Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.
Let's get to it.
Rico: I actually have considered still having Jacen having fathered Allana. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to go with it. As for why he's not with Ben on Earth, I already said that Luke has disappeared like in canon.
Ke-Pa: I will continue to update the wiki. I don't think I can have it printed though, as I'm sure it would violate fanfiction rules and probably some trademark issues. Now, I do have plans for at least one more main story after this one, and I'm trying to decide between it being a war against the Yuuzhan Vong, or a war against the New Sith under Darth Krayt.
Anthony: Dude, I already said I'm not really going to be doing that. Stop asking.
Chapter 6- Tension
(April 20, 2049)
As the blue energy of hyperspace races past the bridge of the Star Destroyer Sau Paulo, one of the few London class Star Destroyers still in existence, all is relatively quiet and routine on the bridge. Right near the viewport, one individual is looking out at the blue of hyperspace, silently going through her thoughts.
Behind her, the captain of the Sau Paulo walks up to her. "Master Tano?" he asks.
In front of him, Sarah Tano turns around to face him. She is wearing her customary Jedi robes, her twin lightsabers hanging at her waist. "Yes, captain?" she asks.
"We're nearly at the end of our hyperspace run. We'll be reaching the Christoph system," the captain says. He then smiles a bit and says, "I suggest you go find your brother and head down to the hangar bay."
Sarah chuckles a bit and says, "Agreed. Thank you, captain." She then walks past the captain and heads off the bridge.
Sarah catches the lifts down several levels of the ship and heads for one of the mess halls. As she enters the mess hall, she finds, to her amusement, ice cream social is well underway, and her younger brother Anakin Hall is sitting behind the line of toppings, grinning as he uses the Force to dispense toppings for the sailors as they come through the line.
Sarah smiles as she folds her arms and shakes her head disapprovingly. After a few moments, Anakin sees his sister across the mess hall. He grins at her and calls out, "Hey, sis! Want some M&Ms?" He then lifts a handful of M&Ms out of the tray and uses the Force to fling them across the hall at his sister.
Sarah raises her hand and halts the M&Ms in front of her. She gathers the candies up into her palm as she calls across the hall, "It's a good thing you're not a Jedi anymore! You'd get into so much trouble, especially now that mom's the Grandmaster."
Anakin laughs as he tosses an M&M into the air and catches it in his mouth before he says, "Well, it's even more fun on the ASAT team, so I'm fine with that!" Sarah just shakes her head again.
Sarah and Anakin had both followed their mother's path of becoming a Jedi. Sarah, who was now 44 years old, was an extremely accomplished Jedi Master who was in fact on the Jedi Council with her mother. Sarah much preferred the Force and her people skills to her lightsaber, although she was very capable with it.
Anakin had also joined the Jedi and begun his training at age 8. However, within the first few months, it became clear that Anakin was incredibly powerful in the Force, moreso than his siblings or even his mother. He was able to master Force powers in his preteens that other Jedi took into their 30s to master. Anakin also proved to have a very fiery spirit, much like his namesake, and enjoyed just letting loose and having fun.
However, in his teens, it became clear that as powerful as Anakin was with the Force, he was incredibly skilled with a lightsaber, and could master special forces tactics very easily. He wielded a blue bladed lightsaber, and had mastered all seven forms of lightsaber combat. He was so competent that, in his 20s, he was selected for the ASAT team.
After the fall of the Empire, the Alliance leadership had called into question the necessity of the ASAT team, as the Sith were destroyed. However, the appearance of Lumiya had made them question that doubt. Not long after that, the Alliance decided to keep the team. Although it maintained its original name, the team was no longer a team dedicated to fighting Sith. It mainly served as a front-line combat unit and essentially became the Jedi version of a special ops team. Over time, as the Terran Jedi grew, more were drawn from its ranks to fill the teams ranks. By the 2030s, all members of the ASAT team were individuals who had originally been trained as Jedi so that all team members were Force-sensitive, which was a goal for the team ever since it first adopted a former Jedi.
Anakin has now been a member of the ASAT team for years. Although he is not the team leader, he is the strongest and most capable duelist on the team.
"Come on, Anakin! We're almost there. We need to get down to the hangar bay," Sarah calls out.
"Yeesh, spoil the fun why don't you," Anakin responds. However, he stands up from behind the toppings line and walks across the mess hall to join his sister. As he walks up to Sarah, Anakin mutters, "You're worse than mom."
