Chapter 112

"Frak!"

My hand raised from the head of the slumped form of Duke Solha.

The control room was a distinct mess at the moment, with dead smugglers, a tac droid's body falling over, a generally smoky haze lingering from burnt out electronics and three unconscious serennians on the floor.

Solha's emotions had sent up all sorts of red flags to me and I had rushed things a bit in the name of saving time. It was a damn good thing I did, however.

I tapped my armor's vambrace controls, setting up a three way comlink.

"Chewie, Skyguy, come in."

"Something went wrong, Snips?"

"Yes, Ahsoka?"

"Tac droid is down. You'll have an easier time of it now. I have Duke Solha and his two siblings all taking naps. Chewie, I want you airborne in the Omen immediately, head for orbit as soon as possible. You need to intercept a bulk freighter and stop it from leaving. Strafe the engines, don't destroy, keep it from leaving the planet's mass shadow."

"I'm going to need more targeting data than that, commander," Chewie pointed out.

"Skyguy, talk to Thrawn. Sky-walker Che'ri is still in orbit on overwatch recon. We need her to do the spotting. These ships aren't exactly common around this planet, so any freighter launched in the previous hour is our target. Have her coordinate with Chewie."

"This freighter is full of cortosis droids then?" Anakin asked.

"Yes, three months of production, up until last week. Solha's mind is a bit nebulous at the moment from shock, so I can't be too specific about what I read. I'll keep trying to pull more specifics, like the ship's name."

"I'll get it done, commander," Chewie growled. "What if we draw a response from the Mokivj security forces? They and the local governor might be in league with the CIS."

"If any security fighters attack you with no warning, you shoot them down, Chewie," I said firmly. "You are flying a GAR transponder. We are in Republic space. We have full rights to interdict and prosecute any target we have reasonable grounds to assume are CIS and hostile."

Chewbacca pulled back on the control yoke, lifting the Omen out of its berth and pushed down the throttle to maximum the instant he was clear.

He ignored the holopanel that represented the transmission from the undoubtedly annoyed spaceport controller - clearly to complain about a speed limit violation near the city airspace.

He'd had the foresight to prepare for a hasty departure when Ahsoka called, and had already paid the docking fee, combined with a nice little bribe to the dockmaster to smooth things even further.

Chewbacca slapped away the tiny holoscreen and focused on flying, pulling up to gain altitude as rapidly as possible.

"R2, plug in and scan for bulk freighters, please," he asked the astromech.

The droid settled in the dedicated cradle for him in the rear of the cockpit, allowing full nav comp and logic probe interfaces whilst supporting the droid from any forces that snuck through the inertial dampers.

"There are nearly thirty-six landed bulk freighters within immediate sensor range and five in orbit," R2 reported, throwing up a sensor holoscreen for Chewbacca to look at.

"Are any of them heading for the mass shadow boundary?"

"Not at present."

Chewie fiddled with the holoscreen and the projected orbits of each freighter were displayed. As typical for such large ships, they were all clustered in scattered orbits closest towards the two major hyper points in the system; one of which was towards the Panatha system, the other Ravaath.

The Omen broke through the upper cloud layers in the stratosphere and powered upward into the void of space.

"R2, plot me least time intercepts for all five, assuming I maintain current inclination."

The droid did so in less than a second, projecting it into the greater cockpit holographic.

Chewie growled in frustration, there was just too much variance, both hyper points had a 39 degree approach angle difference relative to the planet. He could intercept two of the five within minutes, but the other three had intercepts ranging from seven to fifteen minutes. That could further increase or decrease depending on any course changes he made.

In the same vein, he could only preposition himself to blockade one of the hyper points, not both.

"Incoming transmission," R2 reported.

The holoscreen appeared and the image of a very young looking female chiss appeared, at the controls of their scout ship.

"Hello? Is this channel working?"

"R2, patch my translation software into the com," Chewie growled.

"Done."

"I can read you, navigator Che'ri."

The young chiss soldier blinked her red eyes with surprise as she read the software's results directly underneath his image. "Oh, that's good. So you need help finding out which freighter has the droids on?"

"Yes, I want to send you my nav and scan data," he grabbed the holographic representations and with a few further taps of his fingers, sent it along the link to her. "But our nav coordinates and standards will need to be converted to yours. Can you send us a general file example of nav data?"

"Our interstellar measurement and cartography? Sure, one moment… This should do it. Sending."

"R2, you got it?"

"Yes, Chewbacca. Calculating… conversion complete. Reformatting to chiss standard and sending."

Che'ri jumped in her seat, looking delighted, "Wow, I so want a droid like that. So you're tracking all these big cargo ships?"

"Yes, one of them is filled with war droids using a new armor type that makes them impervious to most standard handheld weaponry. We need to find that ship and disable it before it can jump to hyper."

