I know the beginning of this story has been a bit clunky, but I promise that it's for a reason. We have almost all of the pieces in place now so we can really start going now. Thank you to all the people that have stuck with this story, and I hope that I can realize the vision for this story in a way that is good enough to make up for it. Hopefully chapter four can be the beginning of that.
Secrets of the Outer Rim II.
Act I.
The Edge of the Galaxy.
Chapter IV.
The Mandalorian Lead.
"What just happened?" I asked, still struggling to grasp exactly what happened. The Inquisitors had gone, but the weight of their presence and the weight of what they said still left an overwhelming presence in this room. I was rattled, Arrya looked shocked, and Grand Moff Kordoth was just fuming, still staring at the door where the Inquisitors had come from. Finally, he closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and exhaled deeply. A moment later, he opened his eyes, put his hands behind his back, and faced us, having fallen back into the role of the Grand Moff of the New Territories.
"This changes nothing. You two will go to Concordia and find out what they know about the Grand Duchy's Mandalorian iron by any means necessary. The Twelfth Sister has given us the freedom to continue this investigation and I will hold her to that." Grand Moff Kordoth replied. I actually felt relieved at this, maybe because I'm starting to buy into some of what Arrya Cerses has said about him, or maybe because I'm more scared of the Inquisitors than I am him. Regardless of the reason, right now, I view Kordoth as the lesser evil, or at very least, as the evil that I know, compared to the Eleventh Brother and the Twelfth Sister, who are evils that I can only begin to understand. I do know that they have the Force though, and the force links the Inquisitors, Schweva, and now me. I suppose this is what Schweva meant when she said people in my position don't often have the luxury of remaining out of conflicts, since, because I apparently have a link to the Force, I'm being conscripted into the Inquisitors, with the fact that this investigation is important to the Empire seemingly being the only reason the Twelfth Sister allowed this, seemingly making the decision independently of the Eleventh Brother. I would've thought the lower number would indicate some sort of seniority, then again, I don't understand the Inquisitors, and I would very much rather keep my understanding of them limited.
"What about the daily reports?" I asked.
"Run every report by me first, I will dictate what exactly we tell the Inquisitors. Meanwhile, I'll reach out to my contacts on Coruscant and see what we can do. For now, we play along and make the Inquisitors think we're deferring to them. You have my word that I will do everything in my power to stop this though." Grand Moff Kordoth responded, making it clear that we would publicly go along with what the Twelfth Sister wants while he works behind the scenes to try and change the situation. I glanced over at Arrya, who offered a smile, as if to say she told me so, before nodding, accepting that being an agent of Kordoth, at least for now, was a preferable fate to becoming an Inquisitor. With that, Kordoth turned around "Good, you are dismissed. Report to me once you're done on Concordia, hopefully we'll know where to go once you're done there. This Schweva woman knows infinitely more about the alien invaders than anyone in the Empire does, and every step closer to her is a step closer to ending the meat-grinder on Zletino and fighting them properly."
"Yes sir," Arrya responded with a salute before leaving the room, heading for the Saboteur in the hangar, with me following not far behind. Before my goal had been getting out of Imperial service altogether and maybe using the Grand Duchy to accomplish that, but now? Well, I might be content to work for Grand Moff Kordoth if it means keeping out of the Inquisitors' reach. It means being an asset of some high-ranking Imperial, sure, but so does being an Inquisitor, only being an Inquisitor means having to report to the likes of Darth Vader and the Emperor rather than just the Grand Moff. Freedom wasn't a luxury available to me any longer, so it seems that I have to settle for the best of a bad situation for the time being, all while trying to figure out how to survive an alien invasion. Needless to say, existential dread was starting to enter the equation, because death seemed to be lurking behind every corner, I just didn't know if it was going to come from the Empire, from their Inquisitors, from the Grand Duchy, or from these Shahak'Tur invaders that prompted this whole thing.
"What's this?" I asked as Arrya handed me a datapad while prepping the Saboteur to leave Kordoth's orbital fortress for Concordia.
"That's a datapad loaded with information on me, on Grand Moff Kordoth, his operations, and everything we know about the Grand Duchy. We thought it was a good idea to get you up to speed during the flight." Agent Cerses left this part unsaid, but I understood pretty clearly that this was a sign of trust, showing that they were willing to trust me with what is, for all intents and purposes, highly classified information. She probably didn't quite intend this part, but I also saw it as a way of conditioning me to be one of the Grand Moff's agents, filling me in on the hierarchy in this part of the galaxy and what role I may play into it. Now, like I said, Kordoth does seem to be one of the few bearable options available to me right now, he is certainly making an effort to protect me, and not for nothing, but he has shown a lot more tolerance of my alien nature than I think most Imperials would. This even extends to Director Amstrun, a supposed friend of the Grand Moff, but a far less tolerant one, at least in the way he carries himself. I know all of this; I believe he is probably one of the better figures that high up in the Imperial chain of command, but none of that prevents me from seeing through his attempts at influencing me.
"Well...I guess it's reading material." I choked out a polite response instead, keeping my awareness of the situation to myself. With that, Arrya continued the preparations, and soon enough we were on route to Concordia, leaving me with nothing better to do than read up on what the Empire knows about the Grand Duchy of Taaszon. So, according to their records, the Republic believed there to be a civilization matching the Grand Duchy's description out in the unknown regions before the Ruusan Reformation a thousand years ago, but between the wide-sweeping political reforms and the demilitarization of the Republic, the knowledge was eventually lost. The Late Republic struggled to maintain itself in the Outer Rim, let alone in the Unknown Regions, and would eventually be caught up in a series of crises that culminated in the Separatist Crisis, spearheaded by the Confederacy of Independent Systems. This led to the recreation of a Republic military in the form of the Clone Army, and a renewed interest in the Outer Rim as the separatists searched for hidden worlds to use as redoubts, while the Republic tried to flush them out.
