Chapter 7: Dealing with Pests and More.
39:3:18 GrS
Prak City, Prakith
Prak City was a rather typical city for Prakith. It was situated on a high plateau, and on that plateau was where the majority of the city proper was located, with the occasional mine or spaceport being built into the steep cliffs of the plateau. It's high altitude made it so that the city was spared, most of the time, from the fierce rain squalls that would rage through the lower gorges during the planetary wet season. In the lack of a proper planetary government, I believed that Prakith would devolve into a series of competing city states. If what I had managed to gleam from the chamber below the Citadel, perhaps that had indeed been the way life had been in the planet's ancient past.
Cities like Prak City had, for the most part, a mild level of air traffic flying about it day and night but as I flew closer to the plateau city, I could tell that this was not the current state of affairs. The airspace was eerily empty, and searchlights lit up the night sky.
The sharp wine of my Interceptor's engine grew louder as I angled the TIE towards the city, pushing down on the control wheel, and breaking from the meager cloudline I had used to mask my approach. There was a gray monolith building, monolith compared to the rest of the city, at the far north of Prak City's boundary and going off what I know of Imperial Moffs then that would be where Brill was holed up.
Soon I was buzzing just above the city's skyline, and whoever was in charge of those searchlights was good at their job I begrudgingly admitted, because the bright lights were doing their best to blind me. My Force assisted piloting skills were enough to prevent that but for any other TIE, its pilot would have ended up nose diving into the jungle of durasteel and duracrete long before they had gotten to the edge Brill's palace. But I was no ordinary pilot and was able to get to the front door of city palace intact
I hissed air through my teeth as I was able to get a clear view of the front of Brill's , the blackout didn't apply to the governor. I should have realized that. Its well lit turf was crawling with humanoid figures who were racing back and forth from a series of barricades.
"Now why are you making this more difficult than necessary?" I voiced my frustrations to the empty, besides me, cockpit. I'd already bled off most of my speed too!
I squinted at the group of locals who were directly in front of me. It looks like they're setting up an E-Web down there. Wait, that is an E-Web.
That problem was eliminated with a generous amount of plasma as I started strafing my TIE back and forth, applying generous amounts of firepower to anything that moved. I devoted a whole minute to clearing the area and by the time I was done, the once green grounds were black and littered with smouldering pockets of embers.
I barely felt the thud of my Interceptor landing as I pushed my abilities to their current maximum, making sure I had done in all of Brill's,for lack of a proper name, guards. I couldn't detect any life forms, so I popped the Interceptor's hatch and jumped out, pushing the Force underneath me to cushion the landing.
The ground crunched under my boots as I strode forward, puffs of ash rising from the footfalls. A claxon had started to ring in the distance. I advanced up what looked like the main throughway on the approach to the palace. I moved unopposed for maybe five minutes, nearly making it the entrance of the palace, before I heard footsteps moving towards me.
Out of the palace poured twenty men garbed in a strange uniform: a long coat of red cloth that partially obscured what looked like a plasteel chestplate; under the chestplate was a baggy drab grey jumpsuit. The final piece of this bizarre uniform was a grey field cap with ear flaps folded up and a metal pin fixed atop the cap's brow.
These men arranged themselves in a crescent formation in front of me, aiming standard Imperial E-11s at me.
"And who exactly would you be?" I drew out, taking in the sight before me. No heavy blasters or sniper rifles among them but they had batons hooked onto their belts. Odd that Brill would equip his personal troops, because there was no way this lot was close to the Imperial standard, with such low quality stuff.
"We are the Red Police! The upholders of law and order on Prakith in service of Foga Brill, the Constitutional Protector of Prakith himself!" Shouted the only man who had a blaster pistol in his hands. I reckoned him to be the officer of this lot.
Now I was a little insulted. No, I was very insulted. Brill sent his police to kill me. Me! An Inquisitor!
"The Constitutional Protector demands that you surrender yourself to him and end your illegal and seditious assault upon his people and his lands." The same officer carried on. "Furthermore, the Constitutional Protector demands that you pay reparations for the barbarous destruction of the ships in the service of the Constitutional Protector."
A pale fell over the formation as they awaited my response. Unfortunately, it looked like none of them were going to lose this game of chicken between them and me.
I rolled my shoulders before responding. "Well that's a nice little speech you got handed but it's time to get serious."
I held out my lightsaber hilt to them, using it as a badge. "I am an Inquisitor of the Empire. Your Constitutional Protector has been declared a rebel and a traitor and Prakith in a state of rebellion against our glorious Empire. I have been sent to restore order."
One blade was turned on. The group of Red Police tensed.
"The life of Foga Brill, former Moff of Prakith, has been declared forfeit, along with any who support him in this treason."
