Chapter 84
Leaving
The crew was gathered outside the Hawke as the four returned to the docking bay. All four of them looked disgruntled and pulling not so subtly at the skin tight suits they were wearing to get creases out of uncomfortable places and walking a little bow legged as they were increasingly getting chafed by the rigid material. They pushed a hovertrolley in front of them with three large packing crates on it.
All of the black suits were stained white in spots from where saltwater had dried on it and there hair, for those who had them, were tousled messes. They left the hovertrolley at the base of the loading ramp and made their way inside grunting greetings as they passed.
Carth walked over to the hovertrolly as his curiosity was piqued by them and opened them. His surprised whistle had the others come closer to investigate. The crates were near filled to the brim, one with credit chips neatly packed in trays and another filled with various ingots of metal, the others with components and parts. Canderous lifted one out and weighed it in one hand. The dull grey material did not reflect in the sun
"This is about twenty kilograms of cortosis." He said
Carth had another ingot in hand
"This feels like durasteel. All this must be worth close to a million credits." He said
"Best get this inside then and wait for the explanation." Juhani suggested
"Considering the way they looked it might take a while and we will probably have to top up the water reserves again." Carth replied
"Going to set the grill up, they will be hungry once they are done. Might as well enjoy the open air before we are stuck in space again." Canderous said
A geyser of water erupted and droplets spattered against the containment shield that sprung up. Carth looked to Canderous
"Do you know what that was?" He asked
"A succesfull weapons test. Seems someone tried to approach us from underwater and ran into an idea I took from that first contact drone." Canderous replied
"What was that?" Carth asked
"They called it a sea mine. You leave it water and once something metallic comes close a magnet draws it closer to the target. Once it touches the, it blows up whatever it was. I refined the idea and built ones that detonated once the sensors detect either Sith or Republic armed forces com frequencies in use and it would only drift closer once it detects the frequencies."
"Can you tell which it was?" Juhani asked
Canderous pulled out his datapad.
"Republic." He grunted out
"I think it is better we get in the air and get gone. The girls can inform us of what they found once we are well away from this planet." Carth said
"I agree, randomly jumping around in hyperspace is better to waiting for yet another attempt on us." Juhani said
They pushed the hovertrolley in and once the last crew member was aboard the boarding ramp closed. Juhani took the co pilots seat as Carth switched the engines from standby to full activation. T3 was starting to whistle and tweet urgently from where it was locked down and connected to the dataport
"Interresting." Juhani said
"Care to translate for those who do not speak binary?" Carth asked
"T3 says someone is trying to slice into the docking bay from outside. Whoever it is, they are using military algorithms to brute force their way in."
"How long till they breach?" Carth asked
T3 whistled again and Juhani smirked
"They are not even close to overriding the door. The conflicting security programs it and Mission sliced into the operating system when they disconnected us from the Manaan mainframe is blocking them."
T3 whistled urgently
"It says from the hallway cameras it looks like several platoons of Republic soldiers. They are prepping breach charges."
"That will still take time, that is starship grade metal doors." Carth replied
The comlink light started blinking furiously. Juhani pointed to it
"Shall I answer?"
"Probably just some annoying call like a telemarketer. Instead of trying to sell something it will be along the lines of power down and wait to be boarded." Carth replied
"Ah yes and everyone knows it is best to ignore those type of calls and pretend you are not home."
Carth pressed the internal intercom
"Gunners to the turrets and everyone strap in, we are likely to have a rough ride out of here."
Carth boosted power to the repulsor coils and the Hawke lifted from the deck. He moved forward and the Hawke exited the dock. The rear camera observed a large flash and the dock door burst open. Carth increased speed as several orange figures sprinted closer. The shields strength indicator dropped slightly as laser bolts impacted the shields. He pulled back on the control column and the Hawke's nose lifted towards the sky. He opened the throttle fully. The combat scope lit up as several contacts came closer. Carth got a demented grin and tapped his override into the hyperdrive generator.
