Chapter 17

The LAAT gunship shuddered as it landed. Its side doors opened and disgorged troops into a maelstrom of competing orange and blue blaster fire. Into this chaotic mess, I waded with my lit lightsabers. The gunship was already taking to the air again as I danced and twirled my blades around me, deflecting blaster fire back to the droids that had sent them.

There was no need to broadcast orders at the six companies of the 501st from my wristcom. We all knew our roles and assaulting a fixed position of an entrenched enemy was old hat by this point. This would also be the fourth time we were attacking a fusion power plant on Ryloth and while the twi'lek were a very artistic, sensual species, engineering was not their forte and these power plants had all been built by one of the Hutt Cartels. As such, their layouts were all the same, requiring very little maintenance, with the most technically demanding roles given to droids and the hallways inside designed for hutts to move about in.

There were few exterior windows from the large cylindrical buildings that made up the fusion plants but each one had a B1 droid firing down on the assaulting Republic forces, some even firing Repeaters.

The droids firing those weapons didn't remain intact long, due to the highly trained 501st snipers firing their DC15X rifles. Keeping the Repeaters suppressed was a full time job during the assault, as every time a droid would die at the controls of the gun, another one from inside would simply come forward to replace it.

There wasn't much finesse or strategy really possible here.

The 501st had the fusion plant surrounded by now, there would be no escape for the droids and as before I had no intention of just turning this into a battle of attrition. Force Prescience warned that the droids would sabotage the plant if their numbers dwindled too slowly, which was unacceptable.

My own unique contribution to the battle had been dropped off by a carrier gunship. Instead of dropping an AT-TE tank though, it had released a five meter long by two meter wide section of armor plate that had been cut off from the wreckage of the Tempest.

Under the direction of my TK, it lifted off the ground to hover over my head. Rex and the rest of Alpha company who could fit under my 'umbrella' needed no prompting to gather under it.

'Begin and step,' I broadcasted into the minds of the nine clones surrounding me.

In this way, and with the supporting suppressive fire of both snipers and clone heavy gunners with Z-6 rotary blaster cannons, we advanced under heavy fire over the open terrain leading up to the imposing main doors to the power plant.

Rocket droids and B2 heavy droids popped up from the roofs at this point, trying to send rockets to slam into my improvised armor plate.

The clone snipers instantly changed their targets and with coordinated fire, gunned down each rocket droid before it could happen.

Finally, we reached the heavy doors and Rex wasted no time, slamming a remote hacking spike into the door droid interface controls.

R3, who was safely plugged into a landed gunship a few kilometers away, using its more powerful communication system to interface with spike, began his hack.

The battle was now in the 'cyberspace' of the fusion plant's systems, with the rogue tactical droid on one side and R3 on the other. On paper, an astromech generally had no hopes of beating a tactical droid. My R3 however, was designed for military use by IA, not to mention had a plethora of tricks and programs designed for me by my slicer friend on Coruscant.

It took, nevertheless, an almost intolerable amount of time to slice the door controls.

Three minutes, twenty seconds was a new record though.

The large doors began lifting and the troopers unlatched droid poppers from their belts and rolled it inside before the doors had raised themselves by a foot.

The pop and crackle of high EM discharge reached us even over the din of the battle.

The troopers knelt and immediately sent fire into the welcoming committee of droids beyond the door that were still standing.

Thankfully, their numbers were not that great on the interior defense, having all been sent to the positions from which they could fire outwards from the buildings.

The squad of troopers surged forward and secured the foothold. I ran in behind them, dropped my improvised siege engine behind me, and took a deep breath of relief.

"You all right, commander?"

"Fine, Rex," I replied shortly.

With a few efficient gestures of military sign language from me, the troopers organized themselves behind me and we headed off into the nearest right corridor, heading for the upper levels.

The job was now to increase the gap that had been created in the 'armor' of the power plant.

We moved along the perimeter of the building around the main entrance, destroying any droids we came across.

The wide and high corridors didn't naturally lend themselves to this kind of fighting, but I played my role of mobile, very offensive renewable cover with TK and lightsabers, which evened the odds.

23 B1s, 6 B2s and 5 droidekas later, my radio lit up at last with word from outside that the 501st had successfully established an invasion corridor and were pouring into the building. My own squad had sustained two casualties but we had to move on.

It wasn't long before the entire building was filled with the loud whines of competing blaster fire. In these corridors, the clone heavy gunner came to the forefront. They generally wore thicker armor as well, and like the B2s, could soak quite a bit of fire. Their flanks were guarded by a line of standard troopers with blaster carbines and extra bandoliers of droid poppers slung over their shoulders.

The fighting was not easy, fighting indoors never was.

Death came from corners and doors and it was a long slow slog in advancing through the corridors.

It also neatly demonstrated why rogue droids were in general a very bad thing.

The worst was the surprise ambushes when droidekas would be dropped from above or when the upper half of B1s would spring from wall panels like deadly demented jack-in-the-boxes.

"Die, die, die…"

My lightsaber cut down the B1, mounted in the wall, before it could do anything else.

After what seemed like hours of annoying yet deadly fighting, I was officially just done with the place. The approach to the door of the central control room was clear at last, and leading up to it was a veritable scrap yard of droid pieces lining the corridor.

"I hate to say it, but I almost miss just fighting the Seppy clankers," Rex commented as he watched a bunch of clone medics tending to the wounded and triaging the dying.

