Chapter 110
Thrawn ventured into the Omen's small control center for the first time and couldn't help but inwardly marvel at it.
Here the ship's use of holographics went to a new level of immersion for the pilots, with controls hovering around them in abundance. At first it looked too overwhelming in terms of inputs and outputs of information, but the ship's systems itself had a level of intelligence that was assisting. The controls and data inputs were always appearing just as the pilot needed them.
If that wasn't enough immersion, the interior had a projection of the space around them mapped on the walls of the control center; giving the illusion that the pilots were completely exposed to the void. Yet it was perfect for giving the masters of the craft an unparalleled situational awareness that wasn't just reliant on small sensor displays and the narrow forward viewports. It was rather unnerving. Had he not had top marks at the academy in vacuum fighting he'd doubted he could've acclimatized as well.
They had just dropped out of hyperspace and the familiar planet of Mokivj was steadily growing larger.
He and Che'ri had already scouted the system in their search over two weeks before and had found little here of interest to the main goal of their mission, except the possibility of a merchant contact who would be able to trade them an energy shield generator.
By any standard, it was a lush world of fertile grasslands and forests, which explained why it was attractive for Republic colonization and it featured a population of nearly fifty million sentients scattered about the world in homesteads. The only major city being the capital, Yovbridge, which was home to nearly two million and the only industry on the world. The one mark against it was a lower oxygen content than what a chiss would be comfortable with. It was not outside of the range of adaptability though and he would just have to increase his breathing to compensate.
"Che'ri is on the comlink," Skywalker announced, swiping a holo interface which grew and blossomed into a flat screen with Che'ri's eager visage on it.
"Sky-walker Che'ri, report," he said promptly, facing the holo.
"Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo, planet is nominal to our previous scans. Nothing suspicious or any large concentrations of droids in the city."
"No doubt that is intentional."
Tano in the co-pilot seat threw up a holo image of the Republic spy's ship, nestled within a circular docking bay at the local spaceport.
"So your ambassador made it here."
"Good news," Skywalker commented with a small smile, closing his eyes and nodding.
"Che'ri, remain in a high orbit on sensor overwatch. Also inform of us any capital class ship that enters the system immediately."
"By your order, commander."
The holo vanished as she cut the link.
Skywalker now talked quickly in Basic over the com, which turned out to be with Yovbridge spaceport control.
"I've requested a landing clearance openly identifying myself."
Thrawn frowned, seeing the strategy immediately. "Rather bold."
"I'm a rather prominent figure in the war, if we want to draw them out quickly, then there's no better way."
A smattering of Basic was returned over the link, which was oddly distorted either due to signal interference or the poor quality of the spaceport's systems.
Skywalker only nodded and put his hands on the yoke, pushing the Omen onto a descent vector for the capital.
The amount of space traffic was relatively small in his experience, but there was enough of it coming and going from the capital that the locals had to invest in traffic control infrastructure.
"Can you show me the overhead of Yovbridge, please?"
Skywalker relayed the order and Tano's hands fluttered into her holographic controls, before she flicked a holo panel over to him with a top-down view of the city, all the sensor readouts and labeling already translated to Meese Caulf for his convenience. He even had a limited amount of control inputs on the sides of the interface.
With tap and drag of his finger, he managed to highlight two sectors of the city. "There are two industrial zones, north-west and south-east. If there is to be a droid factory it'll be in there somewhere."
The Omen began to shudder as the ship was enveloped in the plasma of atmospheric interface as it slowed down from orbital velocities. The impressive view of the exterior was dampened as a polarization filter came down and prevented the intense light from blinding everyone in the control center.
By the time that was over, he had already managed to use a filter on the city map to exclude the smaller buildings.
Then he was rather startled as the map suddenly blossomed with thousands of active signatures.
"Active, mobile power sources that should be indicative of a droid," Skywalker explained as he pulled up the yoke to stabilize the ship for a modest, unhurried descent rate.
Thrawn was impressed at the resolution of the data and figured it made sense for a civilization fighting for its life against droids to develop such scanning methods. It equally made sense that the enemy would then react to find ways to hide droids from such scans.
He looked at the patterns for a few moments, searching for each large building that could conceivably be able to house a factory capable of making thousands of droids each day. Mokivj wasn't an industrial powerhouse and local mining was equally limited to only what the locals needed. That meant the CIS would've had to expand exploration for minerals locally, if they wanted to get this project done in any practical amount of time.
