Chapter 8: A Lesson With Master Giiett

[Mount Avos caves, Troiken, the Qotile system]

"Aayla! Stark! Respond!" Plo gripped the communicator tightly as he ran down the tunnel.

He was nearly at their last known position before their signals had been lost.

He turned a corner and saw Aayla, huddled against a rock.

Past her he saw the collapsed debris embedded with the crushed remains of a few 'challat' eaters.

Then he saw the mangled form on the ground in front of the cave-in.

Wordlessly, Plo put his arm around Aayla and lifted her to her feet. His arm still around her shoulders, he directed her down the tunnel away from the mess.

"Is he-?" Aayla didn't seem able to finish.

"Yes," said Plo.

Lom Porton and Trodos were with their troops in the main cavern. Porton didn't like this one bit.

"Where are they? And what were those explosions?" she wondered aloud.

I suspect our adversaries have outmanoeuvred us, said Trodos, I believe they may have shut us in.

Then Porton's communicator buzzed into life. It was Stark.

"Members of the Stark Commercial Combine, this is Iaco Stark. The Jedi order has outwitted us. Our fleet is in tatters, our sabotage has been undone and me, Boor-Daa and Tam Gozon have been captured. Our troops in Mount Avos have been trapped by explosives. The Jedi inform me they will not allow anyone to leave through the only remaining exit unless they surrender. The location of the exit is being sent to all of you now."

Porton stared at her communicator for a full minute before it fully sunk in, "What?"

She looked around. The message had sounded from everyone's communicators. They all turned to her and Trodos, looking for direction.

"What?" she repeated.

Trodos let out a defeated sigh and planted his war-axe in the rock under his feet, We made our gambit. We lost.

With that he turned, leaving his axe in the ground, and walked out of the cavern in the direction of the exit.

"What?"

[Mount Avos rear entrances]

Tholme, Quinlan, Qui-Gon, Siri, Obi-Wan and Jace were clustered around the final exit with their troops. The Jedi's ships had landed on the plain a few moments ago and were on their way to meet them.

Tholme saw Saesee come around the mountain, followed by many other Jedi, and turned to meet him.

"Where are Master Koon, Padawan Secura and Senator Tarkin?" asked Saesee.

"We don't know," said Tholme, "no-one has come out of the mountain yet. Nothing on the communicator either."

Then a rustling sound issued from the cave. The nearest troops raised their weapons, pointing into the tunnel.

Everyone turned towards it.

Then after a few seconds, Master Plo Koon emerged from the dust and gloom of the mountain.
His arm was around Aayla's shoulder still as he guided her out.

"Aayla!" Quinlan ran froward and pulled Aayla from Plo, dropped to one knee and examined her, "You look alright but I'm taking you to a medic anyway."

"Masters Caudle, De Yuni and Knight Nema are all with us," said Saesee.

With that – and amid her protests – Quinlan dragged her off to find one of them.

Everyone else now turned to Plo, who was still standing in the tunnel entrance, looking out at them all.

"This war is over. Senator Ranulph Tarkin is dead. All that remains is for the Combine's troops and remaining leaders to admit defeat. Then we can begin cleaning up."

It was not hard to make out the triumph in his voice.

[Elsewhere]

Tyvokka grunted as the diplomatic cruiser shook around him.

The artificial gravity had failed and the shields were close to dropping.

If they did, then the ship would break up under the strain of hyperspace.

He dragged himself along the passageway, fighting the pull of motion that threatened to drag him to the back of the ship.

Warning lights were flickering, the klaxons had given in some time ago and he could feel the ship heating up.

With one final crawl, Tyvokka reached the door to the cockpit.

He had to get the ship out of hyperspace before it broke up.

The door was stuck closed.

Straining with all his considerable might, he pulled his hand onto the door handle and tugged.

It resisted him at first – before he yanked it harder.

The door buckled under his strength and finally came free from the frame.

Tyvokka let it go and it flew down the passageway, slamming into the wall at the end.

He crawled into the cockpit and nearly collapsed as the ship lurched for what felt like the thousandth time.

When he recovered, he looked up at the navicomputer display.

It was flashing a warning about a planet in the flightpath. The switch to exit hyperspace seemed so far away, Tyvokka seriously doubted he would reach it in time.

'No. I will not end here. This will not be where I give in.'

Drawing upon the last of his strength, he threw himself forward one final length and grabbed onto the console.

He felt his legs pulled out from under him as he was nearly dragged backwards.

