greatly like to get their hands on the metals that were reported on the Jabiim recently as well."
"True," Sidious said. "I will leave it in your hands then."
OOOOOOO
Actually, it was most fortuitous that it was a Techno Union force that was in the area, because at the moment, Tyranus was on his way to a meeting with the head of that group. The man had requested his presence, telling Sora Bulq he had a new resource they might have some use for in the upcoming conflict.
"This is what he wanted to show me?" he asked somewhat askance, staring into the cylinder in front of them. It wasn't a bacta tank, although he could see from the green of the water within that it did have some of bacta within. But the individual within was hardly fleshy enough to be called a living person, and as he watched robot stumps began to be fitted to the creature's shoulders and legs at the thigh.
"Indeed," said the head of the Techno Union, chortling into his gas masks. He was a Skakoan a species of methane breathers who had to go about wearing gas masks much like the Kel Dor, though there the resemblance ended. The Skakoans were mostly green-skinned, bald and always wore a full body protection suit of life-preserving armor, keeping their bodies at the pressure they had evolved in. Their voices were also always given a metallic, hissing crackle thanks to their masks, and they were among the most xenophobic species in the galaxy, and the most greedy and self-centered too.
But it was their affinity with mathematics and logical thinking that had made Wat Tambor and his species one of the controlling interests behind the Techno Union. Tambor himself was an engineer before he was anything else, as shown by Tambor's current project, within the cylinder. "This is the general from the Spring Wars, the one they call the Griever."
Tyranus twitched at that, staring over at him. "The same one whose tactics led the low-tech Kaleesh into defeating the Huk in their internecine war?"
"The very same," the Skakoan replied. "Having heard of his ability as a commander San Hill and I devised a scheme to turn him into our creature. We let news of a new Huk invasion of his world reach him. Then when he attempted to return, I had his ship rigged to explode in such a way as to make it seem either the Jedi or the Huk themselves were responsible. I have been working on him since, emplacing a loyalty chip just in case in his brain box, downloading combat techniques and weapons specifications and so forth into his enhanced cyborg brain. It's been a fascinating project."
"And you feel his tactical abilities will translate from land warfare into space," Tyranus said, his tone making a statement of it rather than a question.
"I've already begun testing his brain on various scenarios, via virtual simulation. He does extremely well for them. He has a callous disregard for the lives of his troops," the man said actually waving his hand airily. "But for us, that hardly matters. Now, he is perfect for our needs, and I think will do very well indeed.
"What fighting styles? And what will his chassis look like?" Tyranus asked, somewhat interestedly. The idea of having this creature as his chosen admiral was appealing, and would give him a strong right arm to go with Asajj as his left hand.
The head of the Techno Union answered the second question first, gesturing Tyranus to follow him over to a large computer screen, where after a few keystrokes, a hologram popped up with the image of the chassis he had in mind. It was thin but still quite tall, standing about nine feet perhaps ten at the shoulders. And from those shoulders came not one set of arms, but two. Each of them was mechanical of course, and each of them ended in what looked like claws, certainly dexterous enough to act as hands but deadly in their own right at need. The face was angular, created by two separate serrated plates coming to jointed points, covering much of the original individual's face, much like the war masks of his own people. His feet too were robotic in nature, like the Crow arms, which sprouted from the bottom of his thin body. "So what do you think?"
"I think he is going to need to be trained in lightsaber combat, and I think that I will need to see him in individual combat and these scenarios you mentioned. But, I have to admit to being impressed. Thank you for the gift," he said with a faint smile. "I can think of many uses for Grievous if he does pan out. For now, however, I have some instructions for your forces in the Phelleem Sector."
OOOOOOO
The walk back to the Jedi Temple was quiet, all four of the councilmembers lost in their own thoughts moment. Eventually, though, they reached the council room in the temple, where Mace explained to the others the lack of response from the Senate. There was now the almost normal grumblings about how the Senate had become so polarized as to be able to do nothing at all. There followed a deeper meditative silence which Plo Koon broke by asking "If the Senate is unwilling to act due to the repercussions of putting a foot wrong, what will we do?"
Master Yoda remained silent as was his will to let the other masters speak, but more than one eye looked over at him as he closed his eyes, his gimer stick held in his lap, wondering. While he was routinely quite, more than one of them had noticed that Yoda had barely spoken more than a few sentences since Masters Unduli and Ti had reported the death of Master Yaddle. Not that any of them had needed that report, Yoda and nearly all of Yaddle's former Padawans had reported the same thing. Instead, Yoda had spent almost all of his time simply meditating, even missing out on joining training a youngling clan at one point when he had previously espoused an interest to do so.
"The problem is, that Jabiim is so out-of-the-way we don't have any other Jedi nearby we don't have any others forces either, not even a Watchman. In fact we don't even have any friendly forces that we could call upon for intervention," Mace said morosely, staring at a screen showing the scant information on Jabiim and its sector, and those closest to it.
This was debated back and forth for a time, but Mace's initial belief was correct. There was no way to get a military presence to Jabiim or even negotiation team, to Jabiim before the Separatists would respond to the request for inclusion. Once that occurred, they would have to work through Sora Bulq and the Separatist leadership to gain Fisto and Fay's freedom, which was not only politically an issue, adding credence to their desire to become a separate political entity, but also worrying for the Order itself, since the Separatist were sure to demand something in return. Moreover, the Order also needed to worry about its own shadow alliances at this point. If they showed they were unwilling to use military force when it was called for, they would lose their allies, or worse, they might start acting on their own.
"Do we have any idea why Master Fay was there?" Master Gallia asked as the discussions started to wind down with no clear decision being reached. Yes, there were forces close by, but none close enough, and those forces were a group of the Katana Fleet Dreadnaughts, given out to a near-forgotten colony of Sluissi, who had broken from their parent system and its alliance with the Trade Federation years ago. A Knight by the name of Missan Nuvent, a Muun, was involved out there. But there was no way those ships could get there before the Separatist response, and even if they did, that could well be the spark to start the war they could all see coming before the Republic or the Order was ready for it.
For the first time Yoda spoke up to that question, and when the others looked at him, they were surprised to see Yoda's eyes were nearly gleaming, a look of almost excitement in them as he came out of his meditations. "Sent there by the Force she was. Perhaps, even Fay did think, to deal with the plague she was sent. Yet, always look for the hidden meaning we should. Think, the Force, only one reason send her there? Think, Kit Fisto, allow them to be captured without good reason he would?"
"You think she was sent there to try to nip this populist rebellion in the body?" Master Koon asked. "But if so, she failed."
"Too early it is, to say if failed she has. The deed, not done it is," Yoda said obliquely.
"Perhaps you should share your clarity of vision with us Master Yoda," said master Gallia. "Because I'm afraid I don't see what you're talking about. Are you speaking of something that would serve the Force on Jabiim, or serve the Force in general or something else entirely?"
"Indeed, what do you think the other reason might be, and why do you think it a reason for such positivity?" Mace asked bluntly.