The second blade ignited with a snap-hiss. A growing sense of panic-unease emanated from the "Police".
"However, I am aware that Brill's treason must have been concealed, and that you and the people of Prakith were unaware of his plans. So I offer you one chance to recant this treason. Lay down your arms just as some of your comrades in space have seen the truth of Brill's treason. Do so and I promise that you will be treated with the rights inherent to Imperial citizens."
They still didn't feel or look convinced so I applied a bit of the stick.
"Or perhaps an offer of protection for the members of the Red Police would be more convincing to you? After all, I'm sure that the populace of Prakith have nothing but fond memories of your protection."
Whether it was that last offer, the previous appeal to patriotism or the merry humming of my lightsaber, the officer backed down, maybe seeing the writing on the wall. He lowered his pistol and gestured for his men to do the same.
"How nice of you to see reason." They couldn't tell but I was smiling under the helmet. The less distractions I had to deal with, the better. "Disarm yourselfs and spread the word of the surrender to your comrades, units from my fleet will be landing soon to take control of the situation."
I inputted a code into my wrist comm, which sent a predetermined message up to the Adamant and Masal. In this case, it was the message to begin occupation landings.
"Where is Brill?" I asked the officer.
"In his office...sir." The officer told me.
"Which is on the top level, the rightmost office, the one with two pillars in front of it and a balcony." I finished for the officer. This wasn't the first time I'd been inside the bowels of a prefab governor/moff palace.
"Now out of my way." I stated as I moved into the palace, the members of the -former? Now defunct?- Red Police obligingly moving for the Inquisitor on a mission. I kept my lightsaber ignited as I dashed through the empty halls of the palace, drawing on the Force or exceeding normal human abilities. Although I wasn't really running in so much as doing a series of one legged leaps so that my leg muscles weren't put under undue strain.
I took the low burn of jealousy I felt at knowing that my abilities were so inadequate and drew on the Dark Side to bolster my stamina. Rapidly I raced to the top of the palace and soon spied a door with two pillars in front of it.
This door had guards as well and it soon became evident, these guards were more loyal to their boss as evident by the blaster bolts that impacted the duracrete walls around me.
I turned off the second blade and started to deflect any bolts that strayed too close to me, slowly and methodically advancing down the wide hallway. Four guards, garbed slightly better pasteel armor than the Red Police at the entrance, were evenly split on both sides of the door.
As I got closer, the guards aim got better, resulting in me having to keep the arc of my saber close to my body. The end result was inevitable, however, with a force assisted dash, I charged the two guards on the left, finally managing to bat a blaster bolt into one of them. I sidestepped into the other one and bisected him. Warning blared at me from the Force and I pulled my saber into my left hand, parrying the oncoming blaster bolts once more into the guard directly in front of me. The last guards was no coward however, disregarding the grisly fate of the last guard who was in saber range of me, he ran at me.
In response , I executed the sole, and I do mean sole, Makashi move in my repertoire: I locked my left arm straight with my saber pointed as an extension of said arm, and simply stepped forward using my calves to keep my pose. Needless to say, the final guard caught a lightsaber in his throat and died. A shame really, I was aiming for the chest; more . I moved back to a right hand grip and tore the saber out in a horizontal motion.
Then I heard, ever so faintly, the sounds of things getting...moved through the door. Like an automated door opening… ah shit.
Blasting the door off its hinges and sending it flying into a very darkened room, I saw a bright light coming from behind an ornate and gilded desk. I squashed any panic I felt and ran forward, vaulting the desk. I almost groaned when I came face to face with a circular escape tunnel(horribly unreliable things) but that was all secondary due to the fact that I could still see the bastard!
I snarled as I thrust both hands out in a claw gesture, straining to pull the Moff back up the tunnel. It was extremely difficult, sweat started to pour down my face. I had never attempted to outright pull a human, or sentient, towards me with nothing but telekinesis but I would not let this rat slip away. I refused to let it happen, I hated the possibility that it might. So I drew on the intoxicating flame of the Dark Side to stoke my powers, bring the low burn up to a bright flame.
It was slow going, Brill thrashed around like a pig that had been stuck, attempting to wiggle free but the Force was with me and it was most definitely not with Brill.
It felt like an eternity of drawing on my power to pull Brill out of the hole he had scurried into but realistically only a minute had passed, tops. I felt like I had sprinted across Prak City though. There was a red button installed on the inside of the desk's leg space, so I reached over a pressed it. Assumptions were once again proven to be true as the escape tunnel's door closed. Brill had nowhere to go. The man himself seemed to know it too
I stood up and looked down at Brill. "Now then…"
Tink!