It would be the separatists who would find the Grand Duchy of Taaszon first, who, faced with the potential of countless waves of invading droids, sent an emissary to Coruscant itself. This would be Lady Phanza Attam, a red-skinned Nautolan and now the presumed leader of the Grand Duchy. Phanza Attam would petition the Republic for an alliance against the mutual enemy, citing the fact that the separatist threat was too numerous for the Grand Duchy to wage a prolonged war with, while if the Republic failed to react, the separatists could subjugate up to eleven systems that the Republic didn't even know the location of. Thus, an alliance was formed, and Imperius Prime would serve as one of the battlegrounds in repelling the separatist invasion, with two Jedi dispatched to support the Grand Duchy. The defense of the Grand Duchy's outlying planets was successful, and the Republic gained an ally to use against the separatists. The Grand Duchy would not really get the chance to involve itself in the war though, because this is when the Clone Wars entered their critical final days. Coruscant was attacked, Count Dooku was killed, Grevious was hunted down on Utapau, and the Outer Rim Sieges finally came to an end within days of each other. Not only that, but with the Jedi having betrayed the Republic, it was deemed necessary for the Republic to reconstitute itself as the Galactic Empire.
Relations between the new Galactic Empire and the Grand Duchy of Taaszon would soon break down, and war began. The Empire was able to occupy the outlying territories without issue, which would then become the heart of the Empire's New Territories, while Taaszon itself was still hidden to the Empire. Taaszon's location would eventually reveal itself and a siege was launched, ending in Imperial victory, but not without a large portion of the Grand Duchy escaping their grasp. The then-Grand Duchess of Taaszon was killed during the siege, and once the planet was occupied, it didn't take long for the Empire to fan out and occupy the rest of the Grand Duchy, though not without additional minor escapes - though none to the scale of Taaszon itself - while the ringed planet was turned into a special administrative unit, with the surface restricted to Imperial personnel only. So, this matches up with the state of the planet of Taaszon when I was assigned there with the Mining Guild, who were allowed to take advantage of the mineral resources of the rings on behalf of the Empire. The surface was still prohibited, and even the rings were highly, highly restricted, but by the time that I entered the picture, Taaszon was no longer quite a secret.
As for the Grand Duchy though, the Empire knows that a significant percentage of their population escaped, but they don't know where to. Nor, I suppose, does the Empire know that the Shahak'Tur have forced the Grand Duchy to flee yet again, so they were on their third world while the Empire was still trying to figure out what what going on with the second. What was clear to the Empire was that the Grand Duchy continued to exist, and that they would strike out against the Empire. As consistent with what Arrya has told me, establishing patterns when it comes to the Grand Duchy is difficult, and it is not confirmed if all attacks attributed to them were actually carried out by them, but the Empire does know they are carrying out attacks and they are carrying out attacks in this manner. So, there is a presumption of guilt associated with the Grand Duchy of Taaszon, but that does not change the fact that the Empire does not know where they are. I don't even know where they are, hence, this whole quest to track down Schweva and try to harness her knowledge of the aliens and experience in fighting them. So yeah, other than that, the information on the Grand Duchy seems to be speculative in nature, with mere estimates on their current numbers - estimates based off of confirmed living spaces across the worlds we have taken from the faction - to speculation on where they could be from. There is a reason to believe that the Grand Duchy have relocated to a world which, like Taaszon, has some connection to the ancient Sith, but, on that note, the Empire says they can rule out Korriban due to the results of a skirmish. This Korriban skirmish seems to be highly suppressed, even with my access options, but what remains clear is that there are shadows of a large battle in these records, a battle larger than a mere skirmish. Like I said, I stumbled on things larger than what I could have ever imagined, and the information on this datapad was just the latest example of that.
So, here is what the Empire definitively knows: they know that the Grand Duchy has relocated, and they suspect they have relocated to a world with a connection to the Sith, however, with the entirety of the former Grand Duchy ruled out as well as the ancient Sith homeworld of Korriban, the obvious suspects are off of the table. The Empire also knows that the Grand Duchy is capable of attacking the Empire and their forte seems to be hit and run attacks, often in a random pattern, and often using disguises. The intended effect of this seems to be to make it impossible for the Empire to pin any of this on the Grand Duchy, which doesn't seem to have worked out since the Empire now automatically suspects them, but it still turns into an advantage, because even though the Empire knows the Grand Duchy is going to be attacking them, they can't possibly predict where. The gift and the curse of the Empire is that they're a truly galactic civilization, which means their forces are spread across the galaxy, which means they can have forces in all these places, but they can't concentrate meaningful forces everywhere. The Imperial military doctrine has been dependent on having the advantage, having the threat of force lingering over an enemy that cannot hope to do any damage to the Empire. Like I said, the Empire can put a single star destroyer in every system, but it's logistically difficult to bring together a whole fleet. That also means it's very difficult for the Empire to come up with every possible target and concentrate enough force there to make an attack by the Grand Duchy impossible.
