The Force Wills - Chapter 38 (Patreon)

Later in the evening, Anakin and I found ourselves squeezed into a rather small office with Bidi Typho sitting opposite us. It was on an upper floor of the cantina and had a one way transparisteel window that looked out over most of the place.

It had been a fun party and it had also given us a good reason for why Bidi had been so quickly elected to be mayor.

He had already been the de facto ‘leader’ of the town for nearly two years already, after the previous mayor had been murdered by the pirates. He was more of a businessman than anything else and had found himself being the ‘go-to’ guy when the townsfolk and slaves had problems. His help had clearly cost him in blood and soul - you just had to look at his face and eyes to see that. In the Force, the man was like steel that had been harshly shaped and over that he donned the silk of a pleasant persona.

He could also hold his drink like no one’s business.

By all rights he should’ve been on the floor and puking his guts out by now, but he simply sat there nursing a cup of caf idly.

“Thank you for the party, Bidi, but you clearly did not just invite us here for that?” Anakin pointedly queried.

“It was my primary motivation, I also wanted to get your measure, you can learn a lot about someone by how they conduct themselves in such an atmosphere.” He took another gulp of his caf. “You’re correct of course. I just want to ask you a question. You’ve saved us from the barbarians and for that I can’t thank you all enough. The only problem is, will you also save us from the barbarians who come next, who wear the fair cloak of authority and an easy smile?”

Anakin frowned in thought. “You’re speaking of corruption. The ones who let the pirates get such a foothold in the first place?”

Bidi nodded, “Let me guess, Governor Rieekan has been bothering you nearly every hour, demanding updates on your operations?”

“That’s about right,” I answered, sharing a look with Anakin.

“Not surprising. Old Rieekan is merely a few years away from the end of his governorship term after which he simply wants to retire. The pirates effectively taking over a small piece of Dargulli is not going to look good for him or his government. No, he’s not whom I’m worried about. It’s the person behind the ‘throne’ and his ilk that benefited from all this that’s got me and most of Kullat Springs worried.”

“Who are they?” Anakin asked with a stony face.

“Interior Minister Valin Nusakan,” Bidi sneered, his entire being practically radiating anger and hatred. “He didn’t give our town on a tray to that piece of filth Jur Van, but he might as well have. Jur Van and his band came one night three years ago, took our town away by force, killing any who had a blaster to resist and set up his operation to begin raiding the nearby Hydian. Then, instead of calling up the PDF to retake the town, Nusakan began a ‘mutually profitable arrangement’ with Jur Van.”

“So that’s how they could keep a spaceport and the ship traffic generally hidden?” I queried, beginning to see the picture.

“I don’t know what story Nusakan fed to the government at large, but it was enough that no one looked twice, or if they did, they were then persuaded or even threatened to ignore it.”

I pulled out a datapad, began swiping on it until I got to a picture of a pirate currently sitting in Resolute’s detention level. Even as I looked at that face, I already knew the answer to my question. I held it up to Bidi, “Just to confirm with you. This is Jur Van?”

He nodded. I passed it over to Anakin, who felt a bit of horror at the picture of the cannibal rodian pirate being displayed there.

“He gave us a fake name in his initial interrogation, none of the captured pirates would name their leader and interviews with your townsfolk were confusing on who the leader was,” Anakin explained.

“Not surprising, it was one of Jur Van’s favorite little tricks. He has a number of duros in his crew and to most human eyes it’s difficult to tell them apart from each other. The trick is to look at the eyes. Jur Van had a specific pattern to his right eye, that I eventually learned to tell him apart from his body doubles.”

“Can you or something in this town prove Nusakan’s crimes?” I asked, turning the conversation back around.

“He never visited personally,” Bidi sighed. “Probably wanted to keep his deniability intact, but Jur Van himself will tell you how the two would have frequent communications, usually via dead drop delivered data chits with holomessages. Jur Van often used the fact that we were abandoned by Nusakan and the government to demoralize us.”

“Would Jur Van be the type to keep records of these messages?” Anakin asked.

“You don’t get to be a successful blood sucking cannibal pirate for so long with no brain between your ears,” Bidi sneered. “I saw your people crawling all over that pirate Hardcell transport. If it’s anywhere, it’ll be in there.”

Anakin tapped on his vambrace and held out his hand. A small holo appeared in it and flashed with encryption characters, before it resolved to show a woman in a bespoke Republic Naval uniform.