He put down another filter and eliminated a few borderline cases.
Seven locations were left.
Four of them had active droid concentrations, but the numbers at each location was only a few hundred or so.
He enhanced and focused the view on each in turn. The amount of actual factory workers, whose speeders were parked outside and who he could see moving in and out, meant that these locations were also unlikely.
As much as you needed organic workers to maintain any factory, despite automation, they represented a huge security risk. No matter how tight with security you were, it'd only take one worker getting to an interstellar communicator to bring the entire operation to light. The CIS had practiced enough security in that respect that it required a dedicated, professional spy to find out.
His fingers made the pinching gesture he had seen Tano use to zoom the view back out.
That left three locations, each large enough for the needs of the CIS. Each with no droid signatures whatsoever within them and little to no traffic showing workers coming or going.
There were two locations large enough to contain internal foundries to convert raw ore into metallic products. Both also had a substantial amount of cargo vehicles either parked outside or coming and going.
"These two, both of them in the south east, they're close enough to each other to be linked underground," Thrawn declared.
Tano brought up a copy of his holo screen and enlarged it so they both could see.
"Interesting," Skywalker frowned. "Why both?"
"Redundancy in case of accident and dispersion of assets," Thrawn explained. "There are no droid signatures, none. Which is suspicious in itself, no factory on your side of the galaxy, let alone ours has no droid automation, meaning that they have used masking technology to block your scans."
"I see what you're getting at," he nodded. Skywalker asked Tano something quickly and her hands blurred on the holo controls.
Large circular plots radiated from both suspect factories and Thrawn only needed a moment to deduce these were blast damage calculations for a missile weapon. Eventually she shook her head.
"It won't work?" Thrawn asked.
"We can destroy the factory technically, but there's no telling how deep the factory complex goes. If they follow the CIS's typical pattern for these things, they could've burrowed down up to three hundred meters to open more factory space. For the missile weapons that we have on this ship, we'd need to set them to a strength which would devastate the rest of the city. That amount of collateral damage is unacceptable."
"No doubt it was intentionally done this way to prevent a single strike from destroying the factory. The citizens of the city are being essentially held hostage. That only leaves one viable option, sabotage of the factory and the mine feeding it."
Skywalker nodded, quickly giving his apprentice an order. She opened another holo screen and judging from the topography flashing by, she was now scanning for nearby earthworks.
He pushed down further on the yoke as Yovbridge finally came into visual range.
"There's also the matter of finding who is the local CIS officer in charge of this. It won't be a tactical droid, there's definitely a senior official in charge, but they won't be too high up the chain. They're expendable by definition because backup and reinforcement is too far away."
Thrawn nodded, "There'll definitely be local cooperation, obtained via coercion or willingly. Perhaps the planetary governor?"
"Maybe," Skywalker turned the yoke, slowing down and yawing the Omen to the left as they slid over the many landing bays of the spaceport.
Finally, he pulled back on the throttle, settling the ship to a hover, before slowly losing altitude and shifting the Omen into its landing configuration.
The circular bay managed to swallow up the ship completely and Thrawn looked up at the cool gray steel that surrounded the ship, including the four emitters for what had to be tractor beams spaced equidistantly.
Thrawn waited patiently as the ship was put through its shutdown procedures and when the holographics disappeared all around him, it was to find a barren room with minimal physical controls remaining to fly the craft. He idly wondered what procedure there was for when the holographic system failed.
"You've got an integrated comlink on you?" Skywalker asked, handing over a small datapad.
"Yes, but I doubt our personal devices can talk to each other." Thrawn took the pad, it sported a similar Republic style interface to the Omen and was loaded with the mapping data of the city. It was also displaying a real time location of the pad itself.
"Not so easy to adapt those, that's why you'll need that pad and if you turn it around, you'll see a current generation comlink you can remove and place on you wherever is most comfortable."
Thrawn slipped out an oval comlink no bigger than his palm out of the receptacle in the pad, then after a moment placed it on the inside of his left forearm. The device automatically secured itself with a molecular bonding mechanism and lit up. Skywalker gave him a brief lecture in its use and he found it remarkably intuitive for a completely alien device.
"All right, your weapon is a pulse laser, if I'm not mistaken?"
"Correct."
"How many shots?"
"Thirty on a single power cell, of which I have five spare cells, which I can reload within less than one and a half seconds."
"Is there a stun function?"