"Our scout ship has the firepower, unless they put their shields up," Che'ri scratched her cheek in thought, making a rather strange facial expression. "We have two hyper points to guard and we can divide it between us."

Chewie shook his head, "No, trying to blockade runs the risk of the enemy making it through you, especially when you're not confident of safely disabling the ship."

"Well, how good are your scanners? Not sure what tech you have on your side of the galaxy but-"

"The droids will be packed in shielded containers, active scans will not find them. We must deduce which one it will be. I need you to go over your scan records while you were up here before us. Did any of the five freighters launch since the Omen landed?"

"Let me see," she looked off to the side, her hands fiddling with controls. "Yes, these two. A ship called the… I'm not even going to try to pronounce that… this one…"

Chewie stared at the data feed she was sending, a freighter called Zeewneel. "I understand that problem very well, navigator."

"Huh, you would, with that very exotic language of yours. And the other one, the Tantros."

"Which one launched first?"

"Both launched exactly the same time."

"It seems like the enemy took some measure of precaution, one of these ships is probably a decoy."

Chewie looked at both ships' orbit. The Zeewneel had 23 minutes in its orbit before it could make an escape burn towards either hyper point, the Tantros had nine minutes before it could do the same.

The problem was if he burned hard to intercept one of them, he'd definitely alert the crews of both that they had trouble incoming. Che'ri would have a similar problem.

He had to make a decision.

"R2, give me a gradual intercept course for the Tantros, the same for Che'ri to intercept Zeewneel. Casual flying, it must seem like an accident that our orbits come close."

"Intercepts calculated. You can intercept the Tantros in 17 minutes. Che'ri will intercept her target in 32 minutes."

The courses were displayed on the holo and Chewie wished there was a proper physical console in front of him so he could smash it.

"That'll take too long. If we forgo any notion of subtlety, full burn directly at them and both freighters try to escape, will we intercept before they can make it out of the mass shadow?"

R2 projected the scenario and the result was positive at least. There was no way those big ships had the thrust power to manage an evasion into hyper, even with how close they were.

"Che'ri, intercept the Zeewneel, I'll go for the Tantros. Full speed. Let's not complicate this."

"As you say, Mr. Chewbacca!"

He grumbled, flipped the Omen onto the appropriate heading and went to max thrust again.

Che'ri followed with the scout ship a moment later and Chewie chuffed as he saw the maneuverability figures and speed. It handled even more like a fighter than the Omen did.

He narrowed his eyes at the sensor profiles of both ships, waiting for them to react or do something in response.

"My target has engaged engines, full burn for Panatha!" Che'ri said excitedly.

Chewie watched as the Tantros did the same, only they were burning for the Ravaath hyper point.

Their intercepts were now down to merely three minutes, but R2 suddenly screeched in warning.

"Seven fighters launching from Mokivj's capital!"

"Class?"

"Vulture droids."

"Where did those come from?"

"Launch point is a huge manor on the city outskirts."

"So we're going to disable the freighters, only to fight for our lives around them."

It was the one thing that Chewbacca disliked about fighting in space, it was the inevitability of it. You could see your opponent coming and the laws of space flight meant that you either had the velocity to evade or you were effectively forced into a fight. In this case, slowing down to intercept the freighters, meant letting the Vulture droids catch up.

"Che'ri, can you fight?"

"What? No! I- I've been in fights on large ships, but I'm just the sky-walker. I've only been able to fly a ship on my own for a few weeks, Commander Thrawn has been teaching me."

"All right. Then listen to me. You disable the freighter as quickly as you can then burn for a hyperspace exit. I'll deal with the fighters."

"By yourself?!"

"Yes. You do not belong in this fight. These are CIS fighter droids. Your commander has pledged his assistance, but your people are not at war with them. Leave this fight to me."

Chewie could see the conflict in her face, "But I can't leave Commander Thrawn-"

"Would he want you to throw your life away?" he retorted.

"No, but I'm still a soldier of the Chiss Ascendancy and sky-walker corps, I can't just-"

"Think of it as a tactical withdrawal," Chewie groaned, adjusting the Omen's final approach and powering up its weapons. He glanced at the scan readouts. "Four Vultures are on an intercept with you, only three are coming to me. I can easily handle that. Go!"

Che'ri flinched as she clearly perceived his roaring Shyriiwook as him getting quite angry with her.

"Y- yes, Mr. Chewbacca. Powering up my weapons, I'm almost in range."

The bulk freighter was now growing in size, becoming a distinct shape from the tiny dot of light it had been before. Chewie brought up an active scan and scrutinized the massive ship.

It was a Corellian Action IV freighter, nearly nine hundred meters long, with six huge engine bells set in the rear. It had a blocky hull that became a pointed fore section, with a total of eight cargo modules wedged between the rear engine and the forward command blister. He quickly referenced the Galactic shipbook for the general location of the hyperdrive and compared that to the results of his active scan for hypermatter.