If they knew the Grand Duchy was going to attack Coruscant, then of course they could summon their forces over Coruscant, but they can't summon their forces over Coruscant, Corellia, Kuat, Alderaan, Sullust, etcetera, etcetera. The Grand Duchy of Taaszon has lost the element of anonymity, but they absolutely still have the element of surprise, and they're taking full advantage of the fact that the Empire's forces are great, but they are not infinite. This is especially the case now with the Empire trying to plug the drain on the coming Shahak'Tur invasion. Which, speaking of, based on the small entries on the alien invasion here on the Datapad, the Empire has only really encountered them on Taaszon and on Zletino. Kordoth is coming up with plans to evacuate the former Grand Duchy worlds in the vicinity of Taaszon, retreating to the planets once known as the outlying systems, but they have not yet encountered the aliens. This has led to some speculation amongst the Imperial top brass that the Shahak'Tur don't actually know where they are going, in effect, they are mapping the galaxy's hyperspace routes as they go. So that means that the Shahak'Tur, with however many forces they have, are prodding the outer edges of the galaxy, having found Dromund Kaas, Zletino, and Taaszon so far, but not much more than that. This means that the Empire, which is also beginning to try and swing around Zletino - the fact that they have also gotten to Taaszon also implies that they have a presence somewhere between the planets outside of known space - to start mapping those hyperspace routes to maybe find where the aliens are coming from.
So, that's where we were: the Empire was struggling to hold onto Zletino because they had no idea where the Shahak'Tur could end up if they broke into the known galaxy, the Grand Duchy had more knowledge about fighting the Shahak'Tur than the Empire did, but they didn't have the resources to do it, and the Empire saw me as the key to getting to Schweva, getting to that leading figure in the Grand Duchy that we could use against the Shahak'Tur. Zletino is a brutal siege because the Empire can keep sending in resources for the time being - though again, time is of the essence since those resources aren't infinite - whereas Dromund Kaas was a brutal siege because the Grand Duchy learned how to fight the Shahak'Tur and only got forced off the planet due to numbers. The thought process did seem to be sound, combine the knowledge of the Grand Duchy with the military might of the Empire, but now we have to actually execute that plan. We needed to find Schweva and we needed to find a way to bring her over to our cause, voluntarily or not. Right now, all we had to work off of is a curved piece of Beskar and Kordoth's hunch that it came from the Death Watch.
Concordia was a rocky, mountainous planets with some patchy forest growth, but overall, its environment was destroyed during the Mandalorian Civil Wars. It was once an agricultural, forested world, but the demands of the wars forced them to adopt horrific mining methods, extracting each and every resource they could in order to prolong the Mandalorian war effort. Now though, there is little mineral value left in the world, and it was largely abandoned during the Mandalorian conflicts during the Clone Wars, as it was barren, lacking in value, and associated with the wars. I suppose then, it was a natural place for the Death Watch to retreat to once an Imperial-affiliated government was installed on Mandalore itself. Arrya and I walked across the dusty path, passing a young pine forest, and eventually came across an abandoned looking gate. The human girl and I shared a glance, not liking the look of this, but also knowing that this gate couldn't be as abandoned as it was. We knew the Death Watch was hiding up here, because we knew they weren't stupid enough to be hiding in one of the old strip mines, where they could be ambushed from any side. No, they needed to be on higher ground, but something flat enough to build on. This location matched those characteristics and there was a gate here, so it had to be blocking something. So, with nothing left to do, Arrya came up to the door and ranged the ring-shaped door knocker.
"Hands up, turn around slowly." a slightly mechanized female voice spoke behind us. Arrya and I followed along, turning around to see three blue armored Mandalorian warriors - two men, and the woman, who seemed to be the leader of the group - floating just behind us, apparently having flown out of their base and flanked us while we were ringing the door. The leader lowered herself to the ground and spoke again once we complied, but she did not lower the two blaster pistols she had trained on us, one for each of us "Identify yourselves, now."
"Agent Arrya Cerses, ISB. This is Zaverra Ashtso, she's with me." the human female answered with ease, clearly handling the situation better than I was.
"Where are the others?" the Mandalorian female demanded.
"There aren't others. We're not here for you, if we were, you'd be dead already." Arrya replied, showing a cold side of her that I hadn't experienced before, implying that she would be willing to help lead an attack on the Death Watch terror cell if Grand Moff Kordoth asked her too. The Mandalorian woman coldly observed her for a moment, the two women sizing each other up, but then the Mandalorian turned to her companions and nodded. They deactivated their jetpacks, fell to the ground, and lowered their rifles. Only then did the leader of the trio lower her own pistols, with Arrya lowering her hands at the same time, and me following a moment later. The woman appraised us one last time before finally making a judgement call "Fine, come inside. You'll follow me exactly, don't try and go anywhere else."
So, with that, she turned and opened the gates, slipping her hand into a hidden slot and sliding the whole gate open - so, the seam down the middle that made it appear like a double-door gate was false, it was really a sliding, solid slab - and standing aside to let us in. Arrya led, I followed, and the two male-Mandalorians were behind us. The female took one last look outside and then quickly slid the gate closed, locking it behind us, and then coming to the front of the group, leading us through the camp. I took a look around, it was a circular metal wall reinforced by earthen banks, with a crowded set of tents inside, all set up on the top of a hill. The female Mandalorian led us through the compound, heading down a narrow path with tents on either side, Mandalorian civilians ushering their children inside and making way as we passed, all of them staring down the two of us with suspicion. In somewhat of a reversal compared to how we were typically being treated in the Empire, the vitriol seemed to mainly be aimed at Arrya in her gray uniform with its Imperial identification marks, rather than my alien features.