"There is," Thrawn confirmed. "It uses the laser in a low energy continuous mode, then channels electric power along the ionized air directly into the target."
"I doubt we'd have cause to use it, but if you do, only on humans or similar. Ah, here's Chewie." The wookiee ducked into the control center, giving a combined grunt-groan as a question? "Going to need you and R2 to remain with the ship, not just to defend it but also to come flying to our rescue or if need be, strafe the factory."
"That is not an optimal plan," Thrawn objected.
"It's a worst-case scenario plan," Skywalker groused. "Something that has a disturbing habit of becoming the plan we end up having to use. Now let's go."
They emerged from the spaceport a frustrating amount of time later, enduring one queue only to be sent to another, after which Skywalker could finally pay the docking fee.
An amount that was essentially a bribe for the official processing their entry. It seemed even Skywalker's rank and authority could only bring them so far in speeding up the purposefully slow bureaucracy.
The street outside was filled with a cornucopia of Republic sentients of various species, coming and going, mostly towards the informal market that lined the street with carts, collapsible booths and other mobile structures.
"Stay close, watch for pickpockets!" Skywalker warned.
He led the way with his apprentice at his side forming a formidable armored front that the crowd had no choice but to flow around. Thrawn made sure to stay directly right behind the two Jedi as they moved.
The busy market spanned the entire length of the street and when they finally managed to turn off it onto the adjoining street, it was to be confronted by a line of taxi speeders and sentients who were eagerly offering their transport services.
Skywalker and Tano kept walking, politely declining each with either the shake of a head or a quick sweeping gesture of a hand. The latter usually resulted in the sentient gaining a rather stupefied vacant look on their face. An interesting use of a Jedi's powers, if somewhat concerning.
Those with the rare gift of Third Sight among the Chiss could make you see anything, but they couldn't dull your wits with a gesture.
For a moment, Thrawn was thinking the Jedi were going to ignore the taxis and walk the eight kilometers of city streets to reach the industrial zones. However, Tano stopped them at a taxi speeder that could seat five reasonably sized sentients, with an alien driver that had green skin, two huge unblinking eyes with what looked like stars in them, set above a pointed snout with a tiny mouth, pointed ears and two antennae. The language the alien spoke was not Basic at all, but both Jedi seemed to understand with no issue.
"Get in," Skywalker invited as he handed over credits.
"Why this one?" Thrawn asked as he settled himself in the back seat and closed the door.
Tano got in the front passenger seat, which was isolated from the driver by a thin screen, whilst Skywalker sat to Thrawn's left side.
"Enclosed taxi, it'll be enough to mostly stop blaster fire and is the most maneuverable."
He tightly controlled any reaction his body was giving, affecting a casual relaxed attitude in the seat. "You spotted an enemy already?"
"Yes, it's one of the reasons we took so long to get through the spaceport. We were being delayed to give them time to arrive and prepare."
"How many?" he asked, casually looking outside from right to left and meeting Skywalker's eyes through the clear visor of his helmet.
"Three speeders, eleven armed sentients with blaster rifles and even a man-portable missile launcher."
"How do you know this?"
"We're Jedi," Skywalker shrugged with a small smile and knocked his fist against the driver's cubicle. "I hope you're a good shot with that pulse laser."
"I am, though I'm usually not in the back of a speeder shooting at others."
"My padawan will be a bit busy managing the driver and our flight. So it will be up to both of us to act in defense." He reached over the front seats and accepted his apprentice's silvery blaster pistol and rested it in his lap as the speeder hummed to life.
It hovered itself up into the sky, twisting to the south-east before the driver hit the acceleration hard enough to drive Thrawn back into his seat.
No amount of training could master his own heart as the adrenals began pumping.
Skywalker showed him the button on the door which would lower the plasteel window and pushed it.
Thrawn followed suit and twisted around to sit on his knees whilst staring hard out the rear and side viewports. The wind was now blasting into the cabin, making ordinary communication impossible without shouting.
Nothing. No targets.
He brought his laser to hand and strained his eyes.
Then he heard Skywalker's voice, somehow registering in his ears despite the noise.
"Attacking from below, shoot!"
Thrawn popped his laser pistol, left arm and as little of his face as he could afford out the window and drew a bead on their enemy.
They had chosen open-top speeders and while it made for much easier targets, consequently they had an easier time of firing back.
He found the first target he could, aimed and pulled the trigger.
A purple pulse laser instantly connected with the left shoulder of the human he had aimed at, burning through cloth, skin and sinew.