Yoda snorted. "Hrhrhrm, taking all the fun out of this you are," he muttered. Then he shrugged. "A fulcrum, this moment is. The Order, nearly prepared it is. Have run to the upper limits of what we can do with the Katana Fleet we have. Without calling in further resources and people, resources, and people we could not vet as much as we have, make more headway we cannot. Ready we are for this conflict. Only stronger, more organized both the Republic and Separatists will become. More polarized, their positions. If violence breaks out it does, then wavering planets, so quick to choose a side, they will not be. Further, know we do, war a goal of the Sith. Have it on our terms we must."
For a moment the others considered this, while Rancisis nodded almost immediately in agreement the others took some time to think about it. Mace quickly began to work on his datapad, seeing what forces they could get into the area, then looking at the overall data of the Shadow Fleet as they were calling the scattered units of the Katana fleet they had started to prepare several years ago. He frowned, but could not say that Yoda had misread the data. It was quite obvious really. There were only so many allies they could send those ships to for refurbishment in secret, only so many the Order could repair from its own internal, and thus somewhat hidden resources.
"That sounds like a possibility perhaps, but it doesn't change the facts we would need to force the issue militarily and that will take some time to do. And even then, if we attack his planet this Stratus fellow will no doubt execute Kit and Master Fay as quickly as he can. Or are you suggesting we hope for some local hero to save them?" Master Gallia asked, almost but not quite able to keep her sarcasm out of her tone.
Master Yoda smiled again. "Needs must, even Jedi have faith. In Fay, in her abilities, we should have faith. In the Force, we need to believe. Provide your hero, it will, Master Gallia."
OOOOOOO
Ranma sneezing, quickly covering his nose lest he actually sneeze into the hologram they were all studying of the Jabiim system. Luminara looked at him quizzically. "I would have thought you would be immune to most diseases. Did you catch something on Ossus?"
"Nope, that was a number seventeen kind of sneeze," Ranma said, huffing irritably. "Someone just called me something most would take as a compliment but not me."
Everyone around the table but Shaak looked at him bemused by that, while she merely smirked. "That was… very oddly specific," Ahsoka said at last.
"Yep," Ranma replied. "Still nothing that can be done about it now. Let's move on," Ranma said, looking over at K'Kruhk.
The Wild Blade now lay within a system several minor jumps removed from Ossus, but they had gotten to a planet that had access to the HoloNet. From there, they had quickly learned that Fay and Kit were indeed in trouble and where. They were also within a bare single long jump from Jabiim, essentially a half day or so, despite the fact they were a full sector away.
"Well, we were able to find some information about Jabiim, but not much," K'Kruhk apologized as he looked around at his fellow Jedi and the rest of the crew of the Wild Blade, all of them present and listening intently scattered around the sitting room.
"So… am I reading this right?" Ranma asked, staring at the readings of the planet. "Practically the entire planet is covered in mud? And not just any mud, meters thick mud in places? Damn, but that would be really hard to move through."
"Apparently yes," Shaak replied shaking her head as she stared at the image. "And near constant rainfall too, that would be even worse, in terms of its impact on electronics and communications anyway. It makes me wonder why the planet was colonized in the first place."
"Overcrowding on the whole planet perhaps?" Luminara suggested. "What was the colonist's home planet?"
"Unknown, all that is known is of course they were humans," K'Kruhk replied.
"So, what is the plan?" Ranma asked, looking around at the others.
"We need more up to date data first. I'd recommend we jump in at the farthest distance we can from the planet in terms of the hyperspace belt. From there, we probe inwards, and see what happens," Shaak said thoughtfully. "By the time we arrive there's almost certain to be some local resistance in place, whatever our brief notes on this planet's economy mentioned. We can probe their defenses like that, search for weaknesses to exploit."
Luminara objected to that. "Wait, why are we so certain this will instantly lead into combat? Surely we should be looking for ways to peacefully resolve the issue?"
Everyone just looked at her at that, even Aayla looking somewhat bemused at that idea. After a second Shaak reached over, patting Luminara on the shoulder. "It is sad to say, but our assumptions on this point are built up by more than five years of observational data on how life works when it comes to Ranma."
There was a chorus of laughter at that as Ranma nodded. It was true after all.
After a smile sent her husband's way, Shaak went on. "Besides, Fay would not have tried to call to us for help if combat would not be needed to free her."
With the plan in place, the Wild Blade continued on its course, jumping into regular space well out of the system, probing deeper with their sensors, whereupon they made unpleasant observations. For one thing, the space over the planet was now crawling with starships, as they had feared.
It took a while to realize that there was actually only a few different types of ships out there, but there were so many of the first type, the Vulture starfighters that the invasion of Naboo had made infamous, that they obscured the readings of the others. Beyond the vast ever-moving cloud of starfighters were groups of much larger ships. Four of them seemed the same size as the Wild Blade. The other seemed much larger, and more than one of the Jedi hissed as they recognized it.
"A Lucre Hulk," Ayala scowled, shaking her head. "A certain sign that one of the Separatist forces beat us here. And that means there will be droid troops on the ground, and that the locals are most decidedly ready for trouble."
As the Wild Blade probed inward with its sensors, however, so too did the defenders spot to them. Instantly three squadrons of Vultures split off from the mass around the other ships zooming out towards the unknown bogie. "Unidentified ship, unidentified ship! This planet is under the control of the Techno Union. All trespassers are to leave at once, or be they will be fired upon. I repeat…," said a loud droid voice through the communicator.
"Techno Union, interesting. I don't think they are supposed to own their own warships, though I suppose since they build so much other military hardware for everyone else, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they have their own Lucre Hulks and other ships," Luminara sighed, shaking her head. "But that does indeed mean we will need to fight our way through and against those numbers I doubt even a ship as tough as this one can…"
She paused as Ranma turned to her, his eyes glinting. Realizing what this meant she paled, waving her hands in a frantic gesture, not at all like that a Jedi should do. "NO! I did not mean that as a challenge!"
"Tsk, you're no fun," Ranma grumped before becoming serious. "Still, I doubt we could win through quickly enough to get to the ground and rescue Fay and Kit before they could be executed. How many starfighters and everything else should that thing have?"
"Unknown," Shaak said crisply, with Aayla reading over her shoulder. "If it is a refitted ship like the type they used in the battle for Naboo years ago, somewhere around seven hundred. If it was purpose built then it could have more than a thousand and still have room for a large army of droids. And its own offensive firepower could be tremendous."
"Analytical tone: However, I wonder if they have upgraded the droid's programming more. Might I request that we remain for a few moments, I would like to gather as much encrypted droid-cant as we can. Bloodthirsty addendum: Oh, and kill a few of them as well."
Grinning Ranma nodded, and powered the sublight engines forward, towards the incoming fighters. The droid fighters saw this as an aggressive act, and even as they continued to blare out their canned response opened fire the instant they entered range, while the Wild Blade went into evasive maneuvers. Then HK and Shaak opened fire, with Shaak tagging one of the starfighters with a plasma cannon blast, where it had strayed just a little too close, and HK killing three with precise shooting from the two quad lasers."
"How's that for a response?" Ranma said with a grin. Then he sobered quickly even as the dogfight continued around them, shifting the widely agile escort-carrier-cum-heavy-cruiser ship around this way and that. "Tune, can we get a reading on Jabiim's surface from here?"
"No master, but I can access the local satellites. None of them has any security encryptions. I can download several days of readings quickly before they discover the external link."
