Chapter 7

Trindakaa was a system like a million others. Nine planets, of which only two could support life and only one was settled. The planet that shared the system's name was indeed a lot like Yavin IV, but about a third of it was covered by rolling hills and grasslands. The primary city, the largest settlement in the system and named Kantana after the ship that had brought the first, exclusively human colonists here housed some twenty million inhabitants, with maybe four that many in smaller settlements and villages dotted all over the northern arboreal grasslands.

The system had once had a thriving economy, exporting first-grade nerf-meat to the core worlds as well as a plethora of agricultural products, but the true wealth of this system had always been it's massive, partly-automated mining operations as well as a budding ship-building industry. Until, that is, it drew the attention of the CIS military during the war. Republic and Separatist forces had clashed here several times, and the system had never recovered from it, with the rests and refuse of the once thriving mining operations littered the asteroid belts and the non-inhabited planets. As she slowly navigated her way through the wreckage, Ahsoka was sure that there was still damage from when Trindakaa had been caught in the crossfire of the two fleets.

Nearly a quarter of the population had died, and those able to had left the world soon after both fleets had departed. Many were stuck, and tried to rebuild their world, while others had turned to piracy, preying on the few shuttles and ships that came here, as well as the growing criminal element that used the chaotic world as a refuge. She knew that the Imp Fleet Almanach listed this system as 'currently under control by local elements' but judging by a timestamp two years old, the Empire didn't care much about the system now that it didn't really produce anything useful. But it hadn't ended there. The original colonists had recruited themselves from several worlds on the mid and outer Rims, which had led to social and economic divisions on Trindakaa. Before the Clone War this had been papered over by the wealth of that world, where even the poorer strata of society lived better than many on other worlds, but the economic collapse had ripped those divisions open, and for the last six years the world had been engaged in a brutal multi-sided civil war that saw almost every kind of conceivable war crime.

The Ion cannon blast missed the Mynock only barely and still came by close enough to nearly fry her shields. The second one was aimed perfectly, but Ahsoka's Jedi reflexes allowed her to dive away from the plane of flight while at the same time activating the automatic aiming systems of the twin turbo-laser turret on the shuttle's spine began to spit out blue bolts at unseen attackers, while the chin turret, tied into her pilot's headseat began to turn along with her head.

She glanced at her sensor readouts, and saw that the opposition clearly were pirates, because no one else would be crazy enough to fly uglies made from parts of Genosian fighters and V-19s. Even though she had personally calibrated the targeting software, the computers couldn't keep up with the twists and turns she flew to avoid the incoming fire and the wreckage. She intentionally headed in towards the thickest part of the old battlefield to throw them off. One of them was hit by some armour plating from a Venator that sliced off it's port wing and engine, sending the contraption cartwheeling along it's central axis and straight into what remained of that same Venator's bridge tower. Two of it's mates barely managed to avoid the explosion, but to do that, they had to fly on a predictable path for a few seconds, and that was enough for a stream of blasts from the rapid-fire laser cannons to connect with one of them.

Ahsoka's computers were only a millisecond too slow to hit the third ugly, but she had enough. She pushed the Mynock into a sudden stop, reversed engines and aimed the chin turret at where she knew the third attacker would pass her. Split-seconds later, the last ugly appeared and Ahsoka fired. The bolts were not as powerful as those of her turret, by the blaster fired even quicker and six hits burnt through the armour, destroyed the drive system and detonated one of the tibanna tanks that fed the craft's weapons.

No further attackers, but Ahsoka was certain that they had a shuttle here somewhere, meant to sift through her carcass and take in any loot she might leave behind, but now... It was time to get out. She wasn't really looking forward to visiting the planet, but the mystery Jedi had last been seen here. The problem was... where to start? Little information was known. The picture had been taken on the planet and near the capital of one of the statelets that had formed out of the ashes of the planet's unified government, but that was about it. Lane had been unable to determine exactly where nor by whom. As she steered towards the planet at near maximum sublight, she considered that this was an excellent place for a rebel group to hide. She doubted that it was on the planet itself, but since it, along with most of the sector, had been cut off from the HoloNet, it was the place to get information.

It was also one of the places that still had something that could be called a functioning government and economy, though to be fair, that didn't mean much around here. Of course since there was no functioning central government, no space traffic control challenged her. Re-entry into the atmosphere went without problems. To avoid the fighting, she stayed away from land and over the various connected oceans for as long as she could, and approached her destination from the sea, flying into the local sunrise. Only then was she challenged by local traffic control and it seemed they bought her cover identity. She was directed towards a 'spaceport' that consisted of little more than a wide expanse of ferrocrete and an improvised control centre built out of a few freight containers. She knew why when she passed over the blasted out rubble of the old facility.

She landed the Mynock at the appointed spot and shut down all her systems. She donned a cloak that disguised her rather distinctive appearance and exited the shuttle after taking what little of her possessions she'd need. The security systems aboard rivalled those of an Imperial secure transport, so she wasn't worried about anything she'd leave behind.

Ahsoka had also considered what happened next.

The customs officer was a human about her own size, but where she had the muscular and lean build that came with the life she led, the officer was almost as wide as he was tall and it showed on the fleshy, red skin of his face. His form almost popped out of the old Republic Customs Service uniform he was wearing.