“General Skywalker, what can I do for you?” asked Captain Habria Sarn, Resolute’s Chief Electronic Intelligence officer. The redheaded woman was only remarkable in how unremarkable she was; ordinary looks, a bit of a dumpy face, with very cunning blue eyes that burned with intellect. She was so obviously a Republic Intelligence officer and their eyes and ears on board the Resolute, that I had long ago concluded that she was a red herring, put there to pull our eyes away from the actual RI officer who sat on the other side of the various listening devices and reported back to their HQ on Coruscant.

Anakin, HK and I had a long running plan and various techniques on the go meant to eventually clue us in and reveal who the true spy was.

The trick was that we couldn’t be obvious about it. We had to ID the spy without him or her knowing they’d been made.

“Yes, I want you to search all the files and data we pulled from the pirate ships, anything that mentions contact between them and anyone from the Dargulli government, especially Interior Minister Nusakan. Might as well do a second intelligence sweep while you’re at it.”

“Very well, General. I doubt we missed anything, but we shall begin within the hour.”

“Thank you.”

Captain Sarn saluted and the holo faded out.

“Even if you can get that evidence, Master Jedi, the fact of the matter is, this town is now a political bomb to the current government and especially threatens the power that Nusakan wields,” Bidi explained grimly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t scrambling to salvage something from the situation. He has a lot of friends in the planetary business sector and local media. I wouldn’t put it beyond them to start a narrative that we were also in bed with the pirates. Sell that to the right people in government and I imagine they’re going to be calling for myself and many others in Kullat Springs to also be arrested, tried and imprisoned. Eventually we can also begin having convenient ‘accidents’.”

Anakin narrowed his eyes at the mayor. “Mayor Typho, I sense your hands are not exactly unstained with blood either. Perhaps they’d have a point in at the very least calling an investigation into the behavior of the people here. Don’t think I’m blind to your manipulation either. I might be relatively young to your eyes and my padawan even more so, but we are experienced and Jedi.”

Bidi smirked and chuckled but his eyes were dull. “Figures. You’re correct, of course. There are many things I’ve done, that the people of this town, had to do in the name of survival. Things we’re not proud of. Things that’ll haunt us till our dying day. The only law in this town for three years was the whims and sadistic pleasures of Jur Van. Anyone who resisted or objected would at best visit his prison pods for a nice few days out in the blistering sun or become a slave to be shipped off to Zygerria or at worst they’d slowly become his next meal.”

It was perhaps only at this moment that I truly understood the full scope of the horror that these people had lived through. They’d seen their town become a hell hole of the worst sort, something straight out of Mad Max. Just managing their rehabilitation back to living in some sort of civilized norm was going to be extremely difficult and now their government, who should’ve protected them and mobilized the PDF to save them, might as well be an enemy.

“I truly speak only for myself, but I can say with some certainty that most in this town will speak openly of the crimes we were forced to commit. We know where the true blame lies in this situation. If the people of Dargulli hear of this and demand we go to prison for it… so be it. It’ll be a huge step up from the lives we’ve had up to this point.”

Anakin continued looking at the mayor for a long while and I could feel he was using the Force in a myriad of ways, even opening himself up to its guidance. He turned to me, “Ahsoka, we’re here with a broad anti-piracy mandate, are we not?”

“Yes,” I nodded, wondering where his thoughts were going. “We’re empowered by the Senate and the Supreme Chancellor to undertake any operations to see the return of free movement of goods, travel and trade throughout the sectors of our AO.”

He began to smile, “Well then, I find that, if we get actionable evidence that implicates elements of the Dargulli government as being involved in piracy, then it’s our duty to make sure that they’re brought to justice and that it can’t happen again.”

“Oh boy,” I sighed. “Master, if we go that route, we could easily end up with a number of high government officials sharing cells with pirates on board the Resolute. Not to mention the remaining politicians screaming and complaining to Coruscant.”

“Let them. We can’t afford to go easy on this. It doesn’t help that we pull out this weed, only for it to grow right back when we leave, Ahsoka.”

“I fully agree, Master. I’m just making sure you don’t come complaining to me when you have most of the Senate on our asses.”

“Well, I can only hope you find something, Master Jedi, because if there’s nothing…” Bidi didn’t want to finish the thought.

“We can also fight this from another angle,” I stated as an idea began percolating in my head. “We need to get the story out before Nusakan and his cronies can spin it to their advantage.”

