Legend of the Harp Episode III: The Crucible

by Hemaccabe

The Harp continues to build his own resistance movement with more ships, troops and wealth. However, not every problem can be solved with such tools and some of those problems may test one to the very edge!

3. Chapter 3

Legend of the Harp

By Hemaccabe

Episode III: The Crucible

Chapter 3: Trial by Fire

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

*** Bounty Hunter Mahe Jiru, Dandoran system ***

It was a tedious time, but time well spent. I was alternating between the station and a rock near their fortress in Dandoran system. I was dipping my com boom into their conversations, many out in the open, others with simple codes I had long broken. Clearly com security was not their forte.

Unfortunately, while both quarries liked to spend a lot of time apart, they spent it surrounded by troops and heavily armed security. I would need to be patient. I had missed once and now the quarry were aware they were being hunted. I would have to be even more careful the next time around.

My initial plan had been to get them together, then take them both. Now I was thinking it would be better to take them individually, partly because they were clearly both capable, especially the short human, and partly because they were so rarely together.

The trick with stalking was to be patient. Don't force your hand. Eventually, the ideal opportunity will come.

*** Jedi Padawan Fio, New Korpluck Town, Dandoran ***

I was so excited! For the first time Dodger had told me "I want you to lead a mission on your own."

"You want me to lead?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think you're ready and this shouldn't be too hard." He replied.

"You'll still be there though?" I asked becoming confused.

"Nope, I have another job to do. You're going solo. Well, solo with a picked team and a U-Wing." Dodger replied.

So, there I was, sitting down in the co-pilot's seat of the U-Wing. I had a nice Sultoonian kid, okay probably about the same age as me, as pilot. He had short black choppy hair and a freckly face. He was cute, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention.

In back, I had a picked platoon of Harp Militia. Specifically, Third platoon, Bravo Company, Second, or Hero Battalion. The platoon was a group of ten well trained men and women along with ten top of the line, manually trained HX droid troopers. Lastly, we had two Ball droids who were plugged in by the doors and ready to be door gunners as needed.

I was dressed like the other troopers. I was wearing a nearly skin-tight body suit of high performance cloth. Fast drying, warm in cold, cool in hot, good stuff. Over the body suit, I had the standard clamshell chest piece with shoulder cops, vambrace/gauntlets and armored boots. I was also wearing a smart helmet with the standard hearing and sight enhancements. It was a secret the troops didn't know, but all the armor and body suits had been kissed by the Zillo beast. I had my civilian Zillo Beast leathers in my pack.

Troopers could also add upper arm and thigh pieces if they wanted them. I had decided against based on weight and Dodger's advice. Apparently, most Jedi had not opted for those pieces during the Clone Wars, though many of our troops did.

Over the armor, I wore camouflage colored cloth pieces with pockets.

I also had my DK pistol on my right hip and my shock bayonet on the left as I locked down my heavily customized B-300 rifle, Bertha, in her dedicated slot by my seat. Not everyone carried a pistol. It was more common in R4 and above, but it was up to the individual trooper. Certainly, the droids didn't. Even though carrying the pistol added weight, I liked knowing that I had a backup. Something went wrong with the rifle, I was still armed.

I was also carrying some extra bits in pouches on my belt and in my small pack. Which went to the fact that beyond basic uniform and rifle, everything else was up to the individual trooper. There was a whole selection of gear a trooper could request from stores. Packs, canteens, pouches, straps, belts, etc. could all be requisitioned and supplied to the trooper at no charge. Troopers were only supposed to requisition the gear they would actually use. The problem was that some troopers would always try and requisition one of everything. That would be a discipline issue. We would also still see packs and jackets on civilians in Korpluck Town.

There was also stuff available at the military PX that was better, but a trooper would have to buy that for themselves.

I had a small issue pack, it sat flat, low on my back. There were other styles and certainly larger. I figured the odds of a long deployment were low, so a small pack that would keep my weight and bulk down seemed like a good choice. I did see troopers with medium packs and even big packs from time to time. If that's what the trooper wanted, and they could keep up, Force bless them.

The only major difference between the squad and me in uniform was I had no real rank insignia. Everyone on the mission knew I was in command. What rank should a Padawan have? During the Clone Wars, I understand Padawans were given ranks like Colonel and General. Just what we needed if things went wrong, something advertising to the Imperials that they had caught the Galaxy's youngest rebel general. Wearing the Jedi insignia was just as impractical. So, I had solved the problem practically, I was wearing a set of R5 Captain's bars.

