The Force Wills - Chapter 79 (Patreon)

I dropped the now sleeping trandoshan hunter to lean against a tree and fought with all my might to not just lop off his head then and there.

His name was Garnac Klal and I felt like I needed brain bleach from just puzzling out and interpreting a few of his memories.

I had little time as he was most definitely not alone and my window of opportunity was very narrow.

Using the Force, I stripped him of every weapon he had, swipes of the Darksaber rendered everything useless and in pieces, except for the blaster. This I grabbed, checked that its safety was on, before clipping it to my belt.

A gesture and Garnac was floating alongside me as I began sprinting deeper into the forest, leaving the chaos of the ongoing battle behind.

Normally, I would feel pretty bad about just leaving any troops under my command like this, but they were trained soldiers and the loss of a leader was just another battlefield reality that they could easily adapt to. Was I technically deserting at the moment? Not really. Garnac and his ilk had just made themselves combatants by trying to kidnap me and were therefore fair game. Given what I had just learned by rummaging around in his head, I was even obligated to do what I was about to, from a Jedi point of view.

It wasn’t long until I stopped my run at the eastern edge of the valley, in a natural depression. Hidden here was a long, utilitarian cargo ship about 180 meters long - with octagonal modules slung on its rear. It was camouflaged from above with colors to generally match the terrain and I knew that they also had ingenious on-board systems to literally bend typical scanning emissions around the hull. It was essentially a poor-man’s cloaking device. It would fail to a direct scan if you focused an array directly on it, but for general stealth it was perfectly serviceable in the vastness of space. Neatly explaining why our sweeping scans from orbit had failed to detect it.

I had little incentive to play nice from here on.

I dumped Garnac behind a tree and began walking forward and pushed my senses forward. 

There were three other trandoshans aboard; Lo-Taren, Shug - their pilot and Dar, Garnac’s son. All were part of a hunting guild that the Trandoshan government decried as illegal and didn’t officially exist yet were unofficially supported under the table.

They hunted anything - including people.

I waited for the exact moment, when I knew they would hear me and activated the Darksaber as I approached the large embarkation ramp to the ship.

The first to emerge and investigate the odd noise was Lo-Taren.

Unlike his leader, he was a much more natural looking trandoshan and served as the ship’s engineer and mechanic.

His beady yellow eyes took a long moment to comprehend me standing at the edge of the ramp and looking up at him.

“What? Who-”

That was all he managed before his wits caught up with him, he performed an impressive quickdraw and sent a blast straight to my face.

I deflected the first shot away with the Darksaber, before angling the next deflection to return straight to the knee of his left leg.

He dropped to the deck and screamed as his leg simply ceased to exist, with only tatters of cloth remaining.

I let him suffer for the few seconds it took to walk up the ramp before I waved a hand and consigned to him the mercy of a Force Sleep.

Inside the first cargo module, I was confronted with nearly a hundred cages that were barely two cubic meters in volume, all of which were arranged to form the ‘floor’ below a gangway where the hunters could patrol and easily see everything their prisoners did.

Not every cage was filled, thank goodness, but I quickly counted fifty-five people of various species sprinkled about the module.

“Hey! Help!”

“Master Jedi!”

“Help us!”

I put away that distraction in favor of deflecting the blaster shots from Dar as he screamed and charged me down, seeking to keep me busy long enough to bring those nasty claws on the end of his fingers to bear.

I helped him a bit by making a gesture and Force Pulling him.

He flew through the air towards me, still firing until my Darksaber twirled at the exact moment to cleave the blaster in half.

I stopped his forward momentum instantly and hovered him a meter off the deck.

Unlike his father, he hadn’t yet been initiated properly into the hunter guild, there was no blood on his hands, so a Force Sleep was the only thing he got for shooting at me.

The captives had all gone silent and I sensed awe at my otherworldly display of skill. I pulled them briefly into a Battle Meditation.

“Be calm, be patient. Your freedom will soon be forthcoming.”

I carried Dar forward into the next module.

Here were much larger cages, designed to hold worthy animals and beasts for their hunts. 

There was only one cage occupied, by none other than an actual Mantellian Savrip.

They were giant reptilian beings that stood over four meters tall, gray scaly skin, notorious for a poisonous bite and were native to Ord Mantell. That a savrip had been caught and hunted would be, in the eyes of most of the galaxy, not that much of a problem. The debate about their actual intelligence was still ongoing amongst biologists, but those fools only had to ask a Jedi for the actual answer.

They had tool using capability, they wore basic clothing and even had an informal language. Everything was there on the surface for them to be declared ‘sentient’, yet it hadn’t happened, in part, because others had used the savrip’s natural inclination to combat to devastating effect.