A blue blaster bolt from Skywalker hit the driver straight on the alien's head, turning it into a smoking ruin.
Another alien in the speeder jumped for the controls, barely managing to keep control.
Thrawn barely held onto his laser as their own speeder began twisting and turning to avoid the storm of return fire from the other two enemy vehicles.
He found himself automatically bracing against the seat with his knees and pushing against the roof with a flat hand, preventing him from being tumbled around the interior like a rock in a diffuser drum.
His laser was aimed out the window out of sheer instinct and his eyes looking for a target.
An enemy speeder swerved into view and he didn't hesitate.
The pulse beam hit the side door, burned through the thin civilian rated steel with ease and he briefly caught the sight of a human screaming in pain before the combined maneuvering of the enemy and their own vehicle robbed him of seeing anything further.
Skywalker fired rapidly three times out of his side and Thrawn managed to see an enemy speeder start to list and smoke from an onboard fire.
Then he felt an invisible hand or force, pushing his head down.
There was no resisting it, not unless he wanted to break his own neck, so he let it happen…
An angry red blaster bolt sheared through the roof at an angle and shot out of his window.
If he had been more stubborn about resisting that invisible force, he'd have been dead.
He fought to not think and overanalyze, just to fight.
He pushed his laser out again, aimed and fired.
The pulse beam scythed a long gash across the front of an enemy vehicle, but managed to clip the chest of another alien.
The sudden heat and expansion of the bodily fluids led to a small explosion of otherworldly viscera and blood.
He pulled his weapon back just in time to brace himself as their speeder did actual rolls through the air in a manner he was sure shouldn't be in its design specs given its shape and performance.
Thrawn knew he should be frightened to a much larger degree than he was currently feeling. The situation was too out of his control and this was his first ever battle under such circumstances, yet the fear didn't come.
He was relatively calm and in fact, his heart felt eager, buoyed, there was a confidence that was both his and yet alien.
Their speeder finally settled to a more steady and stabilized flight path only for his eyes to catch an enemy vehicle in the distance.
An alien was hefting a long box-like device on his shoulder, fiddling with controls of… a missile launcher.
The Chiss army had similar weapons, but they were more compact and sleek.
Thrawn did the only thing that there was time to do.
He aimed and fired, pulling the trigger frantically.
The range was hopelessly too far. Even if he was a very good shot, he was no computer and this model of laser pistol was not meant for long range use. The most he'd do to the alien was a bad burn as the majority of the shot's energy was lost burning through so much air.
Amazingly, after the second correction he scored a hit on the alien's face.
They fell back in shock but it did not do enough as through sheer reflex, the missile burst forth from its launcher with an energetic blue cloud of propellant that erupted into the speeder.
By sheer coincidence, the portable launcher had been angled that the propellant expansion acted like a massive hammer that slammed into another alien that had been seated nearby.
Thrawn briefly saw a vaporous cloud expansion tinged with alien blood and body parts fly off in the distance, but his attention was now firmly focused on the grysk damned missile streaking towards him.
His heart felt like it wanted to jump into his throat and he could do nothing but watch as his death in the skies over an alien world in Lesser Space approached inevitably.
The sky lit up with a brief flash and expanding ball of flame.
Thrawn blinked, taking a deep harsh breath as he comprehended the fact that he was still alive, the explosion was already gone and left behind them as their speeder flew away.
He scanned the skies frantically, searching for more targets, his hand flexing on the grip of his weapon.
"Easy Thrawn, it's over!" Skywalker shouted and patted him once on the shoulder.
He felt the tension, fear and adrenals flow away from him and he practically collapsed, managing to catch himself with his hands on the backrest.
He had been in many battles, fighting Lioaoin pirates, Paataatus warships and Vagaari, but it had all been behind the armor and electrostatic barriers of an Ascendancy ship. As much as he had trained for fighting in person if necessary, he considered it a failure if things devolved to such a level. Now he was truly out of his element and he had walked into it with eyes wide open and willingly. Was this failure?
Had he not considered what dangers he might encounter offering himself to fight alongside a Jedi of all things? All in the name of the greater goal of gaining alliance and technology.
He turned around on his knees to sit properly, mechanically checking and securing his laser weapon.
His mind churned over the question, what had caused the missile to explode early?
Faulty fusing? Possibly, even likely. Yet he discarded the notion as his mind replayed the surveillance data of Skywalker and Tano's assault on the smugglers of Batuu.