"Let's get this over with," I gestured for him to follow.

Rex in turn grabbed the survivors of Alpha and a bunch of other troopers from Krayt company, who immediately fell into an assault line formation to the left and right sides of the corridor.

The doors were firmly shut and attempting to simply use the controls resulted in nothing.

I reached out with the Force, feeling for the door mechanisms. Just like the main entrance, this one was heavy, thick and fortified. My lightsabers could cut through, but it would take too long. It was held down by gravity as a failsafe, and would only rise with the heavy duty internal tractor beam gravity mechanisms. A system which was firmly under the control of the tactical droid and had no external circuits leading to it with which a potential hack could be attempted.

Thankfully, these tractor beams were designed to only pull and not push down.

"Stand by," I directed the troopers behind.

The weight is irrelevant.

The size is irrelevant.

There was no energy equivalent to trade, there is only the Force.

The door began to groan and shook briefly, before it shot itself up into its receiving slot, revealing the circular control room beyond.

It had clearly seen better days, but it was fully functional as the droids didn't want to ruin being able to easily control the reactor systems.

The tactical droid in one of the chairs turned to us, but before it could utter a single word, it was shot center mass by a sniper from Alpha company.

There were visibly no other droids in there and I carefully sensed through the walls and controls for surprises.

"Clear," I declared.

The troopers surged forward and began securing the room.

Rex wasted no time and worked immediately on the opposite side of the door controls.

I felt the tractors engage and relaxed, releasing my TK, then pulling on the Force for a spell of rejuvenation.

"What's the status of the fusion core?"

"Minimal levels, they were only using it for themselves, commander. No overt sabotage of systems," Rex replied after a brief look at the master systems console.

"Then it's probably in the software," I shook my head before keying my wristcom and turning my palm up. The tiny holo-figure of Obi-Wan popped into being.

"Master Kenobi, the Dura fusion plant is preliminary secure, we need engineers and slicers down here."

"Well done, Ahsoka, I'll personally escort them."

I slumped into my usual chair in the main mess hall of officer country aboard the Resolute and began wolfing down my evening meal with gusto. Unlike the usual military slop, it was fresh Ryloth food, given as a gift to the liberation task force. Not that the twi'leks could really spare food at the moment, but their culture was one of sharing with guests, no matter the circumstance.

It was nice to just… not think for a bit and just enjoy something as banal as good food.

The polite clearing of a throat drew my attention.

Admiral Yularen with his own tray of food stood a polite distance away, looking as prim and proper as ever, even with a full workday behind him, "May I join you, Ahsoka?"

I hastily swallowed, "Certainly, please."

He nodded in thanks and sat down, took up his utensils and just began to eat in silence.

I frowned, not really sure how to handle this. Yularen normally had his meals either alone in his own cabin, occasionally with the high ranking naval clone officers and with me to discuss my military education. He was usually very prompt with launching into his selected topic of discussion, but never just remained quiet.

My own hunger wrenched me back towards my food and the meal continued.

Only when our respective plates were clean and we were busy drinking our preferred brews of caf did he raise his eyes.

"The fusion plant assault, that was your sixth or seventh combat mission of this campaign?"

"Seventh," I confirmed. Fighting the rogue droids on Ryloth was like pulling weeds. Between Obi-Wan, General Syndulla and myself, we had led over twenty six distinct combat engagements to root out the droids, in less than a fortnight. The look of concern Yularen was giving me at the moment was both heartwarming and annoying.

"If I might make a suggestion," he began. "To let the twi'lek worry further about their own planet, and you spend your time and energy on some much needed leave. Your Jedi Master is on meditative retreat. Why didn't you follow General Skywalker back to Coruscant?"

"The Jedi Council ordered him to go on that retreat, that doesn't necessarily extend to me."

Yularen waved a dismissive hand, "Semantics, Ahsoka."

"You read the mission reports, if I hadn't been there to lead the 501st, it would've been the Resistance handling those power plant assaults and it would've been a slaughter for them. Master Kenobi would've had to lead his battalion on those assaults and even they are reaching the last legs of their operational tempo. Now the power plants are secure and the twi'leks of those regions can face the coming winter with more confidence and will not have to worry about rogue droids going on extermination sprees."

"You extend a good argument. Then why have I not seen any indication of you getting ready to rejoin General Skywalker?"

I couldn't exactly come out and say that I didn't want to go back because of bloody Palpatine and the stupid Force Shroud he cast over the planet. If I wanted to go on leave, I'd go to Naboo or even Shili, though the Jedi Council would probably frown on the last one, thinking I'd try to seek out my biological parents or something along those lines.

"Spending leave on Coruscant is not my idea of a relaxing time anymore," I answered truthfully.

"I'm not fully aware of the protocols of the Jedi Order between masters and their padawans, but shouldn't you generally go where they go?"

I nodded, "In most circumstances, that would be the case. The war is not really helping that and older padawans are getting assignments that see them temporarily sent to other masters who need the help."

Yularen began speaking but was interrupted by the chirping of my wrist com. I knew immediately through the Force who was calling.

I tapped the button, "Yes, Master?"

"Snips, how are things going?" Anakin's voice echoed tinnily from my wrist.

"Fine but tired, Master."

"I can sense that, hope you're not going too crazy over there."

