Chapter 12
When the senator said we were using her personal yacht for our trip to Naboo and based on the very old memories of another lifetime, I had thought it would be a rather small ship, if luxurious. It had always seemed to me to be the size of a small private jet in the cartoons, and slightly larger in the movies, as the budget allowed it. Padme's actual personal yacht was more like a chrome plated, sleek 737 sized craft, shaped in typical Nubian style of flattened stretched water droplet that also had the distinct look that this was a unique craft - never to be made again. Naboo starships were made as needed to the exact needs of their customers, whether that be their queen, senator or even just a local wealthy business owner.
The ship's size and accoutrements were tailored to the size of their pockets as well, but Padme's yacht also clearly had state backing as she was expected to be able to perform her duties as senator for Naboo on board. So not only did it have personal quarters for her, but also enough accommodation for a security detail and the yacht's crew, which ideally would consist of pilot, navigator and engineer. The yacht was automated enough though that it actually didn't need any crew and its onboard droid complement would suffice, though it was dangerous to do that if things went wrong.
On this occasion, it would be Padme, Captain Typho, C3P0, myself and Jar-Jar Binks on board, with Typho taking it upon himself to pilot.
The journey, however, was no excuse for either Padme or myself to slack off. Our route towards the southern end of the galaxy was the Corellian Run hyperspace lane, and Holonet reception was excellent all the way. She had no problems keeping office hours and doing the business of the Senate projected as a holographic form in whatever meeting she was scheduled to be in.
I was also kept busy catching up on my military studies after the few weeks of R&R and the demands of the war had encroached upon my time.
Admiral Yularen had been quite chuffed in the tone of his letter to me when I sent a bunch of essays and theses his way for moderation. My studies weren't formalized, I had just researched the curriculums for the naval academy on Prefsbelt IV and adapted a self-study routine, which I had Yularen take a look at and he in turn made some adjustments, while continuing to mentor me. It made me wonder if I shouldn't just take that last step and request some sort of distance learning arrangement with the Prefsbelt Academy.
The problem was, with what I knew of the future, it would be a fleeting thing. Even if I got a formal graduation from the academy, I'd barely have time to have it mean something in the GAR, before Order 66 would fall like a ton of bricks on the galaxy. I'd be persona non grata and all records of me would be confiscated then erased from their computers.
The other thing occupying my time on the journey was my studies of the Force and keeping up with developing my lightsaber skills. I couldn't really go crazy with it, as the only space on the yacht that was suitable was one of the lower cargo holds, and given that the cargo in question was the food we were eating, well... It limited me to practicing with my sabers in a training setting and with only three remotes seeking to burn my butt.
The only real occasions we would have to interact was over lunch and dinner in the small integrated kitchenette that had only one table with seating for six at once. They were fairly pleasant occasions, where Padme would ask me of my experiences in the war which would nearly always segue into questions or talking about Anakin and his training of me. These conversations she would always bring up near the end of supper, when neither Jar-Jar or Typho were around. I indulged her curiosity mainly because I knew she missed her secret husband and while as a Republic senator and member of the Loyalist Committee, she had a lot of access to all manner of war reports, it was hardly a substitute for a first hand account of what her husband was doing on the front lines.
Another bit of revelation on the trip was regarding Jar-Jar. Yes, he still had every quality that drove me up the wall, but it was clear that he had clearly received some training from either Padme or someone else. He was fully versed in quite a lot of the work of the Senate, which made sense in retrospect since he was the one who would be called upon should Padme be out of communication for whatever reason and he spent most of his time on-board being a capable assistant to her. Padme somehow had the ability to direct his unique brand of bumbling chaos and had the patience of a saint when dealing with him.
My time aboard the yacht was not all sunshine and daisies. The evening before we were due to emerge from hyperspace into orbit of Naboo found me sneaking about the ship and keeping a careful mental eye on where everyone was. I hated that I had to do this but the fact of the matter was, I needed eyes and ears on not just Padme but also by extension the entire Loyalist Committee.
The problem was the butterflies I was introducing had the potential to affect the mother of bloody Luke Skywalker. If anything happened to her, the galaxy was frakked. I also needed to get intel on the Loyalist Committee, as they were a group Palpatine had gathered specifically because they were all the biggest threats to him politically. So what better way to keep your enemies under your thumb and where you could see them, by gathering them together for the ostensible purposes of being the de-facto political committee that 'ran' the war and were the most 'loyal' to the ideals of the Republic.
So how to get those eyes and ears?
I delved into the Force and shorted out the visual sensor that looked over the small droid bay at the aft of the yacht. Then reached out and flicked the hidden internal switch that properly shut down C3P0, where he was standing in his recharge cradle.
Another flick of TK opened the backplate allowing me access to main circuits leading to and from the verbobrain of the droid. I then inserted a programming spike and triggered it. It took about fifteen nerve wracking seconds to upload the program and I only pulled the spike when it gave me a green light. I removed it and hid it up a sleeve before two quick applications of TK had everything back to normal.
I pressed a button on the recharge cradle and the droid's photoreceptors lit up and it looked at me.
"Oh, Mistress Tano, how may I help you?"
I took a deep breath and spoke in a language that took a fair bit of concentration to use these days, since it actually belonged to my previous life.
"C3P0, activate program echelon one alpha nine zulu."
The English flowed awkwardly from my mouth but I managed it, with a horrible accent.
In contrast the droid responded back in stilted English that would probably improve as the native protocol programming digested the language that I had uploaded.
"Echelon program activated, Mistress Tano. Do you have any… amendments?"
"No, all parameters nomi… nominal. Carry out as pro- programmed."
"Understood Mistress, I will. Signing you out."
C3P0-Echelon shut itself down and returned to its normal operation mode. The next time the droid woke, it would be normal C3P0 again. I couldn't help but feel some guilt at effectively giving one of the most iconic characters of this setting, a multiple personality disorder, but it was the only way. The general security around Padme was just too great for conventional spying methods to work. Even just doing what I just did to C3P0 was only possible with the Force, as there were numerous safeguards that would prevent standard hacking or additions to his physical structure. The only thing that would remain invisible was a software addition and even then impose that software on a hidden partition of C3P0's memory banks, which was further protected by firewalls and even nasty slicing tricks that Hermione had helped me with.