Both Jedi had shaped and manipulated kinetic forces and it was clear that most likely Tano had intervened. Projecting a kinetic attack directly on the missile that set off the impact detonator. It all depended on the sophistication of the missile, for which he had no verifiable data.
He closed the window next to him and Skywalker followed suit.
"Did you get them all?"
"No, one speeder retreated with damage, but our would-be assassins are having a very bad day, only three survivors."
Thrawn looked up into the jagged hole in the roof. "Was it you who pushed me down?"
"That was Ahsoka," Skywalker nodded at his apprentice.
The younger Jedi had the palm of her hand directed towards their alien driver, who had been uncharacteristically calm during the entire ordeal. Had she used the Jedi version of Third Sight to keep him calm and on purpose?
"She knew it was going to happen. That's the only way to explain the timing."
"It's generally called precognition, all Jedi and Sith have it to varying degrees. It's why our reflexes appear supernatural to most."
Thrawn knew quite a few chiss scientists who would be scoffing in disbelief at the moment, but the evidence was right in front of his eyes. There was a fringe belief among some chiss that what sky-walkers were actually doing was perceiving the future of a ship as it traveled through hyperspace and their seemingly illogical, random adjustments to course, speed, hyperfield strength, shape and direction was in answer to that.
The problem was no sky-walker gave the same testimony of their perceptions whilst they used their talents to navigate. It was all subjective.
He nodded in understanding, but there was only one thing he could do now on his own honor and as a member of the Expansionary Defense Fleet. He saluted her formally, "Thank her for me, please."
Skywalker smiled and spoke a long sentence in Basic.
Tano turned her head to him, nodding awkwardly within that large helmet, which he now knew indicated she belonged to the Mandalorian culture. One which had a long history of war against the Republic itself. His studies during their journey to Mokivj, facilitated with public access to the Republic Holonet, had naturally focused on learning as much as possible about his new allies.
He had only scratched the surface and would need weeks of uninterrupted time, but he knew it would be critical to not just his future, but that of the Ascendancy itself.
Thrawn could imagine that he would be getting a personal debriefing from the Syndicure himself, perhaps even with the heads of the Nine Ruling Families in attendance.
He hoped General Ba'kif wouldn't lose his head over this.
The speeder landed roughly 700 sha from their target.
It wasn't damaged badly enough to draw too much attention from anyone who happened to be passing by, but Skywalker was clearly in a hurry for the driver to leave.
The Jedi handed over two physical tokens of Republic currency which Thrawn calculated to have enough value for the driver to probably buy an entirely new taxi.
The alien looked at the amount with awe, quickly pocketed it before giving a rough, untrained Republic salute and accelerated away into the distance.
Skywalker was bemused and chuckled. "All right, time to see what we've got here."
They had to walk down three streets of the industrial zone, turning first left then right and they were still two hundred sha away when Tano stiffened slightly and said, "Here, it is."
"Agreed," Skywalker stopped and looked behind him.
Thrawn looked in that direction to see a large hovering cargo hauler approaching their position from down the street, heading in the direction of their target.
The Jedi squared his shoulders and walked purposefully with full confidence into the road and directly in the path of the cargo hauler.
The hauler's driver, a human, saw the obstruction and slammed on an air horn to warn the Jedi of his apparent foolishness.
Skywalker kept walking and unhooked the hilt of his lightsaber.
The driver now tried to swerve, hualing the control yoke hard right… or at least he tried to, the yoke wouldn't budge at all.
He strained as hard as he could, frantically pulling to no avail and sounding the air horn.
The cargo hauler's repulsors tilted and whined with power as they applied braking forces.
Thrawn could see through the front windshields how the driver was frantically working at his control boards.
Frustration was clear on his bearded face as seemingly none of his hauler's systems were working as it should.
Skywalker stopped walking and waited for the resultant momentum of the hauler to shed itself.
It did so within an arm's length of the Jedi.
He walked around the hauler's nose and looked up at the driver, igniting his lightsaber.
The Jedi didn't have to say a word.
The human raised his hands wearily, bringing them into view before opening the door of the control cab.
Skywalker pointed his hand to the street and the driver obediently got out and sat down on his own hands.
"Let's go, follow," Tano said in a more fluent Meese Caulf.
Thrawn obeyed and they both walked past the main body of the hauler and around the back.
She gestured with her hand and the large rear cargo doors opened seemingly of their own volition.
