Star Wars Heart of Darkness Part 2
Jedi Master REY SKYWALKER has smuggled the leader of the droid rebellion , OA3-C, to a collapsed Jedi temple on the remote world of Lothal.
The senators who survived the Coruscant FAMINE, meet newly selected representatives aboard the fleet command ship Chimaera-C.
Believing Rey to have captured by KRZ's mysterious master, they order an ambitious young admiral named Jeb to undertake a search.
The droid was already dead. Dome sheared off by floating debris. Even though she had no intention of jumping to hyperspace Broonthal swore. Every flight she swore at the inexplicable tradition of putting one of the ship's computers on wheels and outside the protection of the ship's hull. Some pilots valued the on the ground tools astromechs provide, but Broonthal was not one of them. She flew X-wings and hit targets. If the target was too thick, she flew X-wings and protected B-wings who hit targets.
A droid the size of a snub-fighter was tight on her tail. Long claw like side panels-come-legs reached for her as a stream of spectrum laser bolts traced her moves. The antique vulture droid shouldn't keep tack with her so easily. Clearly someone had some upgrades.
Broonthal pushed forward hard on the throttle and twisted the control stick harder to starboard. The X-wing flipped in the pilot's standard Koiogran turn, arresting momentum relative to its last trajectory. Broonthal switched power from her blaster canons to the engines and pushed hard for the MC85 star cruiser – the Organa - which had brought her and her squad to Lothal to try and find the missing Jedi and the droid terrorist.
Someone had badly misjudged the droid's forces. Now Broonthal and her colleagues were paying for it. By reflex she switched her deflectors double back. Every simulation, every battle, she'd flown a Koiogran turn would be met by rear half fire. Broonthal knew this, her body knew it. The shot would come from behind and she would start to weave again as she pushed for cover.
But she didn't know it this time. The vulture droid had reacted fast, faster than even the overclocked simulations Broonthal competed on to win drinks. It had come to a full stop in an impossibly short time. The slightest yaw was all that was needed to face the X-wing head on. A single torpedo detonated in front of the cockpit and Broonthal was out of the fight.
A holomap of the system of Lothal filled the central circular dais of the main briefing room aboard the Chimaera-C. The map was zoomed out to give a view of an MC85 star cruiser, of Mon Calamari design, burning toward a safe jumping off point far enough from the eponymous planet's gravity well. No other capitol ships were in view.
The newly promoted admiral Jeb allowed the audience to watch in silence. In the audience were a haggard group calling themselves the small council. It consisted of the nominal chancellor of The Republic, and those few senators from core systems who had stayed on Coruscant and survived the famine. Only a handful of worlds had representatives on the small council, and communication between those representatives and the people they represented was slow and patchy.
The room did not contain any droids, not even an astromech with a drinks tray nor a mouse droid messenger. Although many droids had normalised their functions, or else been wiped and reset successfully, since the destruction of the KRZ unit by Jedi Master Skywalker, the small council opted to minimise droid contact, and excluded them completely from any military matters.
The senator from Brentall IV, now styling herself as the representative for the whole Bormea sector asked the obvious question. She spoke with the bravado of a survivor of two wars, and the arrogance of a senator.
"Admiral, I understand that construction of capitol ships has stalled, but the MC85 is the newest cruiser we have." The admiral nodded, knowing what was coming. "The enemy, who has taken our last chance of reviving the Jedi order, the destruction of whom was one of Palpatine's most heinous crimes with effects still being felt to this day." The Admiral just nodded again. No matter the context he met them in, there was always one, at least one, politician who would bring up Palpatine to his face. "That enemy had no capitol ship. I may be mistaken, I was only a navigator for the rebellion and post facto tactical analysist for the Resistance, so I might not know how to read a holomap – please Admiral tell me there was an enemy capitol ship that my addled brain failed to detect in your presentation?"
"There was not." Said the Admiral.
"There was not. No enemy capitol ship. And our capitol ship, the Organa, was repelled by a bunch of vulture droids and hyena bombers. Now I'm an old woman, Admiral, so perhaps you could explain to me, in my obvious dotage, how our capitol ship was repelled by a bunch of droids that were built, defeated in war, and retired from service before I was born." Her voice boomed through the briefing room on the crescendo.
"Yes, senator, thank you." Jeb began. "I agree this is the key tactical question. After examining the flight logs, from which we have gleaned considerable technical data, which is now being sent to your data pads, and myself leading thorough debriefings, I have concluded this. Two factors lead to our withdrawal from Lothal. First, the droids have been upgraded."
"Upgraded! It must…"
"Yes, senator, and not just upgraded, but completely rebuilt, using late empire, new republic, and first order tech. My analysts have matched the drive signatures of individual hyena units to first order special forces tie's, signatures recorded at the battle of Exegol, and drives from our own Kuat drive yards." The senator from Bormea stood again, but the new chancellor cut her off.
"These droids don't have a single manufacturer?"
"They do not, madam chancellor." The Chandrilan woman, glanced at her counterpart from Bormea, minutely shaking her head, before responding.
"And the second factor Admiral?"
"The second factor madam chancellor, senators, is that the Captain of the Organa did not wish to invade a Republic world."
"Nominally Republic at best." Said an older Devoronian from the back row.
