Chapter 79
Caamasi
Ahsoka put her hand on Ylenic's shoulder. "This is more your mission than mine. Do you want to take the Whipclaw up?"
"Yes," he said, "but it is your ship, and you are the better pilot. Especially right now. In spite of every meditative technique I have at my disposal, I find that my nerves are still somewhat frayed."
He stood up from the pilot's chair and sat down in the copilot's seat.
"Thank you," he said, "for offering. I believe I will serve best as copilot."
Ahsoka nodded and slid into the chair. She flipped two actuator switches on the dashboard, then looked out the cockpit. "Repulsorlifts still good, Master Yoda's far enough back to avoid any engine wash... let's go."
The Whipclaw rose up from the ground, then Ahsoka pointed the nose up and pushed the throttle forward. The mists of Dagobah whipped across the windshield as they headed towards space.
The Imperial shuttle settled into the hangar bay. Trained Navy crewmen immediately attached fuel couplings to the sides, as Admiral Tarkin walked down the ramp.
"Thank you, pilot, for the uneventful flight. As soon as you are refueled, you have permission to leave the ship. The rendezvous coordinates for the Exemplar are in the navicomputer. Wipe all nav data as soon as you arrive there."
"Yes sir," the pilot said, and he saluted as Tarkin and his assistant, Ensign Dailey, disembarked.
Tarkin turned to his assistant. "Deliver a message to the captain. Our group is to depart for Caamas as soon as the shuttle has gone to hyperspace, not a moment before. He is to keep up the radio chatter until then, to make it appear as if we are still gathering supplies for the relief effort."
"Yes sir," Dailey echoes, and he turned to leave.
"And ensign," Tarkin added. Dailey turned to face him, and Tarkin continued. "Do you know where the nearest refresher is? I am afraid that I am not familiar with the layout of this ship."
Dailey gave directions, and felt relieved to know that the man who had so calmly ordered the near-extinction of an entire race, especially one so well beloved as the Caamasi, still had some basic Human needs.
"Are we completely loaded?" Jyssa asked.
The Sullustan's response sounded less like a 'yes' and more like a 'hubbudda', but she saw a nod out of the corner of her eye from BLX-5.
"All right, all aboard. The kids are safely strapped in, my copilot is raring to go. Tegra, if your race gets motion sick, I recommend sitting in the cockpit with us. Most sentients find it easier to deal with if they can see the horizon moving with them. If not, you can find a seat in the living section with the kids. Xho, where are you going to be?"
"The engines do not need my attention, I believe I will accompany the children."
"Jiedda mo kilka tra," the Sullustan said.
Jyssa's eyes flicked over to the droid next to her. BLX-5 translated for the Sullustan, "Master Tegra would like to know why we are bringing children into a war zone."
"They're from a war zone. War orphans. They want to help other kids who are going through what they went through. They stay with me, and that's final." Her eyes narrowed. "The only reason we're taking you along is because you were worried that we were going to steal the relief supplies. I should be insulted, but in the name of helping the Caamasi, I'm gonna let that slide."
The Sullustan said something else in his own language, and BLX-5 translated again. "Master Tegra apologizes, and says that it is standard procedure that a member of the University of Rudrig Relief Funds department travel with any donations worth over ten thousand credits to ensure its safe and humane delivery."
As Jyssa prepared the Red Drexl for launch, she asked BLX-5 in the navigator's seat behind her, "I thought you were a labor droid. Are you programmed for translation and protocol too?"
"No, Madame," BLX-5 replied, "But ZT-47 is, and he transmitted the translations via microbursts above the Human audio range to me."
"That little datapad is a protocol droid too? Poor guy can do everything except walk around on his own."
"I suspect that ZT-47 enjoys his existence in his own way, as many of us do."
"Bollux, you and Zete are a strange couple of droids."
Darth Vader guided the Imperial shuttle into the hangar bay of the Victory-class ship that had once been a Republic Cruiser, and had now been renamed the Star Destroyer Executor.
He would have preferred landing on a long flight deck, full of his own troops and soldiers, like he had when he... or rather, when Anakin Skywalker commanded a Venator-class ship.
Anakin Skywalker was another man, a lifetime ago. It had been less than two months since he kneeled down in front of the Emperor and pledged his allegiance. Less than two months since the Emperor, secretly Darth Sidious, had dubbed him Darth Vader.
Anakin Skywalker had two legs, and one arm. Anakin Skywalker had a wife, and a child on the way. Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, and a General.
Darth Vader was none of those things. The Jedi Order had become nearly as bloated and corrupt as the Republic. Their time was done. Taking the lives of his former comrades was not pleasant or easy.
Nor should it have been. He did was must be done. Hundreds died by his hands, and thousands by his orders. The last vestiges of old traditions and corruption that weighed down the galaxy were being swept away by the Sith.
He understood now. He knew that his last trial as a Sith Lord was not when he slaughtered the inhabitants of the Jedi temple with the 501st Legion at his back. His true trial was when he faced Obi-Wan Kenobi, his mentor, the man he loved like a brother. His true trial was to pass through the fire and do what must be done. No matter how much it cost. No matter how much it hurt.
No matter how much he lost. The galaxy was more important than any one man. Even Anakin Skywalker.
The galaxy had passed through a fire, too. The Clone Wars had been that fire. Now it, like Vader, was free to rise above what it had once been.
The Executor shuddered as it jumped into hyperspace.
