Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 18 (Patreon)

It turns out that when Nevue said we needed to say hello, he wasn't using a turn of phrase or making a joke. The first thing he did when he sat down in the pilot's seat was tap a few buttons and flip a switch, a panel lighting up and beeping out a series of tones and warbles that repeated every five seconds.

"What's that?" Miru asked, leaning over to look at the panel.

"It's the friendly signal," Nevue explained, taking control of the ship and reorienting it, a large planet filling the cockpit window. "Just in case anyone is home to see us coming, they know we aren't here to wipe them out. We don't have an IFF transponder."

The ship kept moving, rumbling softly as Nevue activated the sublight engines, the small freighter now oriented chiefly away from the planet. A small moon, half blocked by the planet's horizon, slowly came into view. The planet itself was a mixture of red and cobalt gray, a strange combination, made only weirder by the light yellow clouds that covered a significant portion of it. The moon behind it was a very, very pale blue and seemed to be on the large side. Or maybe it was just closer than I was used to from Earth's moon?

"What kind of base was this?" I asked, looking away from the planet to our pilot. "That planet doesn't exactly look habitable."

"Oh, it's not. It would melt the skin off your bones in a few minutes and noticeably corrode the ship's hull after a few hours," He admitted. "It's a dead world, which makes its moon the perfect place to hand off goods. Whenever we got our hands on enough supplies to be worth the trip, we would seal it up, bring it to the moon and store it in a deep meteorite crater. The pick-up team would come by and haul it away, distributing it as needed. It's also our emergency contact point. There's a hyperwave comms unit that we can use to request a rendezvous point. They won't respond to random messages, just ones from specific units."

"Ah, so the Rebellion is still in the rebel cells stage?" I asked, Nevue nodding without looking away from the viewport.

"Partly. It's an important part of gathering resources, stirring up the rise to rebel, and really the only way to keep a presence on any world firmly in Imperial hands," He explained easily. "But it's not all small cells of freedom fighters. We have a fleet, and an army, though it's broken up and spread out around the galaxy. It's not all dead drops and code phrases."

I nodded in understanding and mentally pushed the lever between the Disney canon and Legends canon a bit further into the Disney section. The Legends canon never really dove into the pre-rebellion era that much, at least not that I knew of, and the idea of rebel cells slowly building an Alliance army generally came from the Disney side. It wasn't a guarantee, but it was worth keeping in mind.

We got closer and closer to the moon, slowly lowering to the small lunar satellite. We flew around its surface for a few minutes before Nevue pointed out toward the lip of a large meteorite crater.

"There it is," he said, before adjusting the ship to get closer, landing it a few meters away from the lip. "So, we have three EVA suits. Who wants to come with me?"

It took a while for Nal, Nevue, and myself to put on the suits, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing, and they both needed to help me, but soon Miru and Tatnia were sealed up on the main deck while we slowly depressurized the cargo bay. The suit was only a basic sealed environment suite, with a blue underlay and orange plates over that. The helmet was the same color scheme and actually reminded me of the original Spartan helmet from Halo, though the face plate was translucent, not one-sided.

The suit itself was a bit restrictive, and I needed to be careful not to cast anything that would ruin it, but I was way too excited at the prospect of a low-gravity moonwalk to care. I had spent the first ten years of my life assuring everyone that when I was older, I was going to be an astronaut and walk on the moon, and while this wasn't Luna, it was still part of a dream come true.

When the cargo bay door finally opened, I was the first one out, walking down the slight ramp to the moon's surface, I turned back to look at Nevue, who was looking around from the doorway.

"Does this moon have a name?" I asked, bouncing a little in place to get used to my new weight outside the ship's artificial gravity.

"No, the planet doesn't even have one, just a code number," Nevue answered, stepping down to the surface. "We always called it 'hand off point thirteen' or Point Thirteen."