No difference.

"Che'ri, I see your target is the same model of ship, I'm sending you targeting coordinates to disable the hyperdrive."

"Got it, Mr. Chewbacca."

The Tantros was now as big as his fist and within extreme weapon range.

R2 overlaid targeting points for him to aim at.

Their relative velocity to each other was now massively decreasing.

He shifted the yoke up and slightly to the left, using his thumbs on the small trim controls to further refine his aim.

"Vulture droids are about to enter extreme missile range," R2 warned.

Chewie put that out of his mind for the moment, shifting the cannon's aim onto the engine emitters and plotting the movement toward the hyperdrive. He could technically shoot now, but he didn't trust his aim in a ship like the Omen at such extreme range.

"R2, take over the rear cannons, I'll handle the front."

The droid only chirped an acknowledgement.

The instant the distance reading reached 60 km he switched over to single shot, high power mode on the cannons and pulled the trigger.

The two bolts crossed the intervening distance in moments and slammed into the rear shields.

The shields were of civilian make and half of their strength was battered away with only this hit.

He fired twice.

The first salvo was dispersed but the second hit the hull, immediate explosions and armor debris erupted from the rear section.

He dialed down the strength of the cannons and fired again.

The freighter's engine emissions flickered and stuttered before vanishing.

"R2 is their hyperdrive down?"

"Scanning, damage is significant. They are only coasting on their velocity. They aren't going anywhere. Vulture droids are still closing, targeting emissions spiking. They'll match velocities for optimal missile launch conditions in thirteen seconds."

"Urgh, I'm shooting but these Republic shields are just taking everything I can fire!" Che'ri gritted her teeth as she was visibly yanking on her controls.

"R2?"

"Her Chiss weapons are draining the shields in increments."

"Will she make it through before the Vultures can intercept?"

"If she keeps her fire rate up, just barely."

Chewie turned the Omen to accelerate past the Tantros' port side.

"Emission spike, six missiles launched!" R2 reported.

He gunned the engines to 110% overthrust and pulled hard to port, to increase both distance and relative velocity to the incoming missiles.

"Time to impact, six seconds. ECM engaging."

Chewie growled, gritting his teeth as he suddenly changed course to starboard with a Z positive inclination.

"Time to impact eight seconds, two missiles spoofed. Rear guns to rapid fire intercept mode."

Two streams of blue energy bolts swept through space under R2's expert guidance and intercepted three missiles.

The final missile snuck through and detonated on the Omen's aft shields.

The ship shuddered as Chewie felt his body being pushed forward against the seat harness, the residual forces bleeding through the inertial dampeners.

The rear shield was down to two third strength, he nosed the ship to a negative axis and rolled.

Just in time for the three Vultures' cannon shots to miss completely.

R2 switched the rear cannons to a more powerful three shot burst mode and fired in retaliation.

One Vulture exploded instantly from R2's pin point accuracy - as internal fuel stores breached and sent debris in a sphere outward.

He switched the shields to Double Aft mode, just in time to absorb three blaster hits he couldn't avoid as he fired full port thrusters.

R2 fired the rear cannons again and killed another Vulture with a deflection shot that Chewie wished he could do so easily.

He equalized the shield, pulled the throttle to zero and flipped the ship over.

Chewie roared as he pulled triggers on the control yoke, sending streams of blaster bolts at the remaining Vulture.

It tried to evade with thruster bursts but there was just too much incoming fire.

The lower power shots meant to kill missiles, pockmarked the Vulture's thin armor and hull.

It wrecked the left nacelle completely, including the engine in that side, sending it careening out of control to starboard.

He dialed down the fire rate and fired a careful three shot burst that caused a brief explosion as fuel ignited in the remaining droid's engine.

Chewie looked at the holo image of Che'ri and she suddenly jumped with a fist of victory.

"Yes! I did it! Their hyperdrive is down!"

"Stop celebrating and get out of there!"

She gasped and got back in her pilot's seat, "Going!"

He turned the Omen around, now having to fight against his own velocity to head in the direction of the four Vultures bearing down on the rapidly retreating Che'ri.

They were nearly sixty thousand kilometers distant at the moment and R2's quick calculation indicated three minutes fifty-two seconds until they could be in cannon range.

"R2, can you calibrate a torpedo, detonate it behind the Vultures, just enough to kill them but leave Che'ri undamaged?"

The astromech considered the idea for two full seconds before answering.

"Yes."

Chewie breathed a sigh of relief, but saw the immediate problem of physics rearing its ugly head again. They would still have to burn for another 72 seconds before R2 could launch the torpedo with an acceptable closure rate on the enemy.

"What's her acceleration? Is she going to make it beyond the edge of the mass shadow?"

R2 made the calculation and made a sad negative noise in Binary, shaking his dome, "No, they will reach missile range before then."