I could only hope that it would be enough.
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The yacht emerged from hyperspace and into the mildly busy orbital space of Naboo. It was a world of verdant blues, greens and extensive cloud formations and for a moment I could almost picture that it was Earth below me on a very cloudy day, but the landmasses of the world were too small and different for me to indulge the fantasy further.
Naboo was a world of fantasy though, made somehow reality. It was a puzzle even to astrophysicists of this galaxy, in that it was a world that did not have a molten core and instead was merely a gravitational agglomeration of large rocky celestial bodies, the gaps between which formed a mind bogglingly vast network of flooded tunnels and caves, and the spillover created the oceans. It created its electromagnetic field to protect it from the local star by the vast quantities of unique plasma that occurred naturally in the planet's interior.
I had read a few scientific articles that were available on Naboo plasma during the journey and it only left me with a headache each time I tried to comprehend. The only thing that scientists could agree on was that they didn't have the first clue on how the planet could naturally produce the stuff. To standard science, for plasma to exist, you had to take a gas and ionize it. Plasmas could exist at varying temperatures, but Naboo plasma somehow had the property of extremely strong magnetization and high energetic potential while still being able to exist at ambient levels of temperature. This meant it could be relatively easily harvested for both energy production and was extremely useful in the further creation of building materials. This unique resource had also been a motivator for the Trade Federation blockade of the planet all those years ago.
The activity in orbit around the planet was centered around the large, blocky Golan Space Defense Platform that hovered within weapons range of the hyperspace emergence and acted now as a customs station and first line of defense for the world. That it was there was due to the simple fact that even Palpatine would not want the PR black eye of being seen to leave his own homeworld unprotected this close to the Outer Rim and the CIS.
Typho and Padme's presence meant that we were given priority clearance to descend towards Theed and the iconic palace. The views from the bridge of the yacht would've sent the old Renaissance masters into rapture and then promptly to begin painting. I fixed the journey in my memory and wondered how I could ever find the will to leave such a beautiful place. If there was ever a place I would consider retirement to, it would be here.
The yacht came to a hover just outside the massive Royal hangar, turned on the spot and slowly entered aft first, coming to a perfect landing.
I was back in my combat armor, with my Jedi robe hanging over my shoulders and arms to give some formality to the occasion. The aft ramp lowered and Typho exited first, followed by Padme, Jar-Jar, then myself with C3P0 trailing last.
We were met by the current Queen of Naboo, Neeyutnee, who had a single burly RNSF bodyguard standing watch over her.
Like all Naboo monarchs in the last few centuries, Neeyutnee was a young teenager, who was perhaps as old as I was. It was hard to tell with all the makeup and the crazy hairdo that was slightly more conservative than what Padme had typically worn. Her working outfit was an elaborate purple-red dress, with a flowing black overcoat. Padme greeted her monarch by clasping arms and very carefully hugging her while the rest of us bowed. This was due to the fact that she was a former queen and that societal status didn't really go away on Naboo when she retired from the office after her term limit.
"My lady, it's good to see you again."
"And you, Padme," Neeyutnee greeted her warmly.
"Has there been any more news?"
The queen shook her head, "The RNSF have been searching and running scans for days now, but no more droids have been detected. You know as well as I do, that such generalized scanning on Naboo is difficult, it would be very easy for droids to hide among all the interference the plasma generates. We have made more progress with the wreckage of the war droids that were found. Their memory banks were finally decrypted yesterday. Colonel Panaka is waiting to brief you on the findings."
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The RNSF was headquartered in an annex attached to Theed Palace and it had a distinct resemblance to a disturbed beehive at the moment with troopers, technicians and support staff moving and coordinating between their offices and being deployed to various shuttles. The starfighter corps were also being deployed to do aerial searches in a grid pattern and coordinating that, as well as gathering their data was proving to be a monumental task.
We met Colonel Panaka in his office on one of the upper floors of the annex. It was a modest, purely functional office with little personal embellishment, but the walls were packed with computer screens and displays showing various areas of interest; from deep space system wide scans to orbital views of Naboo from the Golan space station. Panaka and Padme greeted each other as old friends but they quickly got down to business.
He greeted me with rare seriousness and I sensed his respect. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Commander Tano. When I heard you were traveling with the senator, I took the liberty of reviewing your record. I am glad to have you here and with General Skywalker arriving in a few days, I'm sure that we'll get to the bottom of this."
I blinked in surprise, "Thank you, Colonel. What have you found?"
"Nothing good, I'm afraid."
He pressed a button on his computer and the largest screen behind him lit up with data and blurry fragmented images from what I recognized as the visual memory from a droid but very corrupted.
"Though the droids were intercepted in the grasslands of the Sissirgo continent, there were swampland mud traces on large portions of their chassis including a rare insect breed that can only be found in the eastern swamps of that continent."
"So we have a general location to refine the search at least."
"Yes, but those swamps are impossible to survey from the air, so if the CIS are there, the only way we're going to find them is by ground level search with boots on the ground."
"Which will in turn alert them if we attempt that," I pointed out.
"Indeed, and in light of other evidence is something we want to avoid."
"What do you mean, Colonel?" Padme asked in confusion.
"Though we decrypted the droid's memories, they sustained significant damage in the fighting. We didn't get as much as we would've hoped for, given the pain it was getting these decryption codes from Republic Intelligence. What we did get was droid logic paths that indicated the need to protect a laboratory and that work on a virus had to be completed at all costs."
Padme looked at the displayed map of the Sissirgo swamps and I could feel both worry and dread settle in her mind, then an indignant anger and rage. "So in summary, you're saying we have a confirmed Seperatist presence in these swamps and indications that they are working on a biological weapon?"