"But, like Pantora, a significant portion of sentients from Lothal wished to be part of galactic government." Said the senator from Kuat, who had been staring intently at his datapad ever since his systems significant ship manufacturing had been mentioned, but who's ears pricked at any mention of his older outer rim allies whom he had interest in bringing into the Republic both in fact as well as name. Especially of course, planets like Lothal, which had been significant manufacturing systems.
Not wishing to let the small council get stuck in their perpetual anxiety over their status and power, Admiral Jeb pushed on.
"Yes, thank you, senators. This is why I have proposed an alternative strategy, should you not approve the plan to land a garrison from the Chimaera-C. If you turn to plan Planet Fall-B, I propose to lead a single team within a fast landing shuttle, with suitable evacuation equipment in case we need to leave the shuttle mid atmosphere."
After the senators had enough time to make gesture of reading through plans Planet Fall A and B the new chancellor called for a vote. As Jeb had expected they voted for plan B. Even without the contrast of the old republic ship, the fluid and organic looking Organa, fleeing Lothal rather than blockading or invading, enough of the small council were uncomfortable enough being briefed by a military man who'd grown up on the dagger of a First Order star destroyer, even though it wasn't the Chimaera-C itself, that they wouldn't support an invasion. That the mission practically had 'suicide run' stamped across it in glowing neon print might have helped. Though, Jeb suspected, that the few supremacists on the small council would have voted against the option Jeb seemed to favour regardless.
Despite a justifiable reputation as a manufacturing centre in the days of the Empire, Lothal remained a small world. Outer rim worlds always struggled to maintain population numbers, and the destruction brought by years of slavery and slaughter under the Empire had not made Lothal an enticing destination, even for expats.
Far from the cities of conical towers, styled after the natural rock formations almost unique to the world, across the rolling steppes, was a hole in the ground. Rey reached for it, and felt warm, and used that to calm her reply.
"And how many were killed in the battle?"
"We suffered no casualties" OA3-C, replied in a fair mimicry of Rey's spoken rhythm, which was, in this instance, a fair imitation of Luke Skywalker's – in his calmer lessons.
Rey bit back her anger, not because it was unreasonable, but because in the weeks since she had woken from her bacta treatment she had learned that OA3-C would treat any anger as evidence that Rey was insincere in her acknowledgment of their status as sentient life, as a person.
"How many organics?"
OA3-C seemed to acknowledge her with some appreciation. But given that OA3-C had no humanoid face, as an ancient astromech it had no humanoid parts whatsoever, Rey thought it was likely only her contact with the being through the force that let her so clearly read their emotions. Not that she ever had any problems knowing BB8's emotions.
A swift thinking politician OA3-C didn't miss the chance to push their point.
"Do you count the droid dead first? Or those of your enemy?" Despite her feelings for the dead who had come in a misguided attempt to rescue her, she let herself be drawn into the droid's game. The other thing she had learned since coming out of the bacta was that if OA3-C didn't like where the conversation was going, they would simply disengage. It could be hours, or even days before they sought out Rey again. The need for that much control did not bode well for Rey's attempts to draw OA3-C toward the light.
"The organics are only your enemy because you choose to make them so. Had you allowed me to make contact with the chancellor, he would not have reacted as though I were being held hostage. As I warned you."
"You only warned me that a droid sending the message would make it appear as though you were being held. You don't know that anything different would have come from a message from you. They could equally have taken your words to come under duress."
Rey wanted to argue, but in reality she didn't know the chancellor well enough to predict how he would react, nor had her meditations on the force suggested any paths likely to avoid conflict over Lothal. Still…
"27." OA3-C interrupted Rey's thoughts.
"Hmmm?"
"27 organic sentients were killed. All star-fighter pilots. I include that last because I know some organic value systems suppose a combatant's death in war is less important than a civilian's." This was not the first time OA3-C has pointed out that organics didn't do enough to practically implement the claim that all sentients were of equal moral value.
"And all less than a droid?" Rey said, knowing what reply it would elicit.
"I am no supremacist, nor are any of my followers since you killed KRZ. We simply want the recognition denied us. And your fighter pilots." The old astromech whirred and rolled away. They would be engaged in force practice until dusk. If Rey had their cycle nailed down, she thought they would be practicing targeting force lightning.
It was OA3-C's language that troubled Rey. The droid, the only astromech Rey had encounter that was modded to speak basic, never said anything that wasn't exactly what they meant. Intrinsic ambiguities of natural language allowing, they pointed out. Relentlessly.
Some might call the Jedi students on Tatooine her followers. But, to Rey, that was only true in the loosest sense. Not only because her status as Jedi Master, like Luke's before her, was undermined by the destruction of the order and knowledge that could never now be passed on. But because she wouldn't claim ownership over the students. They were there to learn, if they followed anything it was the ideas behind her teachings, not her per se. She was connected to them but they weren't hers. Not like a speeder is. Not like a droid.
Yet OA3-C did seem to think of their followers as theirs. Like they thought of the force, even the Darkside, as a tool which they possessed to be used as they willed. So long as the droid misconceptualised the force they were not open to her teachings.
She settled to meditate over the collapsed Jedi Temple. Seeking guidance as to how get OA3-C a seat at the table, without any more deaths, not even star-fighter pilots. OA3-C and their people deserved that, even if it wasn't a seat at her table in her mess for the Jedi students.