I pushed my senses to this savrip and could immediately tell he was extremely bored, just idly munching on a huge bone, occasionally using it as a toothpick. My appearance with Darksaber and a sleepy Dar hovering beside me caused him to grunt and perk up with interest.

He definitely didn’t like Dar and I was treated to a very alien yet gruesome thought - an image of Dar being ripped apart by the savrip. There was no hunger associated with it either as the savrip instinctually knew a trandoshan would taste bad and wouldn’t be good for a meal.

“Sorry big fellow, can’t let you kill him,” I said, pushing the concepts through the Force to his relatively simple mind.

The savrip grunted and grumbled, clearly unhappy about it.

The next module had consumables, mostly food and water storage for keeping their captives alive during transit.

My way into the next module was blocked when the bulkhead door slammed in my face.

So Shug, the pilot, had finally clicked that he had a big problem on his hands. I looked up to face the small visual sensor above the door. Thankfully, this was not a combat starship and the bulkhead was only rated to keep atmosphere in.

A few quick slashes of the Darksaber later and I was moving on.

This module seemed to be a living quarters for the trandoshans when they were using the ship. It was like a home away from home, with up to seven subdivisions the size of decent apartments.

I breezed through here with no problems and cut my way through another bulkhead door and stepped into the actual ‘ship’ that housed the engines, hyperdrive and all the other things you’d generally need to fly around the galaxy.

My telekinesis grabbed hold of the durasteel door and I pushed it through ahead of me.

I heard a trandoshan snarl before a Repeater opened up against me.

The bolts splashed ineffectually against my bulkhead shield and I kept walking calmly forward.

I brought my other lightsaber to hand and chucked it ahead of me.

It spun into a blur of green light that flew through the air and wrecked the mounted Repeater in the corridor ceiling, before zipping down and slicing Shug’s blaster rifle to sizzling smoky pieces.

Leaving him only holding the grip, stock and trigger assembly.

He stared down at it in shock, then suddenly found himself getting very well acquainted with the unyielding ceiling of the corridor, before getting slammed back down to the floor. It knocked the breath out of him and left him completely stunned and helpless.

I dropped Dar to the floor, took a few steps forward and raised Shug into the air.

The pilot snarled and tried to ineffectually slash with his claws at me, but I was just inches out of reach. Not that those things would’ve done shit to my armor anyway. I put him into a stasis next, because I noted that he had a few grenades on the harness that he wore.

Shug’s eyes widened, his snarling stopping, as his final weapons flew out of his harness’ pouches and hovered next to me.

“Now that you are fully aware of your predicament, Shug. You are going to do the following. You are going to undo every failsafe in the ship’s computer, every bit of sabotage you did before confronting me. Then you will tell me the access ignition codes of the ship.”

Shug snarled and hissed, “And why-sss would I do that? Jedi?”

I smirked under my helmet, “I know you trandoshans can grow back your own limbs. It’s a useful ability, but it takes time and energy. It’s also quite painful I hear. So what do you say we test that?”

The Darksaber was brought to bear and it sizzled mere millimeters from Shug’s bare left foot.

He merely laughed deeply, “You’re Jedi, I know your kind. Thissss is not your way.”

I pulled the blade away, “Of course, yes, how silly of me. Losing a limb is not what trandoshans fear.”

I turned around and walked back to the cargo modules, carrying Shug who frowned in confusion. “What are you doing? Where are we going?”

Silence was all that answered his question and finally our true destination was revealed when I hovered him a few meters away from the savrip’s massive cage.

The huge being snarled and roared, reaching out a massive clawed hand to try to grab Shug.

The trandoshan’s eyes widened and now the fear truly hit him.

“This is what you trandoshan’s truly fear; your prey, your victims gaining power, the power to fight back.” I began inching Shug slowly closer.

“No! He’ll… he’ll kill me… rip me apart!”

“Indeed, he will,” I agreed. “So, ignition codes?”

Shug gritted his teeth and shook his head, “No, you can’t do this. This-”

“Is not the Jedi way, yes, yes,” I sighed in irritation. “The thing is, people see the Jedi always saving people, saving lives, even those of criminals and so on. What they don’t see is that there is another side to being a Jedi. One that doesn’t make it to the news or the rumor mill among the space lanes. We will kill and we do kill, but only in the service of life. The war has blurred the lines a bit here, but that is the nature of it. Can’t be helped. Right now, you are part of a guild that hunts sentient life, you tried to even make me prey in one of your hunts, along with the savrip and the people in the other module.

“We’d all be dead and trophies in one of your hunts. You’d take some physical trophy, add us as a number on your tally with the great Scorekeeper. Reduced to being mere jagannath points. Oh yes, I know all about that, Shug. Don’t look so surprised.”