"Lock a course for Corellia." He instructed T3
"We are a bit far away from safe hyperspace jump coordinates and those craft are almost on us." Juhani objected
"By the time they get to us, we will be in hyperspace." Carth replied
"What do you mean." Juhani asked
"Do you know what happens if you create a hyperdrive tunnel in atmosphere?" Carth countered
"No." Juhani replied
"In space you don't feel it but the ship hyper accelerates. In atmosphere that is a different story altogether. At some point we need to come back and get the security footage, I am certain it will looks spectacular." Carth grinned
Juhani cinched her restraints tighter and visibly braced herself. T3 whistled a few more objection but the green light on the hyperdrive came on, Carth pressed the lever to full forward
The republic Embassy, Manaan
The soon to be ex ambassador downed another drink as she was ensconced in the situation room with the intelligence and armed forces attaches attached to the embassy and their staff. Her imminent dismissal was mere formality. It started with the Selkath being made aware of the existence of a secret Republic base on its planet surface, but the osik really hit the repulsor coils when the reason for the base existence was revealed. The Selkath did not appreciate the fact that the Republic was stealing kolto from them.
They had been in the situation room since the launch of the submersible containing the rogues. The submersible began its return journey hours later. Once the sensors on the submersible detected other craft closing in on them and automated warning was send stating it was a diplomatic craft, The Selkath ignored that and the self destruct command was send but failed to activate. The Selkath captured two aboard the craft. The utter morons instead of keeping quiet demanded to go back down to ensure that the harvesters and extractors had not been damaged.
Two words and the Republic now faced certain expulsion from Manaan. She poured another drink as yet another demand for answers from the Selkath government was ignored. The officers had decided to go for broke and arrest the rogue operatives despite her orders not to. Her embassy for all facts and purpose had been overtaken by mutineers the moment they defied her orders. They were of the opinion once the rogues were captured the situation would be containable, of course terminal accidents were going to happen once they were in custody. Now that too was going up in flames
She noticed the large tongue of flame coming from the engines of the ship. The tongue lashed down and penetrated the sea below it. Steam rose at the water vapourised. The ship rocketed away. The A wings launched from the cruiser in orbit seemed to standing motionless in comparison to the freighter
The shockwave of the air igniting around the area caused the shields of Ahto City to engage at full strengths and the city was actually rocked by the turbulence. The sea rushed in to fill the vacuum that had been created in its centre, the superheated air vapourising even more water. An artificially created fog bank spread out from the centre and soon enveloped Ahto City
She pushed up from her seat, swaying. The only thing saving her from arrest by the Selkath was her diplomatic immunity. The only thing that will save her from the senate inquiry that will follow is that she had been kept in the dark on the operation on orders from a sub committee of the Senate itself. When she had been reluctantly made aware of the operation by what was supposed to be her intelligence chief of staff, she made sure one of the first things she had done was to forward all the information to her lawyers on Coruscant and Commenor. Hopefully that might save her from time in a penal colony, her political career was well and truly over.
She looked at the shocked expressions before her and smirked drunkenly before she entered a code into the terminal before her. Unknown to all but the ambassadors anything happening in the situation room is recorded, her code activating a failsafe that had the recording being transmitted through the holonet to all Republic embassies. It was set up as means to ensure that should an embassy fall the Republic will be warned of it.
"Gentlemen and Ladies.I will see you at your court martials. I hope you enjoy what is coming for you."
She made her way to her quarters to start packing after getting some sleep first of course. She would need to get sober before facing the shit storm heading Manaan's way.
Carth was still grinning madly as he took his seat slowly in his chair . All of them were sore and stiff as the escape manouver had overwhelmed the internal compensators and they were exposed to the excess g forces of their rapid expulsion from the planet into hyperspace. Terri shook her head in amusement
"I believe that will probably go down in legend as the most dangerous thing you can do in atmosphere. You will most likely never have to buy a drink again in your life once pilots figure out who you are." She said to Carth
"You have my respect, no mandalorian pilot would be crazy enough to copy what you did." Canderous said
"Though the twins will likely have some things to say and do about that as well and they will not be impressed." Terri added
"It will be worth it." Carth grinned
They snorted in relieved laughter and settled back for the debrief. Bastila elected to give the feedback and did so in detail up to the point where they departed the base for the surface using the Sith embassy submersible. Terri took over
"We scuttled the submersible close to the surface and swam for the City, We got out on the docks to the entertainment centre." She said
"Then what is the story with the crates, I thought that was salvage from the base?" Juhani asked
"In a matter of speaking it was. We loaded a cargo submersible with kolto with the help of the two survivors we found in the kitchen and send it up to the private dock of the Hutt. That was our take from the cargo, of course the Hutt paid well under market value but I find myself not really caring about that." Mission answered
"We would have received more if we took electronic payment, instead of taking what the Hutt had in its treasury and storerooms." Terri pointed out
"Cash and goods are not as easily tracked and since we can no longer rely on our republic credit it will do." Bastila said, shrugging
"I see it as severance pay from the Republic." Melissa added
Carth lost his grin and became pensive.