"Correct, Senator. Therefore sending in a company of RNSF troops into those swamps could be exactly what the Separatists want, to infect them with whatever virus this is and spread it throughout the Naboo population. The planet would be quarantined by the Republic and in turn the Separatists could swoop in with a conventional invasion again, with enough strength they could overwhelm any potential Republic defenders and then move on to the planet, only this time there would be no one left healthy enough to fight against them."
I nodded at the conjecture, "It is a likely plan, Colonel, but it lacks the true scope. Naboo, for all its value culturally, the unique resource of the plasma and being the Chancellor's homeworld, is not a critical world. To the Separatists, it would be a 'nice to have' and given its history with the Trade Federation, I'm sure they'd like revenge for the defeat of their invasion."
Panaka frowned in thought, "Then what am I missing?"
"Naboo is merely being used to hide the creation of the virus, my guess is that its true target would actually be the many worlds along the Corellian Run hyperspace lane. The CIS has lately been funneling funds and resources into development of weaponry with a distinct anti-biological theme, which given their droid armies make perfect sense to do from their perspective."
Panaka slammed his hand in frustration on his desk. "You'd think Republic Intelligence would at least send out a warning to the governments of their member worlds."
"You're being informed now, Colonel Panaka," I retorted. "You know the problem with sharing intel so broadly."
He sighed and rubbed his face wearily. "This means our options are reduced to an infiltration or a special operation, something the RNSF is not equipped or trained for."
"I am prepared to go alone if I must, though I will need to requisition and modify a droid," I offered.
"Absolutely not," Padme shook her head. "As capable a Jedi as you are, Commander, there's no telling how many droids you would be facing."
"If I was intending to fight them openly, Senator, I would agree with you. We also can't afford to wait for Master Skywalker and Kenobi to arrive. The Separatists here know their cover is partially blown. Whatever plans they have for this virus are being set in motion as we speak. We need to interdict the airspace over the swamps. Nothing can be allowed to leave."
"You realize the risk then of shooting down any CIS ship trying to leave, if it's carrying the virus?" Panaka pointedly asked.
"We have no idea of the particulars of this virus," I nodded. "We have to assume the worst case scenario, that it's airborne and deadly. Therefore, the interception must happen in space and use high yield proton torpedoes to completely obliterate whatever spacecraft they're using."
"Agreed, I'll issue the orders, we'll release a statement that all this activity from our starfighters is just a readiness exercise. In the meantime, I know that you Jedi can pull off some crazy things but I can't sign off on that. What I will agree to is that you go on a recon. Get in, find out what we are dealing with and get out. No fighting, no crazy heroics, just recon and remain unnoticed."
"Very well, Colonel."
"Commander Tano, can I speak to you in private before you leave?" Padme asked and I sensed a strange urgency running through her and even a prickling from the Force.
She led me away from Panaka's office down the main hall to a conference room where she closed the door behind us. Then moving to a lectern that would be used by whoever was doing a briefing for the security troops. She fiddled with the controls on it and I could vaguely sense that she had just triggered the local equivalent of a white noise generator.
Now I was really curious, but kept my patience as Padme walked to me and from a pocket produced a small datapad. She handed it to me with a troubled look. "You'll need this."
I tapped on the pad and was somewhat shocked when it displayed schematics of a rather intricate bunker complex, with multiple levels, storage areas, hydroponics, armories, and a shuttle docking platform. It was like I was looking at Vault-tec fallout shelter, but as it would've been built in the Corusca galaxy minus the creepy social and technological experiments. It also neatly showed the exact coordinates of where it was, deep in the Sissirgo swamps.
"Is this where the Separatists are, senator?"
"Almost certainly," Padme answered with a grim look. "What you are seeing is a secret that's kept at the highest levels of government. Only the monarch, minister for state and the general of the RNSF are now informed of the existence of these bunkers. That circle was much broader when I was queen, but there was no other choice if we wanted to get these built to possibly make a difference in time."
She folded her hands behind her back and began pacing in visible agitation.
"Ahsoka, we've had a long time to worry about the Trade Federation or someone else trying to once again take our home by force. When the invasion was over, we spent almost all our efforts to repair and rebuild, but in my second term as queen I secretly began an initiative to look into defensive measures, ways to protect my people without having to go through a complete militarization."
"From what I know of Naboo culture, your people wouldn't support that or be willing to bear the burden of a conscription."
"Exactly, but we still needed to defend ourselves. So one of the ways we thought of was to address the problems our people had during the Federation invasion, a safe place of retreat that was hidden and from which we could also mount a resistance."
"It's a good idea, and I assume you also had other measures?"
"Yes, but you'll forgive me if I don't enlighten you about them."
I shook my head with a brief smile, "Senator, I understand completely. You've already had a security breach in the fact that the CIS knows about these bunkers."
"I just wish I knew how," she sighed wearily. "Their intelligence capabilities are ridiculously good."
"You must remember that the head of the CIS is a former Jedi, senator. Count Dooku's skill in the Force is legendary and only Master Yoda is his superior in that area. It allows for abilities to divine information that are way beyond anything mundane. One can foresee the future, for example. Not perfectly and your personal bias clouds things, but with enough skill and talent, it's possible. Combine this with Dooku's natural leadership, tactical genius and charisma..."
"Then it's no wonder he seems to be able to confound the Republic at every turn," she groused.
"Well, in any case, I thank you for the information, senator. With this I should be able to begin my mission tonight."
"May the Force be with you, Ahsoka."
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"Are you sure you don't want to be dropped closer?" Captain Typho questioned. His voice echoed tinnily across the radio from within his environmental suit.
"Can't risk it," I shook my head awkwardly from within my own armor's vac helmet. "They might have installed all sorts of remote passive sensors in the swamps and it'd take too long to navigate conventionally. This is the only way."
"This is still insane, crazy, I can't believe this."
"Thankfully, your lack of belief does not affect reality," I declared wryly with a crooked smile. "Depressurize the shuttle and open the hatch."
I walked to the rear of the shuttle and double checked all my gear, using the procedure to settle my nerves and banish the fear after a quick recital of the litany. I was glad that I had decided to not leave it aboard the Resolute and had resolved to always ship my 'war gear' with me wherever I went.
