Chapter 4 – Everywhere and Nowhere
Location: Zoni Tribe Village, Dathomir
Time: 19 Years Before the Battle of Yavin, 2 Days After Order 66
"This one should be pretty easy for a Jedi," Tika said, "But you can still learn from this."
Denley hoped she was right. He found himself sitting amongst five other witches, all forming a circle around a patch of soil and under the protection of an animal skin tent. It was quite dark, the sisters made sure of that, he guessed it helped them somehow. They'd sat him down here without telling him what exactly he was supposed to do, kind of unorthodox since he didn't even know what this ritual was supposed to entail. It just looked like a container of earth sitting on the ground.
Nobody else spoke a word, it was now completely silent in the tent as everyone focused on what they were supposed to be doing. Except for Denley, of course, who looked around at the witches, confused. In response, Tika lifted her head up at him and opened her eyes.
"Quiet your mind, Kane..." she said, "It will become clear soon, but only if you listen to your sisters."
He politely nodded and tried to open his mind up to whatever the hell they were trying to do. To him, nothing else outside of this tent existed, this was everything now, and that helped a little bit. It wasn't the soil itself the sisters were focusing on, it was something underneath.
If this is a dead body or something, I'm leaving... he thought to himself, before remembering his discipline and refocusing.
But it wasn't a dead body, it was something small and alive. Not conscious, but alive nonetheless. The other sisters appeared to be using their powers to move this thing, manipulate it up towards the surface, he could feel the soil underneath it crumbling and giving way. They couldn't do it alone, though, as something appeared to be hindering their process. Insects. He knew their place in the force, skittering around, very unpredictable and strange. These things were drawn to whatever was making its way up to the surface.
Denley held them off as much as he could, collapsing bits of soil onto some, influencing others to back off, making some fight one another, allowing whatever this was safe passage to the surface. Finally, it popped up through the dirt, a plant, budding with some kind of red fruit. The sisters collectively broke their focus and began to pick at the plant.
"What is this thing?" Denley asked.
"Ruma plant," Tika explained, "It's a strange plant, it grows in cavernous lairs far below the ground to protect itself from pests. When they become too big, they break out of their lairs and work towards the surface, but are usually destroyed by these bugs. When it becomes time to harvest, we usher it to the surface and try to get it safely past the insects that would otherwise tear it to shreds. It helps the survival of our tribe and encourages us to work together with our powers."
"Now that we have picked it clean," another sister added, "We will ensure its safe return to its lair below, where it will continue to help our people for years to come."
"This was a great harvest today!" Tika said, "Usually the bugs do a lot more damage than this, I guess we have you to thank for that."
"You girls deserve the credit," Denley said, "I was just following your lead."
Light began to creep into the tent as the entrance flap opened up, allowing Sister Kellt to enter, her face bruised and swollen from her embarrassing defeat the other day. She tried to avoid making eye contact with Denley, no doubt ashamed to have been knocked out by an unarmed, restrained opponent, one who happened to be a man.
"How did we do?" she asked the group.
"See for yourself!" one of the sisters replied, "The bugs didn't steal any of them from us this time!"
"All thanks to Denley!" Tika added.
"Ah..." Kellt said, "That's good. He can help us with the next harvest then, it would be a big gesture. I'd like to have a word with him, if he's not needed currently."
"I guess I can spare a few moments." Denley said as he stood up and stepped outside with Kellt. A group of about seven other witches were gathered at the boundary of the camp, all armed to the teeth and waiting, presumably for Kellt.
"Look," she began, "We appreciate you helping us the other day. You can handle yourself in a fight, and we have one coming up."
"You guys in the habit of picking fights with other witches?" Denley asked.
"Not other witches, no..." she said, "Droids, Separatists to be precise. They have a base not far from here, they're building droids in some kind of factory and shooting at anyone who comes near it. They've killed one of our sisters and wounded several others."
"You're going to attack a Separatist camp head on?" he asked.
"We can't afford to ignore it..." Sister Kellt reasoned, "If the factory attracts the attention of the Empire, it would be a disaster for us. We were going to do it alone, but then you showed up. With the help of a Jedi, we think we can take them on, rid Dathomir of their presence forever. Your kind fought against them for years, it should feel natural now." she reasoned.
"Only if we have a deal..." Denley began, "Tika said the elders will decide if I can stay indefinitely. I want to be sure that the risk is worth it."
"Is that it?" she asked.
"I also want you people to free the men you have here, give them a choice in what happens with them."
"That's a big request." Kellt stated.
"You're free to deal with that droid camp by yourselves then," Denley said, "I'll hit the road and figure it out as I go, no skin off of my back. Lots of luck, ladies."
"I didn't say we couldn't do it..." Kellt sighed, "Alright, I'll have a word with the elders now."