In this hostile environment, we circled around the camp and then slipped inside of a tent at the rear of the compound. The two male warriors remained outside while the female led us inside, taking a seat and gesturing for us to sit on the opposite side. The woman rested on the bench across from us and then grabbed her helmet, taking it off and setting it down on the side, revealing a pale-skinned human woman with red hair, wearing a decorative silver band along her hairline.
"Alright, spill it: what do you want and why are you here?" she interrogated. Now that we could see her facial features, she was making no secret of the fact that she had no patience for us, not hiding her disdain in the slightest.
"We're looking for someone, someone who attacked the Empire, and we found this on the scene of the crime." Arrya revealed, sharing only as much as she thought was necessary before producing the curved piece of Beskar, handing it over to the redhead across from her "Now, I see your camp, I know that Death Watch isn't the force it once was, you're not strong enough to fight the Empire, nor are you stupid enough to attack them regardless. So, tell me who is."
"Well, it is Beskar, and it's curved into a shoulder pauldron, but...it's odd. This is clearly a recent construction, and it shows a level of sophistication that only Mandalorian craftsmen are capable of, but it's like...it's almost like this is from an old strain." the redhead woman said as she looked across the material, revealing that it was, in fact, the same material as her armor, but not exactly of the same type as what she uses.
"An old strain?" Arrya asked.
"Yes. It's pure Beskar and was forged within the past few years, but it's almost like it was forged from a four-thousand-year-old rock. It honestly reminds me more of the kind of Beskar you'd find in a Neo-Crusader's armor than anything we'd use." so, it was solid Beskar and it was clearly something made in the present, but this Mandalorian was seeing something that reminded her of the ancient Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders. I didn't know if it was just the features of the metal, the manufacturing techniques, or a combination of the two, but the point remains, someone who knows a lot more about Beskar than we do sees something here that reminds her of the ancient past. After a while of looking at the shoulder pauldron, her eyes came back up to face us and they narrowed "Where exactly did you say you got this?"
"Felucia," Arrya answered after I turned to her, deferring to her judgement when it comes to telling this Mandalorian woman the details "A group of Mandalorians, or at least people disguising themselves as Mandalorians, attacked an Imperial installation but were attacked, one was shot down while trying to escape. This piece of armor was blasted off, but the body was recovered. We arrived to see the aftermath."
"Well, it seems to suit a female frame, it was clearly made by Mandalorians, not just some copycats, and it was likely made by someone that has access to a large deposit of old Beskar. I really don't know of any groups that meet that description." the woman explained before sighing "There are your allies on Mandalore, led by Gar Saxon, there's our group, and there's an even smaller group of overzealous breakaway renegades on the other side of this moon. Those are the only groups I know of that have this level of sophistication and expertise, and of those groups, Saxon's loyalists are the only ones with the resources to attack a planet as far away as Felucia. As far as I'm concerned, your business is concluded here, go ask them what they know."
"You've done a service to the Empire, Lady Bo-Katan," Arrya began, surprising the redhead with her name "And you're right, your people are no threat to Mandalore right now, so we're going to forget about this camp, and I'll leave its location out of my report."
"That's quite alright, Agent Cerses, we'll be relocating anyway." the woman, called Bo-Katan, responded, rejecting Arrya's generosity and revealing that she had no trust for her after all. With that rather cold end, we left their base relatively quickly and headed back to the Saboteur. Once we were outside of the base, I finally asked the ISB agent what we were going to do next.
"So, what now, are we going to interrogate Saxon?" I asked.
"No, there's no reason for that. Saxon's loyalty isn't in question. Besides, Bo-Katan has told us everything we need to know. This Beskar is four-thousand years old, it has nothing to do with the Death Watch or Saxon or those zealots she mentioned. If this Beskar is from Mandalore, the stone it came from was taken off-world eons ago. It's a dead end." Arrya explained, logically pointing out that there's no reason for any of the factions in play to be using Beskar that old. It's not the source of Beskar that Death Watch uses, so it wouldn't be used by their overzealous off-shoot either, whereas Gar Saxon's faction has access to Mandalore. A Mandalore that hasn't seen its Beskar deposits tapped since the end of the Civil Wars, so their supply situation is solves itself. Further, Gar Saxon is a vassal of the Empire, he has no reason to be attacking the Empire, let alone on a planet like Felucia. No, it's the Grand Duchy, we know that, but what we know now is that they have their own supply of Beskar. We could interrogate these Mandalorians all day long and we still won't be any closer to Schweva.
So, with the Mandalorian lead exhausted, the two of us planned on getting back to our ship and leaving the system, but then...then we got ambushed.
"The Beskar. Hand it over. Now." A silver armored Mandalorian demanded, standing between us and our ship, while his men surrounded us, two on the path behind us, three on the rocky outcrop to our left, and four coming out of the juvenile forest to our right. We had nowhere to go and if we even tried, all these Mandalorians had jetpacks, so they could just cut us down from above as well. I also noticed that their armor was different, silver compared to the blue that the Death Watch faction wore, so that made me think that these were the zealots that broke off from Bo-Katan's group. As for why they knew about us, well perhaps the factions aren't quite as split as Bo-Katan led us to believe, so maybe she told them herself as a way to get rid of the people that found her hidden base, or maybe Bo-Katan was honest about letting us leave, but the zealot faction still has eyes and ears within her camp.
"Easy, easy," Arrya tried to calm the situation "We got the information we wanted out of it, we don't need it anymore. If you want it, I'll calmly walk halfway over to you, put it on the ground, and walk back, then you're going to walk up, grab it, and get out of our way. Got that?"