This would be only the third time I've done this and the first time I'd be doing it alone.
I checked the pressure readout on my gauntlet as it was slowly going down and soon enough the sound of the shuttle's engines were fading away and I could only feel them through my feet.
The rear hatch on the Naboo shuttle opened and exposed the brilliant and beautiful vista of Naboo, as it was from just over forty kilometers above its surface. The curvature of the planet was easily seen and the stark contrast of the black void of space above was breathtaking. That it was nighttime below me made that view even more spectacular as I could see the terminator line marking the division between night and day at this altitude.
"We're over the coordinates, coming to a relative stop," announced Typho.
I took a deep breath, stepped up to the edge of the shuttle cabin, beyond which was the extremely thin atmosphere at this altitude, so thin it was just as good as full vacuum for effect. Then pushed through the natural hesitancy and the primitive part of my mind gibbering in terror, took three brief steps onto the shuttle's ramp and let gravity do its thing with the new object that had come into its grasp.
The feeling of acceleration surged through me briefly before my body settled into the new equilibrium. The thin wisps of atmosphere began to push against me with ever increasing strength as my falling speed increased.
I was already moving so fast that I could spot the shuttle above me out of my peripheral vision and it was tiny as it continued on its journey to make it look like it had just passed by overhead.
Thirty seconds into my freefall, a look at my gauntlet's display told me I was approaching the speed of sound in Naboo's atmosphere, then swiftly shot past that level. I reached about 1180 kilometers per hour before the ever increasing atmosphere began to slow me down again and the rushing sound of air blasting over my falling form could be heard through my helmet.
I embraced the Force and started to unfurl my telekinesis around me, pulling on the air and creating invisible 'control surfaces' from arms and legs to help control my freefall, essentially creating the mystical equivalent of wearing a squirrel suit. Training for falling and how to control it was something Jedi younglings learned and it was further refined to the point where you had padawan Obi-wan Kenobi being able to easily tank falls from great heights during his first fight with Darth Maul. I was doing the same thing, but way more refined and it also took knowing what forces you would have to deal with.
With my Force 'squirrel suit', I was now in a skydiver freefall and using it to travel forward towards the Sissirgo swamps, my speed constantly slowed until I hit a stable terminal velocity of about 140 kilometers per hour. The issue now was to get rid of the remaining velocity. You could take two approaches, the first was to use the Force… and that was doable, but would've left me utterly spent and exhausted. The ideal way would be the use of a device I had worked with Anakin to design, which was currently mounted on the lower portion of my back.
It was another three minutes of what could now be considered a fast glide, when the swamps below me were looming in my vision and I was barely three hundred meters above the ground. A tap of the button on my belt, engaged the stripped down, small, but still highly potent inertial dampener on my back that was configured to specifically work with my weight. It did the job of rendering my effective mass near zero and let me use an impulse of the Force against the rapidly approaching earth.
My descent rate was now a mere fifty kilometers per hour, and another Force push slowed it down further to a mere fifteen. I unfurled my Force TK on the air again, just as if I was doing a normal fall and aimed my legs between a gap in the tree canopy.
My feet hit the sloshy, muddy ground with a slight splash and it was easy to absorb the rest of the fall with just a minor bending of my legs. I switched off the dampener and regarded my surroundings.
In the gloom of night with only slight rays of moonlight leaking through the canopy above, it made for a very eerie scene. My normally super sensitive montrals which would've been very useful in the low light environment were rather useless in the confines of my helmet, but through the Force I could sense the abundant life around me with no significant predators to worry about or any immediate electronics within a hundred meter radius.
A quick look on the small datapad strapped to my right arm, confirmed my position and let me orient myself. The bunker was about two kilometers east and I began heading off into that direction with a steady pace. Moving silently between the trees, I was careful to keep my footfalls as light as possible, while quick applications of the Force with every step prevented any sound from radiating.
Infiltration of a Separatist base was a problem that Anakin and I had brainstormed quite a bit since I began my apprenticeship with him. The fruits of this I had finally deployed during the battle that had captured General Dod. The main bit of kit that he had developed was a device that was attached to any standard combat utility belt and neatly obscured the wearer's life signs from passive detection. A military or scientific sensor's ability to passively detect the very distinctive yet weak EM signal of the nervous system of any biological being was naturally limited by range. The sensors you could deploy within your base were also influenced by the natural EM surroundings and energy emissions. The 'Biological Obscuring Device' or BOD, essentially took the natural ambient EM flux of any environment and blended the life sign emission into that.
It didn't protect you from an active scan emission, but if the CIS was throwing active scans out, then it generally meant that they already knew you were there and then the BOD was pointless.
I finally found the first sign of active electronics about half a kilometer from the base, a rather simple pressure pad under the surface of the swampy ground with a small simple transmitter that was no more sophisticated than to indicate that it had been stepped on. It was part of a distinct perimeter of such sensors. To defeat this was as easy as stepping over them.
At four hundred meters, there was a more sophisticated laser tripwire net and motion sensor combination, but I sensed it had minimal power and was not active. Not surprising, it was a pointless system, since it would be set off with every single animal and bird passing near them. The tactical droids had clearly followed their procedures to the letter in setting up their position but didn't have the wisdom or foresight to understand how useless such a system was. Even the pressure sensors would also be giving a bunch of false positives.
The true problem came as I reached a mere hundred meters from the bunker and found a handy thick tree to hide behind. I was sensing fully active visual sensors placed in a tight perimeter that was looking down onto the bunker area, nailed into the trees. I had to give the Naboo full marks for hiding this bunker. The only visual clue you got that it even might be there was a twenty odd meter diameter clearing, (and there were many such clearing both larger and smaller) underneath which, according to the schematics was a bay door that hid a fifteen meter shaft for a rising shuttle pad.
Hiding from visual sensors and cameras was a lot more complicated. Personal cloaking fields was something that had been around in the Old Republic era but rather frustratingly, the technology had been lost in the galactic interregnum of the Sith Wars before the Ruusan Reformation. Using the Force itself for invisibility was something that was still a long term project, but I was hopeful I would pull it off one day but in the meantime Anakin and I had figured out an alternative solution.