He was now floating – floating horizontally.

As fast as he could, Tyvokka reached out to the switch, grasped it and pulled.

[Mount Avos rear entrances]

Trodos had finally found the exit. As he walked towards it he found a half dozen weapons pointed at his head. Several Jedi ignited their lightsabers for good measure.

I surrender. You have victory this day.

The troops cautiously kept their weapons trained on him until he was handcuffed.

A diplomatic cruiser flew overhead as Siri shut off her lightsaber. It landed a short distance away, the boarding ramp lowered and she saw several figures walking out. She squinted through the midday sunlight and dust. Then she recognised one of the figures.

"Master!"

"Siri!" Adi practically ran to Siri and drew her into a crushing hug, "Okay, as good as it is to see you again, you have some explaining to do young lady!"

"What do you-"

"Going off-mission, punching people in the face and throwing away your cloak? We are going to have a long talk. Do you have any idea how worried I was? Or how expensive decent cloaks are in this day and age?"

Siri sighed and waved goodbye to Obi-Wan as Adi led her away for an impromptu lecture. A wave that Adi noticed and pounced upon.

"Oh and don't even get me started on Obi-Wan – I've seen the way you look at and act around him!"

Siri went crimson, "Ah! But- Master!" she dropped her voice, "Shut up."

"Are you joking?" grinned Adi, "After all the worry you put me through? This is your penance - count yourself lucky. What did you expect? A girl-talk session?"

[The Ouran, orbiting Falleen, the Falleen system]

"Well the Sith are pissed. They're demanding Stark's head on a plate," said Stass as she took a seat beside K'Kruhk. They were in the Rotunda, waiting for an exhibition training exercise to begin.

"Cough up," said Agen, shaking a quarter-filled jar of credits at her.

"Oh come on!" she replied, "Piss isn't even a real swear word."

Agen just shook the jar even more, "No loopholes and that's twice now. Which reminds me, you owe me for all of launch day. I didn't collect because we were pretty busy."

Stass grumbled unintelligibly as she fished through her pockets and dropped two credits into the jar, "Go on then, how many times did I swear on launch day?"

"Six that I heard. Pretty sure there were more I didn't hear."

Stass scowled as she added six credits to the jar.

"So when you leaving?" she asked Bultar as she turned to watch the training exercise starting below.

"Two days from now," said Bultar, "Can't wait to be off this station."

"Somehow I doubt you'll have as much fun hanging with the Elves as you would with us," said K'Kruhk.

"It's not just Elves on Fwacide," said Xiaan, "There are like twelve native sentient species, or something like that."

"Twelve?" asked Bultar.

"Yep, but everyone keeps focusing on the Elves. Dunno why since you never forget the first time you see a Sphinx," she replied, "Probably because Elves are the most prolific. You'll find out more when you get there."

"So this Stark mess didn't cause problems with the mission?" asked K'Kruhk.

"Nope, I was lucky they managed to sort it out quickly. Still can't believe Master Tyvokka's missing though"

Micah marched into the room as the last few younglings took their seats.

"Okay," he began, "Now I know that the last two days have kicked up a lot of fuss and I know you all want to know more about what happened with the affair on Troiken and Master Tyvokka. Unfortunately for you I have a class to teach. So you are going to have to put your curiosity to one side for the time being."

He sat down at his desk and picked up a small computer chip.

"So, new topic today: Independent Thought Processors, or I.T.P.s," He waved one in front of the class, "These little things are what separate basic droids from intelligent companions like astromech or protocol droids. Without one of these, a droid literally cannot think for itself and will act extremely predictably. For any kind of change of orders a droid that lacks an I.T.P. needs a remote control signal or manual reprogramming," A hand raised near the back of the class. Micah stopped and turned his head towards it, "Yes, Youngling Tohno?"

"Why would you make a droid without one then, Master?"

"Excellent question. Put simply, expense versus profit. These don't cost an especially large amount but if you are manufacturing a few million droids to do extremely simple tasks it becomes a lot of money, which will cut a pretty hefty chunk of profit. If you just want a droid to sweep the floor you don't need any kind of intelligent thought. Now, consider a protocol droid. It has to make many judgements in providing an accurate translation, literal translations are often messy and misleading. You need an I.T.P. For that."

Micah paused to take a sip of his tea before continuing, "Droids with I.T.P.s normally develop personalities over time if not routinely memory wiped. Now, the question of battle droids is a little more complicated. You need them to be effective fighters. But at the same time you don't want them deciding they want to side with the enemy or gain weaknesses due to personalities developing that make them less effective."