A small ladder extended itself towards ground level and with two quick steps she vaulted herself inside the compartment.
Thrawn's curiosity won out and he used the ladder in a much more conservative fashion to climb up.
The interior was lit from light strips running along the floor, along with individual cargo pallets stacked neatly in two rows. Each pallet was about nine sha high and wide, made of Republic plasteel in a dull brown.
Tano walked deeper inside until she stopped at a pallet that was alone and unstacked.
The pallet had its own control board with Aurebesh glyphs prominently displayed and flashing, which the Jedi tapped on, before it flashed an angry red.
She scoffed and from her right vambrace a long spike emerged that looked very deadly. It was not a close range stabbing weapon though, as she inserted it into a port beneath the control board that looked made for such an interface. There was clearly more to her armor than met the eye, because the pallet screen began visibly flashing with active programming in Republic data standards at speeds that no organic being could hope to match.
Mere moments later the screen blanked out before flashing green.
The pallet's front hinged door opened with a hiss of equalizing air pressure.
Inside, was raw ore of a type that Thrawn had never seen before, it was a dark cerulean colored mineral in a rocky unprocessed form that glinted with a hint of small crystalline structures protruding from each rock.
Tano aimed her left fist at the ore and a visible laser scanning beam rapidly played over it.
A holo screen now appeared over her left arm, which showed a fairly detailed analysis of the material. Thrawn couldn't understand what it showed, but the flashing red Aurebesh script did not seem to be a good sign.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing to the ore.
Tano visibly sighed and her visor pointedly looked at him. Her translation program came up and she typed out, "An extremely rare mineral, called cortosis."
"Doesn't seem to be rare anymore," he pointed to the pallets around them.
"Yes, which is concerning. The pallet's data indicates there must be a mine that was discovered locally."
"What is it used for?"
She paused, but eventually answered, "It's a highly efficient insulator and shielding material."
Thrawn folded his arms and scratched his chin in thought, "And it's practical use?"
Tano drew her own blaster pistol so quickly that no one would blame him for thinking she had simply manifested the weapon out of thin air.
The weapon whined with a sharp discharge and the blue bolt slammed straight into the cortosis ore.
Thrawn expected a deep hole to be the result, slagged material and shattered rock.
None of that happened.
The blaster bolt simply skipped off the cortosis ore, lost cohesion and its plasma fizzled out into nothing.
His mind immediately latched onto the application of this rare material and why the CIS would go to such length to create a factory for it so far from their space. If their war droids could be armored with this mineral, it would lead to a decisive advantage on any battlefield they were deployed on. Whether this was a strategic advantage was another matter entirely. It would depend on how much cortosis could be mined and how quickly the new droids could be shipped and utilized across the galaxy.
However, he suspected cortosis wasn't entirely a wonder material that would solve every problem.
He reached out to pick up a hand sized piece of ore - the gloves of his isolation equipment were strong and rugged enough so that he didn't have to worry about cuts or tears - and then he squeezed.
The rock of raw cortosis ore cracked with a puff of dust and crumbled under continued pressure from his grip.
"Not exactly strong in raw form, it needs to be alloyed."
Tano nodded, "It needs to be turned to fibers, then further alloyed with two other armoring elements in a matrix to compensate for its natural brittleness. It's not an easy process, nor a well known one. How the CIS found out, I'd very much like to know."
She grabbed a small piece of cortosis ore and stored it in a belt pouch, before pushing the pallet closed. She typed out one last message before dismissing the holo screen above her arm, "Hang on to something."
Her hand gestured to the rear of the hauler, the cargo doors whined and closed, plunging them into darkness. The lighting strips turned back on and Thrawn quickly grabbed hold on the nearest pallet before the entire hauler lurched forward and started to gain speed again.
He frowned at Tano, taking in her unsurprised demeanor.
Their plan was now obvious.
Use the hauler to infiltrate and get behind any defenses or security the CIS factory had installed.
"What if they scan this vehicle?"
Tano tilted her head before bringing up a holoscreen, confirming for him that she somehow was understanding Meese Caulf now, but not able to speak it. What had changed?
"It has scan masking technology, they would need to do physical inspection of the interior."
Thrawn looked around and gestured to the already hacked pallet, "We could fit in there."
She shook her head, "I can generally manipulate the mind of anyone they send in here, but they won't do an inspection. If it's a droid, there are other options. Our presence on the planet hasn't filtered down the rank and file all the way yet."