Using my technometry, I could sense where the visual sensors were. Then with a precise application of the Force, short them out just enough that they weren't destroyed, but went on the fritz, showing only static for a number of seconds. This was more than enough time to slip past the field of view of the sensor and continue on. The same technique could be applied to most droids even, B1 and B2 super battle droids being the easiest to fool into a logic loop, where they would just complain about having faulty visual sensors and needing maintenance, before their eyes would come back and dismissing the problem as a glitch and that to report it would be a waste of time.
The problem I faced now was with the overlapping camera views covering the clearing. There would be no way to infiltrate from this route. The bunker had more subtle access points thankfully, intended for guerilla fighters to exit covertly and come back.
These were camouflaged hatches hidden in hollowed trunks of trees. There were four such entrances sprinkled about the bunker complex and it was a rather nerve wracking, slow process to quietly scout them. At each, I would carefully sit down, out of sight of the camera watching over the entrance and with the Force carefully probe and use Farsight to determine which entrance would be the easiest to use for my purposes. The entrance's defenses beyond simple camouflage was not just a camera; there were sensors on the doors themselves to indicate if they were opened, they were also made of nearly two inch thick steel. I could also sense a number of patrolling droids through the corridors below, mostly B1s and occasionally a utility droid that would be doing maintenance duty.
The number of droids I was sensing was concerning as well. In a normal situation, I'd at least want two companies of the 501st Clone battalion with me for a straight assault. The only way for the droid's numbers to be so high would be either a slow build up over time or they'd stuffed the asteroid black ops ship to the gills with droids and equipment. That was when I sensed the only biological lifeform below me in the bunker complex, near a strong concentration of life and energy that surrounded… him, that had to be Dr. Vindi. A brief glance at my map of the bunker showed that it was definitely coming from the hydroponics section of the bunker, which had most likely been converted into the lab that was producing his engineered virus, but now I need to confirm it.
I carefully got to my knees and faced the large tree with its hidden entrance and began carefully feeling at the base. I unlatched my lightsaber and aimed the hilt, using the Force to feel forward and find the right angle. I triggered the blade, making a quick twist of my wrist and in the next instant shut the blade off.
My senses were strained to the limit to pick up any indication of an alert going off.
The seconds ticked by very slowly.
No changes in the droid movements.
Vindi's position stayed the same in his lab.
Only two minutes later did I relax and inspected the small, glowing red tunnel I had made, that had cut diagonally straight down into the ingress shaft of the bunker. Next I opened a large pouch on my hip and brought forth the result of what had taken the most time to prepare for the mission.
If there was one benefit to being the apprentice to Anakin Skywalker few people considered, then it was his technical engineering acumen and that no one studying under him would be allowed to remain ignorant of such matters. The amount of time I'd spent with him tinkering on the Twilight, the various starfighters and the Resolute itself could be counted almost alongside our time spent in lightsaber dueling instruction.
I was nowhere near the engineering savant he was and would ever be, but I sure as heck could build a basic droid by now and I'd had free access to the RNSF droid maintenance facility in their annex.
This droid was about the size of my hand, the rough shape of a hockey puck, painted in matt black and propelled itself with a small repulsor and near silent air thrusters. It had the photoreceptor from an R3, and a verbobrain cannibalized from an MSE droid. I didn't have the time to do proper from scratch programming of the verbobrain, so I simply patched and modded the existing MSE programming. Anakin would laugh at it and call it hopelessly crude but with the limited testing I'd been able to do, it would work.
I reached into my new SPY droid with the Force and it blinked into life, its photoreceptor lighting up with an ever shifting spectrum of colors. It lifted itself into the air off my hand and regarded its new surroundings.
The small datapad strapped to my arm blinked with light and a small text message appeared.
SPY-1 ready.
"Good, you know what to do, off you go SPY."
Affirmative, mistress.
The little droid turned and slowly flitted down the tunnel I'd made and infiltrated the bunker.
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Obi-wan maintained his serene outward façade while inwardly laughing in amusement at the impatience of his former student. Here they were, in the belly of a cramped LAAT gunship speeding through the atmosphere of Naboo, surrounded by members of 1st Company, Alpha squad of the 501st Clone battalion and Anakin still managed to find the room to pace and worry.
"Anakin relax," he admonished. "Ahsoka is clearly fine, didn't she tell you so?"
"Our contact through the Force was brief, she couldn't afford the attention to tell me more than the basics."
"And just what were those basics?"
"That she's sitting on top of a fortified bunker filled with droids and a very deadly virus being developed inside. Oh, and she did a solo space jump to do it."
Obi-wan would never admit to feeling a hint of dread at the mere thought of doing that. "Only you, Anakin, would be blessed with a padawan capable of even crazier freefall antics than you did in your day," he grinned wryly.
"Well, you can't deny the advantage it gives. If we can modify the jetpack that the troopers wear with my micro-dampener, we could drop entire companies on any planet quickly and attack from advantageous positions."
"I do see the possibilities, Anakin. We mustn't get ahead of ourselves though. It remains to be seen if the 'credit counters' of the Senate will give the funding for it to be so broadly adopted."
Anakin scoffed, "If there's one group of people that could potentially lose us the war, then it's those misers."
Any further conversation was halted when the small holostation at the front of the troop compartment started wailing for attention with an incoming com request. Obi-wan awkwardly squeezed through the troops and opened the com line. The familiar image of Captain Typho resolved in the small holotank.
"Greetings Master Kenobi, good to see you again."
"And you, Captain. What is the situation?"
"Not good, I'm afraid. Commander Tano has been steadily providing us with intelligence from her surveillance on the bunker and we've identified who's in charge down there." The holo of a very tall, pale blue skinned faust appeared, clad in a white isolation suit. "This is Doctor Nuvo Vindi. He was a senior medic for the Perma family medical consortium, but disappeared ten years ago. He's now working with the Separatists and has not only recreated the Blue Shadow Virus, but also aerosolized and weaponized it."