"This your shuttle?"

Ahsoka handed him the forged identity without a word. She knew that the ID would hold up to all but the most thorough background checks, and yet the officer shook his head.

"These are no good, Ma'am."

She suppressed a sigh, knowing where this was going.

"Of course, I could fix this for a certain fee."

Talk about being unsubtle. Not wanting to be bothered by this greedy little man, Ahsoka reached out into the force.

"My ID is in order." she said, waving her hand in front of his face.

As expected, he was weak-minded. "Your ID is in order."

"I do not need to pay any fees and you and your men have no interest in this shuttle."

"You do not need to pay any fees, and me and my men have no interest in this shuttle."

"I can go about my business."

"You can go about your business."

"Move along."

"Move along, move along."

Ahsoka smirked and left without further words, pulling the hood of her cloak to disguise her not exactly common features and set about her mission. The spaceport was nearly deserted and had clearly seen better days. As had the entire system, but as she stepped through the spaceport terminal's cracked, now only manually operable glass doors and out onto the streets, she could see with her bare eyes that the people around here still tried to make the best of it. A vendor with a hand-pulled cart just beside the entrance sold local fruits, and she could smell what she knew to be roasting Nerf meat from a cantina a few blocks down the street. Suddenly she was hungry.

At the same time someone else was seeking the same target. Darth Paqua had parked Iron Fist on the edge of the system, far away from what little interstellar traffic touched this forlorn piece of space. Sometimes, on a task such as this one she preferred the sort of anonymity and freedom of movement going in alone would give her. The Inquisitors and the Stormtrooper escort could be summoned to come to her assistance and be anywhere on the planet within minutes, so she didn't feel the need to bring them along right away. What helped was that the population was human for the most part and that she could blend in easily.

Ozzel was as usual too far away from true sentience to understand why she sometimes preferred subtler approaches than just smashing in the door and shooting everything that moved. She had certainly considered just doing a Base Delta Zero on the planet to be sure, but had then considered that if said Jedi really was hiding in this region, he or she was mobile and could not be assured to be on the planet. Besides, wanton destruction for it's own sake was not something she did. She could and had killed often enough in service of the Emperor and who opposed him did forfeit his life, but there were more taxes to be had from living subjects.

Not that this planet would generate much. She made a mental note to ensure that the Navy cleaned up this place at some point lest it develop into another Nar Shadaa, but right now it suited her purpose just fine. Paqua had arrived in a Lambda-Class shuttle which was now hidden in the woods a dozen or so kilometres north of the city and guarded by her escort. It hadn't taken her long to make her way here and now she was searching for any clue as to where that Jedi might be hiding. Like any great mass of beings, the city generated a plethora of force activity even by those not directly touched by it. It might have been because of this that she didn't notice it at first over the background din of life and death on this planet. In war, the Force was almost pungent with the death of sentient beings, but she knew that she should have noticed it earlier.

It was the faintest of tremors in the Force.

But it was enough for Paqua to know that she was on the right track. There was a strength and definitive manner to it that made it obvious that the origin was a trained force user, and a powerful one.

She had to admit, hiding in the masses was smart. She was convinced that at least a few Jedi had never even made it of Imperial Centre and were still roaming the lower levels of the city, although she had yet to find any of them. The Emperor wasn't entirely convinced of all of this but he was astute enough to realize that he couldn't afford to entirely discount the possibility.

Of course on planets like this hiding was easier by simple virtue of the Vaccination Initiative did not have any offices here.

So who was this Jedi?

By the way the presence had been disguised and the signature had felt, this Jedi was very powerful indeed, and very well trained. Not one of the many that had the ability and never been discovered by the Order in the past. Despite what the Council had made everyone think, only maybe third of all potential Jedi were ever discovered, most of the rest had and still did live their lives utterly unaware of anything being special about them, some knew they had odd abilities and used them as everything from fortune-telling to being exceptionally gifted conmen. Their signatures were distinctive but you really had to go out and look for them since the difference that the presence of a force user like herself had to those of normal sentients was caused primarily by the training she'd had and the way she used her abilities.

This one... it could not be a normal Jedi. In a way the signature reminded her of Skywalker, but it was different enough to make her believe it was not him. Too bad, since she was looking forward to fighting him.

It wasn't anyone she was familiar with, but that wasn't saying much considering the time she had spent away from the Order before becoming a Sith and the time that had passed since the pacification of Coruscant.

At any rate, what mattered was that said Jedi was on the same planet and within the same city.

If she hadn't found him in three days, then the gloves would come off.

Iron Fist had a large enough complement of stormtroopers from the 501st aboard to occupy this city and then some, but the Victory-Class design was reaching it's development limits. She knew that the Kuat Drive Yards had an Imperial-Class ship in the final fitting out stages that would carry on the name, after testing it's weapons systems on the old one. But for the moment, the ship would suffice, certainly to take down a lone Jedi.

tbc

In a conversation with a friend I described the planet as "early 90s Balkans in SPAAACE" in not quite those words. It's a good analogy though. The thing about the new Iron Fist is something I thought of while writing this chapter, so I put it in at a place where it doesn't really fit, sorry.