"Can any of you tell me the three major solutions that are used to deal with this?"

A sea of hands rose.

"Youngling Veld."

"A droid control centre."

"Yes, indeed. By making all orders and decisions remotely, the problem is circumvented. But it has a drawback: if anything happens to the control centre then the droids will become useless. What about the other two solutions?"

The hands rose again.

"Youngling Vals."

"Programming constraints."

"Correct, droids with I.T.P.s can have limitations inbuilt into their programming to prevent any dissent or personality development. This is obviously more expensive otherwise it would be the only method used as it solves the problem entirely. And-" he stopped when he noticed that the class was no longer paying attention.

He sighed.

"Fine I'll tell you about Master Tyvokka. Will that get you to pay attention more?"

They all suddenly sat up, very focussed.

"Okay, good. Now I'm still teaching a class here, so I'll tell you while teaching you about hyperspace travel. Good enough?"

They all nodded.

"Tyvokka was aboard a diplomatic cruiser when it malfunctioned and entered hyperspace. Hyperspace travel works by exceeding the speed of light – don't question the how, that's far too advanced for you at the moment. Just accept that exceeding the speed of light is possible, just that very strange things happen as a result. Anyway, in exceeding lightspeed by several factors of it, shielded craft can enter hyperspace. If they're unshielded then they slowly get torn apart. Unfortunately for Tyvokka, Iaco Stark had sabotaged the hyperdrive's navicomputer. This meant that he was blasted at high speed to an unknown location. We don't know where he is, or whether we will ever find him. We could find him tomorrow, in ten years or never for all we know. There, are you satisfied now?"

After a moment, all the younglings' hands shot up. Micah sighed.

"I still can't believe that Porton held off surrendering for twenty hours," said Siri as their shuttle came in to land on the Ouran.

"Right," said Adi, "everyone, council debrief session. You too Dallin."

"Me?" Said Jace.

"Well yeah," replied Adi, "With Tarkin dead you are the highest ranking member of his 'army'. You'll be having to explain all this to the council."

"Explain?" Jace looked positively alarmed, his uncovered eye wide in shock, "But... but I'm just General Tarkin's aide!"

"Which is why you'll be explaining to the council how these rumours of a republic 'military' are completely unfounded. And the 'navy'? What navy? Such a ridiculous notion. What about the starships? – It's all lies, they're not even there!"

Jace gaped at her as she strode down the boarding ramp.

"Wh- Master Gallia? This is a... surprising side of you."

Adi turned back to him and gave a winning smile, "Master diplomat, remember – I know politics. Now if I recall correctly Tarkin and his force were present at the negotiations as a prearranged security force, the negotiation arrangements were kept secret after all..."

Obi-Wan, Aayla and Quinlan stared as Adi tugged Jace off towards the lifts, Valorum following behind him.

"That was... good. I suppose," said Quinlan.

"If by good you mean completely dishonest," replied Obi-Wan.

Siri snorted, "Eh, seen it enough times and I stopped being surprised long ago."

"Might I suggest we head to the council chamber too?" added Plo from behind them.

They all quickly caught up to the other three and entered the nearest lift.

"No, I do not know who will be occupying Tyvokka's seat while he's gone," said Micah, who was quickly wishing he'd never given the children this opportunity.

His tea was nearly drained and he was practically preying for the lesson to come to an end. The sea of hands had not abated, if anything it had grown – which now that he thought about it shouldn't have been possible. Then he had an idea.

"Hmm, okay enough questions for now," the class let out a collective 'aww', "But I will now show you how to disable a battle droid in one simple motion."

That got their attention.

"Brig, could you send me the test dummy?" Micah said to a wall monitor.
"Of course, Master Giiett," came the electronic, monotone reply.

After a moment, the door opened and a disarmed battle droid shambled out. It was a skeletal thing, thin and frail-looking with an elongated face. It stopped just to Micah's right and stood there staring at the back wall.

"Here we have a standard Baktoid Combat Automata B1 battle droid. I'm going to be blunt – these things are terrible. They are cheap, lack any kind of real combat skill and are fairly fragile. They come in two types. The most common is the type controlled by remote through a droid control system. These ones are just straight up dumb, being completely reliant on exact orders assigned by the control system. Brig is currently acting as the control system for this test dummy."