Obi-wan's mind whirled in alarm as he recalled his own studies of history. That virus had plagued the galaxy hundreds of years ago and had contaminated the water tables of hundreds of planets, killing millions before it was successfully isolated and enough treatment facilities could be brought to bear on the contaminated worlds. If that virus became airborne, it would lead to death on a scale that would be incomprehensible.
"They plan to send these virus bombs to star systems across the Republic on most of the major trade lanes. Our analysis indicates that if even moderately successful, the Separatists would be able to cut the galaxy in half with quarantines. Not to mention that only the GAR has the raw manpower to enforce it."
"Effectively crippling the army's ability to go on any offensive." Obi-wan reasoned. "Did Commander Tano relay anything to indicate that Vindi was also working on a vaccine for the virus?"
"No, she specifically looked for something like that and Vindi was purely working on making the virus and enhancing its lethality."
"That's insane," Anakin shook his head. "There is no formal trade or travel between the CIS and Republic, but there's a lot of smuggling going on in both directions. The virus would eventually affect even their space."
"Commander Tano has reported that in her observations of Vindi, that he is, and I quote, 'Not playing with a full sabacc deck.' She has observed in the last two days that he regularly holds meetings with his droids and holds egotistical monologues with them on his accomplishments."
"Oh great, one of those," Anakin commented grimly.
"All right, send us the coordinates for the bunker and schematics."
Typho's holo vanished to be replaced by an underground bunker structure diagram that inspired some awe in Obi-wan and also raised quite a few questions.
"We've highlighted entry points which can be created with explosives," Typho continued, "the main lab and where the armory holding the bombs are located here and here." The indicated positions on the holo flared in green.
"Understood, Captain." Obi-wan consulted with the gunship's computer briefly. "We can be at those coordinates in forty minutes from our current position."
"Very well… wait, incoming encrypted transmission for you. It's from Commander Tano."
Ahsoka appeared in the holo, only her upper body was rendered, but her head was encased in her armor's vac helmet, yet she clearly looked like she had spent a few days in the rough outdoors.
"Masters, it's good of you to finally show up."
"Good to see you again, Ahsoka," Obi-wan smiled warmly at her. "What do you have for us?"
"It appears Vindi is about ready to unleash his plan. His droids finished assembling the last bombs a few hours ago and his supply of virus is encapsulated. All that has to happen is the two brought together and smuggled out to the targets."
"We're going to need a diversion from you. Do you have any explosives with you?"
"Of course," she said simply. "I brought enough to level the entire upper section of the bunker and seal it off, if I had to."
"Nothing so dramatic will be necessary this time, padawan," Obi-wan commented, even as he admired the foresight it demonstrated. "Merely create an entrance for yourself. Rex and his squad will take point and join you as soon as you do so."
"Master, I also highly recommend that you all button up for this fight, everyone must be geared for vac fighting. There's no telling what might get damaged in the fight and if the virus storage gets damaged and leaks… then we'd be in trouble. Not to mention I think Vindi is crazy and spiteful enough to have a failsafe in place to release the virus anyway."
Obi-wan nodded in understanding, "Very well, begin any preparations on your end."
"Understood Masters, I'll be ready."
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In my little hiding place a mere fifteen meters from my selected breach point of the bunker, I began to limber my body and work out the stiffness and kinks using both motion and the Force to aid the process. As much as I had been given survival training in any number of weather conditions that could confront me, two things I hated the most, the cold and feeling dirty. The latter was stupid, especially in a survival situation where my life could be on the line, but there was just something about grime, sweatiness and dirt that just rubbed me the wrong way. I'd had a degree of germophobia in my previous life that had carried over into this one as a disdain and annoyance at being dirty. I'd felt safe cracking my armor's seals and letting the life support system refresh itself only after I'd observed Vindi's virus production operation.
Contrary to the show, the faustian was very meticulous and wouldn't let the virus escape into the river, which in turn killed the domesticated animals of the gungan, which conveniently pointed the way. Vindi had recreated and engineered the Blue shadow virus from scratch and wasn't about to let it advertise his position. The tactical droids had also only gone on their fateful patrol because of his lack of experience in commanding them, as such they had defaulted to standard procedures and blown the existence of the operation. He wasn't in panic mode yet, but had accelerated his time table.
I carefully stood into a crouch and brought both my lightsabers to hand, carefully judging the distance of the incoming gunships via the very handy beacon that was my connection through the Force to Anakin.
The time was now and I pressed the transmit button on my gauntlet's radio.
The loud crack and rumble of the explosion resounded instantly around me. The shockwave was deflected by the thick tree I was behind, but a telekinetic bubble did the rest of the job of dealing with the sound and the overpressure.
I waited a count of eight seconds before running forward.
Four seconds later I paused at the lip of a smoking hole in the swampy ground, revealing a corridor beneath.
The first LAAT gunship came to a stop over my head and dropped ropes.
I gave a slight hop and landed with a crouch in the circular bunker corridor, my lightsaber blades snapped into existence.
A patrol of four B1s further down the corridor snapped to attention and began sending blaster bolts my way.
I walked forward, steadily deflecting the shots, as Rex and a dozen of his fellow clone soldiers slid down the ropes behind me.
I changed my deflections to send the bolts straight back to the droids, as Rex and his fellows opened fire, reducing the droid patrol to smoking heaps of useless metal.
"Welcome to the party Rex."
"Thank you, Commander," his amusement was clear even through his helmet's speakers.
Droid power sources started to ping on my senses, "Incoming."
A squad of four B2s, supported by two B1s turned the corner and opened fire instantly.
I was forced on the defensive as the bunker corridor wasn't made at all for fighting like this. There was no cover at all, so I had to be the cover for the troopers. I sent the incoming fire back as best I could, and continued to advance. Then shot myself forward low into a roll with the aid of the Force.
The lead B2 was sliced in half by my right blade, while my left blade was blurring under the control of my TK, deflecting the fusillade of shots more wildly, but enough that they didn't hit the troopers behind me.
Another roll and forward flip, and a horizontal slash disabled two B1s.