"Do it," Ranma ordered, yawing the ship around to let Shaak kill another two Vultures, as HK went to town on still more. "Let's see what we can see."
"I see we have more starfighters coming out of orbit after us," Aayla said, a slight scowl on his face. While she and Luminara had been allowed to remain in the cockpit for this maneuver, they didn't really have anything to do unless the Wild Blade slowed down to launch its fighters. Or does it need to? The starfighters exit from the back so…
Her thoughts were interrupted by HK. "Bland Announcement: I believe I have downloaded enough of their droid-cant to analyze now master. We may break off at need."
"In a minute," Ranma said grinning as he reversed the engines going backward for a second to slip past and under a group of Vultures on their tail. This was the kind of move any starfighter within the Republic would have had trouble with, but because of the mix of the engines and the anti-inertia devices the Sekotans had created the Wild Blade could. An instant later Ahsoka fired the Dovin Basal at a group of concussion missiles, which would have taken them in the belly. They veered off course, going in every direction and hitting the group of starfighters that had been trying to lock them in from behind. "Tune, tell me when you get gotten all the information you can from the side of the planet."
"Yes master, I'm done, but I doubt I'll be able to do this again, the locals discovered my invasion and kicked me out quickly," Tune replied.
"Then get us out of here tune," Ranma said, slewing the ship around and jumping out randomly.
A moment later, they came out of hyperspace in deep space between star systems. They remained there, floating in nothingness as they went over the data Tune had accumulated, and Ranma and HK worked on something on their own. This included several hundred hours of accumulated newsbytes from different locals sources, which gave Ranma and the others a very good idea now of all that had occurred, how Master Fay had been captured and everything else.
Needless to say, the fact Stratus had used the local government's attack on him and his fellows, as an excuse to imprison Fay did not go over well. Ranma simply stewed in one corner as his hands flexed with ruinous intent, while the Jedi simply all shook their heads sorrowfully. The Mandalorians and the Nova Guard all worked themselves into a near frenzy at the idea of taking someone's help, then turning around and throwing them in prison. To both warrior sects that was a dishonorable act.
It fell to Barriss to cut through the outrage with a sensible observation. "I cannot believe that this Alto Stratus would have the cooperation of a majority of the planet's population for such an act. And look, he seems to have lost some face because of it from these news feeds. If we can punch through him and rescue Master Fay and Master Fisto, I think we could possibly turn things around in the eyes of the locals."
"Indeed, my Padawan is correct. Even if he's got the position around his main bunker well defended, it isn't actually all that large a base, certainly not enough to have more than… four, five companies of troops perhaps, with a company of tanks."
"Tune, he's got most of the droids and his own people scattered around," Aayla murmured. "Definitely something to the idea of his losing face for tossing Master Fay and Kit into the clink. I would wage he is worried about the majority of his troops now, and of course, if he knows anything about the Jedi he might think they are better guarded by droids than living minds."
"So we come in fast and drop right down on them. Don't give them any time to recover, get Fay and Kit out and capture this Stratus guy before he can get away. Use him as a hostage while we take out the rest of the Techno Union forces."
"Oh hell yes!" Janice said shouting and leaping to her feet startling the Nova Guard and Jedi even as the rest of the Mandalorian started to do the same thing, including the now all too sober Thomas, who hadn't even smiled in days since Jethro died on Shili. "Hell yes, hell yes! An orbital drop!"
"Did I miss something?" Luminara asked, looking quizzical around at the Mandalorians. "Surely an orbital drop is something to be concerned about, not enthusiastically embraced."
"That's because you don't know us!" Janice said with a laugh.
"Oh yeah, that's one of those things your people are famous for aren't ya," Ranma said with a laugh.
"You better believe it! There is no one, no one in the entire universe who does orbital drops like we do, we are the best at it!" Thomas said proudly.
"Do you have the gear for it with you?" Shaak asked, not rejecting the idea but not accepting it either.
"Of course!" Janice said looking affronted. "No upstanding Mandalorian would be without it."
"And you're sure you can get through?" Aayla asked looking at a computerized projection of the lines of fire the defenses at the base might have. Of course, there were a lot of things the computer couldn't tell them and even more the satellites hadn't been able to detect thanks to the rain over the site but even so, the defenses looked formidable for all the small size of the base.
"Who can ever be sure about these things, I just know that if anyone can do it, we can," Janice said, to a chorus of cheers from her troops.
Ranma nodded with a grin. "In that case, that's our way forward. We go in hot, and I mean we come out of hyperspace at speed, flashing towards the planet from the closest jump point we can contrive, dropping off starfighters along the way, then hit atmosphere and the Mandos and I will make the drop. No offense to you Cro but I think this is a Mandalorian show."
"And me as well," Shaak replied firmly, to which Ranma blinked, but slowly nodded.
"You don't have to worry about offending us," Cro replied, while his squad nodded looking a little shell-shocked, and then Mattoc elaborated. "You people are kriffing crazy, jumping out a ship from that high!? Unless it was a life or death thing that just… gah no!"
But while the Nova Guard were more than happy to be left out of what they saw as a fancy way to suicide, Aayla and the other Jedi protested being left behind. "Surely the more with you the better," K'Kruhk said.
"Nah, you'd only get in the way during the drop," Ranma replied, earning him a sharp dig in the ribs from his wife and he went on in a more conciliatory tone. "Erk, um I mean, me and Shaak are both nearly blaster proof, and we've both studied Aerial combat to a high degree. Of you all, only Aayla could say the same and you, Aayla, are most decidedly not blaster proof."
"But how will we even get into position to drop you?" Luminara asked logically speaking there's no way we could force our way through such numbers of starfighters. "Eventually even a ship like the Wild Blade would fall to them."
"Heh…," Ranma grinned evilly, patting HK on the head. "Let's just say me and HK are going to use a fatal flaw in their programming, it's the same one we used so effectively against the Vultures over Naboo…"
Shaak blinked, then looked at Ranma and HK in shock. "You mean they haven't figured out a way to block that yet?"
"Snarky analysis: Apparently not Mistress. Oh, the hardware has been enhanced, I believe the Vulture's speed and response time were both much better than they were in our previous battles against those disturbingly weak and pathetic creations that are called droids in this day and age. But their programming still resembles that of a lobotomized, drunk meatbag attempting to pull his pants on by himself. And their pre-battle ECM doctrine is even worse!"
From there, Ranma explained what the two of them were talking about and the Jedi all expressed shock at the idea, but Shaak simply smiled at their concern as Luminara gave voice to their concerns. "But, but if you used this tactic that long ago, surely someone else has figured out what happened?"
"Oh, that's actually easy to understand," Aayla said with a roll of her eyes. "I would wager if some programmer figured out what was going on during that battle, they were fired instantly for drinking on the job. After all, who would believe one droid could use droid cant to mess up hundreds of others like that. It's almost as unbelievable as Ranma's curse."
While Ranma scowled at that, Shaak laughed. "A believable reason if I ever heard one. I have yet to meet someone who believes in Ranma's curse without actually seeing it themselves after all. But trust me, it will work. And with that ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a plan."