The cruel math and knowing the general tactics of Vulture droids, Chewie roared to the cockpit to vent his frustrations. Che'ri was going to get eight concussion missiles shot at her and there was nothing he could do about it. Her scout ship only had these Chiss electrostatic barriers that were clearly designed against a pure laser energy weapon paradigm. The only thing that would stop her from being turned into debris instantly was the strange hull armor.

"Relax, Mr. Chewbacca," she said over the comlink. There was tenseness and concentration in her eyes, but she clearly didn't think she was about to die.

"You're about to-"

"I know, Mr. Chewbacca. I have sensors and I'm a very good sky-walker. This is a scout ship. It's not built to really fight, but it has other tricks to stay undetected and run away."

"R2, if those Vultures fire missiles, how well can you ECM them at this range?"

"I can try, but the signal strength is the issue. I also need the active frequency data from the missile seeker heads to make a good counter attempt, which I will not have, as they're not shooting at us."

"Do whatever you can."

Chewie watched with bated breath as the range counters and the angry red spheres in the holo sensor feeds catched up to the tiny green arrow icon that represented Che'ri's scout ship.

The instant that extreme range was reached, eight angry red pointed arrows appeared from the Vultures and shot forward at over 4000 Gs.

"Attempting ECM, 46 seconds to impact," R2 announced.

Merely seconds later, the Omen had finally overcome its velocity disadvantage and Chewie triggered a torpedo with a growl of viciousness.

The weapon raced ahead of the ship and began streaking across the 30 000 km gap to reach its target.

The Omen was fitted with the latest generation of GAR anti-capital torpedo that could be mounted on fighter platforms.

These were two-stage weapons that also included multi-warhead technology, allowing for three independent warheads to be released in the terminal phase, which could target multiple points on a ship and hit them at once, or completely focus the firepower on a single point. They could also have other mixes, such as two warheads and a single ECM penetration aid or a single warhead with two pen-aids.

R2 had released one of the latter, since they definitely didn't want to make a very big bang and they both knew what a Vulture droid would do once they detected an incoming torpedo.

Sure enough, one of the four Vultures cut thrust and flipped around, bringing to bear not only its cannons, but also its own ECM against the incoming weapon.

Now Chewie could only just sit back, wait and hope.

Hope that Che'ri had something on that ship that could see her survive, because unless chiss metallurgy was significantly more advanced…

He growled in annoyance.

Give me a good bowcaster and a foe in my sights, he thought with annoyance.

The timers counted down.

He fixed his eyes on the enemy concussion missiles as they closed the gap to Che'ri with deadly finality.

5…4…3…

"Take this, droids!" she crowed.

The chiss scout ship suddenly spewed twelve… more scout ships?

Chewie blinked as his passive and even active scans reported twelve more scout ships appearing out of nowhere. Even an optical scan showed twelve identical scout ships.

Che'ri's ship signature phased through another of what had to be a form of highly sophisticated decoy and now even the Omen's sensors had no idea which ship was real. Only their active com link allowed Chewie to deduce that she had hid herself in the lower part of a sphere formation with her illusory duplicates.

He let out an amazed whine as the CIS concussion missiles were completely scattered, their seeker heads immediately confused and locking on to the fake illusory signatures.

R2 managed a jam on one of the eight missiles at this point, which sent it uselessly off course straight towards Mokivj, where it would run out of fuel and burn up in the atmosphere.

The remaining seven missiles, all caught up in the sophisticated electronic illusions, missed Che'ri completely, fusing their directional warheads to explode on empty space.

"And… jumping to hyper, see you later, Mr. Chewbacca!"

His sensors registered the hyper emission and her ship stretched into the other dimension with a flash of blue-white light.

The flipped Vulture started firing its cannons in an attempt to intercept the torpedo, but the extreme range combined with the ECM pen-aids and R2's evasion routines meant the shots were always missing.

The remaining Vultures flipped around as one and fired as well.

This only managed to kill one of the pen-aids before the torpedo reached its terminal guidance and detonated.

Chewie reflexively averted his eyes from the bright flash.

The sensors were also blinded briefly, but compensated to reveal that all four fighters were nothing more than barely detectable remnants of a fading energy signature.

"Good work, R2. Let's get back to those freighters. I don't want any opportunists to potentially make a run for them. Only we are going to first set foot on them, if I have anything to say about it."

With the primary control room under my control and with M8s help in hacking the head of the tac droid, it was easy to infiltrate the enemy droid network. My speed in the assault and the fact that it had been my first target to disable with a low-strength Emerald Judgment, meant that the onboard safeties to self-destruct internal components had not been triggered.

M8 now virtually impersonated the tac droid and gave the order for every B1 and B2 to return to their recharging stations and shut down.

It also allowed me to lock down the entire factory to stop the workers from escaping.

Fact of the matter was, there was definitely a CIS spy among them to keep a general eye on events. No way that Dooku would let Solha play around with cortosis without a hidden leash.