"Start walking." was his short response. Nevertheless, Arrya proceeded, slowly walking over to the middle between us then carefully setting the shoulder piece down on the ground, convex face up, then slowing walking back.
"There." Arrya said once she was back standing next to me. Now it was time for the silver Mandalorian to make the tense walk to the middle, keeping his blaster trained on us while doing it, before finally kneeling down on the ground to grab the pauldron. As soon as he took it off the ground and turned it over, Arrya shouted this: "Close your eyes now!"
A flash charge detonated on the inside of the pauldron, blinding the Mandalorians, whose visors weren't prepared for a sudden burst of light. Arrya produced her blaster pistol and started firing at our stunned enemies. I followed along, taking my own blaster pistol and aiming for the guys on the ridge, trying to hit the black bodysuits rather than the silver suits of armor, but they unarmored layers were a small target. We managed to shoot down a few of them but then the stun effects of the flash charge started wearing off and Arrya gestured for us to rush to the ship. I ran past the still stunned ambush leader while Arrya, just behind me, turned and shot him in the back, causing his jetpack to malfunction and launching the large, armored juggernaut into the air. She then turned and joined me in our mad dash for the ship, while the remaining Mandalorians behind us recovered and started firing at us yet again.
"Get on the guns now!" Arrya instructed as we both climbed up to the cockpit, herself trying to take off, and me left to try and gun down the Mandalorians before they could blast off with their jetpacks and pursue us. I took control of the bow gun and opened fire with the laser cannon, not looking out the cockpit window but rather watching the results from a screen in front of me, a camera placed on the bow gun with a reticle in the middle of it. I hit a Mandalorian square in the chest and knocked him down dead then rotated the gun over, spraying the group with suppressive fire. I realized at this point that the bow gun on this ship took the form of a double-barreled autocannon on the bottom of a retractable rod in the node of the spacecraft, giving the ability to engage targets while also hiding away when not in use. It was a high-powered gun but didn't do much in terms of explosive damage, so once the Mandalorians were down and in cover, I couldn't do much more than keep them down while waiting for Arrya to finally take off. Just as I was about to start getting desperate, the landing ramp finally shut, the ship began to hover above the ground, and I lost track of my targets as Arrya rotated the ship around and pointed the nose up towards Mandalore, intent on getting us out of here. We blasted off, allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief. We were finally clear...at least I thought we were, because just after that sigh of relief, something hit the ship and shook us with an explosion, all sorts of alarms and alerts blaring out from the cockpit as Arrya struggled to keep the ship in the air.
"What happened?!" I yelled out, holding onto my seat for dear life.
"Jetpack missile! Just left of the main engine!" Arrya responded through gritted teeth. True to what she said, the ship was dipping on the left - we were still in the atmosphere of the moon, trying to break out of it in fact, which was the point where the engines were at their greatest strain - while the right side was providing most of the lift we still had. Agent Cerses continued to struggle against the controls and managed to keep us going forward, albeit at a slower pace, while the Mandalorians could only press their attack with blaster fire, evidently having exhausted their supply of jetpack missiles. At this angle, at this speed, there wasn't much I could do with the bow gun, so all we could do was wait until we broke the atmosphere, hoping we could escape. The Saboteur finally broke atmosphere and the straining, whining right engines finally got the chance to relax. Agent Cerses got the chance to breathe a sigh of relief as well, plotting the ship into a geosynchronous orbit of Mandalore for the time being, and as the ship's autopilot guided it into position, she got to work addressing the various alerts and warnings on the dashboard "Left side engines completely failed, hyperdrive damaged, right-side engines endured extreme strain on the atmospheric escape...we're not going to make it back to Imperius."
"So, what do we do now?" I asked, realizing that this lead was a dead end and that Beskar shoulder pauldron was nothing more than trouble. This was also the kind of trouble that would lead to more trouble, because this meant that I would need to present an empty report to the Twelfth Sister. If the alien woman sees that our investigation is going nowhere from the very beginning, she may decide that her decision was misguided. The Eleventh Brother was intent on taking me immediately, but the Twelfth Sister decided to take control of the situation, allowing me to continue the search for Schweva because it is critical to Kordoth's strategy of fighting off the alien invasion. In effect, the Twelfth Sister decided to manipulate the situation so that I was perpetually at her mercy. If I wronged her, she would force me into a fate she knew I didn't want, whereas if I served her well, she would allow me to continue on my current existence. It was a horrific kind of mind game these Imperials were playing, with both Grand Moff Kordoth and especially the Twelfth Sister trying to make me dependent on them.
"We hail an Imperial cruiser and dock for repairs, what else can we do?" Arrya responded, her voice indicating that she was disappointed as well, but again, like she said, what else can we do? We're not exactly magically going to get a clue if we go back to the surface. So, with that, the human woman turned her attention to the commlink, calling out to the Imperials in and around the Mandalore system "This is ISB-9884, captain and pilot of Theta-10-9884, callsign Saboteur. We are in need of repairs and Transporation to the New Territories, can anyone help?"