“I know that look,” Anakin smirked. “Go ahead, what’s the plan?”

“I need everyone who will agree to be interviewed and appear on planetary media, ideally from a wide variety of the townsfolk. Then we’re going to make a little documentary.”

Bidi looked rather intrigued, then he smiled, “I know just who to ask.”

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I was no filmmaker, but in the interest of speed I forgoed any of the usual prep I remembered studying up on both in art class and the old Internet. The Holonet in the Corusca galaxy had some info from academies, but it was broad generalizations and the details were restricted to the students of those institutions. There was no time to write anything more than a barebones checklist, nevermind a detailed script. The best I could imagine this turning out was as a roughly edited video podcast, interspersed with news style footage captured by HK and my own armor as we visited the various pirate hotspots and facilities around town.

Even so it took most of the next day just to get all the interviews done and B-roll footage shot. HK was surprisingly good at editing everything and knew at once what I was trying to do.

“Statement: The usage of propaganda was something both the Old Republic and Sith Empires would employ to attempt to gain various advantages in their conflict. The Republic needed it for recruiting into the armed forces and the Sith used it on their conquest worlds to demoralize.”

Demoralized was a pretty good word to describe myself by the end of that day.

You couldn’t speak to nearly twenty different victims and ask them to speak of their traumas on camera, all the while closely sensing them in the Force and not be deeply moved by it.

The man who had his eye popped out because he had just looked at a pirate in a subjectively ‘funny’ manner.

The fifteen year old human mother of a mixed race twi’lek baby - who loved her infant with every fiber of her being, despite the father being one of the pirates who had practically enslaved her.

The slave market and the humiliation of being put on display with barely any clothing, whilst buyers bidded on you.

It all added up and by the time HK was busy editing the footage I felt the need to blow off some steam and headed to the Resolute’s Danger Room.

I was still bashing my head against the Level 6 setting of the room, but it had finally gotten to the point where I wasn’t being trounced in less than a minute - now I was setting somewhat consistent times of just over two minutes before the room’s remotes and platforms overwhelmed me.

“Commander Tano to the bridge. Commander Tano to the bridge.”

The room began to flash with red lighting, including a whining battle alert alarm.

“Sithspit!” I growled, deactivating and holstering my lightsabers before rushing out of the room towards the closest lift that would take me to the bridge.

Of course, I was competing with the rest of the crew who were all scrambling to their stations as well.

I tapped on my vambrace com link. “Admiral Yularen, status?”

“Commander, eight Fantail-class destroyers and three battle Hardcells just emerged from hyperspace at the edge of Dargulli’s hyper limit. They’re burning hard for orbit and will be above us in just under three minutes.”

The lift door opened and I rushed inside to tap the controls. “Any indication of their point of origin?”

“Their trajectory suggests they came from Kooriva.”

It was a system about 300 light years West North West and it had not featured at all in hosting any pirate activity.

Kooriva was a Corporate Alliance world and as such, the system was technically enemy territory and belonged to the CIS. It also happened to be utterly surrounded by Republic space given how the front line battle spaces had fallen onto the galactic map. The only reason it hadn’t been annexed yet was logistics. There weren’t enough ships or clones at the moment to assault such a productive world that was capable of war production. There was a large number of such technically CIS worlds that had landed ‘behind’ the nominal lines drawn on the map. They generally got on with normal business but knew they couldn’t agitate or suddenly throw themselves into the war. They were isolated, far from support and would be steamrolled quickly if they made too much noise or started to actually participate in the war.

Kooriva was an obvious place for pirates to operate out of and it was on our target list but the Phantom had yet to visit it.

That they had so many ships of the Fantail-class meant that someone in Republic Intel had dropped the ball. Though I couldn’t rule out that what we were seeing now wasn’t new production since the start of the war - the Fantail was relatively easy and quick to build, sitting in a gray area between frigate and cruiser weight and didn’t need orbital facilities in their construction.

Yet eight of them were not close to being enough to take on the Resolute, even with those two Harcells in support.

Something was wrong.

“Admiral, get us into orbit, max speed, keep those ships away from us, make for the hyper limit.”

“Understood, commander.”

By the time the lift deposited me on the bridge deck, the Resolute had breached the atmosphere and only the black darkness of space surrounded the ship. I sprinted towards the command chair, which Yularen had already vacated.