"Do it," Denley said, "You're all lovely ladies, maybe some of the men will want to stay and experience some more of that Zoni charm."
"Don't push it." Kellt said as she walked off in the direction of the elders, with a slight smirk on her face, no doubt trying to hide her amusement.
Over the course of an hour while waiting, Denley got to learn a lot about the witches, for example, they preferred their men to be clean shaven. Also they all seemed to want to do it for him, always with some kind of very sharp weapon that had probably been used to kill beasts or even other witches. After what seemed like an eternity of first politely declining, then gradually trying to retreat, Sister Kellt returned with the other armed sisters. As she approached, the sisters pestering Denley all stopped what they were doing and quietly returned to the tent to continue the harvest.
"The Elders have reluctantly agreed to your terms..." Kellt said, "It is unheard of for a male to make demands to them, even more impossible for them to obey said demands, so you had better hold up your end of the deal."
"I've taken out hundreds of droids," Denley said, "I can do it again. One thing you might not have given thought to though, what if they send more droids to come back and finish you guys off? I can't let that happen."
"Kane, you underestimate your sisters." Tika said, emerging from the tent.
"Many have attempted to conquer us, none have succeeded..." Kellt said, "These Separatists will be no different. We live in the shadows, we are everywhere and nowhere. As long as there is a Dathomir, there are the Nightsisters. These invaders settle on our land without our permission, pretend to be our lords, they must pay with their lives. You will be our instrument, Kane, trust in your sisters."
"Alright then," Denley said as he grabbed his lightsaber, "Let's do this."
"Don't use your blade..." one of the other sisters said, "You handled yourself well without it the other day, and the day may come where you don't have the option."
"Besides," Tika said, "If the droids' remains are discovered with lightsaber damage on them, they will know a Jedi is hiding here, and then there will definitely be a counterattack."
"Alright fair enough," Denley said as he put the saber back on his belt, "Got something else for me then?"
"You can use one of my staffs!" Tika said, excited as she rushed to her home tent.
"Her eagerness about you is, concerning..." Kellt said.
"That sounds like jealousy." Denley said.
"Ugh no, you are hardly the ideal mate..." Kellt replied, disgusted, "You talk too much. You can be her problem though, if she so chooses."
"Ooooh Sister Tika can finally have her man without having to enslave him!" one of the other sisters said, "She always was a bit more adventurous that way."
"Yeah getting consent from a free man sounds really adventurous..." Denley said sarcastically.
The well carved wooden spear was slipped into his hand from behind, startling him a little bit as he turned and saw Tika handing over the weapon, excited to be passing it to a Jedi. The weapon had a grip cut into it about halfway along the weapon, and had a very long, metal blade at the end, probably just sharp enough to pierce the metal plating of a battle droid. The weight was perfect, it twirled in the air just right and was long enough to put plenty of distance between himself and the target.
"I hope you girls plan on going in there with more than just some spears and axes." Denley said as he continued examining his weapon.
"We have our powers as well of course," Kellt said, "As well as the help of some of the fauna of Dathomir."
"It'll have to be enough," Denley warned, "These droids shouldn't be underestimated."
"We have a Clone Wars veteran with us," Tika said, "I think we'll be fine!"
Together, Denley, Tika, Kellt and seven other Nightsisters made their way towards their target, noiselessly darting their way through the foliage, silent as the night that blanketed the already dark atmosphere of Dathomir. He studied their movement as much as he could, it was impressive how stealthy yet quick they were, reminding him there was still a lot to learn from these nimble-bodied warriors.
Before too long, Denley could tell they were getting close, as the not-so-distant sound of heavy machinery began to bounce off the trees and rumble through the ground. Flashes of bright orange light accompanied many of the rumblings, and it didn't take long for the factory to come into view. It was in an artificial canyon, probably dug hundreds of meters into the surface to serve as a visual dropoff and hide it behind the canyon. However, this led to an obvious weak point where intruders could peer almost directly down from above.
The facility was massive, perhaps the size of an average Corellian sports stadium, with three tall pillars on the roof, likely containing overwatch and the upper levels of management. The factory appeared to be in full effect, churning out a couple batches of battle droids every five or so minutes. Was this the continuation of the bloody, costly Clone Wars? Or could it be a new threat altogether? In any case, Denley knew at the very least that it wouldn't be those particular droids doing anything against civilians, as they had been known to do so in the past.
"We've only got one shot at taking this thing down the right way." Denley said as he carefully looked over the target.
"The longer we wait..." Kellt scolded, "The more droids we'll have to fight."
"Bad odds are bad odds," Denley began, "If the enemy's odds are already stacked, what harm can it do to help our odds for a change?"
"More planning is the way to go." Tika agreed.