Rex's fire from their DC 15 rifles and his squad swiss cheesed another B2, allowing me to bypass it to give swift slashes to the remaining B2s that sent them falling to the floor in pieces.
The steady clattering of metal on metal heralded the arrival of two droidekas.
Before they could unfurl or deploy their shields I had stalled one completely in my telekinetic grip before crushing it into scrap, then promptly used it to smash into the other. It upset its rolling enough so that it unbalanced and ended up on its side. This allowed me enough time to sprint the distance and with quick slashes of my blades, rendered it to pieces of glowing metal.
Yet another larger squad of B1 droids appeared and this time I pulled on the floor, ripping up the steel paneling, including numerous pieces of the droids we had just destroyed. It all came flying through the air, which combined to create mobile cover which easily absorbed the storm of fire now being sent our way. Rex instantly deduced what I was doing and took advantage. Ordering his troops to cluster behind me and started to pop out to send shots back.
In this manner we wrecked another two squads of droids as we headed into the bunker, working our way towards the hydroponics section.
That was when we ran out of opponents.
"Seems our diversion has run its course, commander," Rex pointed out.
My wrist communicator beeped urgently for attention.
"Ahsoka, I've secured Vindi," Anakin's voice blasted at me, "I couldn't incapacitate him before he managed to send out an order to every droid in the bunker. They're all gunning for the armory to blow it up. There's enough to collapse the bunker, but not incinerate it. The virus will most likely be released into the atmosphere. Get your squad to reinforce Obi-wan at the armory."
"On my way, master."
A gesture of command to Rex and we were running as fast as we could.
The bunker wasn't the easiest to navigate, but the Naboo had built it to be used by normal people and signs were laid into the curved tunnel walls, including colored strips that ran along the floor.
We arrived in one of the two corridors that led to the armory to find it already under siege by what had to be every remaining droid in the bunker.
The armory doors were partially open, with the muzzles of blasters poking out and shooting as fast as they could cycle. Trying to keep the crowd of droids from getting their manipulators on the thick reinforced doors. Occasionally, I sensed the Force gathering and being blasted outward as Obi-wan used Force Pushes to aid in the effort.
Our arrival was met with the rear guard of war droids turning and opening fire on us immediately.
I reached out and bent the steel wall panels on either side of the corridor, creating cover for the clone squad, while my blades blurred in front of me to send blaster fire back to the droids.
I managed to inch forward, ripping more wall panels as I went, this time sending them edge first down the corridor with a burst of TK. My first shots in this manner missed, merely bouncing off the chests of the B1s, but fouled their aim and interrupted their shots. The clones took immediate advantage and managed to make excellent shots that downed the droids with only a single hit.
My next projectile was aimed true, managing to completely sever the heads off three B1 droids.
I stopped my advance, not wanting to give the clones the added worry of hitting me and giving them a clean sight line. Then pulled the wall panel back and sent it down range again, taking out two B1s this time.
Fighting the B2s in the droid formation was not so easy. The wall panels just didn't have enough mass for me to really make any difference to what was essentially a walking tank. I threw my left lightsaber, grabbing it with the Force and sent it spinning in a lethal fan of light down into the mass of droids.
Caught in a pincer of fire from the front and back and my lightsaber the droids in the corridor were mowed down. It felt like it was taking forever and despite my best efforts, two clones were killed in the fight.
Finally, when the last droid fell, the door to the armory swung open, allowing us access. Inside was a very strange scene of ordered fighting like something straight out of the Napoleonic era of muskets.
Two clones were keeping a firm grip on the other entrance to the armory, whilst three others were shooting through the gap of the door. The instant a clone's blaster rifle neared empty, he would signal and another trooper would take his place, allowing him to retreat and reload.
Another group of clones were steadily working their way along the large racks of the armory, which were filled with beach ball sized devices that thankfully looked quite inert, but they were all steadily working to disarm the explosives or at least make them safe enough that no droid could come in and set them off.
"Rex, add your squad to their efforts," I pointed at the clones on bomb duty.
The clone nodded and got his squad in order before heading off into the armory racks. I joined Obi-wan who was standing a few feet behind the defending clone troopers.
"Thank you for that, Ahsoka," he let out a breath and gave a mild pushing gesture towards the door. The Force bulged and flexed before surging forth in a strong wave that was invisible to normal senses. It crashed upon a number of droids in the corridor that were getting too close, who were flung back to impact on their brethren who were behind them.
"How many Force pushes have you thrown?"
"Many," he replied wryly. "I don't think I've given myself such a workout since my own time as a padawan under Master Jinn."
I cast my senses out, "Master Skywalker is almost here."
A new crescendo of blaster fire joined in the din that was coming from beyond the door. "About time."
Anakin was his usual efficient self and did a fair impression of a lawnmower through the squads of droids beyond the door with able support from the troopers. He entered the armory and I didn't even have time to greet him before Rex hurried forward from among the racks of bombs.
"Generals, we have a problem. There is a bomb missing. We think a utility droid may have snuck in through a ventilation duct and went out the same way."
"There is only one place that droid would go next," Obi-wan declared grimly. "Leave one squad to continue with the bombs here, everyone else to the hydroponics section. Move!"
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"SPY come in!" I shouted into my wrist com as we ran through the bunker.
"Yes mistress?" the little droid audibly replied in binary.
"Get to the hydroponics section, use the air ducts, look for a utility droid carrying a spherical bomb. If you find it, keep your distance and update me immediately."
"Understood, mistress."
My lightsaber lit and lashed out, slicing a utility droid in two as we ran past it. A steady, occasional blaster shot rang out as Rex and the trooper squad following blasted any type of droid we came across. It was a pain to do. Companies built most droids that worked in maintenance, repair and utility, not only for plain function but also to appeal to organic eyes and sensibilities as much as possible. They generally looked harmless, inoffensive and in some cases, cute. Simply so they wouldn't irritate people as they went about their very necessary jobs. Now we had no choice but to destroy them, because it was just too dangerous. One had already got it in it's little verbobrain to follow Vindi's order.
