Part 2 – The tragedy

Chapter 12

The blue lights of hyperspace twisted and twirled around the two tiny Delta-7 interceptors, magnetically connected to their Hyperspace ring attachments, as they sped towards their destination. The two ships were tasked to travel ahead of the fleet and observe the hyperspace lane for obstacles. If this were a normal Jedi or military mission, they would not have bothered with such a cautionary exercise. Most scanners would show anomalies during hyperspace travel. With so many Pantorans depending on the supplies and aid with their fleet, they had to avoid losing any ships at all.

Stass tasked her fighter's displays to scan the surrounding space for debris, cosmic storms, dust and even rare vacuum-breathing creatures like the purgil or ostiosos. Nebray had recently become a problem too, attacking ships randomly from nebula. She gripped the stick tightly, programming the controls to Arfive's command before slipping her headset over her headdress.

"Arfive, how long are we looking at before we arrive in the Pantora System?", she asked the astromech in the forward socket of her fighter.

The droid's dome spun around to look at her, and he beeped at his master in question.

"About five hours, apparently.", Caloc's voice crackled over the comms, which he had apparently been listening in on, despite the fact that it had been a closed circuit. "Seems like we have a little bit of time to ourselves here."

"Do you want to talk?", Stass asked.

"Not really.", Caloc replied stoicly. His voice was a bit garbled by the radio, and she didn't catch his next words. She asked him to repeat them, and this time heard, "I have a few questions about Pantora though."

Stass groaned inwardly. Societies had been her worst subject during her training years. "Pantora, huh? I know that the cities in trouble. Mostly larger civilisation and infrastructial pockets being attacked. The smaller villages are fine. The terrorists bomb once and leave. These attacks have crippled the planet's economy. Their main export lies in the mineral exports underneath the planet's surface, mostly doonium and flarite. The Mining guild doesn't have many restrictions in the sector, and a private company runs the planetwide mines. Papano Incorporated, run by Baron Papanoida. They seem to be a ship manufacturer too, if I remember correctly. They've been crippled after one of the bombs ignited a gas pocket underneath one of their storage facilities."

"And what of the people?", Caloc asked.

Stass smiled, making a mental note of the question. Good to see that her padawan still remembered what was important to a Jedi. Politicians and militia usually focussed on infrastructure. Jedi had to focus on the people.

"So far, four cities have been hit. Simbit, the main spaceport, was hit hard. Most of the ports there have been almost completely destroyed. There will be no imports from other planets until they get them back up. Also, the docks for the security ships have had to be completely locked down. Pantora has no arial protection except for speeders. They do have their warships, which were stored in another city, Gronas, I think. Fortress, the capitol, hasn't been the worst hit. They still have a few dozen facilities that could be hit."

"So, what remains exactly?", Caloc asked.

"The train lines, mostly.", Stass answered. "The planet's cities are connected by both rail and road. The highways are pretty well protected by ground forces, but the cities have banded together and are sending aid to their brothers and sisters across the world via rail. It's a real testament to what people can do when they aren't fighting against each other."

"And a huge target for attacks.", Caloc was silent for a few minutes as he contemplated that. "What about the other bombings?"

Stass pulled out a small disk from her belt and slid it into her starfighter's port. A small hologram appeared before her, "According to the scans Mace gave us, most of them were in residential areas."

"And any idea where the terrorists are hiding?"

"I don't know.", Stass' voice was distracted as she tapped away at her console. "No one else does either."

"You don't know?", he repeated, a bit put out. He couldn't remember a time that had happened before. He looked forward at R4-D6. "Did you hear that? She doesn't know."

"Stop talking to your droid over open comms.", she snapped back at him. "And I don't know because it isn't our mission. Mace has put Bultar Swan in charge of that. We are going to be doing the easy task; helping with the injured citizen's evacuate. Nothing dangerous or unforeseen can happen."

Caloc stared over at the other starfighter, noting a slight edge to her voice, "Are you… worried?"

"After that stunt you pulled with the Pykes, yes.", Stass answered. "You need to take it easy. You only just got over your stint with Tyrannus, then you go crazy on Devaron and end up with another two months in bacta."