Together, the team of Jedi and witches scanned the facility from top to bottom, from various altitude and angles, working as quickly as they could. A few of them deduced the easiest entrances, others checked for quick exits, some for structural weak points, troop movements, loud noise patterns, anything to give them the edge over the clankers. Once satisfied with the data collected, Denley nodded to the girls, it was time to go.
Armed with the staff that his friend Tika had given him, Denley found the closest thing to a blindspot that he could manage with all three of those spires providing overwatch. With that narrow window, he braced himself for the jump down to the factory below, guiding his path and speed through the air with the Force, just as the sisters did behind him, all quietly yet quickly descending towards their various targets.
Denley landed with only a slight thud, only a couple dozen meters away from one of the bigger assembly lines. From his position, it appeared this one was being used to manufacture tanks and other vehicles of similar sizes. Thankfully this process seemed to take longer than the batches of battle droids being churned out on another level. Hopefully the sisters headed there were prepared for a decent sabotage, otherwise they'd have a couple hundred active battle droids to deal with.
The young Jedi left the cool outside air behind him, stepping into the threshold of the assembly line's entrance, and found himself bombarded by an intense heat from the complex machinery inside, as well as the near deafening sound of welding mechanisms, spinning gears, and crashing metal, bouncing off the walls and ringing in his ears. The sound was good, it seemed it would likely cover up any of the work Denley planned to do.
He tucked himself tight against the wall and scanned the ceilings and walls for any cameras or motion detectors. He spotted one directly above his head, making him question the judgment of the genius who put it somewhere it couldn't monitor the one entrance that an intruder could use. It had two lenses, probably just in case one was to fail on them, which gave him an idea. Shattering the camera aimed in the direction of the back of the assembly line, he then forced the remaining camera to point as far to the right as it could without breaking. On the off chance they suspected a downed camera was due to an intruder, they may have second thoughts since the other camera is intact, albeit moved aside a bit, since most intruders would certainly destroy both on sight.
With the cameras now out of the picture, Denley reached out with the Force and guided a large load lifter onto the assembly line, right in front of the next tank to be completed. The lifter was cumbersome, it appeared to have parts salvaged to complete it, including mismatched feet, but eventually he got it in place, blocking the tank and scraping against it, causing massive damage to the hull, not to mention causing a pile up with the tanks behind it.
Next up, Denley focused his efforts on the thin steel arms above and off to the side of the assembly line, the parts doing all the work, putting the pieces together and welding when needed. There were lots of these things, positioned at different angles and heights, each with lightning fast movements, clasping their clawed ends and bending into place. He turned them against their nature, repositioning some to quickly impale the hull of some tanks, making some pick up certain parts and slam them against the tanks or against other arms, and welding deep holes into strategic spots on the tanks.
By now, the continuing belt was forcing the pile up to a breaking point, making some vehicles topple over onto the floor, making a massive noise that could be heard even over the heavy machinery. The ones left on the assembly line were completely unsalvageable, riddled with damage from the misdirected arms. He knew it was only a matter of time before something came along to try and stop him.
As one final middle finger to the droids, Denley reached out with the Force and plucked some unused fuel tanks from further along on the assembly line. With the welding arms still active, he violently threw the fuel tanks at the intense open flames and had only a brief moment between himself and death, as the room erupted in a sea of flame and debris. Even from his hiding spot behind the outside wall, he still lost his footing and crashed onto the cold steel ground headfirst. After gathering himself and heading back to the room, he could see the explosion had permanently shut down this level, not just stopping every machine in it, but blowing a massive hole in it, one that ripped through several adjacent rooms and blew apart the ceiling and floor.
They definitely noticed that.
Once his ears stopped ringing, Denley noticed a loud, constant clattering outside, and when he looked to see the source, realized some of the sisters had forced a handful of batches of battle droids to go plunging over the side of the factory, down hundreds of feet to the hard canyon floor below. He hoped it would be enough. A commotion could be heard in the spires, as droids became alert and began to open fire on the sisters who had broken in to take out the watchtowers and high command.
The only other team of witches had gone to cut off any reinforcements by blocking the way with debris and busted doors, that way they could all be dealt with separately. Denley hoped those sisters succeeded, but had no way of knowing for sure, not unless the droids were able to find a way around the new barriers between the various sections of the factory, in which case it'd be too late to do anything about it.
Denley braced himself for a fight, and it's a good thing he did, as he could hear a swarm of droidekas and Supers on their way, he had hoped those were sounds of the past echoing back to him, but no, they were certainly on their way. Even as the droidekas were spinning down one of the halls towards him, the Super Battle Droids began to rain blaster fire down on him, surely in an effort to protect the vulnerable rolling droids are they approached with lightning fast speed. The young Jedi knew this was a losing fight, so while ducking behind the wall near the entrance to the factory, he quickly deduced the quickest possible escape route.