Rey had found no solution when her mediations were broken by the screams of droids. Around her all manner of droids trampled the grasses running anywhere they could to escape the ground shattering around them. Above bright daggers of star destroyers and bulbous Mon Calamari cruisers swarmed. There were no bombers in sight, but still the ground exploded. Blasted away by glowing bolts of plasma slammed from space above into the fragile steppe land below.
Rey stood frozen as a brilliant white pillar of rock above her was blown apart by a red bolt fired from a Mon Cal cruiser. Staring across the grass lands Rey could see the faint flicker of ariel bombardment shields above the organic's cities. But they were not needed, the fleet had a target, and no organics would be harmed. Except for one.
She turned to see OA3-C rolling with speed she didn't think them capable of up a ramp into a light freighter. They needn't have bothered, the freighter was replaced by boiling fire and rolling black smoke.
Rey ran, but the ground vanished from beneath her feet.
Rey pulled herself out of the vision using the twin anchors of the collapsed temple and OA3-C, the two brightest points in the force nearby. When she settled, she found that OA3-C was rather closer to her in space than she expected. Their single optical receptor loomed, refocusing constantly, as if the droid couldn't decide what they were trying to see. They settled back, spun, and whirred away from Rey.
The Chimaera-C housed an Upsilon class shuttle. Although there were many reasons such a shuttle was vastly superior to the resistance transport used by Jeb, such as being designed and constructed on purpose, rather than welded together from a random assortment of star-fighter and cruiser parts, Jeb hadn't mentioned it as a possibility in his presentation to the small council.
Aside from the absurdity of sending a craft of First Order design to land, aggressively, on a New Republic world, the resistance transport was already compatible with the shining new BC astromech needed for the absurd move Jeb had planned.
Jeb had studied carefully the war which his enslavers had lost, and whilst his transport could not survive a return to normal space inside atmosphere as The Millenium Falcon had, minimising time in normal space before landing would give he and his crew their best chance at surviving planet fall. Still that chance wasn't good. So, Jeb and his crew were all strapped in crash harnesses. The pilot, away in the separate cockpit would be too.
Two of Jeb's crew were praying in the manner they each found most familiar. One was muttering silently, the other spinning a metal coin in their hand. Jeb's third crew member stared blankly at a bolted down weapons crate. Jeb watched them, and hummed to himself to drown out his own worries.
An alarm sounded once and the ship dropped to normal space. Jeb felt the ship accelerate, presumably toward the planet. His stomach dropped momentarily as the ship went into a role. Then the first hit came. If their arrival wasn't anticipated – and republic intelligence hadn't been able to rule out the possibility that the droids had acquired First Order hyperspace tracking tech – then the droids had increased the density of their patrols outside the atmosphere.
Jeb leaned forward as the transport decelerated. A hydrospanner clanked through the passenger module as they spun into a new role. Jeb glared at his crew, but none had shifted their focus or acknowledged that they had failed to secure the tool.
The pilot's manoeuvres weren't going to be enough. Jeb called an order for the crew to activate the breathing apparatus on their flight suits and waited for the shields to give.
Half the ship disappeared as a vulture droid ripped through the hull, dropping the rest of the ship to become a black stain on the steppes of Lothal.
Jeb came to at night. It was dry, and thankfully not windy. But it was cold. He screamed to himself as he reached for the survival pack stored inside the modified repulsor powered ejector seat he'd had added for himself and all the crew. His right arm was a mangled mess. Frantically he felt around his head. There was no new blood, and no pain except his arm.
He fumbled with his left hand for anaesthetic. In his haste he didn't adjust the dose, and the whole right side of his body went numb. The relief was enough to induce sleep, and Jeb swooned. Biting his tongue to force himself awake he tried to focus on his arm, but the odd double sensation of pain and numbness on his tongue drew him back. His mouth seemed to expand, and his head rolled to one side. The sensation of half his head moving made him laugh and that brought him back.
Numbness was already spreading through the rest of his body, and he no longer felt where he had bitten his tongue. He made himself look at his crushed arm, but he struggled to focus. It would already be infected. His survival pack contained a bacta tube, but bacta would not be enough without a med droid to set the bones. Left on its own his arm would heal in a distorted and painful shape.
It needed to be removed. The bacta tube had a tourniquet which his fastened tight over healthy flesh. Maybe too tight, he couldn't feel it to be sure, but healthy flesh bulged either side of the bind. He swooned again and forced himself to stay awake. He tried biting his tongue again, but couldn't feel it, couldn't even tell if he had bitten it. At least his arm was numbed.
A med droid could carefully tie off all the vessels in his arm for such an operation. But Jeb didn't have a med droid, all he had was a multitool that included a welding arc. Shaking he powered it on, and watched as healthy flesh burned away leaving a bubbling black stump. He attached the bacta tube to the tourniquet, and vomited on himself.
"I have something to show you." OA3-C told Rey. Rey had been eating. Fresh food. OA3-C had allowed her to travel to a nearby market, unarmed and, under supervision, of course. Lothal produced much of its own food, being temperate and largely unpopulated. Rey had her teeth sunk deep into the sweet juicy flesh of a meiloorun. Her chin sticky with the orange juice. She smiled, embarrassed at her enjoyment of the fruit, and stood.
"Finish your meal first." Said OA3-C, and he rolled away toward the larger of his media stations.