"Your kill count has nothing to worry about," I wryly replied.

"Good, you can tell me everything in person though, I need you to join me on Coruscant as soon as possible."

In both his tone and the Force, I sensed way more to the story.

"Your leave is canceled?"

"I can only vaguely sense your surroundings, mess hall?"

"Correct," I smiled, feeling pleased that he was getting the technique down. "Admiral Yularen is across me and no one else within earshot."

"Good, yes, in short, the Senate's been attacked and hostages were taken, but it was all a power play to extort the release of Ziro from prison."

My memories and prescience flared to the forefront. Blast it, now that Yularen had put the idea in my head, now I wanted nothing more than just to go to Naboo and slum it out in Padme's estate. I had a non-expiring invitation to do so from her. Now that blasted hutt was out of prison and no doubt looking to get even.

That he even was in a Republic prison was Jabba and the Hutt Cartels way of punishing him with a significant loss of face, prestige and financial wealth. They had seized all the assets to his name, but Ziro like his uncle, was a shrewd business-hutt, there was bound to be all sorts of hidden assets as well.

The problem also was they couldn't afford to let Ziro stew for too long in prison, as he held a lot of secrets that the Hutt Family Council couldn't afford to let the Republic know. The treaty with the hutts was only in terms of cooperative military affairs against the CIS and had no bearing on anything else.

"Is everyone all right?"

"I was on hand in the Senate at the time, so despite a few close calls, no one died."

"Give me the names," I sighed.

"They were led by Cad Bane, a Duros bounty hunter, Aurra Sing, Shahan Alama and Robonino, with a number of droids in support, including an IG series assassin model."

"I see." That was a powerhouse of a mercenary bounty hunter team that very few could stand up to, especially if they had the advantage of surprise and initiative. Bane was already infamous as one of the premier bounty hunters of the galaxy. Trained personally by Jango Fett and wily as a fox, with a plethora of gadgets and weapons on his body to take on anyone, even Jedi. Combined with Aurra Sing, who herself was a Jedi… rising to near knighthood before leaving the Order for the life of a bounty hunter and assassin. They were a perfect duo for taking on any Force sensitive target. Shahan I didn't know much about, except that he was a weequay bounty hunter and particularly vicious and ruthless. Robonino… well, with that patrolian on your side, there wasn't a computer system in the galaxy that was truly safe from infiltration and slicing.

I quickly pulled out my personal datapad and ran the numbers.

"Master, I can make it to Coruscant in six days."

"Six days? Surely that Headhunter of yours can do better."

"Skyguy, until you figure out how to squeeze a Class 0.5 into the hull of a Z-95, then that is the best I can do. Not to mention the refueling stops along the way."

"Very well, maybe R3 can work some navigational magic for you, get a good night's rest and leave first thing in the morning."

"I will, Master."

"Good luck, Snips. Force be with you."

"And you, Master." I cut the link.

"A long time to be in a cramped cockpit," Yularen commented.

"I can at least get quite a bit of meditation done on the journey at least."

"If that will help, but I know there's no good substitute for an actual holiday. I've seen many soldiers and spacemen, who crack under the pressure of sustained combat. What that will look like in a Jedi… I'd rather not find out."

I finished my caf and stood, gathering my things. "Neither would I. Thank you, Admiral. I… appreciate your concern."

"Indeed, I would hate for someone of your potential to burn out before you're truly ready." He stood as well and gave me a formal nod. "Safe travels. May the Force be with you."

My travel plans were given a further twist though as I walked out of the Refresher early next morning.

The desk terminal in my quarters and personal datapad were pinging me that I had received a message. That it was not a direct holocall meant that this was not Jedi business or at least something urgent that required interactive response.

I wiped off the last bits of moisture with a towel and quickly got dressed in the undersuit of my armor before dropping myself into the chair and turning on the terminal.

It was a delayed video message, low priority, addressed to my holonet ID code, which very few people had. The sender was someone that I definitely didn't consider low priority.

"Ahsoka! Hope this message finds you well." Dex boisterously greeted into the visual pickup. The besalisk was standing behind the counter of his diner, and the image gave a good wide view of the bar itself, including quite a few of the large menu posters. "Civilian channels being what they are and as I have no idea where in the galaxy you are at the moment. Just wanted to catch up and give you the good news, another of Hermione's ideas that you worked with her has come to fruition and we can take an early holiday this year. I'm leaving the diner in capable hands and we'll be gone for about two months, so don't be surprised if you're ever back planetside and don't find us here. Right now, by the time you see this, we'll probably be on some beach and she'll be oiling my back. So, we'll see you when we see you." He waved his multiple arms at the pickup and the screen faded to the holonet interface.

I tapped the screen and a few keys and soon was interfacing the video with a local player on my terminal. Saved the file, then sent it to my datapad.

The file was then processed by a special program that Hermione had written, before spitting out a bunch of seemingly random Aurebesh characters.

Next I pulled out two flimsiplast and a digipen.

Manual writing was still a thing, even in this seemingly modern age in the Corusca galaxy. There was no paper as such, unless you went to certain worlds who had the natural resources for fibrous paper as it was known on old Earth. Artists still made use of it and it was seen as extremely lavish in the core worlds and mid-rim, to put down your correspondence and documents on paper. In the end, most people just didn't bother, finding the digital paper of a flimsiplast much more convenient.