"So that is it, we are well and truly on our own now. It is strange, it does not feel as upsetting to be cut adrift as I thought it would be." He commented
"We were anticipating it though." Terri pointed out
Melissa activated the galaxy map and Bastila transmitted the last coordinates from her datapad. The five points gathered lit up and the computer started calculating different jump points. Seven possible points emerged. Adding the data from the Resolution eliminated four as they factored the first points from Revan's return.
"So how do we eliminate the rest?" Mission asked
"We use the Force." Melissa said
She opened her lightsaber and took her crystals out. She sat down on the deck and took a meditation position her crystals in her right hand. Juhani followed her example and added her crystals to Melissa's left hand as she took her hand with her right palm up. Bastila and Terri joined the circle, crystals in hand.
Their eyes closed as they merged with the force. Their hair and fur started whipping in the air as the force swirled around them. Gold Silver , platinum and blue swirled around them as their aura's merged. The glow from the crystals in their hands becoming close to eyeblinding. A glow started to spread from them from the deck and started to run along the walls of the Hawke.
Carth and the others jumped to their feet as the Hawke shuddered before dropping from hyperspace. They grabbed for support as the deck tilted as the craft realigned itself, the hyperdrive ran at full pitch moments later before another shudder marked jumping back into hyperspace.
The holomap updated as a new route added itself to the directory of nav points and T 3 came in screeching after being expelled from the navicomputer in the cockpit. The four slumped forward, unconscious and the Hawke's engines returned to the usual pitch as it ran in hyperspace
Carth rubbed his eyes before looking at the sprawled figures before him
"If I did not see that happening before my eyes I would have not believed it." He said
"I still don't and I saw it all." Mission said in a subdued tone.
Canderous bent down and Melissa up.
"Come let us get them to bed and then figure out where we are being taken."
Zaalbar was next up and easily lifted up Terri and Bastila. Unlike Melissa they were not held in a bridal carry and hanged limply under his arms. Mission giggled before pulling out her datapad and recording the images. Carth shook his head before lifting Juhani up. He suppressed his laughter as she started purring in her sleep. He looked to Mission
"Help us tuck them in and no funny business."
"Spoilsport." She groused
Jolee came into view, his hands on his lightsaber ready to deploy his weapon
"Nice of you to finally show up." Mission snarked
Jolee ignored her as he looked at the unconscious forms, his hands tightening on his lightsabers hilt. He froze as HK put the muzzle of a disruptor pistol against his head
"Threatening Statement: Return to your room or I will end you. You will not come near my Mistress."
The droid leaned in and removed the weapon from his hands.
"Statement: This is your final warning return to your room."
Mission had by now drawn her blaster and had it steady in a police grip and trained on him. T3 had made its position clear, its arc welder sparking as it had the unit extended on its manipulator. Jolee stepped back slowly and made his way back to where a room had been set up for him in the former female quarters slash store room.
"Lock him in." Carth ordered T3
"It would be better to throw him out of the airlock." Mission said
"As long is he is alive the Jedi will know we are on mission and will not come hunting for us. They are the only way to get the Republic of our backs." Carth replied
"I know, but a girl can dream." Mission said
Canderous found Carth later studying the galactic map. He handed the other man a beer before sitting down and pointed to the map
"Got any ideas where we are going?" He asked
" The last point is well into the unknown regions." Carth said
He manipulated the map and a planet rose into prominence
"The last place we refuel and restock is here. Geonosis. There is an orbital station maintained by the mining guild for its exploration craft. We will have to divert from our course a bit to get there but if the numbers I am running is correct we will need to or risk being stranded without fuel wherever the final nav point is."