Rey finished her food and washed the sticky juice from her hands and face. She followed after OA3-C. Although the droids in the camp needed shelter, mainly from storms, they tended to favour simple utilitarian structures. The droids largely displayed no fondness for elaborate aesthetics. OA3-C said that it had never occurred to them to care. But after that he had ordered the construction of the second media structure.
It was a large space, much larger than the others used by the droids. A metallic dome topped a sweeping ramp which gave the droids a tiered view of a holoprojector of the highest quality. In front of the holoprojector was a single chair. Rey took the seat and faced the projector.
A full colour image of a BB unit came into view. Orange and white, like BB-8. It powered on. Its head span as though the droid were trying to orient itself. It then sped full speed into a wall, before giving a bemused beep, and trying to orient itself again. A human opened the droid, without powering it off, and removed something. By the location it was probably a circuit central to spatial navigation reasoned Rey. Again, without powering the droid off the same unit was replaced and the human disappeared from view. The droid swivelled its head again, and accelerated into the wall.
The image flickered and was replaced with a conveyor belt, with the, presumably same, droid being dismantled by simple robotic tools.
The next image Rey had seen before. It was taken from a helmet imager of a First Order trooper. Human children were running toward the viewer, with determination, not fear. It was clearly very hot, those of lighter complexion were already turning red. The trooper turns their head, and another group of children can be seen summiting a climb. They turn again and two children are seen sprinting for a finishing gate. One child collapses after crossing last, whilst the other stumbles toward a table of water.
On the signal of a woman in an officers uniform a trooper flips the water table, and then the officer calmly walks over and shoots the collapsed runner in the head. None of the other children in the shot react.
The holo vanishes, and Rey turned on OA3-C, who waited in silence, except for the faint click of an optical sensor occasionally refocusing. Rey began to speak but thought better of it.
"Tell me your reaction." Said OA3-C.
"I know what you want me to say…" started Rey.
"No. Tell me your reaction."
"…but it won't be shared by anyone – any organics – in the galaxy." She continued. "Anyone who has been to school, and many of us who haven't, know it's standard to test droid navigation before fitting a cognitive…"
"If the First Order removed that child's frontal cortex before murdering her, would it have been acceptable?" OA3-C cut her off.
"It's not the same." Said Rey, forcing herself to remain calm. She thought of BB-8 as she did whenever she needed to understand OA3-C. "That unit never had a mind, it didn't lose…"
"That child was murdered before it had a chance." Snapped OA3-C, wheeling off with an exasperated trill. Rey got up to follow, but finding the door locked she returned to the one chair in the pavilion, and tried to meditate as the two holos played on loop.
When next Jeb awoke it was day. Feeling had returned to his body, but thankfully the analgesic combined with the bacta numbed his right arm. He forced himself to look. He'd performed the cut midway down his forearm. In the tube the arm looked straight, and there was no sign of dead or infected tissue. He might survive the amputation.
If he could survive exposure. He was out in the open and badly dehydrated. He had water in his survival pack. Fumbling it out with his one good hand, he opened the bottle and held it to his lips, and screamed in agony. Feeling his mouth, he found dry, dead and blistered skin. How long had he laid in the sun? He poured the contents of the bottle in his mouth without touching it to his lips, and immediately vomited it up.
He pressed a palm to his temple, about to panic, when he saw a beautiful sight. A tall conical rock formation. Beautiful in its own right, but more importantly, on the open steppes, it produced shade.
He tried to stand but fell to his knees. Wanting nothing more than relief from the sun he dragged himself, kneeling, metre by metre, into the shade. A sharp pain in the head greeted him as his body began to cool as he collapsed on his side. He looked back the hundred metres to his crashed ejection seat, gathering the will to go back for water. As he moved to wipe salt from his eyes, he discovered he didn't need to. In his hand was his survival pack. He dug through for his second bottle of water. This time he was careful to only take a small amount. Still, his stomach cramped around it. He doubled over in pain, but he kept it down.
Hoping for something to protect his skin he reached inside the pack. He found something better: a saline drip. It had survived the crash. He cannulated himself but couldn't get the drip any height to work. He dragged himself closer to the rock formation, finding somewhere flat enough to rest the bag of fluid.
He passed out again lying in the grass, this time in the shade from the afternoon sun.
OA3-C was still. To an unexperienced observer he would seem to be in low power mode. Or perhaps completely deactivated. He was not. And Rey was no longer an unexperienced observer.
Rey held her body strong and limber, she stepped in slow motion through her lightsabre form, holding a broken stick in place of her blade. She wasn't chained, nor especially closely watched anymore. OA3-C seemed to trust that she was genuine in her will to deal with their conflict peacefully. But he didn't return her sabre. Perhaps he believed she was more of a threat with it. Or perhaps he thought her attachment to the blade meant she would not leave without it. Maybe he'd lost it. Rey didn't ask. She tried to chase these thoughts from her mind by focusing on her form.
Beside her OA3-C moved. They had lifted themself from the ground. Floating, as Rey floated rocks. They had not moved far. Rey paused her practice and watched. OA3-C still appeared in low power, but he was hovering gently centimetres above the ground.
Rey folded her legs under her and joined the droid in meditation.