A metallic ping echoed off the walls of the room. I went silent and looked down at my left leg and saw half of a knife blade pressing against my armored greave. A glint of metal in the corner of my eyes told me where the other half had gone flying.
Brill, who was surprisingly fit for a man of his age, had one arm extended with the other one tucked against his stomach. Considering how he had just tried to stab me, it probably wasn't him clutching his chest down there.
"Alright, have it your way." I sighed.
Throom, Throom.
Brill looked very surprised that I had Dooku'd him and while I would have been content to go about my business and finish him off there and then, before the shock wore off and the burned nerve ends started firing, I still had something for him to do.
"Listen" I brusquely said, sitting on my haunches and waving a hand in front of his face. Brill's face goes slack and I got to work, there was only a short window of opportunity.
"Tell me your secrets. Your money, where is it? Do you have any Jedi or Sith artifacts in your possession? How do I access the planet wide communication network? Tell me." I rattle off the most pertinent questions and finish with another mental whammy.
Slowly and with breaks for outbursts of sobbing as the shock resides, Brill spills. His monetary wealth is stored up in Mining Guild stocks and the InterGalactic Banking Clan accounts. I got the codes for the Mining Guild stocks but no such luck with the IGBC ones, the Munns were infamous for only opening up accounts for the person who had made the account or someone who had been contractually allowed to do so.
No such luck on the artifact hunt but Brill was thankfully cognisant enough to inform me of how to access his personal planetwide comm system, which would allow me to announce the state of affairs for Prakith to the people. This planet was isolated, and unimportant, enough if I started off my liberation on the right foot and with copious amounts of public approval, no one Coreside should give a damn if I make it my own planet. People with lower rank and less abilities than me had done the same to worlds in the Mid Rim, and Prakith was very far off from a world of that rank.
To reward Brill for his cooperation, I gave him a quick death via a blade of plasma to the head.
While it might have been a bad decision to kill him before confirming that what he had told me was legit, it wasn't an issue ultimately as I was able to smoothly get the planet comm system working. Then, I made a speech. I told the people of Prakith that their suffering under the infamous rebel Foga Brill and his jackbooted thugs had come to an end. That everything would be set right and their rights as Imperial citizens restored. The end of tyranny and the restoration of law and order, all that good stuff that was standard New Order doctrine.
I don't know how long the people of Prakith had had to deal with Brill but he must have been seriously unpopular because by the end of my short speech, the lights of Prak City had come back on and the sound of cheer even made their way to the back of the palace, where I was. Add on the sight of Imperial Army transports descending from my victorious ships that were entering high orbit, and I was feeling pretty good. The liberation of Prakith was honestly one of my better rebel squashing jobs that I had accomplished in the past three years. The dying embers of the Dark Side I had drawn on earlier certainly helped as well.
Of course, happiness at a job well done was allowed in the Empire apparently because not long afterwards, the Grand Inquisitor rang. And since I was most definitely not in the Citadel, he demanded an explanation which I quickly gave him, with all the needed factoids included.
Good news, the Grand Inquisitor was pleased with the job I had accomplished with Prakith and wasn't demanding my immediate return to Imperial Center so I could swear loyalty to him. My demonstration on Prakith was proof enough he had said, and it proved that his stated trust in me was not a waste of political power.
That was the bad news. I had a new job: combating the Imperial defector/warlord Blitzer Harrsk, who had established himself in the southern Deep Core in the wake of Endor. According to the Grand Inquisitor, my reputation as a loyal member of the Inquisition and my accomplishments had resonated well with the Ruling Council, and they decided, with prodding from Yiaso, to give me the job of combating Harrsk and other 'seditious elements who may emerge in the future' in the Deep Core.
What a load of bantha poodoo.
I had been assigned to take command of the newly formed Deep Core Defense Fleet, formerly the 13th Deep Core Reserve Fleet, stationed at Empress Teta and was ordered to begin operations from there with full trust placed 'in my tactical and strategic abilities' to take the fight to Harrsk.
Oh in other news, the 13th didn't have any Star Destroyers assigned to it. Apparently, with recent strains placed on the Navy due to the unrest the Emperor's death had caused, all available Star Destroyers were being reassigned to where they were most needed in the war. Nobody mentioned that those 'most needed places' were the worlds the Ruling Council members had personal stakes in. So the ISDs of the Reserve Fleets, those that star destroyers in them anyways, were being called up to maintain the Deep Core Security Zone. The Zone that just happened, perchance, to be under the jurisdiction of the ISB.
At this point I didn't really know who exactly to curse for this ill fortune, but I know there is someone to be cursed for it. All I did know to be true at this point was that I was a pawn on several people's boards.
And that would not stand.