The instant I had my butt in the chair and the tactical holo in front of me, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Yularen had taken an exit vector that had put the planet between us and the enemy, forcing them to adjust course and burn hard in pursuit.

The hyper limit around Dargulli was roughly 150k kilometers and it would take Resolute just under three minutes at max acceleration to clear it.

“Nav, red line our reactors, transfer power from all non-essentials to engines.”

“Roger commander, red line all reactors, max engine burn.”

“Sensors, throw everything we have at those Fantails, if someone is passing gas or a droid is having a short circuit over there I want to know about it.”

“Understood commander, scanning.”

I zoomed in on my holo and gave the acceleration rates and engine performance of the enemy a quick look and began doing the math with our own current speed.

It wasn’t looking good.

“What are you seeing, commander?” Yularen asked.

“These Fantails are fast, much faster than the last time I saw them in action. This feels like a trap.”

“A trap in what sense?”

I watched as the Resolute’s velocity steadily raced upward, the computer indicating we’d hit 2099 km per second when we reached the hyper limit.

The first Fantail would intercept us in weapons range fifty seconds before we could cross that and overtake us at 30 seconds before we could hyper.

“Sensors?” I prompted the clone officer.

My holo changed to a detailed scan as could be accomplished under the circumstances.

“By the stars,” Yularen declared with dismay. “They’re suicide ships.”

Four of the enemy Fantails chasing us down were nothing more than shields, hull, engines and navigation, the rest of the mass was just huge amounts of baradium explosive.

“Engineering, reactor to 110 percent,” I ordered urgently.

“Reactor 110, roger.”

“Commander, one of the enemy Hardcells is decelerating for a landing on Dargulli.”

“Communications, tell our people on the ground to expect company, we’ll return when able.”

“Our shields can take the hit of one of those ships,” Yularen declared.

“And promptly collapse, after which the second and third will turn us into gaseous debris.”

“Guns, what’s your opinion on how quickly we could engage and destroy a Fantail?”

“If they were in our forward arcs, our turbolasers could do it with two or three time on target salvoes, in our rear arc, it’d take much longer, commander.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead in irritation, “We’re going to have to go all out, Admiral.”

“I agree. We’ll have to make sure there are no survivors, commander.”

I tapped on my chair to talk to the neighboring bridge, “Flight Ops, I want every ready squadron we have launched in thirty seconds.”

“We can give you three squadrons at the moment, commander.”

“Do it.” I switched channels. “Nav, normalize our reactor, all power to guns, torpedoes and our shiny new toy.”

The dorsal hangar doors all along the spine of the Resolute opened and what followed was one of the most nerve-wracking maneuvers for any fighter pilot that flew off a Venator. It was completely done by the on-board astromechs but that did little to reassure you.

A fighter in the hangar bays, even when it was in the air above the decking, was still part of the inertial dampener frame of reference. Even when it was in the launch spine, there was no problem. The trick came when the fighter crossed the upper deck dorsal threshold, then that would change instantly. Therefore, the fighter had to make sure it matched acceleration to the Resolute just before it left the dampener field.

If there was any mismatch in the negative by a large degree, the fighter could be like a bug on a windshield.

Nevertheless, two squadrons of Z-95s and one squad of Y-Wings were launched nearly simultaneously, before maneuvering to either side of Resolute, flipping over and burning hard to decelerate towards an intercept with the oncoming Fantails.

“Squadrons, your primary targets will be the Fantails designated epsilon through theta and the Hardcell.”

“You’re leaving the suicide ships to us?” Yularen queried.

“Yes, no other choice if we want to leave no survivors.”

My hands manipulated the holo in front of me, showing the max guided range of torpedoes, which was a steadily decreasing red transparent sphere, thanks to our constant acceleration in a stern chase scenario.

Any torpedo Resolute launched, just like the fighters, had to flip and decelerate, using precious onboard battery and propellant to create intercepts with the also constantly accelerating enemy behind us.

This drastically reduced their effective powered range.

Wait…

I barely stopped myself from slapping my own forehead.

“Guns, plot me a sixteen torpedo salvo intercept on Fantail alpha, let it go with ballistic intercepts.”

“Roger commander, computing.”

Yularen frowned, “You think they didn’t bother putting AA on the suicide ships?”

I swiped my holo back to the high-res scan of the ships in question. “I don’t see any, do you?”

He squinted briefly, “No obvious hardpoints, depressions or bay doors. Unless the normal Fantails move forward to provide cover.”