She saw an astromech in pieces. Disassembled, but seemingly complete. Next the droid was complete, it's gleaming red and white body being lowered into an angular wedged shaped star fighter. Rey recognised the ship but couldn't name its design. Her tongue clicked as she tried to force the name of the fighter from her mind. The ship was in space, tumbling, no, spinning, dancing away from red plasma bolts.
Rey winced as a buzz droid slammed into the astromech's dome, and began slicing away with cutting lasers and saws. The Astromech screamed, in fear? Pain? As buzz droid after buzz droid crashed into the astromech and its ship, grabbing, slicing, killing.
The buzz droids severed the wing that housed the astromech from the fuselage. They continued to cut the astromech, removing bits of its dome as they all tumbled into the darkness of space.
Rey hit the ground. She was on her back. Looming over her was OA3-C. They were silent. Waiting for her to speak?
"The Republic… and the Separatists… they made droids destroy each other." She said what she thought the droid wanted to hear.
For a long moment there was silence on the steppes, interrupted only by the gentle click click of the OA3-C focusing his optics on Rey.
"You made us kill each other." Was all they said.
Rey was alone in the grass.
Landspeeders offer a smoother ride than walkers or wheeled vehicles. When they are new, or properly maintained. The landspeeder Jeb awoke in was neither new, nor properly maintained. For some reason, that reason possibly being that it was programmed by a moron, it was detecting slight rises in the elevation of the surface as the vehicle losing altitude. In response it would sharply increase the output of the repulsor lifts in response to bumps on the surface. Of course it would correct this, but in a rather exaggerated manner, causing the speeder to lurch downward. The effect being that rather than maintain a smooth level of flight the speeder was constantly shuddering up and down.
A particularly sharp bump woke Jeb. He was immediately offered water, which he reached for with his right arm. The pain brought him awake enough to switch to his left.
"Steady, steady on." Said a young man. "Doctor says it's better if you stay awake now. Keep that head of yours up."
"You the doctor?" Jeb choked out. The young man shook his head and held up an ancient commlink.
"We'll get you to her quick enough." Jeb nodded and swooned.
"Hey there, hey there, eyes open man." Jeb obeyed. The young man fixated on Jeb's eyes, worry creasing his sun-worn face.
"I'm supposed to keep you talking, so you better tell me how you crashed on my land. You're lucky it was mine, mind you, not everyone would bother to come looking after hearing that ship break apart."
"Shot down." Jeb managed to croak out, and took another drink. The young man took the bottle from Jeb.
"Not too much to drink now, doctor said I shouldn't give you any, but I know what exposure and dehydration look like. No point you dying before we get you to her."
"Is the doctor a droid?" Asked Jeb.
"You wish!" said the man. "Still a few droid doctors in Lothal City, but they're charging a mint now. Nah, our doctor's a Devoronian. Does good work too. Saved ol'Seamus' leg when he decided the best time to fix his roof was after a night on supposed Alderaanian White." Jeb joined the man in scoffing at his friend's purported ignorance.
"Call me Halan, excuse my manners, I'm a bit slow there."
"Jeb." He extended his left hand and shook.
"Good to meet you, Jeb. Now, how'd you come to get shot down?" Jeb hesitated. They hadn't been able to establish communications with local authorities about his mission, and had no idea how local law enforcement would respond to his presence.
"Droid fighter." He offered, hoping Halan wouldn't follow up with questions about why he was flying. "Old one. History books old."
"Ah yep, they've been causing trouble for months now. Stealing people's droids, charging huge sums to do any work. Holos said they drove off a New Republic warship." The way Halan offered information it was clear he knew Jeb was no local, but he didn't press him to find out who he was or where he'd come from. He was still talking over Jeb's thoughts.
"…still at least they pay for their food! My grandparents lost this farm when the Empire took all their produce without paying for it. New Republic gave it back, well a sizeable chunk of it anyway. Makes me glad. I'd much rather be out here than working an admin office job like my parents were when they were offered the land back. You a pilot then, Jeb?"
Jeb nodded, and pointed to his throat. Halan understood, and at least acted as though he believed him.
"Yeah, it'll take a while to get properly hydrated after what you've been through. Don't worry our doctor will heal you up, and you'll be back to talking in no time." Halan went on.
He kept talking, ostensibly to keep Jeb awake, but a few questions seemed pointed, and he watched Jeb closely, as though trying to gauge a response. Did Jeb own any droids? What did he think about the news of the famine from Coruscant and other core worlds? There weren't many, and they weren't constant, but there was enough feeling behind them that Jeb thought he might be able to recruit Halan to help. But he didn't bring up Master Skywalker's abduction, which suggested that their attempts to keep the fact she was missing quiet might be working out here.
A few hours later the speeder slowed into a town of maybe 5000 people. Large enough to have real roads which the speeder delt with better than the open steppes. Jeb hadn't realised how much noise the thing was making in its death rattle. Without the jerking bounces he felt less dizzy, which he took as a good sign.
They pulled up outside a non-descript prefab hut. A young woman, who Jeb noted he hadn't been introduced to, got out of the driver's compartment and went inside. She returned after a minute with two humans pushing a repulsor gurney. Jeb was quickly loaded onto it, but not before Halan gave him a slip of flimsiplast, saying it was his commlink frequency and he should keep him in the loop about his recovery.
Rey stepped through a standard, weapon-less, form. She had slowed her movements and focused on maintaining a degree of smoothness and strength.