"Copy that 9884, this is Imperial Star Destroyer Thunderous. We are equipped to outfit and operate Theta-10 Nimbus-class Assault Craft. We are also on a scheduled supply run to Memshenno. You are welcome to ride along." the Imperial Captain responded, offering us a ride as far as Memshenno, a planet within the borders of what the Grand Duchy would call known space, but also reasonably close to the New Territories. The Empire's New Territories are the systems conquered by the Empire in the wake of the fall of Taaszon. The Grand Duchy's outlying systems, including Imperius Prime, were the very territories that were under separatist attack some years ago, and those worlds became the first ones integrated into the Empire, hence Imperius Prime is the capital of the New Territories. Taaszon was granted special status as well, but in another way, hence it was so restricted and unknown while I was working on the Mining Guild station. The name is not very descriptive for the Empire, I admit, but I think that's the intention, as they don't want the general public to know too much about what these worlds were home to and how they fell into the Empire. The Galactic Empire in general is rather secretive about their vast war machine, severely limiting the news of what actually happens on the battlefield. For instance, while most of the galaxy is willing to accept Palpatine's speech about how the Jedi betrayed him and tried to usurp democracy, but I think a lot less people would be tolerant of the fact that the Empire employs a group of secretive alien Force users called the Inquisitors to hunt down and execute any surviving Jedi.
"Understood. Thank you, Captain. We are on route now." Agent Cerses responded, limping the ship into the hangar bay of the Imperial star destroyer leaving Mandalore on route to Memshenno. Memshenno also wasn't very far away from Zletino, so I wonder if the Empire is beginning a series of contingency plans to prop-up neighboring worlds in case the efforts to contain the Shahak'Tur invasion on Zletino failed. Either way, I doubted the Captain was going to be particularly receptive to telling that to an alien. This is in contrast to Grand Moff Kordoth, who has been willing to share with me, most recently by opening up this datapad for my use, allowing me to learn a number of things about how the New Territories functioned in the large Empire. First of all, the very hyperspace routes that link the worlds in the New Territories are rather rudimentary compared to the rest of the galaxy, where thousands of years of activity have shaped all the major trade routes of the galaxy. In contrast, the former Grand Duchy had to be manually mapped and connected to Imperial networks, with the former outlying worlds more extensively connected, while the rest is effectively strung along with a series of simplistic, point-to-point routes. All of that was to say that Arrya had a reason for settling on this ship, because getting reasonably close to the New Territories is about what we can expect most of the time. With any luck, by the time the Thunderous gets to Memshenno, the repairs on the Saboteur will be finished.
Arrya and I were granted temporary quarters to use on the Thunderous while in transit, and both of us soon found ourselves asleep as the adrenaline from the action on Concordia crashed down and we were left with just the exhaustion. So, I found myself asleep again, and once again, I found myself getting a vision in my sleep. Last time I had one of these visions of Schweva's actions, she was just getting her orders from Lady Attam. This vision didn't pick up from there, clearly some time has passed, but I can't concretely say it is the present - I would assume so though, because the first vision definitely was, but I don't even know what exactly is causing these visions, let alone how they work, and let alone what effect proximity has on any of this - all I know for sure is that Schweva is walking through a hallway. There was no casual nature to her, no disguises either, rather, Schweva was fully in her element, dressed in black and purple robes, topped with a hood and decorated all throughout with the pattern of some sort of ancient runes. Once again, she wore a thick belt on her abdomen, and this belt carried to the two asymmetrical hilts I first noticed last time. Her feet were covered in boots and her hands in purple gloves that carried up halfway up her forearm. She was armed, she was armored, and she was combat ready. Not only that, but the way her solid-red eyes looked beneath her hood with the shadow over her face contained a murderous intent.
The red glow of her eyes reflected in the glossy metal of the walls around her only made the situation worse, painting Schweva as not just a powerful sorceress, but as a force of nature. The methodical march of even footsteps across the metal floor, echoing down the hallway further exacerbated this, and I sensed that Schweva took a certain type of pleasure from all of this. She liked appearing larger than herself, she liked looking powerful, she liked the theatrics. Schweva is powerful enough on her own, but she wanted to appear even stronger, she wanted to be even stronger. This is the creature, this creature of raw power and ambition, that I saw walking through a door and entering the bridge of a large space craft of some sort, likely a cruiser of a capital ship. The door opened up to a platform overlooking the bridge like a balcony, stairs leading down to the main floor of the bridge below. Schweva stayed on the elevated platform though, approaching a red-skinned male Devaronian standing there, dressed in a red cape over a black naval uniform with purple and white details.
"A pleasure to serve you, my lord." the horned alien spoke, not getting down and bowing, but still making his respect for his superior clear.
"Spare the pleasantries, Admiral Vuzoko, we have a mission to do." Schweva responded, dispensing with the greetings entirely. She radiated power and clearly wanted respect, but I also got the sense that she didn't want to be here any longer than necessary, so she had no patience for the customary groveling of her underlings.
"Of course, my lord. Per Lady Attam's instructions, we have identified a number of vulnerable Star Destroyers traveling alone on the Galactic Radar. The plan is dependent on surprise and superior numbers. We are going to ambush them one by one and then jump to hyperspace before any reinforcements can respond. With any luck, we will destroy multiple capital ships today without suffering so much as a scratch." the Admiral explained. The Devaronian smirked to himself before adding "This has the potential to be one of our greatest victories against the Empire, and when paired with the other attacks we are committing across the galaxy, along with the Shahak'Tur invasion, we can send even the largest of civilizations into complete disarray. Your master's grand design is worthy of respect."