"Hello, children," came the monotone voice again, "Are you having a good day?"

"Yes Brig," replied the class in unison.

"The second type have I.T.P.s. These are fairly rare and are not as bad as the first type. They're still not that good though," continued Micah, "Pilot specialised versions need I.T.P.s because piloting needs on-the-spot decision making. B1s are only really useful in numeric superiority. They are cheap and replaceable and as such the most effective tactic with them is to simply have their sheer numbers win."

Micah walked behind the droid, "Now, something to remember about B1s is that their receivers for their control signal is located in the same place as their I.T.P. would be: in the bottom of the head. The best part is that because B1s are held together by electromagnets, the receiver or I.T.P. can be easily pulled out, as can any of their limbs."

With that, he put his hand over the droid's shoulder, grasped a thin unit where it's 'jaw' should be and slid it out of the head.

The droid instantly fell to the ground.

"Quick, easy and stealthy. We'll spend the rest of the lesson practising that. But when you try the droid will be alert and will try to stop you if it detects you," Micah said with a small smirk and replaced the unit into the droid's head, "Now, who wants to go first?"

Bruck Chun couldn't see anything.

The darkness was total, no light could breach the hood.

He was reaching out with his other senses.

The hood obscured them.

He also had The Force. It was all he had.

It wasn't easy.

His lightsaber felt heavy in his hands. He tensed up then suddenly slashed the red beam to his left. It sliced through thin air.

Close.

So close. He had heard the buzz of the seeker droid.

To his far left he heard a faint buzz, a hum then a clatter of metal on floor.

"Point to Bant," came the voice of Bruck's master, Master Ranik Solusar.

That made three for Bant. Bruck had yet to hit a single droid.

"Relax Bruck, let your surroundings guide you," said Master Solusar.

Bruck tried to remember his advice from before. He and Bant were supposed to work together. They needed to read each other with The Force, but it wasn't working. He could barely hear her, much less sense her. How was he supposed to open himself to her anyway? She was Oafy-Wan's friend, not his.

He heard another buzz and swung, missing again. There was another buzz, hum, clang behind him.

"Excellent poise, Bant," came Knight Fisto's voice.

Could this seriously be happening? How was the shrinking violet upstaging him?

Bant had only recently become Master Fisto's apprentice. Bruck – and indeed many others – had speculated on whether Bant had caused her prior master's sudden isolation and abandonment of her.

How could this be happening? How could the 'master-ender' be outclassing him?

Pulling himself from his thoughts, he reached out again. Sweat was streaming down his back, sticking his tunic to him, his white hair matted against his pale forehead.

'I must look fucking ridiculous.'

He heard something behind him and turned – crashing into Bant. They both fell to the ground.

"Begin again," came Master Fisto's calm voice, "Opposite corners."

"Go," came Master Solusar's stern snap when both Bruck and Bant were ready.

They began to move again, slowly.

Clang. Bant again.

But he still couldn't sense her.

His lightsaber was getting harder to hold as his hands became more and more clammy.

He nearly fumbled it. Damn, dropping it in front of the generation failure would not look good.

"Trust your partner, Bant. Wait for him, do not strike until you know where he is," called Master Fisto.

"Patience, Bruck," added Master Solusar, "compulsion is the enemy here."

'Keep it together Bruck.'

He heard another hum, followed by a clang.

Screw this. Why should he wait while Bant humiliated him?

Bruck lunged forward, dropping his first droid.

He sensed another behind him and struck it to the floor.

He sensed yet another to his right. With a humming slash, it too fell.

He heard more than sensed Bant doing the same nearby.

In less than two further minutes they had taken down all the droids.

Bruck yanked off his hood in triumph, gazing around at the audience of initiates, younglings, apprentices and padawans watching. He found Oafy-Wan, Reeft, Siri and Garen's faces among the crowd. He smirked at them.

To his right he noticed Bant pulling off her hood. Her skin an even more salmon colour than usual from the exertion, her silver eyes shining with satisfaction.

Master Solusar stepped forward, "You have both failed the exercise. I am disappointed."

[Unknown]

Tyvokka's ship staggered out of hyperspace. He breathed out. Admittedly it was on fire and he should probably do something about that, but still. He wasn't dead yet. Now he just had to hope he was at least vaguely near a habitable mass.

"Warning. Orbit not sustainable – planetary collision imminent. Please adjust course."

Tyvokka sat back in one of the pilot chairs and swore eighteen times in three languages.