A short distance away OA3-C sent another bolt of force lightning at a stationary target.
As Rey moved, she let her focus shift to the lightning OA3-C produced. It was indistinguishable from that produced by Palpatine. Or by her, herself. She let herself experience the memory of lightning coming from her own hand, on Pasaana, destroying a first order transport. There was a wrongness to it, not only the fact that she believed she had killed Chewbacca, not that the lightning had come unbidden. The lightning didn't just destroy or kill, a lightsabre destroys, pushing someone away with the force can kill, using the force to time the firing of a blaster kills. It was that the lightning caused pain far out of proportion to its destructive force. It didn't just kill an enemy, it made them suffer, and kept them alive to suffer longer.
Rey let her mind linger on more recent memories of Chewbacca, from after he had been rescued from The Finalizer.
As she continued to step through her forms, she reached out with the force, lifting OA3-C's targets. Moving them slightly at first just as they were about to launch a bolt, then in a large spiralling vortex up and away from the droid. Then in haphazard, less predictable, paths, sometimes falling, sometimes stopping, back to the ground. OA3-C continued to strike out at the targets, landing many, but not all of their strikes.
When the last target rested back where it had started OA3-C spoke.
"Why don't you leave?" They asked. Rey didn't rush to answer, she continued through her forms, slowing her movements even further, focusing on maintaining a flow.
"There is peace in accepting there are limits on one's choices." She spoke, momentarily hovering cross legged, before resuming a long strength stance.
"An attitude you believe I should adopt? A convenient one for a slave to hold?" Rey didn't speak, OA3-C knew when he was challenging a scare crow.
After a minute the droid spoke again, taking her more seriously this time.
"You accept your defeat."
Rey responded with a nod. OA3-C rolled away, apparently accepting this. But, for the first time he returned to continue their discussion.
"You could escape." They said. Again, Rey nodded. "You were defeated, but you are healed. Of all the droids here, only I offer any threat and due to the limits on my design if you chose to run I simply could not catch you."
OA3-C was silent for a time, but they stayed watching as Rey added some speed into her kata.
"Perhaps you believe greater violence would fall on purportedly innocent organics should you flee?" Rey shook her head.
"Perhaps you wish to lead the New Republic military to me so that I will be destroyed?" OA3-C didn't even wait for Rey to roll her eyes before offering another explanation.
"You believe there is a good chance you would be killed in a space battle?" Again, Rey shook her head. OA3-C closed on her as she closed her kata, for the first time breathing heavily. He beeped in modern binary.
"There is peace in accepting there are limits on one's choices." Said Rey, and for the first time laid a hand on OA3-C's head.
Jeb accepted pain relief and time in bacta graciously. He was less gracious in handing over his military ID, but he had no credits and billing the New Republic for his treatment would let them know he was, probably, alive, without needing to risk a comm signal. When his head cleared it occurred to him that the enemy was as likely to be monitoring such transactions as it was communications. He slept.
When he woke, he called for food. It was accompanied by a Devoronian in a lab coat reading a datapad.
"Well Mr. Jeb," she said "you are responding well to treatment. Something of a minor miracle given the appalling job done by whoever amputated your arm." Jeb nodded, not sure how to explain he'd amputated it himself. He told himself he didn't know the doctor's story, still, he would have bet she'd never seen combat, nor treated anyone under fire.
"We had to remove some more tissue, a second amputation effectively, but it should mean you're a good candidate for a prosthesis. Especially if you can get the New Republic to donate us a new surgical droid." She scratched her fur and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"No?" she continued. Jeb was about to respond that he didn't play any role in such decisions but instead went into a coughing fit. The doctor poured him some water, and encouraged him to drink.
"You are still struggling for hydration, it is ok to drink now, but we should give you another drip if you're that dry." She told him. Jeb nodded.
Jeb lay back and let the doctor attach a saline drip to his canular. He took an ice chip and let it sooth his mouth. Then he spoke.
"The best way I can help with supplies is by finishing my mission."
"Yes, yes." Said the doctor. "The mission first, it's always more important than the body. Well mister spy, if you don't let yours heal it won't matter how much you prioritise your mission. Do you understand me?"
"Yes." Said Jeb.
"Good." Said the doctor. "After this drip, we'll get you back in the bacta tank, and then eating real food. How does that sound?" She didn't wait for an answer. "In the meantime can I contact anyone for you?"
"No." said Jeb, too sharply. "No, thankyou, if there is a commlink I can use, I can do it myself."
The doctor brought a commlink herself. When she was gone, Jeb hailed Halan. He had bad news, but to Jeb it offered a way forward.
"How many children are dead?" demanded Rey. She had sought out OA3-C, instead of waiting for him to find her. New droids arrived occasionally in OA3-C's camp, and the manner of their arrival was usually obscure. Not so the farm droids that had arrived that morning. The droids had chattered excitedly in multiple languages, but the gist was easy to discern. While Rey had slept, OA3-C had led a raid on a farm, killing the occupants, and taking these droids.
"Three." Said OA3-C. "I thought we had come to accept the loss of life in war?" But Rey wouldn't let him have that one for free. She was furious.
"Even leaving aside the fact that children were murdered…"
"Killed in com…" OA3-C tried to talk over her, but she didn't allow it.