"Well, one of us has to be responsible all the time," Sarah says, lightly slapping him on the back of the head. Anakin just shakes his head and chuckles.
The two siblings make their way back to the lifts and catch a lift down to the hangar bay. As they enter the hangar bay, they can see that the ship has already come out of hyperspace.
The siblings make their way over to a shuttle that has already been prepped with people and materiel to take down to the surface. The two board the shuttle, and within a few minutes, the shuttle takes off, headed down to Christophsis.
The shuttle enters the atmosphere and makes its way to the capitol of Christophsis: the city of Chaleydonia. Within the city limits is an airfield operated by the Alliance. The shuttle pilot guides the shuttle towards the airfield as a man on the ground guides the shuttle down to its designated parking spot.
Once the shuttle touches down, Sarah and Anakin stand up and disembark from the shuttle. As the ground crew are focused on unloading all of the cargo from the shuttle, Sarah and Anakin head off of the airfield and towards the adjacent facility that is the Andromeda HQ of TSOC.
As the siblings enter the main building of TSOC AHQ, they find two individuals waiting for them. One is General Gang Li, TSOC's Commander of Andromeda Operations. The other individual is a young Jedi Master from Italy, Mattia Romano, who is one of the chief Jedi Masters currently assigned to the Andromeda Galaxy.
"Master Tano. Colonel Hall," General Li greets the two siblings.
"General Li, thanks for the welcome," Sarah says respectfully.
"Why don't we all head to the first floor conference room and talk?" General Li proposes. Sarah and Anakin both nod and follow General Li and Master Romano down the halls towards the main conference room on the 1st floor.
As the group makes their way into the conference room, the general says, "I hope your trip was good."
"Yes, very good, thank you," Sarah says as she takes her seat.
Anakin has become more serious. It's one of the things that amazes Sarah the most about him, how he can switch between fun and serious mode so quickly. He can be all joking and having fun, and then a few minutes later gets into a serious meeting or into a combat situation and he instantly flips into full serious military mode.
"General, what kind of activity have we recently seen from the First Order?" Anakin asks.
"The First Order is growing bolder, that much I can safely say. In the last two months, we have documented six occasions when they launched raids on military installations or laboratories on planets on the edge of the Republic's territory. We also have confirmation of a First Order vessel paying a visit to Oba Diah. We suspect that the First Order is trying to establish relations with the Pykes, likely to get further funding to further expand their war machine," General Li responds.
"Most recent information on the movements of the Knights of Ren?" Anakin asks.
"Little. We of course know they are still active in the Outer Rim and Wild Space, but we have not been able to pin down a reliable confirmation a sighting strong enough to investigate," General Li responds.
"I spoke with General Adams. I'm going to be deployed in Andromeda for the foreseeable future due to the rising tensions. I was hoping you'd be willing to provide me with a list of all special ops units currently deployed here in Andromeda," Anakin asks the general.
"Of course, Colonel," General Li asks.
Sarah now speaks up and asks, "I also wish to ask about the status of the search for our lost friends."
At this point, Master Romano speaks up. "Still no new clues to their location. Jaina and Grogu are still completely gone, and only one rumor of someone who resembled Kyle recently. However, that rumor proved to be a complete dead end," Romano answers Sarah.
Sarah just nods, sighing a bit in frustration. Despite the destruction, when Jacen had destroyed the New Jedi, not all of the Jedi and Padawans were killed. There were three confirmed survivors: Jacen's twin sister Jaina, the young Jedi Grogu, and the only other master of the Order named Kyle Katarn, who had been on a mission off world when the incident happened. Since then, Jaina and Grogu had both vanished without a trace, and Kyle had supposedly disappeared into the Outer Rim and taken up a life of smuggling. The Alliance had been searching for the last 7 years for the three as well as Luke, but had so far not found any signs of any of them.
"Will you be staying with us, Master Tano?" Romano asks her.
"No. I will soon be returning home due to the needs from the Grysk War. However, Master Hansen had been put on standby to deploy here if things continue to escalate," Sarah answers his question.
"Very well," Romano says.
Sarah then looks at General Li. "Have you continued training for Operation Odin's Spear?" she asks.