I followed the Zabrak to the edge of the massive crater, looking down into the pit. It mainly seemed normal, though now that I was focusing, I could see the subtle footprints that covered a significant portion of the ground around us. Down in the middle of the crater was a platform, about three meters across and maybe four wide, the whole structure clearly painted to be as camouflaged as possible to the moon's surface.

"That platform was where we would secure things for pick up," Nevue explained, pointing down at it. "Though we sometimes had to improvise and spread it out a bit more. Then we could cover everything with camouflage tarps."

"How do we-" I started to ask, only to watch as he jumped over the lip and floated downward. "-get down… Right, I should have seen that coming."

I watched as he made his way down, doing a strange leaping walk that let him cover a lot of distance, though everything had that slow, low grave pacing. Eventually, Nal jumped after him, and after a deep breath, I did as well. I slowly bounced down to the bottom of the crater, doing my best not to fall on my face as I did. Eventually, I got a bit more confident, and when I reached the reasonably flat ground at the bottom of the crater, I jumped up as hard as I could.

I shot up and forward, floating through space for a full five seconds before the moon's low gravity finally caught up with me and I slowly landed, stumbling a bit but recovering. I turned to find both Nal and Nevue looking at me, suddenly very glad I didn't let out a shout as I flew.

"Hey, cut me a break. This is my first time in low gravity," I explained. "Low-tech planet, remember?"

Nevue shook his head and continued to walk towards the platform while Nal nodded in understanding.

"It is an interesting experience," He said as he got closer. "Very glad you're not the type to get violently ill."

"Yeah, me t- Wait, was that something that could happen?" I asked, turning as the Duros walked past me. "Was there a chance I would have just gotten violently ill?"

"Yes, some species have members who cannot stand in low gravity," He explained. "Humans are one such species."

"Jesus Christ, I would have been sick in the suit too!" I said, suddenly feeling a bit queasy from the thought of throwing up in a sealed environment. "You could have warned me!"

"Could have, but that wouldn't have been as funny."

I resisted the urge to shove the older man, instead following behind him and climbing up onto the platform. Now that we were standing on it, you could clearly tell that the legs were driven into the rocky moon's surface, probably to keep them from flying away every time someone bumped them. Nevue spent a few minutes walking around the small platform, looking down before eventually letting out "hah!" of success and kneeling down. He fiddled with something for another few seconds before pulling open a hidden hatch

He reached inside the hatch and pulled out a school locker-sized box, lifting it easily in the low gravity. Once he had it secure on the platform, he spent a minute studying the box, eventually opening a panel and typing on a small datapad-like interface. He typed for about thirty seconds before spending a minute re-reading what he had typed. When he was done, he nodded and tapped the keyboard again.

"Alright, that's done," He said. "Now help me get this box up into the cargo bay. I don't want to be in this suit any more than I have to."

The three of us spent about ten minutes moving the large mobile holonet connector into the cargo bay, closing the large door, and waiting for the bay to repressurize. When a light near the door turned green, we started removing the EVA suits. Our helmets came off first, popping off with a slight hiss of a seal breaking.

"Sithspawn, I hate these," Nev said, visibly restraining himself from dropping the helmet onto the ground. "They are never warm enough. I can't feel my fingers."

"At least it's better than a flight suit," I pointed out. "Nothing like wearing something willing to sacrifice your limbs to keep your body going."

Nevue shivered and shook his head, quickly removing the rest of his suit. When all three of us pulled off the final pieces, Tatna and Miru made their way down the ladder into the cargo bay. Miru headed straight to the box we had just brought in while Tatnia leaned against a crate.

"So, did it work?" She asked, her arms crossed.

"The message went through. Assuming someone is still checking the system, we should get a reply eventually," Nevue responded.

"Miru, don't mess with it," I said, having watched the mechanically inclined teenager start tapping the casing of the secure holonet unit.