“Which they won’t do because they’d be in range of the big booms.”

“Ready commander,” reported Guns.

“Fire!”

The port ventral bay door opened and sixteen torpedoes were practically dropped into space, only coasting slightly downward on the velocity given to them by the launch tubes. Resolute roared past them and only a few seconds later did their engines light off and begin a rather complex series of burns with repulsors and standard ion thrusters.

The torpedoes then began to maneuver, forming a lead element of four, followed by another four with a nine kilometer separation.

The remaining eight torpedoes mirrored this formation, hanging even further back and steering their course to intercept Fantail beta.

“Thirty-five seconds to target,” reported Guns.

I looked at the holo showing the tactical battlespace; the fighters taking a wide course to give Resolute clear targeting solutions, the torpedoes streaking towards the suicide ships, the conventionally crewed enemy ships hanging back and bracing themselves for combat, the hyper limit steadily creeping closer.

There was another trap.

No, prescience needed to figure that out.

My opponent was clever and no pirate.

“Guns, another salvo of sixteen on Fantails gamma and delta.”

“Salvo of sixteen, gamma and delta, yes commander.”

Three seconds later the holo lit up with more angry torpedo symbols streaking away from the Resolute towards the chasing enemy.

Yularen frowned, “You’ve noticed something, commander?”

“Yes, we’re being herded. The enemy could have emerged from hyper and intercepted us well before we were in any position to escape the mass shadow of the planet, yet they didn’t.”

“Well, these are mixed CIS forces and pirates, they could’ve made a mistake.”

“That’s what our opponent wants us to think, admiral. Don’t let him.”

Yularen looked at the tactical holo then stared out at the void of space. “A cloaked ship? They’re going to try and use Yularen-Tano against us?”

“Precisely.”

The first four torpedoes battered Fantail alpha’s shield and popped it, leaving the way clear for the second line to smash directly into the armored hull right on the upper quadrant of the ship. Any other Fantail would’ve barely survived, this ship on the other hand abruptly flashed into a maelstrom of white-blue energy that made me glad I wasn’t in any position to look at the explosion. The debris from the explosion barely registered on the sensors, so small were they.

The three squadrons of fighters started launching their missiles and torpedoes at the conventional Fantails and space began to erupt into a firework show of AA and ECM.

“Guns, charge the toy but do not deploy it yet. Every turbolaser that can fire aft, turn aft. All our forward arc guns and AA in neutral position, but charge them as well.”

“Roger Commander.”

“Now the trick is not to show the enemy we know.”

The second formation of torpedoes blasted Fantail beta into smithereens a few seconds later, giving birth to a small, brief blue-white star of energy.

My fighters scored their own first kill when Fantail epsilon died in a much more messy fashion, a reactor breach shattering the ship in two, sending gas, droids and munitions into space. It was done at the cost of two Z-95s, with one pilot managing to eject.

Fantail gamma and delta, the last of the suicide ships died ignominously fifteen seconds later, having achieved nothing but making the Resolute waste ammo.

I flicked the com link, “Flight Ops, what’s our ready status?”

“We’ve got another squadron on the port deck and pilots are embarking now.”

“Excellent work Ops, get the starboard deck filled, we might need them soon.”

“Roger Commander.”

“Nav, ready a hyper translation, give me a course orbiting around Dargulli system. Be ready to hyper only on my mark.”

“Understood, commander.”

“Guns, ready an eight torpedo spread, launch only on my mark.”

My eyes focused on the upcoming hyper limit and I embraced the Force, the timing for this was going to be crucial.

Resolute roared across the line at over 2100 kms.

“Hyper emergence! Three signatures, they’re on a collision course!” The Sensor officer exclaimed.

Three Fantails zoomed out of hyperspace and almost snapped into existence directly in the Resolute’s path in a line formation.

“Drop our main gun and fire! All forward turbolasers orient forward and fire!” I ordered urgently.

The starboard door on the ventral bay fell open and a weapon emerged that was essentially a LAAT composite laser beam projector scaled up to the size of a starship weapon, measuring nearly ninety-nine meters in length. My brain always considered the thing a bloody mini-Death Star weapon and while it was operating on the same principles, there was just something viscerally wrong in referring to it like that.

The techs at KDY had some ridiculously unwieldy designation for it, but I had taken one look at the schematics and put my foot down.

The Resolute’s BFG10K composite projectors blossomed with green energy, shooting it into the forward focusing aperture in sequence, before a titanic green laser beam blinked into existence abruptly.