Smoking out such a spy would depend on many factors, but for the moment it was best to keep the workers in the dark as much as possible. As such, I sent out an e-memo to everyone's comlink, impersonating Duke Solha, that they were to report to one of the large loading bays on the eastern side of the complex building.

It addressed anything the workers might have heard or seen, stating that criminal intruders had tried to breach the factory and had been successfully dealt with by security.

M8 and I were digesting the data from the factory's systems and reviewing everything when Anakin, Padme, Thrawn and the three workers recruited as an impromptu militia entered the control room.

"No way," gasped one of them with a huge moustache and looked at me with emotions I could only quantify as a fan at an old sci-fi convention who had just met Harrison Ford. "Commander Tano?!"

One of the other workers slapped the guy upside the head. "Not now, Leb."

"Ow, stop that, Huga," Leb complained.

Huga just glared at the man, "I'm sorry for my colleague's exuberance, commander."

Thankfully, my helmet hid my amused expression and it took some effort to hide an outright laugh given what I was sensing from Leb.

"That's all right," I turned to Anakin. "Master, the factory is completely ours so to speak. I've also heard from Chewie that the freighter was stopped successfully. Solha tried to play a sleight of hand, but it didn't work out. Also please tell Commander Thrawn, that he'll be happy to know that Che'ri survived the brief battle in orbit with the deployed Vulture droids."

The chiss nodded after Anakin's translation, "That is a relief. My training has succeeded then."

"Has neither captain of those ships contacted Chewie yet?" Anakin asked.

"No, Chewie decided that it was safer to jam and disable their communications."

"What about local security? Did they scramble fighters?"

"They did. Chewie got me on comlink and I commandeered them under the GAR. Now they've got the Omen and a squadron of old Hammerheads keeping those 'enemy freighters' under guard."

Anakin frowned, "What about the local governor?"

I knew what he was getting at. My hand gestured to the very sleepy trio of Solha siblings lying uncomfortably on the floor.

"In my mindwalk, I discovered Governor Dilvosh was thoroughly bribed by the Duke to not question why a serennian wanted to reactivate an old factory. Classic case of simple greed and the war being a very distant thing for the people of Mokivj. Many here just don't care and think it's the Core Worlds' problem."

Anakin frowned severely, "They are still part of the Republic, distance should be no excuse."

"In an ideal galaxy, you'd be correct, general," Padme sighed. "The truth of the matter is that to people on the fringe of the Unknown Regions even more so than the Outer Rim, the Republic only exists on flimsiplast and the Holonet."

"We have two… no, three big problems to deal with now," I pulled out my armor interface spike from the systems. "Most pressing is the factory workers. There will be a CIS spy among them." I gave a pointed look to the three workers in our midst.

"What?!" asked Leb in astonishment, feeling like I had just accused him and looking at his two colleagues incredulously.

Huga rolled his eyes, "She doesn't mean us, Leb. Cimy, if you please."

Cimy, the other twin brother, slapped Leb upside the head.

"Ow, ow, stop that already!"

"Does Solha know who it is?" Anakin asked.

"No, just that there is one. I ordered all the workers to a loading bay, it's near a power transformer so it will disrupt any personal comms from linking to the Holonet."

"Mistress, I've been monitoring, all workers have followed the instructions. No lifesigns detected elsewhere."

"That's a pity. It means he or she's a good spy. Second problem…" I was about to speak further but stopped as my prescience blared into my montrals.

I turned to the three recruited workers. "I'm sorry about this."

They promptly collapsed into dreamless sleep.

"Was that truly necessary, Ahsoka?" Padme shook her head, kneeling to shift their bodies into more comfortable positions.

"Considering what we have to talk about, yes. We have a factory producing an armor material that's an effective paradigm shift in the current state of ground warfare. If the Separatists have it, the entire southern battle space could eventually collapse. Yes, cortosis armor can be beaten, but every clone will need a Merr-Sonn lightning gun to do it. There aren't enough such weapons in the galaxy and the company will need months to retool production lines even if they get the emergency orders to build. Grenade launchers are another option, but you can't use them in close quarters or indoors. Jedi could fight them with kinetic Force attacks, but few could fight them continuously in great numbers, unless you're Mace Windu or Yoda.

"If we retool this entire factory to only produce clone armor. We could equip our southern forces and dominate the ground campaigns initially. Right until the CIS gets the idea of using self-destructing B1 droids packed with baradium explosives to charge into our lines. It'd be cheap and easy to do, as well. The GAR is forced to deploy Repeater teams in great numbers and artillery saturation strikes. This spreads quickly to the north as well, in fear that the CIS will try the same thing there. The amount of infrastructure destroyed in battles goes up exponentially across the galaxy, as does the collateral damage in casualties. This drives the CIS farther into the corner until they decide to violate the old accords on planetary orbital bombardment…"

I trailed off, realizing I had slipped into deep prescience, describing a full probability line as I beheld the horror of what was to come.