"Yes. Results continue to vary," General Li responds. Operation Odin's Spear was a mission that had been dreamed up by TSOC to assassinate the Supreme Leader of the First Order, a being named Snoke. The operation had not been given the go-ahead to actually be carried out, and was mostly just a contingency type of mission concept. The idea was to try and get the First Order to break up by killing its leader. Although it was not considered likely that the operation would ever be carried out, they still wanted it rehearsed in case it was ever needed.
"Outcome of the most recent exercise?" Sarah asks.
"Successful in the assassination, but with the complete annihilation of the strike team," General Li responds.
"I see. Well, continue to rehearse the mission concept, and report back to the Jedi Council if you start achieving better results," Sarah says.
General Li nods in response. The four of them all look around at each other, all knowing what everyone is thinking about. The situation may be one that is technically one of very tense peace, but all of them just now that war is only a matter of time. One that the dominant power of the Andromeda Galaxy seems unable to grasp.
(Washington DC, White House)
In the Oval Office, President Nantz is going over a recent report on a new nationwide project to expand the interstate system.
Suddenly, the commlink that is permanently attached to the desk begins to beep. Nantz looks up and presses the button to accept the call. A second later, the image comes up of the ambassador to the New Republic, a distinguished man from Canada who has been serving in the position for 10 years named Grayson Cloutier. Cloutier spent most of his time on the capitol of the New Republic, which, for the last 7 years, was the planet of Hosnian Prime.
"Ambassador Cloutier. What news?" Nantz asks.
"Bad, Mr. President. I spoke with the Supreme Chancellor and several Senators today. Things are getting worse. Several Senators have been trying to paint our actions in response to the recent First Order raids as further signs of our territorial ambitions. A motion was presented today to cut or alter several rhydonium and Mon Cala shield technology trade deals, and it's gathered an alarming amount of support," Cloutier responds.
Nantz sighs and lays his head on the desk before looking back up Cloutier and asking, "Are they really that suspicious of us? This is reaching new levels."
"Yes, Mr. President, and our recent armament programs, even if many of them were brought on by the Grysk War, have given more weight to the image of us as a group with imperial ambitions of our own," Cloutier says.
Nantz just sighs again. Relations have really begun to sour with the New Republic in the last 10 years. At first, the New Republic could not have been better friends with the Alliance. But, as time went on, the New Republic, specifically the Senate, became increasingly corrupt. Senators became drunk on their own power as they saw themselves as saviors of their world in helping to restore democracy. The infighting in the Senate between the Centrists and Populists had only made the situation worse.
As the First Order began to make its presence known, the Alliance immediately took a hard stance against them. That only made things worse between the New Republic and the Alliance. Many corrupt or self-righteous Senators saw this as an act of warmongering by the Alliance. Some even tried to paint the Alliance as a party that sought greater control over the galaxy, with some going so far as to claim the Alliance was trying to deliberately provoke war in order to gain power. Some Senators had also called for the Alliance's territory in the galaxy to be reclaimed, disregarding the fact that some of those worlds had outright voted to join the Alliance rather than the New Republic.
The Alliance had tried to work with the New Republic and ease the growing tension, but the Senate, flushed with the thrill of being free and having more power than they would under the Empire, even though they still promoted democracy, resisted their efforts, and a distance grew between the two allies, and the New Republic grew to view the Alliance with more suspicion. Although they were still allies and trade partners, things were tense. This had also affected the Alliance's relationship with the Hapes Consortium, which was now virtually nonexistent. And with the Mandalorians having become more reclusive and kept more to their own borders, the only power the Alliance still maintained good relations with were the Chiss.
"Very well, Ambassador. Please continue your efforts, and continue to report to me every day," Nantz says.
"Understood," Cloutier says before cutting the transmission.
Nantz sighs as he rests his head on his forearms on the desk. With war looming in the Andromeda Galaxy, and war well underway back at home, he doesn't need the added stress of dealing with the New Republic. At this point, part of him is just hoping that the First Order will just attack and start the war so the waiting can end.
And, I'll end there.
Alright. I hope you liked this one, and the reintroduction of two of Ahsoka's children. They'll be the two I feature most prominently in this story, especially Anakin.
As you noticed, I gave a little more backstory here, both into Jacen's turn and the tension between the Alliance and the Republic. I hope it's starting to clear some things up.
As for the three Jedi who survived. All three of them will return at some point in this story, I promise you that.
Next chapter will again feature the return of an old face, a fan favorite. It'll be up soon. Until then, leave a review, and stay tuned!