I moved him closer by a few millimeters, the savrip roared and swiped again.

“Aaah, no, stop!” Shug whimpered, turning his head away as his snout was in danger of getting slashed at this point.

“It’s clear that your guild and its members are a threat to sentient life. At this point, even if you got a fair trial, all that’d happen is you get sentenced to life imprisonment. Is that what you want? To rot in a cell for the rest of your life?”

“No, Yes! I mean, no!”

“It's not so easy to make that decision, is it? Now, ignition codes?”

I visibly held up my hand, as if I was preparing to move him that final few centimeters closer…

“Fi- fine! I’ll tell you! Just pull me back!”

“Tell me, then I’ll pull you back.”

“Four… three… Nu… nine… four… one… six… nine… sol, the com-” the savrip slashed at him again, missing by millimeters. “The computer! Will ask for a code phrase - Hsskor ashhh knllor.”

“Thank you,” I said and he slumped into unconsciousness.

I pulled him safely out of range and nodded at the savrip, “You played your part well, my new friend.”

The savrip growled and grumbled, feeling very unsatisfied that he didn’t get to tear apart a trandoshan.

“Oh relax, if all goes well, I’ll need your help soon and then you will need to fight, rip and tear.”

He thumped his huge clawed hands together in excitement at the prospect.

“You have a name, big fella?”

The savrip began grunting, growling, even chirping, with additional sounds that were outside of most species' hearing. I couldn’t understand the very basic words of the primitive savrip language literally, but I could associate his thoughts with the sounds and begin to understand some of the context.

It turns out, savrips didn’t have permanent ‘names’ for an individual. They were known by a name that actually described their recent deeds and function in their tribes. This made his current ‘name’ unwieldy and long when I attempted to find words that fit.

‘Failure, warrior, outcast of the river tribe,’ were the best words I could find to associate with the thoughts.

“No time to play cultural exchange now, I hereby name you River. Now, excuse me while I get all these trandoshans gathered and locked up.”

888888888888888888888888888888888888

With the trandoshans now nice and cozy in the empty cages in the prisoner module, I was seated in the main bridge of the ship behind the pilot station.

I typed in Shug’s code to unlock the controls but remained silent when the computer asked for a passphrase. That phrase he had given me was actually a trap, which would cause the ship’s reactor to scram in a way that would effectively disable it - requiring days of work by a team of engineers to fix.

The ship came to life around me and its systems began to boot up.

A flick of my wrist and M8’s logic spike extended, which I stabbed into the computer interface port.

“Okay, M8, he’s put other surprises in there, find and disable all of them.”

“At once, mistress. Oh my, that would’ve been nasty.”

She showed me the coding in my HUD. Another failsafe he’d programmed was the need to enter in the ignition codes every two hours or the reactor internal shielding would shut down.

“He’d have irradiated everyone on the ship, including himself.”

“Trandoshans are known to be more tolerant of high radiation, mistress.”

“Yes, sure, but it’s not something they can sustain indefinitely on a long voyage. He was clearly quite desperate in programming this one. I didn’t give him much time for anything else.”

“Scan complete, mistress. Local navicomp and systems are clear.”

I grabbed a hold of the yoke, getting a feel for its sensitivity and play.

A few more switches, buttons and going through the recommended checklist that M8 was displaying from the local systems and I felt the repulsors come online. The ship rumbled and groaned as its engines spooled up.

With the Z-axis engaged, I pulled on the yoke to get us airborne, before switching axes again and pushing forward on the very sluggish throttle.

“How’s the stealth system holding up, M8?”

“Active and neatly bending any active scan it detects.”

“It’s a nice idea. Make sure you pull all the data you can from it and the computer.”

“Already done, mistress.”

“I don’t see any transponder on this thing, you’re going to have to stand in for that, so the Resolute or any other fighter jock doesn’t shoot us down.”

“Understood. Mistress, what ID do you want on the transponder?”

“Might as well put me on that and disable Nightstalker. I’m not flying this hunk of junk across the galaxy with all these prisoners.”

I was out of the atmosphere and already accelerating on a course to rendezvous with Resolute when numerous urgent comlink calls vied for my attention.

“Snips, where are you?” Anakin asked flatly.

“Really Skyguy, no, ‘how are you? Are you okay?’” I could practically feel his frown across the comlink and see him glaring down onto his wrist as the smoking remains of the CIS base was around him. “Fine. I was ambushed by a bunch of trandoshans who wanted to capture me. Turned the tables on them and now I’m in their ship and flying to the Resolute to drop off their prisoners, of which there are 55 and a savrip.”

“Sithspit! Why? Are the trandoshans now working with the Separatists?”