I had been one of the first through basic when training began. I had also been through the Officer's course the first time it was offered. I'd been on every other type of training the militia offered. Sometimes more than once. Dodger also liked to use me as an assistant, so I'd administered training many times as well. I knew I was tough and I could shoot straight.

One thing I didn't have, but wished I did, was my own light saber. I could move two objects, but the third would get in the way of the other two in my head. Then I would get confused and everything would drop. I was working on it, and getting better, but I'd need to be able to move more than three objects simultaneously to build my saber.

I'd been practicing using a saber with Harp and Dodger. Dodger was clearly the best and Harp was still a lot better than me, but each time we practiced, I learned a bit more. I still couldn't do that trick where they deflected blaster bolts. They'd had me shoot at them and then they made it a game of who could get the deflected bolt to go closest to my head or hit the ground at my feet. They didn't laugh out loud at me, but I knew they thought it was funny. Just made me more determined to learn, which was probably why they did it.

I looked over the mission briefing. There might be a Jedi Knight named Keelis Chatterjee on Castanea. There was a situation with a higher probability of a Jedi in danger somewhere else, so I was getting this one. I was supposed to take a look around, not do anything dangerous or risky. Mistress Chatterjee was a Sciuridae. Apparently not many of those around the galaxy. When I looked at Mistress Chatterjee's included holo portrait, I saw that Sciuridae had furred bodies. She reminded me of Burbur. Apparently, she was much smaller, only 1.4 meters tall. The Sciuridae apparently were arboreal brachiates. She would have small, but very efficient claws on all four limbs and a small furry tail. A Sciuridae could normally rotate their feet 180 degrees and run face first down a tree. No doubt that's why she would pick a place like Castanea to hide, it apparently had a huge amount of forest cover and the trees were supposed to grow as tall as 100 meters. Would be tricky to find a place to land.

We popped out of hyperspace and right there, in front of us, was an Imperial shuttle! It fired instantly as we emerged, as we tried desperately to swerve and avoid a collision. We got hit right in the face. No shields. The plex screen was shattered and the opaque safety shutter collapsed to prevent decompression. I was screaming at the pilot but not getting a response, so I took the controls.

Just like in training in Corellia space, I let the Force flow through me as I tried to guide the ship on instruments only. I hit the shields but wasn't sure if they were up. The only guns the U60 had were fixed on the nose. I wasn't sure if they would even work. I did a spinning barrel role that had gotten me out of the way of Harp's guns several times in practice, brought the shuttle up and fired on scanners and the Force. I dumped all four torpedoes the UT-60 carried hoping they could self-guide into the other ship. I could feel and hear the guns fire, hard to tell if I got a hit on them and if so, no idea how bad.

I must have done something because the scanners showed the Imperial Shuttle tumbled and hit one of our grav wings, snapping it off. Ships power became unresponsive and then our ship started tumbling. We hit the planet's atmosphere sideways, with no control. Not the sort of re-entry one would want. I was vaguely aware the Imperial shuttle was falling too. However, I was mostly focused, when I could reach the controls right in front of me, on trying to restore power and maneuver control. Even if we still had gravity, the speed of our uncontrolled spin would have made it hard to reach the controls. Without the gravity lost with power, half the time my arms were pinned to the seat! The ship was growing uncomfortably hot. Too far down, I got something back and managed to point the ship, tail down and hit the thrusters. Just as I thought I might have pulled this one out, we hit a tree and tumbled uncontrolled to the ground.

As soon as we hit, it went black.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan on the Revenge ***

Shield floated into my office on Revenge to find me sitting at my desk typing orders with superhuman speed.

"What are you working on now Sir? Can I be of assistance?" Shield asked.

"Emberlene again." I replied.

"Emberlene seems to take up a great deal of your time." Shield opined.

"Yes, it does." I replied with some frustration.

"I thought the Imperials had bombarded and destroyed the planet?" Shield asked.

"They did, but they left many survivors and no functional infrastructure." I explained.

"Since Emberlene has no remaining strategic value, why do you continue to expend resources, including time and Credits, on it?" Shield asked reasonably, if coldly.

"We don't always act for direct gain. That is was makes us better than our enemies. Emberlene was destroyed because one of their ships allied with us. We may see some benefit at some point. We may not. Either way, our honor and compassion demand we help them." I explained.

"Honor and compassion are difficult concepts." Shield replied.

"Yes, but I hope you grow to understand them. I feel life would be worthless without them."