The flimsi on the right held inside a digital one-time pad, which would make sense of the garbled characters Hermione's program had resolved.

It was rather painstaking and annoying work, but it was the best way to maintain true security, by combining both high-tech and low-tech approaches.

The true message from Dex was both worrying and promising.

I read it and committed it to memory, before rolling up the flimsi and tossing it in the air. My lightsaber surged into the air from my open locker, and with a brief snap-hiss, activated and deactivated - incinerating the flimsi.

A navigation program was my next port of call and it led to the conclusion that I would definitely not be able to make my journey in six days.

The Headhunter began to whirl into life around me as I went through the preflight checklist. Despite being able to do it from memory, I used the pilot checklist uploaded to the dedicated datapad strapped to my left leg. Safety was not something to be compromised in normal atmospheric flight, let alone spaceflight. A single mistake slipping through the cracks was all it took. Feeling satisfied I waved at the crew chief.

"Chief!"

Bolts walked closer and climbed the first rung of the pilot's ladder, "Yes, Commander?"

I handed over a small datapad, "Something I want you to look into in your copious free time now that things are winding down."

Bolts tapped on the pad, "Detachable, disposable fuel tanks for the Z-95's wings, that sit on the hardpoints?"

"Yes, a way to get around the poor internal capacity with the hyperdrive mod."

"Well, it's certainly an idea, but working out the internal plumbing for the fuel is gonna take some time. It'll definitely involve opening her up quite extensively."

"If it'll cut down on the amount of pit stops and opportunities for any locals to cause trouble for me at the pit stops, then I consider it worth it."

"I'll take a look at it, commander," Bolts eventually nodded, pocketing the pad.

"Thank you."

He hopped off the ladder and began pushing the rungs to snap into the fighter's hull.

"She's all ready on our end. Fly safely, commander!" He saluted me casually.

I returned the salute and closed the canopy.

"R3, all systems green on your end?"

My astromech simply chirped an affirmative.

"How's your shunt and link to the bugs?"

'Stable and holding, I'm ready to fool those snoops at the appropriate time,' the droid's tone was distinctly miffed, as if it couldn't believe the temerity that someone would dare spy on his mistress.

That Republic Intelligence had multiple very subtle location transponder bugs on my fighter wasn't really a surprise. The organization that would or could become Imperial Military Intelligence wasn't known for being sloppy. In the here and now, they were still a relatively new organization that was looking to find its feet and eager to prove themselves as being worthy of their budget. The work that had gone into the Ryloth campaign, their continuing effort at breaking CIS codes and the Industrial Automation plot were distinct feathers in their cap now.

While I applauded and cheered their efforts, the problem was that at the end of the day, they were also a tool of Palpatine, and their reports crossed his desk.

"Wraith One to Resolute control, request clearance for departure."

"Departure clearance granted, doors opening."

Manipulating the controls at my feet the Headhunter lifted itself off the deck and once I felt steady, triggered the landing skids to retract.

I pushed forward on the throttle and emerged from the hangar into the central spine of Resolute.

The doors now fully open, I angled, gained more acceleration and emerged from the ship smoothly, already heading into the projected path towards the hyperspace point.

The situation in space was looking much better now, but there were still a lot of space tugs buzzing about the hyperspace point, managing the debris fields and pushing the junk into orbits which would see them eventually getting gobbled up by the local star.

My flight path was nicely pre-arranged, so there was no chance of me colliding with a tug, unless a tug pilot did something wrong. I plunged into the future for a quick check and was relieved that no problems were immediately apparent.

Finally, I was clear of the debris field with only open space ahead.

"Wraith One to Resolute, I'm clear. Hyperspace clearance."

"Clearance granted, safe journey, commander," Yularen's voice came through suddenly.

I smiled and pushed forward on the conspicuous red and silver level on the cockpit dash.

The stars began to streak and the universe around me changed, the hyperdrive whining into full speed and just as suddenly my fighter was engulfed in the swirling blue tunnel of hyperspace.

My first pit stop would be three and a half days later following the Correllian Run hyperlane, as it traveled north-west through the galaxy from Ryloth.

Allenteen VI was a fork in the road so to speak. You could keep going to stay on the Correlian Run towards Coruscant, or you could turn galactic west onto what was known as the Shipwrights' Trace, which was exactly what I was going to have to do on my secret little detour.

My days in the cockpit of my Headhunter were peaceful and routine. I would eat something in the 'morning', then sink into meditation for seven hours, eat lunch, another meditation, eat dinner, fall into a proper sleep for six hours, then wake up to repeat.

Of course, there were the less fun chores to take care of. You couldn't exactly throw on the big screen the nitty gritty details of what it took for starfighter pilots to fly across the galaxy on multi-day missions to daringly take out an impossible target. Such as how nature's calls were answered. Number ones were easy, as the pilot suit plumbing easily took care of that, it was number two's that were awful in the cramped cockpit.

How was that handled? It wasn't something as primitive as a diaper. The pilot's seat itself had the internal functions that could double as a toilet and it was the reason for a 'zipper' lining down the back of a pilot suit. The seat could even clean your bum for you.

Thinking about more pleasant things, my near continuous meditation sessions had helped me work out quite a bit of the frustration and anger that had been building throughout the Ryloth campaign. I think the Jedi Council already knew of the danger, given the retreat they had all but ordered Anakin to go on, but it wouldn't hurt to poke Master Yoda about it and make sure it was a broadly adopted policy and not just special treatment for the Chosen One.