A bright green line of energy was briefly drawn, linking Resolute and the first suicide Fantail.

Its shield simply failed to stop the energy, battered down immediately and the beam bored straight through the main upper section of the ship. The baradium ignited and I closed my eyes, using the Force, my awareness of the battlespace becoming total.

Resolute shot through the expanding gaseous debris cloud and liberated energy just as it lost any disruptive potential to her shields.

Her eight dual heavy turbolasers opened fire simultaneously next, throwing two salvos within three seconds in their close-range brawl mode.

The second suicide Fantail’s shields crumpled under the onslaught and exploded.

The Resolute didn’t come out unscathed.

It felt like a giant bat had slammed into the ship and I winced as I sensed the titanic energies being bled off by the shields.

“Forward shields at half strength!” shouted Engineering.

“Guns, torpedoes fire!”

Eight torpedoes screamed into space, their engines and repulsors redlining immediately in close range mode.

“Nav, reduce our burn to seventy five percent! Full forward thrusters!”

The last Fantail was hit and erupted into another blue-white energetic sphere that felt like it was just off Resolute’s nose.

Yet another hammerblow rocked the ship and every crewman could feel the impact waves translate through the hull.

“Forward shields are down!”

“Rear shields to front! Hyperspace now!”

All ten Resolute’s primary, secondary and tertiary engines flashed and stars appeared and streaked as the ship plunged forward into hyper, the motivators beginning their characteristic rhythmic hum.

I let out a deep breath in relief as I opened my eyes to regard the very welcome roiling blue tunnel of hyperspace.

My attention turned to the holo feed and I was pleased to note that there were only two enemy ships left, a single Fantail and the Hardcell. Both had significant damage and wouldn’t be going anywhere.

My fingers swiped through the icons of both in the holo.

“Ready squadrons, destroy them.” I switched radio channels. “Master, what is your situation?”

“That last Hardcell is on its way to the planetary capital, we’ve commandeered every pirate ship we can and will try to intercept.”

“Is there anything you need from me?”

“How secure are you up there?” he countered.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to come out of hyper at any predictable point at the moment, master.”

“Send me the ready squadrons and a few more, that should be plenty. We can destroy that Hardcell as it’s unloading.”

I wanted to facepalm. My brain had defaulted to thinking it was just another pirate operated ship. The Fantails and their origin point changed that. Then I recalled just how many CIS droids and tanks could fit in a Hardcell.

“I’m sending you six squadrons as soon as I can, master.”

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Resolute spent the following two days hiding behind a random ice rock in Dargulli’s Oort Cloud. I spent most of that time either in training, coordinating the deployed fighter squadrons, and helped digging through the seized data from the pirates. Every hour I delved into prescience to get a reading on whether it would be safe for the ship to return to the planet’s orbit.

The result was always another attack, this time with two squadrons of Belbullab-22 heavy starfighters mounting externally carried capital torpedoes.

The battle for Dargulli on the ground had thankfully also been a short affair.

Only a single squad of Hailfire droid tanks and one company of B1 droids had managed to disembark from the Hardcell before the skies overhead became very unfriendly.

The Hardcell and Hailfires weren’t pushovers though, with the latter being very capable in the anti-air role. Three further Z-95s were destroyed when they had strayed too close into the engagement envelope of the Hailfire tanks.

In the end though, the CIS droids were bombed to scrap very thoroughly, with the 501st only needing to send a company strength force to finish off partially destroyed droids and secure the wreckage.

Finally, my opponent seemed to run out of patience and retreated. I gave it an extra hour, just to be sure and the Resolute made a brief jump through hyper to emerge beyond Dargulli’s mass shadow.

I kept the ship at an extremely high orbit beyond the gravity well and chose a random emergence point, just in case.

“Commander, incoming holo from the Jedi High Council,” reported the Comm officer.

“Thank you, Comm,” I tapped a few buttons on my command chair and the holo in front of me resolved to the miniature form of Mace Windu.

“Padawan Tano.”

“Master Windu,” I bowed my head in greeting.

“We’ve reviewed your latest report on the situation in your sector. Kooriva’s hostility should’ve been anticipated and it’s unacceptable.”

“I agree, Master. We’ve played too much of a loose hand with these declared CIS worlds in our space. It’s one thing when they don’t have much development or industry that can be turned to war production, but Kooriva is a fully developed and industrialized world.”