"How can you be so sure of that?"
Much to his annoyance, the only answer given was the singularly unhelpful, "I'm a Jedi."
'There are a lot of them, Snips.'
'A battalion of cortosis armored B1s and B2s, guarding the complex in standard pattern patrols, yes.'
'And you want us to take them on with lightsabers that will short out the moment we try to cut them and blasters that are completely ineffective. Even Thrawn's pulse laser won't help at all, judging by your experiment.'
'Well, his laser would work, if it could turn to a constant beam mode. Cortosis armor struggles against a prolonged energy attack. Our primary weapon against these droids are going to be kinetic attacks with the Force. Cortosis' main weakness is only reduced by alloying it, not removed entirely.'
'That's a relief. How do you…?'
'This is not prescience speaking. Clan Viszla has a few very old cortosis blades and armor sets in the vaults, made during the time of the Old Republic. The knowledge of how to make them is carefully preserved by the armorers, just in case one day another source of the ore is found.'
Anakin didn't take long to make the obvious connection. 'Clan Viszla has beskar armor with cortosis?'
'Yes. They are priceless and no one would dare suggest actually taking them into battle. Every warrior would be distracted by the presence of such legendary armor, including the nagging worry that if the one wearing it should fall in battle, that they should immediately abandon what they are doing to secure the armor.'
'Yes, I can see the problem… we're coming up on the factory gates now.'
I held up a warning signal to Thrawn, and the chiss nodded, bringing his weapon to hand.
There was a single armed human guard at the gate. He wasn't alarmed or experiencing heightened emotion and eyed the approaching hauler with boredom.
Anakin had hidden himself in the small sleeping cot behind the driver, whilst his Mind Trick would do the rest of the job in making him unseen.
The driver was currently cooperating under threat and Anakin was ready to intervene the moment he tried anything.
The guard approached, following procedure, merely verifying the driver's ID both visually and with a scanner, before waving the hauler through the gates.
We traveled a short distance, snaking around minor roads of the factory complex until the driver stopped in front of a large door set in one of the largest buildings. It opened automatically at the hauler's approach and the driver wasted no time in speeding inside to a designated parking spot, which would put the rear of the hauler facing a large cargo conveyor belt for the transport of ore pallets.
'All right, I'm putting our driver to sleep. Can't take the chance letting him go.' Anakin thought.
I did a full nearby sweep with my farsight.
'Three B1s and a B2 are patrolling fifty meters away, coming towards us through an adjoining corridor.'
'All right, go in 3…2…1… now!'
A gesture of my hand and the hauler's rear doors were hissing open.
I jumped out, landing on the conveyor, before vaulting to the hard duracrete floor, coming to a crouch near the thick landing strut of the hauler.
Thrawn was hot on my heels and sticking close to me like glue.
My technometry reached out and shorted out a number of visual surveillance cams.
'Go!'
Anakin joined our crouched sprint towards an adjoining set of doors that would take us to a long corridor that was currently free of any droid patrol or worker.
He took over directing Thrawn at this point, whilst I snagged every sensor I could find.
My hand slapped the controls and we charged in the moment the doors had hissed open on their motivators.
Farsight scouting and knowledge of CIS tactical droid strategy, had let me find primary, secondary and tertiary control centers for the factory. They had also brought three medium sized fusion reactors to help power the complex, putting them firmly off-the-grid from the city. Sabotaging this beast was not going to be easy.
The sheer size of the place was also working to our advantage. It was so large, that the CIS hadn't even managed to make full use of it. I estimated it as being slightly over half a million square meters of space, stretched over five floors above ground and a dozen floors underground, shaped in an overall hexagonal arrangement of buildings. The interiors were typical utilitarian, bare minimum affairs, with grated floors and durasteel walls that had circles cut out of them to save on material, whilst still retaining structural integrity.
A lot of the corridors and spaces weren't even lit, saving on unnecessary energy expenditure, creating entire zones of darkness. Anyone who didn't come in here with an inertial guidance device or map would soon find themselves hopelessly lost in the dark.
M8 was doing the hard work of mapping our most efficient route, but we also had to dodge droid patrols, hide in ducts beneath the floor and occasionally sprint to reach a blind spot in the patrol pattern.
We even managed to spy on one of the cortosis droid assembly lines, which was actually being manned by a handful of workers, who were sitting behind circular control desks and watching over every step of the process, occasionally pushing a button and feeling very bored.