"We can use Geonosis to send a transmission to the Jetti council and dump Bindo. We can no longer trust him on this ship." Canderous replied
"You are right, we need to get rid of him before HK decided he is too much of a threat to Melissa." Carth agreed
"I take it we send the republic only up to Geonosis and withhold the last jump points till we have confirmation of the location." Canderous said
"That seems to be the safest, if we are wrong on the last point they might decide that we were conspiring to set a trap for them." Carth replied.
Canderous finished his drink and got up
"Get some sleep, we will all need as much rest as we can." He said to Carth.
Republic Staging Area. Location Classified
Dodonna was seated in her command chair on the secondary bridge of the Reliant. Holograms were relaying direct footage from the primary bridge. The ship gave the customary shudder as it reverted to realspace, The sensor board lit up as the rest of the fleet jumped in. The monitors became unreadable to the naked eye as fighters were launched.
She looked at her terminal and frowned on seeing the results. Alerk stepped closer
"This is still taking to long and too many units are out of position." Dodonna said
"The results are better than the previous jumps but the degree of error is still too high. The gun crews are also still to slow to report readiness." Alerk commented
"Reports of failure to launch on time for three squadrons. Defective launch bay door on starboard side given as the reason." Darklighter reported
Dodonna stood up and straightened her uniform. The crew seated at their stations kept their attention firmly on their tasks
"Senior officers meeting in fifteen." She said
Alerk typed on her datapad before falling in behind Darklighter and the admiral as they left the secondary bridge. As the door closed behind the group there was a few that exhaled deeply. The whole fleet was on edge and the constant battle drills were not helping ease the tension
Vrook was seated in front of the viewport as Dodonna entered the conference suite. She envied him for the apparent calm he was experiencing and for a moment thought to ask for lessons on meditation if would help her to relax a bit. He come to his feet and moved to his assigned chair. Relations between the Jedi and the fleet were much improved since the expulsion of Lamar.
Reports from Senate intelligence has Lamar at the Senate building almost daily. Though thanks to the Manaan scandal the chancellor has had very little time to see the man, even more so with footage being released simultaneously on Naboo and Alterra of Lamar being implicated through his cats paw Bindo involvement in actions against the Sith embassy that had the senate screaming for reforms.
She looked to the empty chairs to her left that was dedicated to JAG and NCIS. She had personally dispatched them to Manaan to investigate deal with the fallout from the actions of the armed services personnel. The senior officers started filing into the room and took their place behind their allocated chairs. Once they were gathered Dodonna motioned for them to be seated.
Holin lifted a hand indicating that he had information to share, Dodonna nodded at him before turning to Tivars
"I have NCIS and my Chief Petty Officer investigating the reason behind the launch bay door failure, this is the third time we have a maintenance failure in that section. Engineering is insisting on down time for them to do maintenance and service on the hyperdrive systems." Tivars reported
Dodonna turned her attention to the hologram of the Republic dawn master. The woman stiffened as she saw Dodonna's clearly displeased look
"The Dawn is yet again underperforming, your jump telemetry shows jump thirty seconds after designated launch time. Your gun crews are showing as weapons ready two mintes below acceptable time and I am not even going to mention launch time for your squadrons. What the hell is going on on that vessel?" Dodonna demanded
"Mam, with all due respect having to get the ship crew functioning more smoothly will take time. The crew is still green, getting rid of the REMFs and political appointees helped but the replacement officers are just as unused to the systems as the original crews. They are improving but again it will take time." The officer replied stiffly
Dodonna nodded at that and the officer took it for the silent apology it was. A week prior Dodonna had ordered a reshuffle of personnel on the Dawn as the ship was underperforming to an unacceptable degree. That a large part of the ship was officered by officers with political connections or career officers more interested in fleet directives and obscure operational orders did not help, hence the adjective REMF. It stood for what lower ranks called rear echelon mother fuckers, flimsy pushers that had no idea as to what front line operational needs required. The fact was the Dawn was supposed to be allocated to the defence fleet for Coruscant and Dodonna had taken a lot of flak for reallocating the ship to the active group. Suddenly a cushy and flashy posting became a lot more dangerous than anticipated by the group that had found themselves being reassigned or told to shape up or face the consequences. As the officer commanding said getting a really shaken up crew to operate as one took time, something they had very little off.