"I wasn't gonna break it! I just want to see under the casing," She explained, pulling her hands away. "I've never seen a hyperwave unit like this."

"That's because it's custom-made," Nevue explained. "It's basically a cudgeled-together starfighter unit, sealed in a fancy box."

With the message sent, all we could do was wait. I was tempted to start learning another spell, but with no idea where the base would be, I had no way of knowing how long I had. Instead, I settled on practicing some of my novice magic, as well as the healing hands spell. It was boring, so I also passed the time by finishing up the inventory of goods and figuring out what we wanted to keep and what we wanted to sell to the rebels.

"Everything we keep is going to make transferring harder," Tatnia pointed out. "Not sure how you plan on shipping over all the credits once we drop off Nevue. You were planning on selling this thing, right?"

"You know, I don't have to be the only one making decisions," I pointed out. "I never claimed to be the leader."

Tatnia snorted in response, shaking her head,

"You know, before all of this," She responded, gesturing around vaguely. "I would have laughed at anyone who told me I would listen to what someone else told me to do. I'm not the brightest star in the galaxy, but even I can see you're the boss, Boss."

I grumbled as she smirked, knowing just how I felt about that.

"Fine, I won't say no. Just make sure you back me up when we inevitably find the person who thinks they can do a better job than me," I said, getting a raised eyebrow in response. "But yes, the plan is to sell this ship to the Rebellion, probably at a discount. While I'm not a joiner, the current status quo is too fucky not to lend a hand here and there. Anyway, we can sell them the ship with the caveat that they use it to shuttle us somewhere where we can buy another one. Then we just transfer stuff over. When we are done, they leave in this ship, and we leave in our new, bigger, and much better ship."

Tatnia nodded appreciatively of the idea before looking up at where the ladder disappeared into the roof of the cargo bay. She was clearly thinking about something, but I was happy to let her do so in silence as I read through some of the options for the pre-packaged, shelf-stable meals. Eventually, she spoke up.

"You think they can do it?" Tatnia asked. "Take down the Empire?"

"...Maybe," I answered, looking up at the brown-haired woman. "It will happen eventually either way."

"What do you mean?"

"Empires always fall, it's inevitable," I explained with a shrug, leaning back on my storage crate seat. "No matter what kind of government, no matter how they rule, they always fall eventually. Ironically, it's usually at the hands of its own people. Rebels who want a change or greedy people who want to rule. Even if it comes down to chance, eventually, it will happen."

"So you think the Galactic Republic falling was inevitable?" She asked, focused on me now.

"Absolutely. From what I know, it was a miracle it lasted as long as it did," I responded. "It was a bloated, corrupt, unresponsive, half-dead, greedy corpse. The Empire were fucks who put it out of its misery."

"... That was a lot more aggressive than I expected," Tatnia admitted, looking at me surprised.

"The only thing worse than someone being a dick, is someone being a dick while insisting that they have the moral high ground, and that they are doing what's best for the world," I pointed out. "If the Empire hadn't come along and taken over, I'm pretty sure there would still be a rebellion going on."

Tatnia and I chatted for a few more minutes before, eventually, she went off to get something to eat while I continued to multitask between practicing what magic I could inside a ship and looking through the inventory. Eventually, the holonet connector let out a series of beeps.

I called out for Nevue, pausing to listen for a reply. When none came, I started making my way over to the ladder, only for the Zabrak to appear on the ladder, climbing down. He quickly made his way to the custom machine, pulling open the display and reading the response. After a few minutes, he sent an answer before turning to look at me.

"They sent coordinates," He explained. "To a planet called Thila in the Outer Rim Territories, I-Sector."

"Really? Just like that?" I asked in disbelief. "Sounds a bit easy."

"Well, the messages have been in a double-layer code," He explained with a shrug. "And the hyperwave system we use is pretty secure."

"...Well alright. Not much we could do anyway," I admitted, shaking my head. "Get us there, Nevue. The quicker, the better."