We were barely a level away from hydroponics when SPY's com line lit up.
"Mistress, I have found it. It's about thirteen meters away from hydroponics in the primary air circulation system."
Shit, we wouldn't get there in time.
"SPY, send me its exact coordinates, do anything to delay it, stop it or distract it."
"Yes, mistress."
We continued on and rather frustratingly were slowed down by having to deal with more droids and by the time we had ascended a level to the coordinates found that it was already over.
Anakin and his squad of troopers were already in the hydroponics section. It had been converted into a lab that any scientist would dream of having, banks of analysis computers, DNA manipulators, chemistry facilities, refrigeration… the list went on. What caught the eye though, were the two large tanks to one side which had an extruder and a long line of glass vials filled with a blue gas swirling inside, from which radiated life.
Anakin stood over a destroyed utility droid while idly inspecting my SPY droid, which was cradled in his right hand. The sparks it was occasionally emitting did not bode well and told the story.
"Your work, snips?" I extinguished my lightsabers and nodded with a sigh. "Well, you should be proud of this little guy. He kept the utility droid so busy and annoyed, it dropped the bomb to fight with him."
He handed over the small droid and I reached into the internals with the Force, deactivating an internal switch. It stopped the sparking from the damaged power cell and let me see that SPY had practically bent its internal frame from repeatedly ramming into the utility droid's chassis. I resolved right then to repair and upgrade the little thing. Its value over the last few days had been immense.
"Now the question is what to do about that," Anakin pointed at the viral tanks.
"Incinerate it," I replied instantly.
"Easy to say, snips. There's none of the safety systems that these labs usually have. No incinerator and any other method I've thought of is too risky."
"The Naboo will have to build a suitable incinerator here and guard this place," I eventually said. "It means the virus remains, but at least it won't be released by accident then."
"I think we need to have a little chat with Vindi," he declared grimly and gestured for me to follow.
We left the makeshift lab and the walk allowed me to see what shambles had been made of the bunker in the battle's aftermath; the scoring and pitting of blaster fire on the walls, the debris and parts of the CIS droids and the solemn duty of caring for the bodies of the clone troopers who had died.
It was not something that had been dealt with in the show and it was a rare documentary that even touched on the subject in my previous life. After every battle, a squad would be designated to carry out the grim task of 'recovery' duty. Clone troopers were only buried on worlds in the aftermath of battles if the battlefield in question was too remote for transport ships to easily reach. If the aftermath of the battle was too dangerous, then the bodies would also simply be left to the elements and whatever fauna the local world had.
With the dead of this battle however, the fate of the trooper's bodies would be much more productive and efficient, from the point of view of the Kaminoans. A transport from them would soon arrive to collect the clone bodies, after which they would be recycled in various ways back on Kamino. Organs and blood could be harvested for use in medical transplants for injured clones. The other organic material was recyclable and used to make yet more clones.
Vindi was being held in what seemed to be the mess hall of the bunker. The tables and chairs had been piled to the sides and the faustian was kept in the center, with two clones nearby to directly guard him and three others around the perimeter of the room near the doors. Vindi was bound with electronic handcuffs and sitting on the floor, looking miserably down at his own hands and seemed to be rubbing his left arm, which had a nasty burn there.
"Congratulations Jedi, you won," the faustian said listlessly. His accent was so far from the almost stereotypical 'German' one from the show, instead having a typical inflected Basic that eventually came from living for a long time in the Outer Rim.
"I have a question," Anakin glared at him. "Why do you care so little for your own life? You have to realize that this virus would've infected you eventually, no matter how careful you were and with no vaccine. So therefore, you were going to commit suicide, but take a portion of the galaxy with you in the process. Again, why?"
Vindi looked up and I sensed a bitter anger flare from him. "Tell me, Jedi. What made the Perma family what it is today in the medical industry?"
"They developed the generalized bacta formula," I answered, giving Anakin a glance. Before Perma had come along, bacta had been a more specific regenerative healing agent, needing to be specialized to the specific species it was applied to. Now, except in extreme edge cases, bacta didn't need such refinement. It had massively reduced production cost and caused an explosion in the substance's production and use across the galaxy.
"Not they, me!" Vindi snarled. "Twenty years ago, I developed that… I gave them a galaxy of wealth and what did they give me in return? A year's extra bonus salary, a pat on the back and none of the recognition that it was my invention. I was shuffled off to a corner of the company, sideways 'promotion' after promotion, until I had no corporate power left, no friends and then summarily fired!"
"So all of this, potentially countless deaths across the galaxy; just because you were cheated of recognition?" I asked incredulously.
"I dedicated my entire life to bacta, Jedi. To creating the perfect cure, that would cure every disease, heal every ail. My betrayal showed me that there was another disease in the galaxy that needed curing, a disease that right now is making war across the galaxy and this virus would've been that cure!"
"Does the CIS even know you're doing this?" I asked incredulously. There was just no way Dooku or even Palpatine would want a mass pandemic of the galaxy like this. Even the worst Sith in history, Darth Nihilus wouldn't do it, simply because then he would have less life to gobble up.
Vindi just laughed, "They think I'm making a smart virus, that's targeted to only affect the clones. I managed to convince them I could do it."
"And could it be done?" Anakin clenched his fists and I could feel his anger across our bond.
"Many things are possible in biology, Jedi, but the years of research required to make such a virus and have it be effective out in the unpredictable cauldrons of nature that exist in the galaxy… maybe if I had five more years. The Blue Shadow virus has been studied for centuries, it was much easier to work with in these limited conditions."
It was at this point that I was seriously considering just lopping Vindi's head off. The possibilities of his skill and talent being in the wrong hands was frightening to contemplate, but equally if he was put to work for good and under tight controls, he could save billions in the future. Fausts had long lives and the thought of having him around if the Yuuzhan Vong showed up…
"Sergeant, get him up to the surface and in a gunship, I want him ready for transport back to Coruscant," Anakin ordered.
"Yes, General," the clone saluted and the squad formed around Vindi, lifted him to his feet, and marched out of the mess hall.
"Come snips, let's get out of here."