We spent nearly fifty nerve-wracking minutes sneaking and occasionally sprinting, before we reached the corridor that would lead us to the secondary control room.
Inside was only one worker who was overseen by a lone tac droid and one cortosis B2 droid.
Anakin touched Thrawn briefly on the shoulder, sending his thoughts directly on the plan of attack to the chiss and what his role would be.
He took the odd experience without even flinching and nodded, adjusting his laser pistol's setting.
I brought the Darksaber to hand and elbowed the door controls.
Anakin and Thrawn burst inside first, with me following hot on their heels.
There was a snap and crackling sound as Thrawn's stun shot hit the worker.
That was joined by the thunderous crackling as Anakin released Force Lighting to slam into the B2, following it up with Push that slammed the massive droid against the nearby wall.
I shifted into a blur of speed as I stabbed the lit Darksaber right into the tac droid in the upper left of its chassis, destroying its internal communication circuits with a single blow, before slashing downward and sending it to the floor into electronic oblivion.
Anakin gritted his teeth as he continued streaming the lighting attack against the B2.
The cortosis weave was breaking down under the assault, but it was definitely not just a one hit kill.
I released a focused Force Push, narrowing it down to an area no larger than my fist.
The B2's frontal chest plate bent inward and shattered.
Yet still its arms came down and it was aiming to shoot.
Thrawn's pulse laser shot straight through the small sensor cluster in its upper chest and finally put down the cortosis B2 for good.
I gave Anakin a shrewd look, "Emerald Judgement a bit rusty there, Skyguy?"
He shook out his left hand, dispersing residual electrons to get rid of the pins-and-needles feeling. I could feel him harboring a bit of anger at himself, "Yes, I nearly destroyed my mechno-arm throwing that, didn't channel the flow properly."
"That was a remarkable amount of resiliency in a droid," Thrawn commented
Anakin knelt in front of the smoking wreck of the B2 and only needed a brief look inside, "This cortosis weave is amazing, there's also been some reworking of the droid internals. Definite improved arrangement of internal components."
I turned around and shoved the unconscious worker out of the way to inspect the massive physical control panel with a multitude of buttons, knobs and screens, all arranged along a diagrammatic representation of five production lines.
Thankfully the technology here was still Republic standard, so I had no problem interfacing the logic spike of my armor.
"Go to work, M8, give me a report."
"Yes, mistress! On the double!" said my droid intelligence with her typical chipper attitude.
It took her only seconds to map the entire network infrastructure of the factory, which she displayed using my armor's holoprojector.
"That is annoying," I commented with a scowl, gesturing to the network map. "They've isolated control loops. We could only sabotage the five production lines and a single fusion reactor from here."
"Well, they had to learn at some point," Anakin folded his arms and scanned through the map. "So we have to assault two locations at once somehow between the three of us, which will definitely be reinforced once we sabotage this control center."
"Are there any local armories in the factory?" Thrawn asked.
Anakin frowned, "The B1s would need them. Their weapons are not internal. What's your point?"
"It strikes me that no matter how confident someone is in the programming security of a droid and how resistant it'd be to subversion, that you'd definitely want a means of fighting these cortosis droids efficiently yourself. If say, a group of droids were sliced…"
Thrawn definitely had a point, "M8? Anything like that out there?"
"I've identified four main armory and recharge points in the factory, mistress." She highlighted them on the factory map, then linked live footage of visual surveillance.
There were the typical racks and racks of blaster rifles the B1s used, along with ammo cell storage crates, recharge stations, but there was a rack with numerous weapons that were definitely not standard CIS issue for droids.
M8 visually scanned them and identified them as Merr-Sonn EG-32 rifles or as they were colloquially known - lightning guns. It was the closest the Corusca galaxy had to something like an Arc rifle.
"Then we have our first objective. Arm ourselves with those weapons."
"Mistress! I've found Padme!"
"What?!" I was unable to stop my reflexive shout. "Show me."
A new holo screen was projected and sure enough, there she was, but she was accompanied by three humans, who had the definite look of locals. They were dressed in overalls, tool belts and each carried their own EG-32s.
"Where is this, M8?"
"Western side of the complex, it's the disused portion."
I leaned down on the control panel and stared at Anakin, who was clenching his hands into fists repeatedly as he stared at the image of his wife.
"Now what?"
He stared at me and I could feel the conflict within him acutely.
"Sithspit."
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888