“Which is why we’ve assigned the newly formed 20th Sector Army of the GAR to patrol the surrounding systems and hyperlanes. That will contain the situation for the moment, until it has enough strength to assault the planet outright.”

“When are they due to arrive, Master?”

“Their lead elements and vanguard will arrive within three days and will headquarter themselves in Atzerri on the Shipwright’s Trace.”

“That’s to the north of Kooriva, they can guard all approaches to the core worlds, but what of the flanks of our southern lines?”

“The 20th will also be the first to receive the first run of production model stealth frigates.”

My stomach gave a slight lurch as a completely new butterfly presented itself to my eyes. It didn’t occur to me what a difference it would make when the Phantom was properly used in her role, as opposed to the nail biting joyride Anakin had given the ship in the original timeline. Her value in not only recon but also dropping special forces directly onto targets, bypassing traditional obstacles and defenses was significant.

Now other IPV-2Cs would prowl through the galaxy and in this case, act as early warning system if Kooriva decided to throw more attacks towards the surrounding sectors and the southern battlespaces.

“I see. Is there anything else, master?”

“Have you found any evidence of corruption in the Dargulli government?”

“Yes, we have. Enough to confirm Mayor Typho’s version of events. We have evidence that the Interior Minister, including about eight other high ranking officials aided and abetted the pirate presence on Dargulli. There is circumstantial evidence for a further eighteen others, but it’s not enough to act on. Does the Council object to Master Skywalker’s intentions?”

“No,” Windu shook his head. “Your mandate from the Senate and Chancellor is clear. The Jedi Council is in full agreement. Arrest all of them and pass on the circumstantial evidence to any among the Dargulli authorities you think will make good use of it. Perhaps in time, they can discover more substantial evidence and deal with any further corruption.”

“It shall be done, Master Windu.”

“The last bit of news I have for you is not so good. Reports have started to reach us that the Separatists have developed their own version of Yularen-Tano doctrine.”

I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing and letting out a weary sigh. “How many?”

“Seven Acclamators and nine Venators, with a further twelve mission killed and are being towed back to KDY for reclamation or repair. It took us too long to realize and adopt counter-tactics.”

Well, the Seppies had to catch up at some point. I was just glad I had the bloody foresight to always develop counters to my own tactics and had communicated them to the Jedi Council.

The days of just sitting merrily and conveniently close in orbit over a planet were over.

Large ships would need cloaked tactical scouts before committing to go anywhere.

AA defenses both active and passive would need to be beefed up considerably.

Torpedoes would eventually need further development in penetration aids to remain a viable weapon system.

“Thank you for telling me, Master Windu. I will be in touch about further refinements that can be made to the doctrine and other tactics Admiral Yularen and I’ve been working on.”

“Good, keep up the good work. In the meantime, you’re to continue with your anti-piracy patrols. We’ve received word of attacks at Jurzan and Ramordia yesterday.”

“Rather uncomfortably close to the southern front,” I grumbled.

“Precisely, we can’t afford any delays in supplies, Padawan Tano.”

“Very well, Master. The Resolute will depart as soon as we’ve wrapped things up here.”

“May the Force be with you, Padawan, oh… this is hardly traditional but in the circumstances…” Mace Windu suddenly looked rather awkward. “Happy Festival of Life, Ahsoka.”

I blinked both at the uncharacteristic sight of Mace Windu actually emoting and mentally reviewing the date.

It was that time of the year!

The Corusca galaxy had a plethora of calendar celebrations as did each species and culture. The Republic as a whole didn’t naturally have ‘Christmas’ by name, as that only arose from the unique circumstances of old Earth.

What it did have, and the closest equivalent, was the Festival of Life. A full five day week celebration marked by parties, get-togethers and gift giving.

“Happy Festival of Life… Mace.”

We bowed to each other and the holo winked out.

Great, now I had to think of a gift for Anakin, Rex and something to give the Blades, there definitely needed to be a party on the Resolute as well.

I tapped on the com link, “Flight Ops, ready the Kote for immediate launch. It’s shopping time.”

The baffled Flight officer could only reply, “Commander?”

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The LAAT gunship taking them back to the Resolute was quite packed.

Anakin was taking no chances with this lot, so every prisoner had a two trooper escort even though they had magnetic cuffs.