A quick but careful jump down to the floor below was all it took to temporarily buy Denley the time he needed to link up with one of the other groups of Nightsisters, who had just finished pushing another batch of droids off the factory's edge. Using the Force to cushion his fall, Denley arrived behind some of the droid reinforcements, then used his staff, guided by that same Force, to decimate them. Knocking the heads off some of the standard droids, impaling the Super Battle Droids through the red sensors on their chests, and picking up the droidekas to slam against one another.
With this part of the factory's exterior temporarily clear of droids, Denley approached Tika and the two other Nightsisters he had linked back up with.
"Nice moves!" Tika said, "You know, for a guy."
"If I didn't know any better..." Denley said, "I'd say I'm starting to grow on you! In any case, the production line upstairs is totally wasted, how'd you girls do down here?"
"I'd say we've taken out about fifty or so droids so far," Tika began, "Plus we disabled about twenty or so others, they're still inside but we shouldn't have to worry about them."
"Good!" Denley exclaimed, "What about the others?"
"We did our part," one of the other sisters answered, "The hallways along the southern portion of the factory are totally blocked off."
"They'll have to either come through one at a time," Tika said, "Or wait for us to come by and finish them off. Either way, we have them at a disadvantage."
"I'd say we make a pretty good team," Denley said with a smile, "Maybe there is hope for you yet."
With that high note came an unexpected explosion on the south wall, just underneath where Denley and the sisters were standing. It didn't take them long to figure out what had just happened, but to be sure, they peered over the edge, only to visually confirm that not only had the droids broken out, but they appeared to be figuring out the best way to scale the wall. It seemed now the trap had flipped on them, now Denley and the sisters were cut off from the ground floor by halls of wall to wall droids, with more scaling the walls trying to get to them.
"Not going to lie," Tika said, "This wasn't part of the plan."
"In other words..." Denley said, "We're screwed?"
"Oh I definitely didn't say that..." Tika said.
"Didn't I tell you to trust your sisters?" Sister Kellt said.
Startled, Denley turned to see his biggest enemy at the camp, Sister Kellt, standing right behind him. It seemed not only had she succeeded in her part of the mission in the spires, but she had also managed to sneak past his senses and catch him off guard, all within the span of a few minutes. Amazing!
"Oh hey Kellt!" Denley said, trying not to sound startled, "Um, yeah you did say that, but the droids have literally found a way around our plan, and they're coming to kill us. Does this mean I shouldn't have trusted you?"
"No," she said with a grin of victory, "It means you should have realized we had a Plan B."
The droids scaling the wall didn't get very far at all, as they soon found themselves to be the sole targets of something much bigger and more frightening than a witch. Howling through the dense foliage of Dathomir, cutting through the air like a saber through metal, the giant menacing beasts emerged. Thick, brown, leathery and bumpy hides, there was no denying what it was, and thankfully it was on Denley's side.
The Sisters took notice of his shock.
"You know the Rancor are native to Dathomir, yes?" Tika said.
"I just, uh, I've never seen one in person..." Denley said in amazement, "They're beautiful, you know, in a terrifying way."
He wasn't lying. The legendary beasts moved with unparalleled speed, quite unexpected actually, dashing towards the droids that were on the wall, picking them off one by one and pulling them to pieces. Other rancors slammed their fists through the open holes in the wall of the factory, pummeling and crushing any droid stupid enough the come anywhere near those giant clawed fists. Even the airborne battle droids weren't safe from the wrath of the rancors, as they too found themselves snatched up in their unforgiving clutches and torn to bits. Down far below, Denley could see other rancors pulling apart the AAT's that had made it off the line earlier in the day. It was quite a sight to behold.
"Like I said," Tika said, "More planning is the way to go. Don't ever put all your faith in Plan A. I'd say you still have a lot to learn from us!"
"So what was this?" Denley asked, putting his staff aside, "Just another lesson?"
"Everything is a lesson." Tika answered with a smile. The other sisters seemed to get some kind of amusement out of the whole situation.
For the next couple of minutes, Denley, Tika, Kellt and the other sisters watched the show below without a word, watching the rancors do their work, ripping apart every droid in sight. Once they were done, taking out the rest was much easier, clearing out all of the hallways, and leaving the factory in such an amazing state of disrepair that it could never hope to recover from. They took their time marching back to the camp, rancors in tow, all of their ranks still intact, witches and all. Nobody said a word, the whole walk back. They all knew it was a big day, not only had they taken out an entire droid factory and rid their world of Separatist presence, but they had truly accepted a Jedi within their ranks, and secured his freedom in doing so.
Most unexpected, however, was Tika taking Denley's hand during the walk back. He paused for a moment, then continued walking with her, the two sharing a moment of both respect in their fighting abilities, and their interest in one another. It was unlike anything he'd experienced before, and he kind of liked it.
This is a strange world.