"And I'm fine now.", Caloc stopped her before she could start her rant. He had heard it on the way back from Devaron, on the way to Hala and on the way back from Hala. "I know that I need to be more careful, you keep telling me that. Believe me, both Devaron and my homeworld has taught me to stop taking risks."

He looked over at the other starfighter. Even though he couldn't see through the tinted canopy, he could imagine the withering glare he was receiving from his Master. He amended the statement. "Or at least not quite as many."

"Well, either way, Pantora might be a nice change of pace for you.", Stass suggested quietly, the edge still in her tone, "Promise me there will be no more time in bacta. No more time with the med droids, deal?"

"Deal.", he smiled at her fighter outside, "I guess that I can agree to not purposefully do something stupid."

"Thank you.", was the only response that came to her mind.

The two starfighters slipped silently through the hyperspace lane, neither Jedi knowing what else to say.

Four hours and thirty minutes later, and Caloc tapped in the command for the ship to drop into realspace. Hyperspace slowed, and the tunnel of lights flickered and twirled before slipping into starlines that immediately turn into distant, tiny pinpoints. The two hyperspace rings decelerated quickly, the moon of Pantora appearing before them, filling the Jedi's view. To the right, in the distance, was the huge, frigid planet of Orto Plutonia, almost pure white with snow. The moon orbited a little way away from the planet, but was clearly still snagged in the moon's orbit. Caloc frowned down at the mix of blue, white and brown before him. There were smudges of green on the surface too, he noticed. A huge semi-circle of light was noticeable from the shoreline of one of the southern hemisphere continents. That would be where the majority of the settlements were, branching out from the Capitol in the centre. Above that, further to the north and one continent over, was a mountain range, large enough to be visible from orbit. Then the clouds shifted, and he saw that there was only one continent, with the range stretching to bridge the thin gap between the two landmasses. The range was also dotted with the occasional collection lights, but they were spread out and isolated. To the north was just a yellow and green blur with no obvious settlements.

He had read about that place. The Harshplains, a swampy marshy area that was nearly as unforgivable as the Kashyyyk Shadowlands. Pantora definitely wasn't Coruscant. More like the polar opposite. He flicked a few switches and the ship detached from the ring with a resounding clunk. The ring floated away behind them, caught in the planet's orbit. It would be collected by the Resurrection when it arrived. Deesix beeped statistics at him, then a question.

"No, Deesix.", he frowned, "Not to the city yet. We need to wait for the rest of the fleet to arrive. We're going to the local high-altitude platform above the capitol to refuel before the Resurrection gets here."

He pushed the toggle to the left, and the triangular fighter twisted towards the distant world. The tiny fighter's engines pulsed as they raced forward. A flash of red to his right, and he twisted in the cockpit chair to see his Master's ship following his lead. Turning back, he clicked the commlink and sighed, "So this platform is relatively new, right? Wasn't it in those Senate meetings you made me watch?"

A muttered sound of acknowledgement and then she answered with, "You have a good memory. The Pantorans developed it to help the Trade Federation transfer their supplies to planetside. They recently signed a contract that would bring the planet forty percent more food from the Colonies."

Caloc frowned, "Doesn't that mean less jobs for the population?"

"Not necessarily.", Stass answered, "The platform brings over seven hundred jobs for the locals, and three hundred for droids. It's what got the Chairman nominated. The only problem is that the Trade Federation has pulled out, not wanting their precious cargo to be damaged by terrorists."

"They elected their planetary representative because of a platform?", Caloc laughed.

"It's more common than you would think.", Stass confirmed. He knew she didn't like politics, but this seemed important information, "The Wokiri Senator was elected because he gave his people three water stations to help with their harvest. It's what the people do after they get into office that is really important."

Caloc nodded slowly in understanding. Spending the past months in the Coruscant Temple had been difficult, but he had made do with studying the documents in the Library as he was requested to by his Master. One of the topics had been to research was the Senate. It made sense that the Senators were brought in because of certain acts they committed to get into office. A political campaign had to have some sense behind it, he supposed.