"Well, I'm sure she will be glad that at least someone believes that." Schweva responded to his sycophantic groveling with a sharp barb, delivered with a sense of finality. The barb was enough to shut the Admiral up for good, him soon leaving the elevated platform to attend to duties elsewhere on the bridge - I get the sense it was more about getting away from her rather than actually getting any work done - but I think I knew enough about Schweva to know that the barb was not directed at him. Instead, it was more proof of her dissatisfaction over how the Grand Duchy was conducting its wars. I could tell that Schweva had immense respect for Lady Attam and didn't want to disappoint her mistress, but I could also tell she disagreed with the strategy. Schweva felt that there were little to no tangible results to their efforts against the Empire, and that they were allowing the Shahak'Tur to run amuck. The blue-skinned alien woman hoped that the fall of Taaszon itself, combined with the loss of their other capital world some years ago, would finally be enough to get the Grand Duchy to refocus its attention on the invaders. Instead, Lady Attam's strategy was to take advantage of the chaos to step up efforts against the Imperials. Schweva was about to command an attack against the Empire, one of the largest the Grand Duchy has committed, but she couldn't shake the idea that all of these resources were being invested in the wrong place.
Nevertheless, the apprentice was tasked by the master, she had ships to attack, and she was going to do it. Thus, the vision faded out, my unconscious mind not quite making the connection between her attack plans and our current predicament.
I awoke when the whole ship was jostled by a sudden and unexpected deceleration from hyperspace. Generally speaking, a planned deceleration, especially in a ship of this size, happens in stages, slowing down in such a way that momentum is not felt in the pressurized interior atmosphere...that is not what happened here - at first, I thought that maybe it was an asteroid or something that happened to slip into our path and get detected by the ship's emergency sensors. I realized that was absolutely not the case when the ship shook with the force of an explosion. I realized two things in that moment, one: we were under attack, and two: based on my vision and the fact that I knew this ship was alone and unsupported, it was the Grand Duchy attacking us. I saw Schweva's power on the orbital station over Taaszon, where she choked Director Amstrun to death and then threw him against the wall as if he was nothing. I was lucky enough to meet her as an ally the first time, but this time, fate had us meet as foes. I was dealing with this crippling revelation when Agent Cerses barged into my room, already dressed and armed.
"Get dressed and get armed now, we're under attack by an unidentified threat." Arrya announced, taking control of the situation. She thought she was taking control of the situation, because as I got to my feet and started getting ready to defend myself, I realized that she didn't know who was attacking us. I did though, and that gave me a certain kind of power over this situation, I just had no idea how to use it to my advantage. I knew that Schweva and Admiral Vuzoko wanted a quick, rapid, destructive attack, coming, destroying the star destroyer, and then leaving before the Empire could really tell what was going on. I also knew that Agent Cerses had no connection to this ship, and while she was loyal to the Empire, I think she would put her own survival ahead of that if pressed, so perhaps the plan is to get off this ship and hide until the Grand Duchy cuts and runs. I didn't know, I was still mulling over what the right course of action was. All I knew for sure was that I was now dressed in a black leather jacket, a white tank top, black tights, boots, and a belt with a holster for my blaster. I didn't put my blaster in there though, rather I held it at the ready, having no idea if they were going to try a boarding or not. I assumed not, but maybe they don't have the firepower to overwhelm an Imperial Star Destroyer and they were instead going to depend on rapid strike teams sabotaging the ship's reactors. The vision wasn't very forthcoming on the tactical aspect of all this.
"What's the situation?" I asked her, trying to figure out what exactly the Grand Duchy was up to without revealing how much I knew. If Arrya was picking up on what I found out, she didn't let it show, instead quickly guiding us to the ship's elevators, hopefully guiding us to the hangars.
"All I know is that a ship was blocking the hyperspace route and that threw us into a rapid deceleration. Now we're being attacked by a lone ship. I don't know if they're pirates or what, but they have heavy guns and seem to be circling the ship, pounding us all the way." Arrya explained. Tactically, that seemed to fit with what the vision said the Grand Duchy were doing, but Schweva was accompanied by an Admiral. Would they really send an Admiral and a Sith Lord out with just one ship? That didn't seem to be the case for me, but then again, I could only confirm the presence of the one ship in my vision. Perhaps the Grand Duchy really is in such a desperate state where all they can spare is one ship, perhaps their resources are being stretched thin by the multiple strikes on the Empire all across the galaxy. The fact that I couldn't really get a good look at the scale of the ship from the bridge during the vision doesn't help matters, because I don't know if Schweva was on the bridge of a behemoth that dwarves the Imperial Star Destroyers, or the bridge of something that barely qualifies as a capital ship. I was leaning towards the latter category, because based off of what Arrya said, the ship attacking us is smaller but faster and more agile than us, effectively allowing it to do circles around the Thunderous while its heavy guns tear through its shields, intent on setting the Star Destroyer and its crew to an early grave.
"So what do we do?" I asked, still trying to find out our place in all this.
"We get to the bridge and see what the captain needs us to do. Because right now, we're nowhere near Memshenno and our ship's half-disassembled in the hangar anyway, so we don't exactly have options here." Arrya explained, meaning that our path wasn't to flee. We were going to try and fight and considering that Schweva and her Admiral were so confident of a rapid victory, that seemed somewhat suicidal to me. Of course, based on the vision I saw, I'm surprised we've made it this far, because I got the impression that they expected victory. How is this destroying multiple capital ships and escaping without a scratch? Something isn't adding up here, and I didn't know if my vision was wrong, if the Admiral vastly overestimated his own ability, or something entirely different was going on here. So, with that, Arrya led us onto the bridge, a human woman in an open gray Imperial jacket over a black low-cut top and, black tights, and black boots trimmed in silver followed by a blue, white, and red skinned Togruta dressed in black and white "What can we do?"