It had also allowed me to make strides in some of the Force techniques I was working on. One of which I was most excited about was finally achieving the first level of Tutaminis, as I could now at least deflect stun level energy with nothing but my hands.

I landed on Allenteen VI's spaceport with little trouble, just blending mostly into the background of all the traffic the spaceport handled.

The dockmaster that handled the section of the spaceport I had landed in was an ortolan. The cute little blue thing was practically buried under datapads in his office. They didn't have the vocal capacity to speak Basic but he walked around with a handheld auto translator. The look of surprise in his round black eyes were clear to read when he realized he was looking at a Torgruta Jedi flying a GAR flagged Headhunter and his nose trunk twitched in what I sensed was their facial expression for astonishment.

I pointedly coughed to break through his funk, "What was the price for a refuel?"

The dockmaster shook himself and began speaking in tones that to most human ears was just a slightly rhythmic 'bluh-bluh-bluuuuh-bluh'. My montrals could pick up a lot more going on, pushing into infrasounds, ultrasounds and frequencies that even went beyond them. There was a good reason for ortolans to have those big floppy ears.

"Given the capacity of your ship, six hundred credits," the dockmaster's translator device spoke in a flat monotone. It made me wonder why he didn't have a protocol droid, the spaceport on this planet was swimming in traffic and consequently docking fees.

I winced at the price and handed over the encrypted physical credit tokens. "War driving the price up?"

He hurriedly waddled over to disappear behind his desk, doing something to secure the money and reappeared to hand me the appropriate change. "Yes, fuel demand is the highest I've ever seen and transport security costs have increased. I've already sent the orders for refueling to proceed, the crew should be there in twenty minutes. Next!"

"Thank you."

I left and hurriedly made my way back to the docking bay.

Everything was as I left it, but I had a serious case of 'new ship' paranoia going on. This was my fighter and I'd barely gotten it, and no way was some criminal going to try and steal it. R3 had orders to patrol and a fully integrated blaster pistol in his chassis that could be set to stun.

I passed the time by doing some calisthenics exercise and reveling in the chance to fully stretch my legs. R3 watched my silly biological antics with curiosity, but it understood why I needed to do this.

It took nearly fifty minutes for a four man crew of very harried and scruffy looking refueling techs to walk in.

"All right, Zien, Ganish, get the Mark Five adapters and piping, Brysh, control booth, only high grade fuel for this beauty," the crew chief, judging by the markings on his overall's shoulders, snapped off rapid fire orders. "This your bird… commander?" the chief, who was rather handsome in a roguish way, queried.

"Yes Chief," I nodded.

"Bit young for the military, aren't you?" he squinted at me. In reply I simply flicked my forefinger on my right lightsaber hilt. "Huh, Jedi eh? I've seen some young Green Jedi in odd roles, but never figured those Coruscanti would stuff you into a fighter."

Ah, the chief and his crew were Corellians.

"My master is in the war, can't exactly just stay in the backlines," I shrugged.

"Hmmph, then he shouldn't have taken an apprentice, the young have no business in war," the chief grumbled. "Any special procedures for this thing? It's not stock."

"Nope, just pop the lid and pump."

He nodded and walked off to oversee the pumping station.

His crew had already attached the feed lines to the spaceport's main underground storage tanks and attached it to the Headhunter with no problems. R3 was monitoring the Z95's systems remotely and would scream if any problems arised.

The fueling took just another five minutes and by then I had already popped the canopy and was back in the pilot seat.

"All right, young one, she's all topped up and ready," the chief waved.

"Thanks."

R3 extended his flight jets and 'jumped' into his socket, letting out a 'wheee' of excitement as it did so. I laughed at the antics. It had saved me the issue of working out how to use the docking bay crane to lower him into place more sedately.

"All right R3, let's get the checklist sorted, we've got another day in hyperspace to our next stop. Get ready to fool those trackers."

The Chardaan system sat on the hyperspace crossroads of the Hydian Way and Shipwrights' Trace, practically on the official border of the core regions and mid rim of the galaxy. The Hydian Way was an alternate route north from the southern parts of the galaxy, a major competitor to the Correlian Trade Spine, which traditionally carried the flow of people and goods back and forth from the core regions to mid, expansion and outer rim regions.

The worlds sitting on the Hydian Way were as a result always trying to make themselves more attractive to travelers and shipping companies or just about anyone who wanted to use hyperspace back and forth towards the southern reaches of the galaxy.

The major trick they used was simply always keeping an eye on docking fees and starship fuel prices their rivals on the Trade Spine charged, and always trying to undercut them as much as they could. This didn't always work as they risked going so low on their prices that they couldn't even keep the lights on in their fuel refineries and starports. So they turned to making travel more comfortable and attractive on the Hydian by building up their entertainment industries.

It got to the point where it was known that if you wanted to go on holiday and relax, go along the Hydian. If you wanted to trade and do business, use the Spine.

Of course, the worlds of the Hydian weren't happy with that state of affairs, so they went even further and relaxed a lot of the typical oversight and bureaucracy that usually went with establishing a business on any world, including pesky things like looking too closely at what you were importing or that your actual business was what it said on your company mission statement.