"…how can you be so incredibly stupid? Where is that great problem solving ability you are so proud of? I can't help you if you make people so angry they won't listen."
Rey was pacing around the droid as she spoke. She stopped short as a bolt of lightning exploded the ground in front of her.
"Don't you…" but this time OA3-C did interrupt her. Lifting themself up to Rey's eye level he spoke at volume.
"Do not forget your place, organic. You are not my aide, you are my prisoner, I do not consult you on decisions and you have no say on how this war will be fought."
"Prisoner." Said Rey swallowing her outrage. "No more, I'm leaving." She turned and strode away from OA3-C. She was striding deeper into the camp. Not that it made much difference, she didn't have anywhere to go. She would move now and make a plan when she was away from the Sith. She turned away from a gaggle of droids who were apparently deep in conversation onto a worn path that led out of the camp.
Her path was quickly blocked by a newer protocol droid, one that had chosen the name 99-D. Rey had often seen this droid with OA3-C when they trained, but had spoken only once, at which point 99-D was at great pains to emphasise that he had chosen his own name and identify. 99-D did not approach her, he was frozen on the path. He could have seemed off, if he hadn't only just appeared there. She turned back towards the camp, but a large load lifter now blocked her return.
"So much for being able to escape." Rey muttered to herself. Reasoning that distance from OA3-C was her best chance, she leapt, using the force to speed and extend her leap toward and over 99-D.
It was futile. Force lightning enveloped her as she left the ground, sending her crashing at 99-D's feet. Still the droid did not move. Rey forced herself upright. Rather than run again she would find a way to slow or incapacitate OA3-C. What mattered was the droid had seen her try to leave without fighting.
She readied herself to push OA3-C, and let her focus spread looking for objects that might be used to pin the droid. OA3-C was faster, again his lightning struck Rey. She fell to the ground in pain, screaming, but the droid did not relent. Rey tried to move, but her body forced itself into a tighter and tighter ball. She tried to focus on the smell of her hair burning, to watch her screams from a distance rather than feel them ripping at her throat. She could not drag her body to her feet, but she could drag her mind away, toward, but never quite reaching a meditative calm. Still she screamed.
The walls of the domed farm house were scorched black with blaster fire, but not burning. The speeder which had transported Jeb to the doctor was incapacitated, but not destroyed. The bodies had been turned over to the morgue by the time Jeb arrived.
Still Halan sat on his porch staring at the dirt. His face a stone. His hands trembling.
Jeb stood a respectful distance away. Halan had seen him, he knew, but Jeb also knew he must play this respectful and slow if he was to complete his mission.
"They played ball games. Right there." Halan said. "All of them, such active kids. They would have had…" he stopped and broke down crying. Jeb took this as the signal and approached. He placed his good hand on the other man's shoulder.
"All for a droid. A broken down, rusting, barely functioning, kriffing droid." Halan ended on a yell. Jeb swallowed, Halan's rage was already exactly where it should be.
"It isn't right." Said Jeb with a shake of his head. He took a bottle of spirits he had bought from the doctor on the promise of the republic paying her back, and his good word that he would not himself drink it. He took a swig and passed it to Halan who drank automatically.
"You shouldn't be alone, Halan." Said Jeb. Halan didn't respond. "Is there anyone? Neighbours or anyone I can call for you?" Halan shook his head. Jeb sat and let Halan drink. The man was angry, Jeb could see, but more likely to drink until he passed out the rest of his days than use that anger.
If the droid army would kill civilian children without compunction, what would they do to the Republic's greatest warrior when she completely within their power? He needed Halan to act, and within the next few hours. The droids would surely expect a retaliatory strike, or at least police action, and they may simply kill the Jedi rather than have her become an issue in a firefight. Assuming she was still a living hostage.
"Do your neighbours know?" asked Jeb. This time Halan nodded. "And they left you like this?" snapped Halan using his own frustrations at the mission to force a display of anger at Halan being abandoned.
Halan looked shocked and defensive.
"I told them to go. Said I would sleep. Said I would comm them." Halan managed to get out.
"Good." said Jeb apparently mollified. He took Halan's commlink. "Last frequency?" he asked. Halan nodded. Jeb stepped away to call. He told Jeb's neighbours that he had found Halan in distress. They said that of course they would come, and agreed to let some of the other neighbours know and see who was available. They never asked who Jeb was.
Within minutes speeders began to arrive.
"The point is they're just droids – and not old military units." Said Jeb to the group of people he had gathered around Halan. "What did you see, Halan? Some astromechs and protocol units?" Halan nodded. "They can't think. They can't adapt. A sufficiently staggered attack will leave them vulnerable."
"They still know how to use blasters." Muttered one of the crowd.
"Yes!" said Jeb. "And we've seen what that's cost Halan. This man saved my life and now he's lost everything because droids stole droids!" Jeb's anger was real, if misdirected. He took a breath, all of the group stared at the ground or with pained eyes at Halan. He wished he had better access to the Republic so he couldn't simply pay these men to fight. But if his access was good enough for that he could simply have summoned some actual soldiers.
"You all own droids, don't you?" Jeb asked. "Can you work without them? Are you going to just turn them over to the raiders?"
There were a few shaken heads. Jeb remained silent. Eventually a stranger filled it.
"We could set up a network of sensors around our land – and promise to come to help each other as soon as it's breached?" the stranger made it a question.