"It's good that you're here Agent Cerses. We're under attack by a lone vessel, unknown type, we suspect them to be pirates. They are above us and circling us, firing down on us and avoiding our main guns." the Imperial Captain explained. This is where I really started to doubt what I saw in my vision, because I could even see from the bridge windows that the ship attacking us was this boxy, dull gold colored thing that was fighting the star destroyer, yes, but it seemed almost like they weren't expecting a ship of this side. If this was the Grand Duchy, Schweva and her Admiral gravely miscalculated. This ship might be able to take down this star destroyer simply down to the fact that it was faster, more maneuverable, and had the element of surprise, but multiple star destroyers? I didn't think so. Something weird was going on here.
"Any fighters?" Arrya asked.
"None on their side, we're working on getting TIE fighters in the air, but we were completely caught off-guard. I want the two of you to take position at the primary airlock with a squadron of stormtroopers. My TIE fighters and point-defense guns are going to try and hold them back, but if we get overwhelmed, I want you to try and repel any boarding party they send in. Understood?" the Imperial Captain responded, taking command of the situation. He was going to do everything in his power to repel this vessel and keep them from boarding the Thunderous, but if he fails, he wants us to be the next line of defense. Now, my instinct was to get out of here, at least at first, because I assumed we were up against the Grand Duchy and that we'd be up against overwhelming odds, but now? I don't know what to believe, because it seems to me like we still have a chance of winning this. The decision seems to be out of my hands anyway, because I sure as hell wasn't going to get out of here alone - it might even lead to Arrya having to detain me or even shoot me as some sort of deserter - but did that mean I was going to have to be a part of an Imperial force that overwhelms and captures a Grand Ducal boarding party? Could I do that? And what if Schweva is on that ship and decides to lead the boarding party personally? Would I have to fight her then? I can't imagine I would win that fight, but then again, she's not invincible, so an Imperial force could eventually overwhelm her. What then? Do we capture her? Do we kill her? Is that the end of our mission? Or if she dies in the process, has this whole plan failed? I don't know. I knew we were under attack, and I know that Schweva is attacking Imperial vessels, but as Arrya and I took position in front of the airlock, I had no idea what was about to happen.
"You look worried." Arrya noticed, taking account of my expression as we tensely waited for something to happen, whether that be a ship boarding or an end to the space battle one way or another.
"We're under attack by an unknown enemy and we're about to get boarded. That's a pretty good reason to be worried in my opinion." I bit back, shaking off the question before Arrya could catch me in how much I knew. I think I could trust Agent Cerses, at least to an extent, but I wasn't sure that I could trust her with this, with these visions, because I didn't even know what they meant. I also didn't quite know what the Empire would do with that information - would they have the Inquisitors dig through my mind the way Schweva insisted she could on the station over Taaszon, or maybe they made some sort of device that could scan my mental processes while I'm sleeping - or what affect that would have. Escaping to the Grand Duchy and extracting myself from the Empire entirely seems to be the best possible outcome so far, followed by managing to stay in the employ of Grand Moff Kordoth, with the worst option being drafted into the Inquisitors. At the moment, any other sort of outcome seemed downright unrealistic, quite frankly. I guess this really brings a whole new focus to what Schweva once told me: people in my position don't get the luxury of choosing our destinies. I was effectively left to choose between three factions that would draft me into a war I barely knew about.
"Fair enough. Still though, stay focused, stay in the present. You've survived a lot of crazy stuff in the past few weeks, the last thing you need is to get picked off by pirates because your mind was elsewhere." Arrya gently warned, trying to keep me from getting caught up in my own head. It was pretty obvious how she felt: if I wasn't going to share my concerns with her, the least I could do is make sure it keeps from becoming a liability. It seemed to have been good timing though, because the firing and the shaking finally stopped, allowing for a deafening silence to fall over us before being replaced by an all-mighty groan. The whole ship, Star Destroyer sized frame and all, was being pulled into a particular place, and while it was happening, every joint, every bolt, and every subframe on the vessel was protesting to this unwanted, unwelcome motion. The groaning finally came to an end with the sound of a thud, the connection of the two ships, and then the silence, that awful, tense, uncertain silence hit us again, leaving us nothing but an ever-growing mixture of anticipation and dread.
I had my blaster pistol trained at the airlock and took a deep breath as I braced myself for whatever came next, truly having no idea of what was going to come next in spite of my vision. Sound returned with the step of heavy, thudding footsteps getting closer and closer - at first, I thought it may have been coming from behind me, but no, make no mistake, I was hearing this through an airlock onboard another ship - followed by the sound of a door sliding open. I realized at this point that it was the sound of their door opening, meaning that all that was separating us was the door to our airlock. I was expecting to see a cutting torch tear through the door, or perhaps even a lightsaber if this was to be Schweva leading the attack herself, or perhaps the sound of a breeching charge being placed on the door. Instead, though, I heard a bestial battle cry followed by a thud that seemed to shake the whole ship, accompanied by a tall, narrow dent appearing in the door. A moment later the war cry followed yet again, and then another thud, deepening the impact, shaking the airlock door to its very frame. And again, the cry and the thud came, this time bringing the dent to the edge of breaking. Finally, the fourth blow tore through the airlock, revealing the heavy blade of a black axe with a glowing golden edge.
The axe head was retracted, and in its place came two massive, furry black hands, covered in a fur that started a pure black at its base and faded to a dull gold at its edges. These two massive hands tore open the airlock to reveal seven massive, ravenous warriors, each one carrying a massive axe. The leader of the group, the same one who tore through the door, let out another cry that was equal parts triumph and bloodlust. With that, the rest of his brood charged towards us, three on either side. This definitely wasn't the Grand Duchy, but somehow, it seemed even worse.
Cliffhanger!
Ciao everyone!