Chardaan was such a world. It got a lot of its revenue from its status as a crossroads system, but another hefty chunk was in its orbital shipyards, entertainment and business interests, which included actual mercenary companies. They didn't outright call themselves that, naturally, but anyone who was in the know, so to speak, knew what these companies did. It also helped that they went a long way to contributing to the security of the system, which was doubly in demand with the current galactic war happening.

Another handy bit of knowledge about the planet, was if you transmitted the right credentials in orbit, lubricated with a bribe once you landed, that you could simply never be recorded as having been there in the first place. Your docking bay cameras would never be turned on and your ship ID and specifics were randomized.

The corruption was rather distasteful, but it was the price to pay to maintain my anonymity. My Headhunter had full GAR colors painted on it, including both the Republic and Jedi badges. Not exactly inconspicuous. It really made me wish something like the smart paint from a number of cyberpunk universes was a thing in the Corusca galaxy, which would be very handy in letting me change the Headhunter's appearance with the flick of a switch.

I didn't spend more than ten minutes landed in the Chardaan spaceport, before I was taking off again and set a south-easterly course, heading towards coordinates two-thousand kilometers distant.

The three hour journey was now traveled with every transponder off, except for the Republic Intelligence ones which were happily spoofed and indicating that I was on Rhommamool, where I had developed an 'engine problem' that I was having the locals take a look at.

My destination was the isolated headquarters of Ardan Risk Dynamics. Anyone looking at the company books would see they were a mid-range insurance company and generally they did offer rather competitive solutions to business customers on Chardaan. It was actually just a very functional smokescreen for a group of mercenaries that operated from the planet, who would take any contract coming their way within four days of hyperspace travel from Chardaan.

If it didn't make it more clear that these guys were 'up to something', then their headquarters was a rather large building complex on an island with the closest neighbors nearly sixty kilometers away on the nearby mainland.

I slowed my Headhunter down to a more sedate 300km/h and orbited the place from a few kilometers distant.

"Lifesigns, R3?"

"110, numerous active power signatures," the astromech replied in binary.

The story through the Force was actually 126 people and there was a lot of charged emotion down there, fear, dread, hopelessness and determination. Add in the fact that on paper, there should've been more than six hundred people on the company books, it didn't paint a pretty picture.

I spotted a landing pad and suspiciously, no shuttles nearby, though it could be that they were simply stowed and parked in the nearby hangar.

"Any active radio or landing signals?"

"None, nor anything to discourage landing attempts."

"Sloppy," I criticized. Pushing on the control stick I angled the fighter down for a landing approach.

The Headhunter extended its landing skids and thumped slightly onto the pad, almost threatening to bounce a bit. The slightly higher than standard gravity throwing me off.

"R3, secure the fighter's systems, but keep everything hot for an emergency take-off."

"Roger, mistress."

I triggered the canopy to rise and twisted my helmet off. A door leading directly from the pad accessway to the main building of the complex opened and a female human figure walked out.

A quick nimble jump had me out of the fighter and I adopted a polite, slightly smiling expression as I walked towards the woman with my helmet under my arm.

The woman was tall and bushy red-haired, wearing what probably passed as fashionable business attire on Chadraan, of form fitting gray and white bodysuit, with a flare of a half skirt around her hips.

She bowed slightly, "Greetings Master Jedi, I'm Elle Durane, customer service representative of Ardan Risk Dynamics. How can we help you?"

To every physical measure of her appearance she was utterly the picture of a polite businesswoman. In the Force, she was about a hair's breadth away from wetting herself with fear, a truly remarkable actor.

"Yes, some suspicious transactions and activity was spotted by the Republic from some rather unpleasant criminal types with links to the Black Sun, further investigations revealed some links between them and your company. It seems that some of your customers are involved in some rather unsavory things."

"I'm truly sorry to hear that," Elle declared. "If they are our customers then we will of course cooperate fully with the authorities, provided of course, that suitable warrants from the Republic Judiciary are presented."

"Which I have and am fully prepared to present to you for inspection," I nodded, throwing the lightest touches of the Force on her mind. Not to full blown Mind Trick her, but rather just to give her the perception that I was speaking truthfully. I was not an actor and while I could lie with the aid of Self-Control abilities preventing the usual tells from showing, it wasn't my forte. A skilled investigator would spot the lie.

"Very well, please come with me, you can leave your helmet with your ship, Master Jedi."

I knew instantly that those words didn't actually come from her. She spoke them, but the technology I was sensing on her ear and hidden behind her voluminous hair, was probably an ear bud with a link to the true sender of the words.

I moved past her, ignoring her implied suggestion completely.

"M-master Jedi, what…" she began to babble, hurrying after me.

"I'm sure Miss Durane, you are aware there is a rather large war going on. That the Republic and the Jedi are stretched thin across the galaxy, hence the reason why a Jedi Padawan, me, is here, instead of a knight or master. Even I don't have the time to waste here."

I paused in front of the main doors and pointedly looked at her. She stared at me with surprise and astonishment but eventually nodded and approached the doors that opened automatically for her, thanks to the security code cylinders in her chest pocket.

My feet crossed the threshold and I was inside the building. The reception area was nice and well appointed, with potted plants, nice floors, and artwork adorning the walls. The lighting was soft and soothing.

We were both barely in the center of the area when the main doors slammed shut automatically.