OOOOOOO
Kit felt something shift nearby and he pushed himself off the side of the jail cell he and Master Fay had been put in, twisting to look at the cell door. The small screen on it blinked on as he looked, and Alto Stratus's head appeared there, staring at the two prisoners thoughtfully.
"Is this the part where you attempt to torture us?" Fay asked, her legs crossed under her, and her face serene despite what she had just said, opening her eyes only slowly, allowing a bit of glimmering light to be seen there for a moment. This was not because of laziness or in an attempt to seem blasé, no, Fay was actually quite tired at present. That was what happened when you spent weeks without rest healing people through the Force and then performing work with the Force throughout an entire planet's population.
Alto knew nothing about that and simply scowled at the two Jedi angrily shaking his head. He hated the idea that there truly was something to the Jedi having special powers, and had yet to come to terms with that despite having seen Master Fay in actions so often. That was why he was speaking to them via a monitor rather than in person. "I have had numerous offers from several dozen planets trying to negotiate a release for you. It's actually quite interesting, almost humbling to think that I was able to capture someone that the universe believes so important and on our little forgotten planet too!"
"And yet, you are still determined to kill us, are you not?" Master Fay asked.
"Hmm, I sense that too," Kit said, looking around the room for a moment, making note of a few small apertures opening here and there, doing nothing at the moment. But his better-than-human nose could smell something in the air and he subtly signaled Fay, turning away from the pickup and the video camera there to gesture towards his nose and away to the walls. "So is this where you sic your robots on us? Tell me, could you not find a firing squad among your own people?"
That angered Stratus further. "My people, mine! I will lead them, I will help this planet create a future without you and the Republic, with your false promises, your false representation, your false pride and morality!" He called down after a moment, scowling. "But even the best of them sometimes need to be reminded that there needs to be sacrificed. Your death will serve as a down payment to the Trade Federation for their aid, although of course none of them would ever admit that."
At his words, the wall around the door sunk downwards, creating a shooting gallery and a half-wall separating the cell from the corridor outside. Outside were revealed two dozen combat droids, all of them pointing their guns into their cell.
"You know this is wrong," master Fay said still calm despite the threat of imminent death. "What will the story you sell your people be, that we attempted to escape despite giving our words that we wouldn't? That we were killed after a rescue attempt by our fellow Jedi?"
"Something of the sort," Stratus said almost wearily. "Your actions of healing so many people have blinded them to the fact it is but a Band-Aid on the bleeding and death that should have been stopped by the Republic. It was just enough to make weak-minded fools believe we would be better with the Republic than striking out on our own to join the Separatists. Regardless, I am afraid your usefulness is coming to an end. Your fate will be unknown, just another part in this war. Just another tool of the Republic."
"You'll forgive me if I decide not to go along with your script," Kit said with a laugh as he moved in front of Master Fay to face the droids. An instant later he was holding his lightsaber, activating it quickly.
While Alto's eye widened in shock at the sight of the weapon, which he had been certain Kit hadn't been carrying since Stratus had actually searched the Jedi thoroughly, the droids began to open fire. At the same moment, gas erupted from the sides of the jail cell, igniting as the blaster bolts from a few droids past through it, igniting into fireballs that spread into the room. Kit blocked the bolts coming toward him, but the fireballs spreading from the sides of the cell would have finished him were he alone.
"Clever," master Fay acknowledged, nodding, but also waving her hands quickly thrusting out with her hands to either side.
She grunted with effort but succeeded in creating a wall of wind that blasted the fires away from the center of the jail cell. With that down, she held the wind constant blasting against the wall. But Kit knew she can keep that up for long, and he leaped forward, slicing into the droids. So fast and quick few could turn to fire at him before he was in the corridor, bouncing along and around them, yet always putting his lightsaber between them and Fay, even at the cost of his own body.
This finally broke Alto out of his stupor and he roared aloud in anger. "Treachery! Who, who gave you that lightsaber!?"
Kit's tone was droll as he replied. "No one gave it to me, my lightsaber has never left my person. Let's just say that I have a much larger bag of tricks than you think."
Stratus stared in astonishment as the green-skinned alien simply ignored the blaster bolts that hit him. He could see where they seared through the Aqualian's robes but they did nothing to his actual's body. Then Kit's lightsaber flashed forward through the still standing door and the two droids behind it. This cut out Stratus's ability to see what was going on, and he turned and slammed the alarm, shouting at his troops and the TF droids that had been placed under his command upon their arrival to head down to the cell area to corral the Jedi.
At the same time, Kit hefted Fay up into his arms and leaped out of the cell, whereupon she released her hold on the wind she had conjured up, slumping against Kit's chest, squishing a few of his lekku. Behind the two Jedi, the fire instantly raged forward, incinerating the interior of the cell but they were long gone.
Slowly Kit set Fay on her feet and she slumped, going to one knee and breathing in deeply for a moment. While waiting for her to recover, Kit busied himself by slashing at the cameras that he saw spotting the long tunnel they found themselves in. When he came back though, she had yet to move from where she was kneeling. "Are you all right Master Fay?" he asked solicitously.
"Just because air isn't visible doesn't mean it isn't heavy to move around," she gasped. "If I had had time to gather myself, that would've been much easier, but that was a shock. Especially after all the effort, I have been putting forth since we arrived on Jabiim."
"Yes, I'd been meaning to ask about that, but I felt that it was something that should no doubt be kept a secret for a time, and I knew we were being observed," Kit asked as he looked around, figuring out which direction they had been brought in and turning that way, his lightsaber still humming gently in the air. "What have you been up to since we were imprisoned Master Fay? I could feel you using the Force, but not what you were doing with it."
Fay smiled faintly. "Alto Stratus was not alone in his hatred of the Jedi Order and the Republic of course. But while I couldn't just get rid of their hate by waving my hand, I could use the Force to open their minds to further external stimuli. I essentially made as many of them as I could go from blind followers and true believers to skeptics. I couldn't have done that without my previous work as a healer, and there were too many minds closed to even this subtle an approach, but I believe it has borne fruit. Stratus himself said as much just now."
"True, but it certainly seems to have tired you out worse than I would have liked. Still, I suppose if you wish to take a nap I can see to our escape on my own," Kit teased, a faint smile on his face while he internally shook his head at the very idea of a Jedi being so strong in the Force and so skilled as to do what Fay had just described. In the big scheme of things creating a, call it an opening for doubt and reappraisal in someone's mind wasn't that big an accomplishment, it was simply a regular Force telepathy trick with more subtlety and longer lasting effect. But to do it over the entirety of a planet? No, Kit doubted even Yoda had the talent to do that.
At his words, however, Fay hopped to her feet, looking at him with mock-anger. "Are you calling me old?"
"Heaven forbid," Kit replied, bowing grandly to her, eliciting a giggle that made Fay not only look but sound as young as she seemed to be in body. "Still, despite your second wind, could I ask you to remain, mind me Master Fay?" he asked seriously. After all, what I have accompanied you for, to defend you."
Master Fay smiled slightly, gesturing around the former cell. "Once more, I think you already have done so. However, yes, please lead the way."