Padme's eyes were equally horrified as she stared at me. "Then no one can have this place. We must destroy it."

Anakin shook his head, "Easier said than done, senator. The quickest and surest way would lead to the devastation of this city. To do it safely would require demolition expertise, explosives and time. Between me and Chewie, we have the expertise, the latter two is the issue."

"We also have the cortosis mine to worry about," I folded my arms and looked up into the ceiling, wracking my brain for answers. "Using any form of explosive to seal it, results in disaster for the entire planet. The raw cortosis channels the explosive energy partially, deeper into the planetary crust. It activates many dormant volcanoes, which in turn devastates all the grasslands and most of the arable land. It happens so quickly that millions die and the ship capacity to evacuate everyone just doesn't exist out here."

"Snips," Anakin looked at me grimly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. The mining process for cortosis is a delicate, time consuming and laborious affair. The mining droids use pickaxes for goodness sake!"

Anakin gritted his teeth, "So we either doom this world, millions of people dead or we escalate the war resulting in the deaths of billions. I refuse to accept this choice. There must be another way! What about our sabotage?"

"It works for a time, assuming we let the factory remain in Solha's hands, but when the faulty cortosis is discovered, they just report back here and a fix is implemented. It just delays the problem. If the Republic takes control, we end up trapping clones in effective microwave ovens when they're hit with a blaster shot. The fix is implemented and we're back where we started."

He shook his head, "One step at a time. Let's find this CIS spy, hopefully an idea will come that we all can live with soon."

In the interest of time, Anakin decided to throw the proverbial torch into the dry forest.

We entered the loading dock openly, with no tricks or deception and laid out the general situation for the 263 workers gathered there.

He did the talking as I was too busy laying down a Battle Meditation upon everyone that would keep them calm. In that situation, it was easy for M8 to scan and find someone trying to use a comlink. The spy was professional enough to not react immediately to the fact that General Skywalker had discovered the entire CIS factory operation on Mokivj. They bided their time.

The majority of the workers were jubilant that they were liberated from Solha's clutches. Everyone had been hired under false pretenses and once they were in and saw the truth of what was being built, had been threatened with death to not only themselves, but their families as well.

With that emotional resonance in the background, spotting the fake was much easier and Anakin found her first.

He reached out a hand and closed a fist towards her.

She collapsed to the floor in a deep sleep.

This naturally led to some alarmed panic among the workers nearby, reflexively trying to help her.

"Stay back from her!" Anakin commanded. "She is a CIS spy."

There were gasps and cries of disbelief.

Anakin lifted a hand with some theatricality; levitating the sleeping woman into the air overhead so everyone could see. A blaster pistol came out of her pocket, hovering beside her, before Anakin stripped her comlink and a few other effects. She didn't have any obvious smoking gun that indicated her guilt, but I would definitely be mindwalking her later to learn all I could.

"Right now, all you can do is go home to your families and loved ones, spend time with them and cherish them," he said as the spy began slowly flying towards him. "All I can ask is that you refrain from speaking about this on the Holonet. Tell your families if you must, but swear them to secrecy. You all know what you were building here. Think about what this would mean if either side gained control of this place."

There was no way to Mind Trick so many, but I didn't need to. I would let their own minds do that and so I pushed the vision of this world burning and choking on all of them, as either side fought for control of the cortosis. I also added a few choice snippets of the devastation of a few other worlds as the awful consequences of the Base Delta Zero doctrine came into existence - the complete surface destruction of a planet from orbit.

I might have overdone it a bit as a number of folk fainted or even burst into tears.

He gestured to the large cargo doors to the side of the massive bay and the motivators burst to life, splitting apart the doors.

The late afternoon sun streamed into the large space.

"You will all soon be contacted, where you will receive a generous severance package, courtesy of Duke Solha's many assets."

That got their attention as well and seemed to break through the misery at the thought of being jobless and unable to support their families.

Cheers resounded.

"Rest assured though, my next stop is to see the planetary governor. He has much to answer for."

This time there were cheers and quite a few jeering boos.

Thrawn regained contact with Che'ri soon after and the chiss bid a temporary farewell to conduct business of his own in Mokivj's capital city.

We commandeered one of the empty cargo haulers and locked up the three Solha siblings and the spy in the rear.

Before we left, I had M8 deploy an encryption on the factory's security systems, locking it down so nothing could go in or out.

It took more than an hour to wind our way through the city's air lanes and streets, time we used to just settle down and think. M8 volunteered to drive, letting Anakin and I meditate. Padme even joined us, using the techniques I had taught her.

"We are here, mistress."