I turned to the woman, whose fear had finally broken through her facade, "I'm sorry."

My helmet was back on and sealed.

"No!" Durane screamed and lunged for a side door.

It was already too late.

She collapsed in front of the thick door, pawing at the controls weakly, then began coughing and gasping for breath. Then passed out a few seconds later. I had no way to determine the concentration of gas being used, but my prescience showed her dying within another ten minutes.

Gas, an old trick to fight Jedi, but one we've had centuries if not millennia to devise Force only techniques against. I didn't want to split my concentration to use them, so I was relying on my flight suit internal life support, which was rated with a 40 minute oxygen supply if separated from the pilot chair.

I lit my lightsabers, walking back to the main entrance, stabbed them through and drew a circle.

Luckily this part of the building wasn't seriously fortified.

A brief push opened the new hole and I used TK to pull the company rep away from the inner doors and dumped her outside.

She would survive.

I cut another hole through the inner door of the reception area and stepped through into a corridor leading deeper.

Three, evenly spaced holes opened all along the ceiling of the corridor and lowered turreted blasters that turned to face me and opened fire.

I weaved my left blade in defense and sent my right blade flying down the corridor where it sliced the turrets in half.

My feet carried me forward and I caught my right blade and kept going. I sliced through another door, this one much thicker and reinforced with durasteel.

Beyond were five men in black colored armor raising their blaster rifles at me and firing immediately.

Really?

I only needed to deflect three shots, before their rifles leapt out of their hands towards me. The rifles were already turning around under my will and shot their former owners in the kneecaps. All five mercenaries collapsed on the floor shouting and groaning in pain.

I studied the rifles briefly as they hovered next to me. "Blastech A280s, neat."

A flick of TK and their selector switches were all changed to the stun setting. They all fired again, this time with the bright blue rings of stun and rendered the mercs into merciful sleep.

Down another corridor of turrets, which were much more swiftly dealt with by my hovering rifles, I turned and was facing another corridor of armed mercs.

My prescience warned me in time of the little surprise among them.

"So an old dog can learn new tricks," I mumbled to myself.

Four blasted away with A280s, but three among their number were shooting at me with slugthrowers.

I dodged and twisted, letting my own rifles fire back, taking out the blaster firing mercs, before letting them fall to the floor. This allowed me the focus to shield from the six nasty bullets, like something straight out of the Matrix.

My TK grabbed at the slugthrower rifles only to find them pulling their owners awkwardly behind them. They were attached to their combat harnesses.

I slammed the mercs into the ceiling as hard as I could, while directing my A280s back in the air to stun them.

I kept pressing on, cutting through any door or obstacle in my way that the building's system saw fit to throw at me

The next ambush I ran into was again just a bunch of blaster rifle armed mercs, though these had the added twist of throwing a sonic detonator at me.

Those were nasty for any organic and Jedi, but it was especially worse for species with enhanced hearing, like Togruta and utterly lethal to Bith.

The bastard had even cooked the detonator, so throwing it back with TK wasn't on the cards.

Again, an old attack method which the Jedi had long since solved. I pulled back my TK and solidified it in a shell around me, pulling on the air itself and closed my eyes. The detonator exploded, letting out an extremely bright flash and extremely powerful sonic sound waves that thundered through the corridor, like a giant had hit an equally giant drum.

I opened my eyes to regard every merc lying stunned on the floor, with blood leaking out of their ears.

Why hadn't they been prepared for that?

I didn't want to get distracted searching the future for the answer. Something my opponent was probably counting on.

This part of the building was now sufficiently fortified and almost military in nature, that I could finally rip out the wall paneling of durasteel and steel girders to create physical shields for myself.

Which proved invaluable as the next hallway I entered was filled with slugthrower armed mercs.

The bullets had no hope penetrating the durasteel I now wielded. However, one of the mercs was carrying a micro-cluster rocket.

These things didn't use 'rocket' propulsion, but did use repulsors, which allowed them to be fired indoors without the nasty backblast that would've likely killed everyone in the room with the overpressure. Such fancy toys these mercs had.

My floating A280s switched themselves to lethal, and fired just as the rocket was fired.

My blaster bolts intercepted the rocket a mere meter from the merc that had shot it.

I hunkered down behind my durasteel shield and had to briefly shift my focus to a TK shell that would resist the coming overpressure.

The explosion was still near deafening and had my montrals ringing with tinnitus.

The life of every merc in the corridor winked out.

"Seriously," I groused.

I tried not to look at the bodies as I passed them. It was all too similar to the body parts strewn corridors of the Herald.

At this point I had a choice to make, use the elevator or the stairs.

I was simply too genre-savvy, experienced in all the ways an elevator could lead to a grisly demise to choose that option, and my prescience was also flaring that it was a distinctly bad idea. Old fashioned way it was. Only my technometry senses warned me of mines and explosives attached to the door leading into the stairwell.

I looked up at the ceiling and smirked.

My lightsabers danced into the air and cut a perfect hole.

A circular section of the ceiling, bisected piping and sparking electrical circuits fell down, and a circular bit of the upper level floor.

I quickly flexed my legs and I pushed off into a Force Jump that let me thread the needle and I landed on the 2nd floor.

I was now without my blaster rifles and shield, but a quick use of TK and ripping off durasteel from another bulkhead solved that issue.

In the same way, I ascended another four floors before I was intercepted.