He smiled at that and moved out into the corridor. "The entrance is about four stories above us," she said, "but so are a lot of defenders, all of whom have already begun responding to Stratus's raising the alarm. I can also sense determination and… grim acceptance? Hmm…"
So busy was she with trying to make sense of what she was feeling that Fay didn't notice the six droids racing towards them until they opened fire. However Kit was more on the ball and he had raced towards them in turn, his lightsaber smashing their bolts to either side or into the ceiling before cutting them down with the broad, wild and unpredictable swings of Shii-Cho.
They fell and he moved on, grimacing as two quad lasers and several dozen locals appeared, firing towards him. Can't block them all, have to prioritize. "Master Fay, stay behind me!" When he felt more than saw Fay obeying him, he lashed forward with a Force Push, hitting one of the quad laser turrets set into the ceiling, pushing the turrets until they opened fire on the other laser.
This left him to face the bolts of the other attackers and the second quad laser for a few seconds before it was silenced by its fellow. He grunted in pain as several regular bolts hit him scattered across his body, then had to use the Force to grab at two concussion grenades, which he grabbed out of the air. But this cost him, and two quad laser bolts from the security gun he had previously manipulated hit him the instant it was facing in his direction, hurling the Aqualian backward. But still, his swift Force Grab of the concussion missiles kept them close enough to shred the second security turret and the majority of the locals.
Kit took a moment to shake his head with a sigh, wincing at the pain from his seared flesh. Unlike Shaak, quad laser bolts still hurt like a punch from a Rancor, only far more targeted. "Shall we be off now?" he asked with false cheer.
Fay followed him, weakened by her months of work healing and her former task, so much so she could barely reach out and take Kit's pain away, let alone actually heal her fellow Jedi. Still, she knew he could deal with his wounds at present, which allowed her to concentrate on warning him of incoming dangers. Because of this, Kit was ready for the next two attacks from the bunker's denizens, smashing their way through and up three floors.
And it was Fay who felt the shift in the minds above, and the sudden blaring warning through the Force. "Look out! They are going to cave in the ceiling on us!"
Kit instantly turned moving back down the corridor with Fay in the lead. "How much of it!?"
"I can't tell, but a lot of it! We can only hope that they aren't collapsing the entire thing," Fay replied. Even as she did so, though the ceiling above them imploded, chunks of ferrocrete showering down.
"I would certainly hope so too," Kit said with a grunt, as he ducked under a small rock in the center of the road, his lightsaber flashing to cut another rock in two.
The roof above them continued to crash down, and Kit saw an even larger than normal portion of the ceiling above them slowly coming loose. With a start, he realized they were not going to get clear and he jumped forward, grabbing master Fay up into his arms again before pushing behind him with a Force Push. This carried them several dozen yards back down the corridor while she reached out with the Force, holding the roof above them still just long enough for them to escape back down to the stairwell they had come up. Thankfully, this area wasn't actively trying to cave in on them and they paused, moving away as the rubble of the area they had just been moving through started to settle.
They stayed there, with Kit gasping slightly for breath, releasing Master Fay from his arms. "So, w, what do we do now?" he asked finally.
Master Fay smiled slightly moving over to sit against the wall, limping and holding her side. Some stray shrapnel had bounced badly and smashed into her side like a hammer, and she was bleeding from numerous cuts and bruises from their desperate run just now. She could also tell her kneecap had shattered from another hit, but she was already slowly healing it. "I believe we simply wait for help to arrive."
Kit looked at her askance, then closed his eyes, sending his own Force senses out only to stop and begin to laugh as he felt two very familiar founts of Living Force Energy. "Oh dear, I wonder if they're getting tired of running to our rescue by this point?"
"I doubt it would occur to either one of them. After all, what else are friends for?" Master Fay asked, and then began to laugh wearily.
OOOOOOO
The Wild Blade came out of hyperspace at just beyond Jabiim's gravity well deep into the system and then immediately went to full burn on his sublight thrusters blasting forward, with all the speed the hybrid ship could muster, which was quite a lot. At the same time, its hangar bays opened, and the starfighters within began to launch behind it, with Luminara and Aayla taking the frontal position. They flipped and burned after the Wild Blade, forming a loose arrowhead shape with the Wild Blade at the tip.
"All starfighters available launched," Tune reported. We have droids Vulture fighters already moving to engage."
"Light 'em up with our plasma cannons and secondary weapons as best you can, hold fire with our ion cannons until the bigger boys come out to play. Other than that, it's your show K'Kruhk," Ranma said with a thin smile as he stood up, reaching out to grasp hands with K'Kruhk, shaking it firmly.
K'Kruhk nodded back, and he and Ahsoka, switched out with Shaak and Ranma while Barriss took over Ahsoka's normal position on the Dovin basal launcher. HK too was already linked back up to the controls of the quad laser cannons, but they would not be the droid head's only weapons in this fight.
Shaak moved after Ranma rapidly, quickly shedding her Jedi robe and grabbing up a spare pair of Nova Guard armor, pulling it on. Ranma didn't bother with the armor though, simply grabbing up one of the shields that Janice had provided them for this moment. It was large, a little taller than Ranma was, and shaped like a kite, with a slight protruding hump where his arm should be to create a bit of a point to the outer shell. It was made of ceramics and other material, light but incredibly heat resistant, although it wouldn't be able to stop more than one or two hits from a quad lasers let alone a turbolaser.
Still, that wasn't its purpose. The shield's purpose was to handle the heat of practical reentry basically. They weren't going to be starting from that high up, but they still wouldn't be very far into the planet's stratosphere.
All around him, Janice and the other Mandalorians were preparing themselves, hooking extra-large rifles, to their primary hands, strapping them down with magnetic clamps connecting the shields to their other hands in a similar, holding it loosely rather than tightly as in the case of the rifle. More than one of them also had special gear attached to their packs, right above the jetpacks that had also been given large thrusters. Ranma recognized the bits added to the top as extra-large gas magazines for the rifles. They also were hooking extra armor to their necks, both to brace them and to protect them from the incoming heat. All in all, it was a sign of brisk efficiency, none of the nearly manic glee Ranma had seen when they talked about this in evidence.
As he watched, Shaak too grasped one of the shields but disdained the rifle that Janice held out to her. "I don't think I am that good of a shot as it is, and certainly not at the extended range we will be dealing with during the actual drop."
"Your loss," Janice said. She then turned to the other Mandos holding up a fist and shouting in Mandalorian something that Shaak instantly translated via the Force. "Are you ready to jump?!"
As the roar rose up from the main room, K'Kruhk raced the Wild Blade forward, ignoring the incoming starfighters, letting Aayla, Luminara and the Nova Guard peel off ahead of the escort-carrier-cum-heavy-cruiser to engage the droid fighters. Then, seconds before they entered attack range Ahsoka nodded to HK. "Do it HK!"
"Gleeful eagerness: with a certainty small meatbag!"
A second later the five crewmen of the Wild Blade all watched in various methods as the gaggle of the droid starfighters suddenly began to break apart, spitting this way and that, almost looking as if they were going to come to blows among themselves, but also just like a group to teenagers attempting to posture to one another without actually coming to blows. "It's actually working," K'Kruhk muttered in shock.
"Boastful statement: Of course it worked hairy meatbag! My master and I were clear on how weaponized taunting would work. All the droids out there now think that the droids next to them just told them their mothers were toasters and their programmers fornicated with monkeys."