I opened my eyes to regard a well appointed three floor mansion, settled on a hectare of land which was surrounded by a two meter high wall. The overall style reminded me of Alderaanian architecture, but with a slight spin of the occasional sharp angle on the exterior. The front gate was guarded by one member of what looked like the Mokivj planetary militia. In a nearby guardhouse I could sense five more very bored minds who were playing low-stakes Sabacc.

"We can't exactly officially arrest him," Padme glared at the large mansion.

"Sticking him in a cell for a few decades on Coruscant is appealing. No, we're not here for that," Anakin gave me a look and I nodded in agreement.

Padme frowned at both of us, "You figured out a plan?"

"We have," he confirmed and pushed on the door release to hop out of the hauler.

I exited next and helped Padme down, following in Anakin's striding wake.

The guard scrambled out of his small gate hut, hand poised on a holstered blaster on his hip but not drawing yet. His eyes widened as he took in Anakin in his full armored battlegear, including the lightsaber. Then the guard saw me in my clearly Mandalorian armor and now he was practically one moment away from raising the alarm.

"I am General Skywalker of the Grand Army of the Republic. This is Commander Tano and Senator Padme Amidala. We are here to speak to Governor Dilvosh."

The poor guard blinked and struggled to believe what his eyes were seeing. "Uh… w- w- I'll- I'll just-"

"Please relax," Anakin gestured with his hand and the Mind Trick settled on the man's mind.

"Yes, I'll relax," he said, his entire posture unwound and he lifted his hand away from his blaster.

"Now please, call inside and say that we want to speak to the governor."

"I'll just call inside."

The guard promptly went back into the hut and began to get the ball rolling.

To the governor's credit, he didn't make us wait long and emerged from his home within less than eight minutes and walked down the long winding driveway for speeders and approached the gate.

"Open it," he ordered the guard with a resigned air. "I'd rather have an intact gate when this is over with."

Governor Athus Dilvosh was a man in his early fifties, with an extremely short haircut, salt-and pepper hair, slightly taller than Anakin and had the look of an active man gone slightly to seed, gaining weight as it became more difficult to maintain his physique with age. He wore a casual open white robe over a blue tunic and pants. His bare feet slapped on the stone of the driveway as he stopped by the gate, his blue eyes cold and assessing his new guests.

"Governor, we have to talk," Anakin said promptly.

"No doubt, come in. This isn't exactly a conversation for the public, now is it? Our local news media is a small affair, but it's there and I'm usually a prime target for sniffing out a story."

We followed Dilvosh back to his home and entered, which rather strangely had an actual wooden door that was completely manual, with nothing modern in sight to actuate it at all.

The first room was an entrance lobby that wouldn't have been out of place in a four star luxury hotel; crystalline chandelier, two expansive carpeted staircases going up to the second floor on either side of the room, marble flooring, hunting trophies, traditional paintings of fantastic vistas in physical and holographic form.

Beyond this quaint luxury, there was deadly lethality. I sensed hidden Repeaters encased in the walls, ready to pop out from behind those paintings and other panels. There was also an occasional active scan that pinged every three seconds and blanketed the entire house.

We were met by a protocol droid of C-3P0's general form factor, but had a different style of head, with bigger eyes and a wider vocorder in the mouth, colored in gleaming silver. It seemingly served the function of a butler, judging by the tray with four glasses of frothy wine it was perfectly balancing on its right hand.

"Master Dilvosh, was I correct in preparing some refreshments for your unannounced guests?"

It had a much deeper voice than C-3P0 and its inflection seemed to imply that it was very unimpressed at our rudeness for inconveniencing his master in this fashion.

"Yes, thank you, Q7-4G. In most circumstances, your foresight would be applauded but I don't think my guests will accept those drinks. So I'll be taking them, I have a feeling I'll need it, given the discussion that's about to take place."

Dilvosh grabbed the tray from his droid and gestured for us to follow him through a side door in the lobby.

"Have a seat," he gestured to the very comfortable chairs and sofas that surrounded a low table in a posh sitting room with an expansive view of the estate's gardens, which were being maintained by small spherical droids that hovered over the exotic flower and plant beds. There was even a small endlessly circulating artificial river, the tinkling sound of which was channeled into the room to create a relaxing atmosphere.

He took one of the large single seat sofas, grabbed a glass of wine and downed it one shot, before putting down the tray.

Dilvosh gave Anakin and Padme a flinty stare. "Now, should I start packing for my Senate sponsored accommodations, general?"

"By all rights, you should. You accepted a bribe from the Separatists to use your planet as a manufacturing base. Certain hardline elements of the Senate would put you immediately on trial for treason."

Dilvosh's expression grew stormy, "I did not-"

Anakin raised a hand to interrupt him, "Yes, I know. It wasn't as if Solha approached you and asked you to commit treason outright. You had the land, the people, the factory and the cortosis, just sitting there. He came to you as a businessman and so when that amount of credits was on the table. You'd be utterly foolish to say no, especially when Solha arrived at your meeting with two dozen commando droids as 'escorts'. The message was loud and clear. The Republic is so very far away out here after all. After all , why would the Grand Army divert one of its warships away from the southern front lines to this little backwater? To help a lone governor from being extorted? No."