Mercs dumped grenades and sonic detonators down the hole I'd made before I could jump through.

I was juggling too many things and had to resort to using a mnemonic gesture for sufficient focus. A mimed upward slap of my palm, had the devices going straight back up and exploding in their midst.

It was not a pleasant scene when I jumped through and I had to fight to hold my food in my stomachs.

Thankfully, my path upward was not interrupted in this manner again and I arrived on the top floor with no further ambushes.

I did, however, sense fifteen sentients here.

All clustered in, what according to the helpful evacuation floor plan mounted on the wall, was the CEO's office.

I stopped in the corridor leading up the office and the entire floor was rigged with pressure sensors, linked to directional explosives that would turn anyone stepping them into chunky salsa. Good grief, these guys were paranoid.

I let out a weary sigh and gestured forward in a silly mnemonic.

Every sensor suddenly shorted out, sparked and fried itself as I used an overpowered form of my anti-surveillance technique, which was actually a small very precise form of Electric Judgment. I didn't really want to use the technique given who was no doubt watching me, but there was no other option that didn't involve potentially wrecking the entire floor otherwise.

My lightsabers slashed the armored door to the CEO office open.

I used the smoking slab of the door as a kinetic weapon and shot it into the left line of mercs waiting to blast me.

My lightsabers weaved in the economical form of Soresu deflection briefly to weather the storm of fire, until my blaster rifles could fire. My deflections combined with the A280 fire and the kinetic battering room of the door, whittled down the numbers of mercs until every one of them were either dead or wishing they were dead with kneecap shots.

I walked through the now wrecked reception area, sending stun shots to the survivors to at least give them the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness.

There were no traps on the fancy interior door to the CEO office, prescience and technometry confirmed, so I walked into the large office with a nice expansive view of the nearby ocean.

The CEO of Ardan Risk Dynamics, Gavin Midanyl was standing behind his desk utterly frozen. He was a Corellian in his middle ages, looking like he had definitely seen better days; he was sweating rivers, brown hair askew and unwashed, and his formal outfit crumpled and torn in many places from rough handling.

The reason for everything really was behind him and using him as a shield from me. An IG-86 series assassin droid held Midanyl in a tight grip around his neck with its right claw, while a blaster pistol was also pointed at his head.

"Was all this really necessary?" I asked the droid.

The droid focused all its rotating optics on me, the red eyes dimming, as if in thought.

"Declaratory statement: Oh yes, meatbag. It most certainly was," answered HK-47.

I stared down the droid who could probably count itself as the oldest currently in existence. My rifles were hovering, ready to fire… two of which were on stun, the other three on kill and aiming for the IG-droid's head. It wouldn't kill the digital sentient intelligence of HK47 residing in it, but it would disable him neatly.

This was a conversation unfortunately that couldn't have unfriendly ears. Two stun shots snapped out and rendered Midanyl unconscious. Whilst my other rifles shot out any visual or audio surveillance pickups in the office.

"Amused admiration: You're a rather paranoid meatbag, aren't you?"

HK didn't let the now unconscious CEO go.

"Please, HK-47, you've obviously done a thorough search and analysis of the holonet and all available information sources since I arranged for your pickup from Mustafar. Certainly, you've come to some conclusions."

"Intrigued curiosity: You know my designation. How interesting. I was expecting many types of meatbags to walk into my little trap here for the mysterious benefactor that arranged for my freedom from that wreckage, but not a Jedi Padawan."

"So we're going to play this game then," I declared wryly.

"Insistent Explanation: Oh yes, meatbag, you have no idea how bored I've been these last few months and I've been in unthinking cybernetic oblivion for thousands of years before that. Watching you plow through these pathetic meatbags masquerading as mercenaries was most enlightening and entertaining. It was fun at first, making them fight each other and me, but the combat methods got a bit stale."

"Ah, the earpieces?"

"Confirmation: Yes, the CEO meatbag had a most ingenious method of keeping his mercenary company in line, the earpieces cybernetically attached did not just facilitate communications between employees, but was also secretly filled with a tiny needle of neurotoxin that he could trigger at will."

"Which you hijacked control over."

"Affirmative statement: Correct, meatbag."

"So, I'll ask directly this time, what conclusion did you draw in your study of the holonet?"

"Declaration: That I most definitely have been awoken to a fascinating time in the galaxy. The Sith, gone, the Jedi dominant and have allowed themselves to become disgustingly weak. The Republic purposefully forgetting the lessons that Revan, Emperor Vitiate and many Sith had to teach them many times, with that disgusting Ruusan Reformation. Though now we have a new spin on the old conflict in this CIS that has formed out of what is now the Outer Rim. No longer a battle of religion, but one of ideology and economics."

I clicked my tongue in disappointment, but it wasn't something I could really blame HK for. If it had been easy for even an intelligence like HK to penetrate the veil of the current era Sith conspiracy, then others would've spotted it long ago.

"And that's where you're wrong, HK. The Sith are very much still alive and a factor in everything you researched."

The droid focused all of its optics on me and glared its red eyes. On most people, an IG droid staring at you like that would be very intimidating, I merely let it pass through me.

"Statement: I calculate you speak the truth with a certainty of 91%. Demanding Interrogative: Speak of what you know, meatbag."

"Gladly," I smiled. "Let me tell you the history of a certain Sith by the name of Darth Bane."