Former Interior Minister Valin Nusakan had not stopped glaring since he and his fellow ‘conspirators’ had been loaded up into the gunship. Valin in appearance was of average height, but had a face that couldn’t help but remind Anakin of his old slave master Watto, if spun around into a human form; an overly large nose, saggy jowls and slightly overweight. All the former politicians were still in their stately, overly expensive clothes, but that would change soon.

“Glare at me all you like, Valin and be glad you’re leaving Dargulli. I sensed a number of your fellow ministers feeling rather unhappy and even murderous. Perhaps enough to arrange for your assassinations.”

“Bunch of cowards, they wouldn’t dare go through with it,” Valin grumbled. “They also better hope I don’t die in prison. I’ve got all sorts of secrets that get released when I do.”

“You do seem the type to do that.”

“As if they wouldn’t have done the same thing if they were in my shoes.”

Anakin could only feel disgust and pity. “You’re deluding yourself. Even if the pirates initially had you at gunpoint and forced you to accept their rule over Kullat Springs, you should’ve called up the PDF, the militia, anything other than what you did.”

“It’s so easy to judge me now. The pirates kept a close watch on our broadcasts. If they caught even a hint that we were mobilizing in enough force to retake the town, they threatened to wipe out everyone!”

“There’s this thing called the Holonet and an encrypted channel, which lets you contact Coruscant or the Jedi Order. As far as I know, you also have a covert section of the Planetary Guard, whose job it is to protect the serving government as bodyguards. No Valin, you saw how your own wealth could grow from the arrangement. After all, it’s just a small little town in the middle of nowhere that no one cares about.”

Valin wanted to say something further but stopped himself and just shook his head instead.

The gunship landed in the Resolute’s port hangar bay a few minutes later and one of the clone sergeants from the detention level was already there to escort his new charges to their accommodation.

Ahsoka was also there to meet him and she watched the prisoners all walk off with a mild smile on her face.

“Master, it’s about time for lunch, shall we?”

Anakin frowned at her in consideration, it was a little early but he might as well get it over with now. “Very well.”

They began walking on the long winding route to the mess hall. “I hope dealing with the politicians wasn’t too onerous, Skyguy.”

“I survived. You might be the Consular of the two of us, but I can’t keep letting you deal with the diplomacy and political aspects of our missions.”

“Good point, you might start getting rusty and when Jedi make mistakes, well, the galaxy tends to notice.”

Case in point the entire clone war.

It was as they were near the center of the ship and nearing the mess hall that Anakin felt something odd about the Resolute. The crew he spotted were going about their duties as usual, but there was a slight spring in their step, even the occasional smile. Seeing that on the normally stoic clones was rather odd. He embraced the Force actively and was rather shocked that the entire ship seemed to be in a rather… joyful mood.

He was about to ask Ahsoka just what was going on, but the door to the mess hall swished open and he was blasted with music.

It was music that seemed to just lift his heart, filled with chimes, bells and a friendly constant beat.

Beyond was the chaos of a party.

A sea of identical faces wearing the closest thing the clones had to casual attire, their white undershirts and exercise trousers, all of which had been decorated with green-red colors and frills in unique patterns.

There were groupings of crew all around as they chatted animatedly, laughed, drinks and food in hand.

“Snips? What…”

He whirled on his apprentice to find her holding out a red, white and green, ornately wrapped box to him. Where did she hide that?

“Happy Lifeday, Skyguy.”

His mind whirled in astonishment… had that time of the year come already?

Ahsoka giggled at his expression. “Yeah, that’s pretty much how I looked when Master Windu blindsided me with the date.”

He carefully reached out with the Force, checking to see if he hadn’t stepped into a dream or another reality… but there was nothing out of place.

“Silly Skyguy,” she laughed outright and shoved the gift into his stomach. He accepted it and pulled it under his arm.

“Ahsoka…”

“Yes, I know this is not regulation. Yes, this is still a military vessel. The parties are happening in shifts. We are still at full readiness, but this is the Festival of Life. The time where we celebrate and give thanks for what we have been given and enjoy the gift of life, something that we must do even during times of war.”

Anakin sighed, unable to deny her logic. “You could’ve at least warned me, so I would’ve had a chance to get you a gift on Dargulli.”

“I wanted to surprise you a bit, I admit. There’s still four days of the festival to go, plenty of time.”

He stared at the box under his arm for a moment, then smiled and abruptly pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Happy Lifeday, Ahsoka.”

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A/N: Happy Festive Holidays my dear patrons :-)