"Why monkeys?" Ahsoka asked after a few moments of caution.
"Honest query: can you think of a more disgusting creature than one who throws its own waste product?"
"Several dozen actually, what about Rancors?"
"Enough," K'Kruhk ordered. "Here come the cruisers."
The cruisers though were spread out over the planet, orbiting over various large population centers, while the Lucre Hulk stayed put over the capital. Only two cruisers and ten gunboats came out to face the Wild Blade and K'Kruhk could almost feel the annoyance and irritation of the beings on those ships, not only because of the fact they were the only ones in a position to engage the incoming enemies, but that the droid starfighters were seemingly intent on performing such wildly acrobatic maneuvers around one another rather than fighting the enemy.
"Why aren't we firing on the Vultures?" Ahsoka asked.
"Arrogant tone: Is it not obvious? If we had fired on those droids, their survival and combat programming would've taken over. However, because they were not engaged in combat yet, their regular operational programming was still susceptible to my taunting technique. It is a flaw in their programming, which will no doubt be rectified swiftly now that it has been pointed out for the second time. Still, I imagine we could use it two, perhaps even three more times if we hurry… and kill as many enemy meatbags who could report it as possible, of course."
As the two sides closed, the Wild Blade suddenly dove to the side, sharing off from its starfighters who roared ahead of it. At the same time, it launched six proton torpedo's in quick succession, all aimed not towards the two cruisers, coming towards them, but six closest gunboats. Those gunboats hadn't realized they were already in range of the Wild Blade's targeted system, and tried to dodge but didn't have enough time to break the lock on of the torpedoes and couldn't dodge the nimble torpedoes.
The gunboats exploded, and their very explosions allowed the incoming starfighters to get close to the cruisers, where they began to blast away, moving around, zooming this way and that and generally speaking keeping all of the cruisers attention on them. The cruisers in action here on Jabiim were Munificent-class ships designed for the Banking Clan, and only repurposed for combat. They were very decent ships, good for both anti-fighter and ship-to-ship combat in their own weight class, with two heavy turbolasers, six flak cannons, two ion cannons, and fully twenty quad laser cannons. They gave Aayla and the others fits, as did the PD, or point defense turrets, which were designed to target incoming missile systems.
When the Wild Blade entered plasma cannon range however, the Munificent-class proved it did have a flaw defensively: lack of armor. Coming towards it from the side too fast for the cruiser to turn and bring it's forward mounted heavy turbolasers to bear, the six plasma cannons blasted out at a single section of the shield, collapsing it for just a second, and then the ion cannons 'fizzed' across space, crashing through that opening and taking down the shields, and many of the weapons. It might still have survived, but then another fusillade of proton torpedoes hit it, accompanied by many from the starfighters. The ship's side exploded outwards, its engine dying then it shattered, its keel broken and the ship coming apart at the seams.
"W, wow… I suppose that's what Ranma meant by 'power to a point' huh?" Ahsoka murmured.
With the cruiser in its way dealt with the Wild Blade quickly changed its course, heading straight towards the Lucre Hulk. The Wild Blade was outmatched by it by at least five times, although perhaps the trade Federation might be forgiven for not understanding that, given how easily the Wild blade had just dealt with the Munificent-class cruiser.
They began to fire at range, and there was only so much that K'Kruhk could do to dodge that fire and still keep on target to hit the atmosphere the way he wanted to. The Wild Blade's shields began to dim, the monstrous firepower of the Lucre Hulk quickly beginning to overcome it. But Tune just as quickly rerouted power, and the shields didn't fail until the Wild Blade smashed into the atmosphere. This of course allowed the Lucre Hulk to shoot at them with almost impunity, and it did so gleefully, though thankfully not as many guns were on the bottom of the ship than the sides.
And then once more the Wild Blade slewed, the air screaming around its shield for a moment as it brought its own plasma cannons to bear once more. Bolts of heavier denser plasma flashed out, smashing into the bottommost shielding of the large cloak, followed instantly by ion pulses, which slammed into the enemy shielding, arcs of electrical energy spreading out quickly joined by the proton torpedoes.
Those blasts battered at the Lucre Hulk for a few seconds through the shielding did hold this time. The size of the two ships was just too even for a victory like that. Ion pulse cannons actually weren't all that useful against a large-scale capital ship shielding, unless they were extremely powerful ones, and the ones on the Wild Blade were not that powerful. The plasma cannons were more powerful than even the two heavy turbolasers on the Munificent-class but again the shielding of the Lucre Hulk was up to stopping them and the torpedoes being fired now four at a time, eating through the ship's reserves.
Until that is, the starfighters joined in attacking from above the ship, forcing the ship to once more even out its shielding. Then those shields slowly began to shrink, the lights of the impacts slowly spreading. Yet even so, it was in no danger of being compromised just yet. Still, the fire on the Wild Blade had slackened, and that was enough for now.
The bay doors opened, and Ranma shouted, "At the bounce Mandos!" He and Janice led the way, with Shaak a bare half-step behind, whooping with delight. Every Mandalorian followed them, plummeting down through the atmosphere.
Even in their enthusiasm when Ranma had begun to explain his plan the Mandalorians had somewhat undersold their joy of a good orbital drop. The orbital drop was one of the staples of the Mando way of war, a symbol of their pride. Now they took to it like ducks to water their shields down, their bodies completely hidden behind them as they fell, almost skimming like a sled going down a very steep hill. Occasionally one of them would twitch the shield this war or that to stay on target, but for a few minutes that was all any of them had to do, just stay on target.
Then the people below them realized they had more targets incoming. A human-sized shape was awfully hard to hit at range like this, especially since very few targeting programs for turbolasers, especially those rated for planetary emplacement, could lock on them. The ion cannons too couldn't lock on them until they fell deeper into the atmosphere. That meant the locals had to start aiming at them on their own.
That forced the Mandos, Shaak and Ranma into evasive maneuvers, but they were able to do that for a while. And then their jets fired, and forcing them down faster and faster, even faster than starfighter could have moved. The speed and sheer surprise of the orbital drop were made it deadly and the Mandos had mastered that art long since. It was so fast that it took a moment for anyone else to realize that, as they had passed down into the troposphere Ranma had shifted forms due to the rain.
Swiftly they entered the range of the extended range rifles the Mandos had brought along for this purpose. The quad laser turrets studding the large towers stuck in the muck and mud of the base below them. The sides of the base were marked by some kind of half-dome, dotted by dozens of tanks and defensive positions, all of them moving around, their guns trying to shift to fire upwards.
But few were able to do so. The droids and locals on the ground though had no such difficulty. Their rifles didn't have the range, however, the plasma bolts dissipating before they could hit the incoming Mandos. Their return fire, however, did not. Like a disintegrator-style blaster, the rifles the Mandos used for this aspect of the drop ate through gas and power to a tremendous degree. But that power let their bolts smash into their targets. These included the scattered anti-air cannons on their towers and anyone that looked even a little bit important through their viewfinders.