It had been less than two months, and all Vader had done since the end of the war was run around and help govern over parts of the galaxy that needed to be nudged into line. Perhaps the Emperor had foreseen that as well. Perhaps resurrecting the ancient title of Moff was the next logical step in truly uniting the galaxy.
Across the galaxy, hundreds of ships were pointed towards the Caamasi homeworld. Over the course of several hours, every one of them slipped through reality and into hyperspace, crossing the vast distances between the stars in speeds that were impossible in real space.
Jyssa pulled the Red Drexl out of hyperspace. Dozens of ships floated in orbit around the planet already. The com crackled to life, and a familiar clone voice asked for her identification.
"This is the freighter Red Drexl, here to deliver relief supplies from the University of Rudrig," Jyssa replied.
A moment later, the voice returned. "We have confirmation of your identity, Red Drexl. Imperial troops have cordoned off safe landing zones away from the firestorms, we will transmit a flight path to you that will lead you there safely."
Jyssa leaned over to the navigator's console in front of BLX-5 and tapped a few buttons. The flight path appeared.
"Looks like we get to go around to the other side of the planet. All right, everyone, we're heading down."
The freighter followed the course down around the far side of the burning planet. The navigation data that showed what the face of the planet should have looked like was nothing like what Jyssa and Arc saw out of the cockpit window.
Huge swaths of orange and black churned across what had once been green, fertile land. Most of the sections that weren't orange were merely shades of blacks and browns. Thick, oily black clouds hung over the land.
They crossed over the terminator line into the shadow of the planet, but the land below them still glowed with its own light.
"Imperial vessel, are we the first ship on this course?" Jyssa said into the com.
There was only static as a response.
"The attack must have destroyed com satellites. We're out of line of sight, and I'm not getting anything from them," Arc said. "Why?"
"Because that ship ahead of us doesn't look like a relief ship, an Imperial ship, or a freighter." Jyssa pulled the sensor data for the ship up onto Arc's control board.
"You're right, it's not. That's a Thalasian ship."
"Slavers. I kriffing hate slavers. What are they doing here?"
Arc began to power up the Drexl's shields and weapons. "What do you think? Vulnerable people, left behind after an attack."
"You're kidding. Bollux, try to boost our signal, alert the Imperials. Alert everybody! I don't think we can take them ourselves."
"We can at least keep them from landing," Arc said, as he unbuckled and darted out of the cockpit. He skidded to a halt in the living area. "I'm afraid we have an emergency. Mister Tegra, do you know how to use an ion turret?"
The Sullustan blurbled something that sounded like a negative.
"I'm there," Nat said, squirming out of the straps on his acceleration chair. "What've we got?"
"Slavers. Preying on the survivors."
"Is satisfaction an emotion?" Nat asked, "Because we Jedi aren't supposed to feel emotion. But I think I'm going to enjoy shooting up their ships."
"Ship," Arc corrected him. "Just one ship."
Arc clambered into one turret while Nat strapped himself down into the other. Nat yelled back to him, "Is this a hostage situation? Do we know if they've landed yet?"
"I don't know," Arc yelled back, "For now, aim for engines and weapons."
Author's note: For those of you who live in my region of the US, please drive safe today. I decided to call out of work because I didn't trust my car to get me there and back safely in this snow. For those of you in the southern hemisphere who are confused about why I would be talking about snow this time of year, feel free to ignore the previous paragraph. :P
This year I tried to do NaNoWriMo again, (National Novel Writing Month for those who aren't familiar with the term), and immediately when I went into it, I found a giant plot hole in the story I was working on. I wouldn't have been able to get past the third or fourth chapter without figuring out a way to completely rework everything. So, rather than give up, I just changed what I was working on. Instead of writing a single novel, I decided to focus on writing several pieces of serial fiction much like this one that I can publish on my own website. Most of them are written in a way that will make them work well with an audio narration, so I'll be able to podcast them as well. I never finished recording the podcast version of my serial Saving Christmas: Slay Bells from last year, but I think I'm going to try to kickstart a regular weekly podcast by finishing that in the next few days and putting out one podcast a day for the twelve days leading up to Christmas. If anyone is interested in my non-Star Wars writing, there's a link to my website in my profile on here. That's where I'll be posting all of my original work from now on. (FFnet won't let me post a url here, but if you want to check it out, it's chickenscratching dot com. :) )
I haven't posted any updates for a few months on there, since I was busy working on NaNo prep for the last few months before November. But I'll be posting updates and podcasts there. I do have two test podcasts of just me talking about... stuff. Nothing important so far. The first podcast was me trying to imitate a coffee-shop style semi-free verse storytelling of a very odd day at work, beginning with me getting attacked by a wig or a weave. Yes, that was how my day began. The second one is just me talking about some of the music that has influenced my soundtrack composition style. I was planning on doing full audiodramas on the other domain name that I just bought, but right now my life is too hectic to get a group of people together to record actual dialogue. So for now I'm just going to try to do a weekly podcast of some of my previous writing, and if it gets an audience and starts to earn enough money that I can lessen my work hours at my day job, hopefully I'll be able to get the audiodrama site up and running too.
Boy, I'm setting up a lot of work for myself. I hope it pays off. :)
Edit: I accidentally wrote 'laser turret' instead of 'ion turret'. The Drexl has a forward facing quad laser, a single missile tube (but no actual missiles, since it's not a military craft), and two dual-ion turrets. You'd think I'd remember the configuration on a ship I made up myself. :P