"How many people were put out of work here?", he asked his Master.

"I'm not sure.", she answered, "But the moon doesn't have the best agricultural grounds. Only about 2% is actually farmable. The rest is uncultivated, and a vast majority is either undocumented, or unexplored. You can see that from here. There are reports of sinkholes and quakes in the northern hemisphere."

Caloc frowned at that. Most planets were explored and documented regularly, even with unstable ground. Some people thrived in such places, like Utapau. There had to be another reason that the upper hemisphere was not explored, but he kept those thoughts to himself. He clicked the control console a few times. "Deesix, what do we have in the way of spare parts?"

The droid clicked and whirred cheerfully, listing off a lengthy order of parts kept in the rear compartment. Then a single, long questioning beep.

"I don't know.", he smiled at the droid's dome, "Something just feels off. I might want to give the ship a quick check over once we land."

"Comms off, my padawan.", Stass called, "We need to get through the Pantoran blockade."

Caloc pulled off the headset, hanging it over hook on the back of his chair, then he moved his right hand to tightly grip the stick, and his left to hold the accelerator. Now that they were closer to the planet, he could see a line of Pantoran Security warships grouped around the planet. His Master would handle the delegating, and that gave him time to study each ship. They were long, about the size of a Consular frigate. Their bridges were long, conical constructs, with transmitting equipment attached to the nose. Their hulls bristled with guns though, heavy cannons instead of the lighter lasers normally seen in ships that size. These were built to take on ships twice their size.

"We've been cleared.", Stass said. "The security forces are retreating back to their base for now. They want the Republic to have full control of the skies for a while. Order of the Chairman or something like that."

Caloc didn't answer, just pushed the stick down. The tiny angular fighter dove towards the surface, plunging through the atmosphere. The ship shook a little as it shifted from space to atmosphere, but the clouds parted, and he saw the platform before him.

About two thousand square kilometres, the platform itself appeared as a flat sheet of metal on top, with a central control tower rising above it. There were already several dozen craft hanging around the platform's long docks that crisscrossed between floating pontoons hanging around the air. A series of grates crisscrossed the platform's floor; the pathways for fuel, water and supplies to be passed along from ship to ship. Crates were scattered across the deck, no identifiable marks on them. Pulling the accelerator lever back, he slowed the starfighter and lowered the landing gear. A loud clunk echoed as he touched down, and he opened the canopy, vaulting over the side. His feet hit the deck, and immediately three small Ugnauts hurried over to hook up a fuel line. Caloc nodded in thanks, passing one a credit chip, before he hurried over to his Master. She stood next to her fighter, taking in the activity as she smoothed down her robes.

"Here.", she threw him a cloak, and fastened her own around her shoulders, "We need to blend in."

"Sure.", Caloc threw the cloak over his own cloak, and raised the hood over his head. "Doesn't help when two Jedi starfighters land. No one here will know who we are."

Stass stared at him, "To think that people say sarcasm is dead."

"Who says that?", he asked, but got no reply.

The two astromech droids beeped their answers before she could respond, and Stass stared at them angrily, "Neither of those answers make sense. Have you been going to Doctor Grubacher for tune ups?"

They walked over to the edge of platform and looked up at the faint arc of the moon's planetary body hanging in the sky above them. Caloc gestured behind them at the two droids who were fussing over the ships. "Has Arfive even been to the Aki-Aki Festival of the Ancestors?"

"He's never been to the Ombakond Sector.", Stass answered, referring to the Sector where the Passana system lay, "Has your droid ever seen a drunk Hutt?"

"How should I know? He's older than I am.", Caloc answered, a fact that seemed to grate him. He looked up at the chronometer above and checked the time. "How far behind us should the rest of the fleet be?"

"Twenty minutes or so."

"And what are we going to do while we wait?", Caloc twirled a spanner around his finger.

Stass rolled her eyes, "You wanted to work on your ship, didn't you?"

The padawan shrugged his outer robes off his shoulder's and turned towards the ship, "What do you think? Will I have enough time?"