While the Mandos continued to crouch behind their drop-shields and laid down a withering hail of fire, Ranma decided this was her cue to speed up a bit. She un-looped her arm from the shield, then as they continued down, stood up on it before actually waving jauntily at the others before leaping over the side like a fish. She was almost immediately hit by a quad laser but used the momentum to flip herself around then down.
The locals didn't get that lucky again as Ranma started to gather her ki. When she hit the top of one of the heavy gun emplacements her legs were glowing blue, and there was a tremendous blast of energy, which shattered the gun emplacement. She then leaped forward, slamming into and hurling over a dozen droids around before coming upon her first living enemy. The guys around here used full armor plate and helmets which looked like those of the Mandos except that they weren't self-sealing or airtight, and the helmet had a lip to it to cover the visor, and also had slightly larger communications gear stuck into the sides molded into and taking part of the armor of the helmet.
Yet for all that, it didn't protect the neck as much as a Mando helmet would have. Something Ranma made sure to point this out as she closed. "You've got a little something right there bud."
The man didn't even try to look away but Ranma still smashed his rifle into pieces then sent him flying with a kick to the diaphragm that caused a pained grunt before he flew backward. Ranma was already under fire from other droids and he leaped into the air despite the mud doing its damnedest to try to pull her body back into the ground. Damn, that stuff is sticky. He noticed the droids used heavy repulsors on their legs, while the humans too seemed to use smaller ones to stay upright in the mud. When they failed, the person fell into the mud, and if they didn't get help, they were stuck.
With that in mind, he opened up comms to the incoming Mandos and his lady wife. "Shaak, Mandos, be warned the fucking mud really is as real and nasty as Tune and K'Kruhk warned it might be. Keep moving don't set down, or try to strip some of the locals of their gear, looks like small repulsors on their feet and other stuff. I'm moving towards the main bunker."
Above him the Mandos continued to fall, taking out the quad lasers now. This base was very large, and well defended, but didn't actually have that many people. Fay had been very correct in that even most of his own people hadn't been happy about keeping the two Jedi prisoner. Not so much Kit Fisto, but six months of Fay healing their people had gone a long way to undoing the anti-Jedi attitude of the locals. So the vast majority of even the diehard Free Jabiim believers hadn't wanted to be involved with imprisoning Fay. Of course, Alto had also been concerned about Fay or Fisto using mind powers on his people, so that worked out well enough.
But even with the repulsors, the droids of the Techno Union were not very good at moving around. The locals were, on the other hand, and the three dozen of them moved rapidly here and there around the base, firing up towards the descending Mandos and Ranma.
One of them hefted a heavy portable concussion missile launcher, and fired it up towards Thomas, who desperately ditched his still red-hot drop-shield. The explosion still hurled him sideways, but the drop shield exploded. Already having been dealing with the effect of being red hot from reentry and the impact of the thankfully lukewarm water, its weakened structure couldn't take the explosion. Thomas was still alive though and activating his jump jets flashing away while returning fire.
This was nearly a battle of like against like. The two sides were both highly mobile, but one was able to take to the air, while the locals had numbers and tanks on their side. Their quad cannons were all down and two of the tanks were burning, with a third joining them quickly as Shaak landed on top of it, her presence having been momentarily hidden behind a Force Cloak.
Her lightsaber pierced the top of it, then she twisted to the side, dodging under the blast of another tank. There was, thankfully, no sign of any shielded units. They must not be cost effective against this rain or the humidity. The rain was a torrential downpour, in fact. It made visibility hard for Shaak and Ranma and the Mandos were having a devil of a time, even with their helmets. The locals, with the special lip over the eye slits, were not having as much trouble.
Shaak, however, had her montrals. Even with the deluge, Shaak could use the montrals echolocation to discern the movements of the people around her. Her lightsaber flashed through the rain, smacking the incoming plasma bolts away first one way, then the other, then back and down. She wasn't able to hit them straight back to the locals, but they certainly weren't hitting her anytime soon.
Elsewhere, Ranma ignored the bolts hitting him, closing with the largest bunker. Her light pike appeared from one hand and pushed it into the mud. Her other hand hurled a detonator ahead of him as another quad laser popped up, trying to home in on the redhead. Ten more of the locals also exited the bunker, racing around in an effort to encircle Ranma but she flipped forward blocking a blast bolt then using its momentum to roll over the light pike but then she kicked out into another of the locals and hopped to another.
Alto stared as he watched this one red-haired woman, who looked so short she could barely be up to his chest, simply bounce around, killing his highly trained, well-armed Nimbus commandoes as if they were children. "What, what are you!?" he roared, racing forward on his own repulsor boots.
Ranma heard him coming and smirked just slightly. The rain was seriously putting a damper on her mood. "Me, I'm the freaking cavalry rushing to the rescue. You've two of my friends somewhere around here and I'd really like to have them back now."
With that Ranma landed on top of the body of one of her victims before barreling forward, her light pike blocking and then shearing through the sword in the man's hand before a palm thrust caught him, smashing the man back and into the doorway to the bunker. The guy was still alive though thanks to his body armor protecting him but that didn't last long when Ranma stepped up and smashed a tiny, yet powerful fist into the side of his face, hurling him sideways.
Alto felt his temple shatter as well as a goodly portion of his teeth on that side of his mouth, and all he could think for a moment was, Well, there goes my winning smile. He tried to grab at his blaster and vibroblade, grabbing them from his waist even as he straightened up, but then was smashed into the mud of his base as one of his Nimbus commandoes smashed him flat.
The Mandos had used their air mobility ruthlessly, taking out the last few tanks, and then landing only long enough to let some of the droids' fire at them before dodging, letting the droid's blasters hit the locals. Then once the last tank finally stopped firing, they turned their wrist rockets and grenades against the locals. They took more than a few hits, and Janice lost all feeling in her leg when a bolt hit her knee, but all of them lived through the experience, although Kad whined bitterly about his helmet taking another hit just like it had in the forest fight back on Shili.
Elsewhere, Shaak nearly stumbled as she realized something, standing there on a ruined tank. This was the planet she had once seen years ago when her vision had shown an image of the future when she had seen her and Ranma facing off against an entire droid army. With that thought, she gasped in relief as two of the Mandos took out the locals who had been firing at her from behind. With that threat dealt with, she twisted around and hopped up into one of the ruined gun towers, the top of it no longer burning thanks to the constant downpour.
Outside the base and down the valley from it there came the sound of distant clanking and stomping. As she stared, the first ranks of infantry droids appeared, followed by tanks which were quite obviously already in range, firing towards the base. "Gentlemen and ladies, we have a situation here!" she shouted, ducking back out of sight, her thoughts wry. Well, there's the rest of my vision, although there is some comfort that we're not alone… hmmm….
Ranma was about to stomp the guy who was obviously some kind of bigwig with the locals heads in, but stopped and instead grabbed him by the boots, pulling them off quickly while balancing on the body of the red-armored commandoes. "I'll just be taking those." Then she reached forward and smashed two fingers into the back of the downed man's head, knocking him out.
The boots were a bit, okay a lot bigger than they needed to be with Ranma, but they still worked and let Ranma race through the now nearly empty base towards the outer wall. Janice dropped nearby, grunting in agony as her leg took her weight for a moment before she leaned against the tank Shaak was hiding behind. All three of the women looked up over it at the incoming army and Janice grinned tightly behind her helmet. "Well now, I don't suppose you two think you could do something about that army out there? Because let me tell you, I don't think we can possibly hold this place against them.