The governor grabbed another glass of wine and the subtle tension that had coiled around his entire body began to unwind. "You're remarkably well informed of events, Master Jedi. Am I to assume that you have the good Duke in custody then?"

"You may. He is in a rather uncomfortable position inside the hauler we arrived in, along with both his younger siblings, all unconscious."

Dilvosh frowned at Anakin, then looked at Padme, his eyebrow rising as he took in the cortosis chest armor she was still wearing. He abruptly clapped his hands.

Q7 arrived in the room a few moments later, "Yes, master?"

"Send a signal to Colonel Jeem. He is to execute Plan Tau immediately."

"At once, master."

"Also tell your militia commander to plan for at least a squadron of ready Vulture droids to launch as soon as you attack Solha's compound," Anakin advised.

Dilvosh raised an intrigued eyebrow, "We only found the half-squadron already launched against your ship. He had more?"

"The Vulture droid is a great deal more compact than most would assume. They can be disassembled further in a way that a single tech who knows what they're doing can put them back together in a few hours. This makes them much easier to smuggle into places."

The governor nodded, "Relay the Master Jedi's advice as well in my name, Q7."

"Understood, master."

The droid strode out with a sudden open legged gait that reminded me more of HK's style of locomotion.

Dilvosh briefly looked at me now, before saying, "I suppose then, thanks are in order, Master Jedi."

"You're welcome, but we still have something else to discuss. The cortosis mine, who discovered it?"

"Originally, that would be my grandfather, nearly forty years ago. He had a business partner who helped fund the exploration. Then to build the first mining shaft when a significant vein of the material was discovered. Unfortunately, there was an accident in the burgeoning mine which killed them both. The funding dried up and as far as I remember my father just never thought the business case was compelling enough, especially when his own fortunes came under strain at the same time. It was only last year when I was contacted by Solha, who had somehow heard of the failed mining venture that the mine was properly finished, allowing the ore to begin flowing."

Anakin gave me a knowing look.

What a very convenient chain of events. Darth Plagueis might have been a supreme biologist, working with life essence directly and extremely strong in the Force, but he was also an influential Muun who breathed business and money in his public persona. It would be childsplay for him to manipulate the finances of the Dilvosh family.

"Your father never tried to publicize the discovery?"

Dilvosh gave Anakin an unimpressed look at the question. "Please, Master Jedi. Ascribe my late father some measure of intelligence. We know very well cortosis' potential impact on the galaxy. Even had this war not broken out, we would've had every major military contractor either lining up at our door or sending assassins to kill us in the night, Blastech especially."

"Apologies, governor. May I ask how he died?"

"Suicide. After all his losses and the debts that just kept on piling up with no end in sight…"

I saw an old pain, long scabbed over in Dilvosh's eyes.

He shook his head, "Incidentally, the Jedi were another group he was worried about. In our experiments and research, we knew that if it did that to blaster weapons, then it would also shield against those fancy lightsabers you all carry around."

"Then you realize that when word of the cortosis is leaked-"

"Don't try to frighten me, Master Jedi. I've had a long time to think on the subject, much longer than you have I wager. I know that when the Separatists realize their secret operation here has been stopped, they will try anything to prevent the Republic from getting their hands on the mine."

Anakin nodded, "Good, that simplifies our discussion considerably. Understand this, as a Jedi, a general, a leader of men, I don't want cortosis armor for the Grand Army. Yes, it would be nice to have, considering how many lives it would save in the short term, but it destabilizes too much and threatens the interests of too many powerful and rich people."

"Then what do you suggest, Master Jedi? I ask not just out of my greed and self-interest. I love my home here and the frontier spirit of the people that share this world with me. My grandfather moved here from Alderaan because he was sick of the indulgent and spoiled life of the Core Worlds. We used to be a full noble house on the old homeworld, with all the privileges that entailed."

"I suggest you listen to my padawan. Ahsoka?"

I stood and pulled off my left armored glove, dropping it onto the table and held out my bare hand towards the governor.

"Please, take my hand."

He frowned at my offered appendage and looked up into my Mando visor. "What is this? Why?"

"Jedi have many abilities, governor. What we have to talk about cannot be spoken aloud. It can only be communicated mind to mind directly. I assure you, this will only be done on a surface level. I will seek no secrets or private information. We will just be talking, just without our mouths and we'll also be going on a small flight of imagination."

Dilvosh looked at my hand for a long moment, clearly debating with himself. In the end, he had no real choice about the matter. Not if he wanted to save his world.

He put down his glass of wine and clasped my hand.

"Brace yourself, governor."

888888888888888888888888888888888888