"Do what you can we need rapid improvement." She told the woman
Dodonna turned her attention to Holin. The officer cleared his throat before speaking
"We managed to get a location for the Ebon Hawke from their last holocom transmissions. The pulse beacon attached gave us a location but by the the time we got a scout ship to the location they were long gone."
"And they are still not responding to the transmissions we are sending them?" Darklighter asked
"No. They are remaining dark, and after Manaan they are not likely to believe anything we send them." Holin said bluntly
He sat forward and placed his hands on the table
" I had my profilers and psychologists take a look at the reports and what they suggested is as disturbing as it was predictable."
"Clarify please." Dodonna said
"They suggest that the crew should have been placed on extended rest and recreation with mandatory counselling before being send back out. We know that the Manaan embassy staff stepped so far out of their remit it is ludicrous, however they have no way of knowing that the embassy staff did so, that is also aggravated by the orders of Lamar to turn command over to someone they don't trust. The profilers believe they were behind the footage of the staff coercing them being released as a method to try and protect themselves."
"You mean as a warning that they will release everything they know if we should try to silence them." Darklighter said
"You saw the footage, there was nothing subtle about that threat to leave them in the cold. We know they have been targeted by bounty hunters while on Manaan and with the soldiers breaching the dock and firing on them shortly after discovering that base and what went on down there, they most likely believe they have death marks on them from us as well as the Sith, though Malak wants them alive first."
Holin rubbed his face
"There is a reason we keep a close eye on high risk and covert operatives. They live in a constant state of fear and paranoia and no matter how disciplined they are sooner or later they need psychiatric help, the safety checks that were ignored here exist for a reason. The profilers suggest they will go to ground and abandon their mission."
"How certain are they of their conclusions?" Dodonna asked
"They believe their profile to be ninety five percent accurate." Holin replied
"And here we are sitting waiting on information that will now most likely never come." Elkars commeneted
Holin's datapad flashed red and with a quick apology to the admiral opened the priority message
"We have a holocom transmission for Master Vandar from the Hawke. They are transmitting directly." He said
Vandar touched the terminal before him and a hologram shifted into view. Bastila and Terri appeared in front of the aged master
"Knights Shan and Cazor, discussing you we were." Vandar greeted them
"We predicted that is the case. We know you are tracking the signal and do not plan on being here for much longer." Bastila said
"It is not that we don't trust you, well actually we still trust you and a few others Masters. As for the rest…" Terri shrugged
Dodonna decided to break in
"We thank you for contacting us. We want you to know the staff on Manaan had no authority to act towards you the way they did." She said
"And can you provide proof as to that?" Terri asked
"Not anything that you would believe at this time." Holin said honestly
"And this is the point where you ask us to come in for our own safety I assume." Bastila snorted
Terri held up a hand to stop any reply
"Even though we have no reason to trust you we will not break faith with you and we will complete your mission. We are at Geonosis for refit before heading out into the unknown regions, As predicted the maps needed the sixth set of coordinates. We have narrowed the location down to three possibilities and will be leaving shortly to scout the first. If we find what we are looking for we will activate the pulse beacon hidden in the holocom and yes we found it. What we don't have is the activation codes in Bindo's possession. He is alive and on the orbital platform outside Geonosis, so to be able to send you the location we need those codes. Incidently Geonosis will be a good staging point for all three locations."
Vandar pulled out his datapad and once it linked to the server send a file
"Codes you have, trust restored I hope. Sorry I am." He said simply
The holograms cut of. Holin tapped away at the terminal
"Location confirmed, Geonosis." He reported
Vandars datapad pinged as it received a file. He opened it and placed the pad onto the table after quickly reading the message
"Mission report on Manaan they send, coordinates of fifth starmap supplied."
"Transmission terminated." Holin reported