"I could probably perform a reverse Hiryuu Shouten Ha on them, plasma bolts wouldn't be hot enough but… but one of those shields maybe? Still, no, we'd need to heat it up a lot more than any of them are now," Ranma groused. Then she smirked. "Oh well, then I suppose it's gonna be a contest of what gives up first, their numbers or our energy."
"Ranma…," Shaak growled warningly before sighing in resignation as Ranma leaped up and out bouncing and racing forward towards the droids.
From where she hid, Shaak could see the droids actually recoil. Why in the heck would a single redheaded woman race towards them out of cover like that? By the time they had recovered, Ranma was in among them, laughing and hacking.
"Ah well." Shaak stood up and pulled off her robe, tossing it to one side and Grabbing at one of the locals, pulling off his boots. They were a much closer fit for her than they were for Ranma, and she quickly stood up, moving forward. "If you and your fellows could lay down some covering fire, I think we would appreciate it. But otherwise, try to stay under cover."
"Riight…," Janice muttered watching as Shaak leaped out and away, jumping about half of the distance between the army and their former position. "And people think us Mandos are crazy." Then she smirked and began to order her troops forward, up and around into the surrounding muddy mountains. "And then get that long-haired shebse (ass) up here, I'll want him close."
Their fire though was pretty superfluous as Ranma and Shaak raced into and through the army, and soon more than one of them allowed their fire to slacken just to watch the fight going on. Thomas, who had not cracked a joke since Jethro's death.
It wasn't really a full army of course, barely a division of infantry droids, although they did have a lot of tanks. The Lucre Hulk and the locals hadn't been able to supply repulsors for their droids. Then there was the fact the droids were suffering from the constant rain: not so much in terms of wear and tear, but because the rain blocked their communications ability, making them unable to link up to their ship for further orders.
And their command droid had been among those within the base, which had been dealt with so easily. The TF had learned from Naboo of course. The droids did have local programming and better than rudimentary orders. They could fight decently well against a similar group or any normal opponent.
Ranma and Shaak were not normal. They were so fast and able to dodge so easily that the droids did more damage to one another, most especially the tanks, who did not have enough intelligence to try to retreat and reopen the range. Shaak and Ranma were just too fast and too good and were making a fool of the droids, plain and simple. It might have been different if the droids could spread out, could keep the range open, but as it was, they were slowly being cut to pieces.
And then, the Lucre Hulk retreated. With their local contact a captive now, the Jedi on the ground and the Wild Blade having dealt with all three remaining cruisers, even the fact their droidfighters were operating efficiently once more didn't give the commander any more of a spine than most of his Neimoidian fellows.
This let HK and the Jedi aboard to return to the planet, diving down on the droid army. The plasma cannons proved highly effective at wiping out whole squads of droids or even a few tanks at a time and soon enough the entire droid army was wiped out.
"What are we getting from the locals about all this anyway," Ranma asked as she trudged back to the base out of the wreckage of the droid army, one arm around Shaak's waist.
The taller girl smiled wearily, leaning her head lightly against the top of Ranma's. Smelling the wet smell of Ranma's hair, she frowned slightly as the weather seemed to have rinsed out whatever it was that Ranma used in her hair normally. She set that aside for now though to concentrate on what Ranma had just said. "Good question, Luminara, can you hear me?" she asked, raising a com bead to her lips.
"Barely…si..not… loc…splint…defunct…. Unwilling…Fay… plague," Luminara replied her words practically unintelligible thanks to the static.
"Huh… yeah I think we'll wait until we are able to talk in person," Ranma said with a dry tone, if an extremely wet face.
"Or we could break into this bunker and see if the communications work," Janice said, her voice loud and clear over the communicators. "You two need to remember to keep your eyes on the prize in the future. Anyway, I'm relaying up to Luminara. Turns out the local government fell without much of a struggle, but that the Republic loyalists and the Free Jabiim movement became highly splinted about what to do about Master Fay. She and her companion apparently made quite an impression, helping to defeat a plague the locals call brainrot." There was a clear note of respect in her voice. While healers were not really touted in Mandalorian culture they were respected, and anyone who could stop a plague like that was worthy of that respect.
A second later though her voice was back to its normal tone. "Anyway, the way Stratus, that long-haired man, imprisoned them didn't sit well with a lot of folks, even among his most fanatical. That's why he only had the two hundred or so people he had here in the base and all those droids instead. It was because he couldn't be certain he would need to deal with a revolt of his own if he tried to harm them."
"And we've got him alive for some questioning later. For now, are Kit and Fay free?" Shaak asked.
"No, they are buried behind some rubble on the lowest floor. I figured we could let you Jedi with your Force powers see to that. If we try to move that stuff the old-fashioned way we might end up doing more damage than good."
So it was that once more the Jedi from the Wild Blade gathered their Force powers together to open an entrance, only this time it was against a bunch of rubble rather than an obstinate heavy metal door. They'd had to wait while Luminara told the locals about what had been going on, that they had captured Stratus and driven off the TF forces.
That had made the locals angry, but then Luminara had calmly gone on, saying they were not going to be enforcing a return of the previous government, who had proven all too incompetent. She wanted to see a series of free elections, then, when those were accomplished, she would open up discussions with the locals about trading directly with the Jedi Order. After all, the Order might well need those rare metals soon enough, and they could certainly provide both defense, legitimacy and further medical aid. This seemed to take a lot of the anger out of the local's sails, and they had quietly begun to put together the system for that free election.
So now Luminara stood with the other Jedi, holding their hands out towards the wreckage of the tunnel. Piece after piece was lifted and thrown to the side, until finally an opening was made and Ranma darted through it, smashing the final boulder to powder with an overpowered Bakusai Tenketsu. She helped Kit out, a wide grin on his face matched by the one on her old friend's. "Holy hell bro! When you do a last stand, you really put your all into it don't ya?"
"Hmmph, I suppose we could say that necessity is the mother of invention in this case, although I am most grateful to discover that my concerns about my mortality were premature," Kit quipped, gripping the short redhead around the shoulders and then nodding at Aayla and Shaak as he was helped through the hole in the rubble.
With Kit being looked after, Ranma then went back and lifted Fay up, in a princess carry, grinning down at her. "So, ya called for the cavalry again huh? This gonna be a habit of yours Fay, getting into trouble and then asking for us to bail you out? Maybe I should start chargin' ya."
Knowing the redhead's flippant attitude for the mask it was to hide her real concern, Fay smiled at him, leaning up just slightly despite the pain in her side to give her a light kiss on her cheek. "Perhaps you should, although I think I can help you with one thing right away." As a now flushed, Ranma carried her out past the rubble Fay turned her eyes up to the others, seeing the awe in the faces she had not seen before this, and the joy in Shaak's eyes at meeting her once more. "Greetings friends, both new and old. I understand that you have a mystery to solve?"
End Chapter
And thus ends the peace in the galaxy. The war will start next chapter gentlemen and ladies where shots are fired of all sorts. Until then please do remember to review, and check my profile tomorrow for the poll for May.