Now Emberlene was our problem. I had ordered a thousand hover lorries from Spires Motors immediately after the bombardment. We could never hope to fix all of Emberlene, we just didn't have the resources. The other civilized governments of the galaxy didn't seem interested in helping. None of them wanted to cross the Empire so directly and I guess Emberlene was far enough out that she was easy to ignore.

So, we set up at Hearth, what had been the capital city of Emberlene. We brought in food, water, medical supplies, tents, radioactivity scrubbers, everything. I would love to say the survivors accepted the help with dignity. They didn't. There was rioting. It made sense. There was no way to bring in enough for all. If your choice was to starve to death or riot, you'd probably riot too.

So, we had to bring in a battalion of militia just to keep the peace, wasting valuable volume and mass that could have been used for supplies instead. Even after they were on planet, the militia needed to be fed and supplied, a continued drain on relief shipment volumes.

I threw everything I could at Emberlene. My pirates all did volunteer runs and we used a LOT of Hope ship cargoes. We finally started to turn the corner when I got an orbital platform in there and two grav tugs.

"What are you working on now specifically." Shield asked

"I was finishing details with regards to the grav tugs."

The grav tugs were key.

"What are grav tugs?" Shield asked.

I answered, "I've described gravitic plate and gravitic generators to you, but you're clearly not familiar with galactic commerce. For planets to ship and receive goods, a ship must come and take on cargo…"

"Like Revenge?" Shield interrupted and asked.

I liked that Shield interrupted, it was childlike behavior, but a sign that real sentience was developing.

"Yes, like Revenge. However, if the ship has to land on the surface to load and unload cargo, it becomes far less profitable."

"Why?" Shield asked.

"First of all, it takes much longer and is far more difficult to load and unload a ship in gravity. A ship like one of our Hope ships can't even descend into a gravity well. Smaller ships like Revenge, that can, are much less efficient and therefore less profitable for trade."

"Is that the only reason?" Shield asked.

"No. In addition, a conventional ship like Revenge will use it's gravitics to get off the ground and pointed the right way so that it can then use it's main thrusters to fly off planet. This is doable, but causes wear and tear on the ship, and worse, is fuel expensive."

"Is there a better way?" Shield asked.

"Yes, a more developed system will have one or more orbital transfer stations where cargo can be staged for shipping or received."

"Why wouldn't that be just as expensive and perhaps more expensive than loading on the ground?"

"If the system has such a station, it will likely have grav tugs."

"Which leads us back to what are grav tugs?" Shield continued.

"Good question. A grav tug is a type of ship that has a completely different drive than normal. The grav tug's drive is essentially like a grav generator. It creates energy from the planet's gravity and uses that to power gravitic plate to haul the cargo up from the surface to the station. While they still endure wear and tear, grav tugs use far less fuel then conventional ships and are designed for the trip up and down so they can endure it far more economically for extended periods.

"Having grav tugs means that we can deliver and receive cargoes with much larger ships, like the Hope ships and beyond. Much faster."

"Why don't ships like Revenge have grav drives?" Shield asked.

"Revenge does have grav plate, which is more expensive and energy intensive than thrusters. However, a grav drive like they have on a grav tug is very expensive, very heavy and takes up a lot of room. That's why they are only used on dedicated ships."

The grav tugs I had bought were dazzlingly expensive. In comparison, the agro colony I had grown up on didn't have such tugs, though they had desperately wanted them.

"Is that helping?" Shield continued.

"Yes. With the transfer station and the two new grav tugs I was finally able to get set up, we have really helped expand the amount of cargo that we can deliver. More cargo on Emberlene means more relief supplies.

"We've gone from delivering food, to helping plant crops. From delivering water, to building working water supplies. From delivering fuel and generators to rebuilding destroyed power grids. I feel we're turning the corner to a better situation. As the infrastructure recovers, my hope is that it will quickly expand and return a sense of normalcy to the whole planet."

Well that was my plan. In the meantime, a whole battalion of our Harp militia had to be stationed on Emberlene at all times, meaning we had fewer resources for other missions. The battalion would also be sitting oaf birds if the Empire sent ships and troops back in for another round of bombardment. They were training a new local security force which would, by the will of the Force, be able to take over basic security duty. Hopefully, the Force would be with us and the people of Emberlene.

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Please don't miss that this is the third book in this exciting series. Legend of the Harp Episodes 1 and 2 are also on this site! Episode 4 may be on her way soon!

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