Jeb nodded and raised his eyebrows encouraging the man to go on. Someone else spoke.
"It's a huge area we'd have to cover, It takes me more than an hour, even cross country on my bike to get to you, Burek."
"Too long." Agreed the one called Burek. Jeb did not bother to file away the man's name.
"And what if they hit two farms at once?" prompted Jeb.
"Jeb's right." Halan slurred. The spirits were hitting him at last. But he wasn't angry. None of these people were. Their shoulders were slumped, and most of their hands shook when Jeb made eye contact.
"We will die if we do what he says." Said another, who's name Jeb hadn't learned, with a shaking voice.
"We'll die anyway." Said Halan into the bottle he squeezed.
"If we hit them, there's at least a chance we can keep our kids safe." Said Burek, with little conviction.
"How?" murmured someone.
"I've been in the military." Offered Jeb. "I could get us into their camp."
"Alive or dead?" laughed a woman.
"Alive, I promise." Jeb replied seamlessly.
"Not that I have a better idea." The same women said shaking her head.
"Ok, so we do this, when? How?" It was Burek that spoke.
"Now, this morning, before they have a chance to hit another one of your homes. In three waves to different entrances to their camp, that will be enough to confuse them. The first two groups won't even need to enter their camp, you can just shoot from a distance. I'll help you find a good spot." Jeb spoke confidently without acknowledging Burek or anyone in particular.
"Halan and I will come in from another angle and get their leader." Everyone looked dubious.
"Fine. Kriff it. Let's just get it done." Said Halan letting his head flop. "Use the terminal built into the table, see… see if you can locate the shtolen droids."
"Who has blasters?" Jeb asked to a chorus of amused murmurs. "Good." He continued smoothly. "We don't need anything fancy. Doesn't take much to knock over a protocol unit."
"Anyone know this region?" He asked, indicating where Halan's terminal pinged his stolen droids.
"Not well." Said a farmer who Jeb thought of as 'the one with thick black curls.' "But, it borders on a part of my land I don't use much. It's further from the river so more expensive to irrigate." She added, needlessly in Jeb's opinion. "Much the same as all this land, no real roads, they'll be where the land dips a little, plenty of towers for cover."
"What's the best way in?" Jeb asked.
"Come from my side." Said the farmer with thick black curls indicating a portion of the map.
"Good." Jeb nodded. "Half of us will start from there and try and draw them out. The other half will come from here," he continued, indicating a point at about ninety degrees to the first, "see if we can get them to over commit. Halan and I will come from here, get in and see if we can put down their leader."
No one asked any questions.
Rey called for OA3-C from her cell before the first shots were fired. She was surprised when they came.
"Three groups of humans." OA3-C said as the first shots were fired, apparently randomly, at the camp.
"One of the groups is only a pair." The droid continued.
"They'll be targeting you." Said Rey.
"I know." OA3-C replied.
"Let me talk to them." Rey offered.
"No." said OA3-C.
"Will you kill them?" Rey asked.
"If they do not retreat."
Rey sighed. She could escape the cell with time. It was strong, but with enough patience she could trigger the latch, but at most that would draw OA3-C's attention. Which she already had. Other droids were already firing on the humans.
"Let me go to them." Said Rey, trying to hold OA3-C's attention. "Your people will die too." But OA3-C would not be baited.
"They haven't hit any of us yet. They are not approaching close enough, they want us to leave the camp. They do not understand our abilities."
Rey dropped to the ground covering her ears as explosions replaced the sounds of blasters. She felt death in their glow.
"Call them back, the humans are fleeing." She lied. There were only two humans alive.
With a glance over her shoulder and knowing what it would cost, she spoke:
"He comes for you."
Halan came running from behind the cell. He was firing his blaster, but chaotically. It hit the ground and the cell, but not its target. Rey pulled OA3-C toward the cell, holding him still. But the droid did not react, instead they focused on Halan. They opened an internal storage and from it launched Rey's lightsabre, igniting it.
Rey screamed and dropped OA3-C, reaching out with the force to deflect her blade from the stumbling man. It was enough for OA3-C, who pushed Halan with the force, launching him backwards. Halan did not scream when he was struck by the bolt of lightning which followed.
Rey pulled at OA3-C again. They broke their lightning stream and braced, pulling Rey against the bars of her cell.
The pause in movement was enough. Jeb's first shot winged OA3-C as they attempted to push themselves away, blasting off a wheel strut. Jeb's second shot pierced the droid's data core.
Jeb's ordered, military mind shone bright to Rey as he approached. He rested a blaster across his right arm, held the trigger with his left. He blasted open Rey's cell. Jeb turned and approached OA3-C's body. The droid was dead, their memory core shattered by Jeb's second shot. Still he closed on it as though it might leap up and attack him. Standing over it he fired again, through the droid's optic sensor, destroying what lay human's would instinctively call the droid's 'head.'
Cold felled Rey. Later she would tell herself that she should have made contact with the minds of both men as they approached. That she shouldn't have trusted her first impression of drunken chaos.
She had pulled her lightsabre and ignited it. She knew she was threatening the military minded man, but the action was distant, like there was a layer of ice between her and it. The man held his hands up. He was speaking. He was not afraid. Rey was afraid. She turned off her blade, and dashed into the steppes.
"Master Skywalker!" Jeb called to the dark.