“M8 is still going through the ship’s computers, nothing indicated that to me so far. No, these trandoshans belong to an illegal hunting guild. They were intending to dump me in a nature park to hunt me and the others down.”

I could feel his anger and outrage spike. “Where are they now?”

“They’re all sleepy and in separate cages alongside their former victims

“Good, get that ship landed on the Resolute, I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

“You need to hurry, Skyguy. If you’re not here within two hours I’ll leave without you.”

“And just where-”

“Do you really think that I’m the only Jedi this guild has tried to capture, Skyguy?”

“What?!”

“Yes. We need to launch an urgent rescue mission.”

“Kriff, all right. I’ll see you in an hour on the Resolute and notify Master Koon.”

88888888888888888888888888888

The cargo ship was now landed in Bay 1 on the Resolute.

The prisoners were released and escorted to Sick Bay for a full check up and isolation period. The trandoshans hadn’t exactly cared much for their condition or their dietary needs and the med techs had already caught a few nasty diseases among them. Field accommodation modules would also be set up in Bay 1 when the cargo ship left to house them until a large enough shuttle could be organized to bring them back to Republic space. That not a single one of them were CIS citizens was a huge red flag to my mind that the trandoshans had begun their unofficial alliance with the CIS.

I well remembered that they were one of the primary enemies that the Republic Commando Delta Squad had to fight on many occasions.

My mind returned to the present as I stood at the open embarkation ramp of the cargo ship, surveying everyone who was going along with the mission.

Ursa Wren and her entire Blades squadron stood in their blue beskar’gam with Clan Wren and Vizsla insignia on their shoulders. Next to them was ARC Alpha Company of the 501st, with Rex and his men looking gravely at me. Their emotions were all over the place, but anger and outrage was predominant.

The Blades couldn’t imagine the gall of anyone daring to capture their Manda’lor as prey for sport hunting. Rex and the clones were in a similar boat, though deep down in all their hearts they actually… cared for me.

It was a rather humbling experience and my own heart swelled.

Anakin walked out of the ship and R2 rolled along behind him before the droid came to a stop next to me.

“Everything’s ready, Ahsoka.”

“Good, everyone, listen well. Time’s against us here. Even though it’s a six day journey to Trandosha. Every minute we waste, is another minute where three padawans and ninety other Republic sentients from across the galaxy are being hunted for sport by a hunting guild that doesn’t even have a name.”

I tapped R2 on his dome and the droid’s holo flared to life, showing the planet of Trandosha, before zooming in to one of its moons.

“This is the forest moon of Wasskah. On an island in its largest sea, a place they simply call Island 4, is their hunting preserve. It is home to a guild of over three hundred who engage in this sport of hunting sentient life. Not all of them are there at a time, as this has to be kept small to avoid attracting too much attention. As much as they have the unofficial support of the Trandosha Dominion, it’ll evaporate the instant it's brought into the light. The wookiees would also love the excuse to enact another blockade of Trandosha.

“Our job will be to infiltrate and assault Island 4, then liberate the prisoners who are being hunted. We will be using Garnac’s ship to land right on their doorstep without resistance and then take them by surprise. If the situation escalates further, we will have both the wookiees and the Star Destroyer Clarity nearby as backup. Questions?”

One of the Blades raised a hand, “Manda’lor, what of the trandoshans we have in custody already?”

“They’re all in the Resolute’s detention level. Assault on a commanding officer of the GAR is not a crime to take lightly. Garnac, the leader of the guild, is sitting pretty in one of his own cages on the ship, which I’ve moved to sit right next to River’s cage.”

“River?”

“An ally that I think will be most useful in the assault on the Island, I’ll let you see him for yourself. Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise,” I couldn’t help but give a devilish smile.

“What are our rules of engagement, commander?” Rex asked.

I gave a look to Anakin, who nodded at me. “If it’s on this island and trandoshan, shoot to kill. Anyone you’ll meet there will be armed with illegal disruptor weapons and will have the blood of many sentients on their hands. A message has to be sent here.”

“Understood, commander.”

“Good, grab your gear and get aboard, we leave in ten minutes.”

888888888888888888888888888888888888

The reaction of quite a few of the Blades and the clones to the fact that they would be sharing the voyage with a Mantellian Savrip, was a moment I was sure to capture when they unwittingly entered the cargo module that housed River. Luckily I was also on hand to head off the immediate instinctual reaction to reach for a blaster.

“The Resolute doesn’t have the facilities to house him and it’s needed here for the campaign. We can’t detach this module either as that would raise suspicion at our destination. The ship has the supplies to feed him. Relax,” I explained to the group of rather unnerved ARC troopers and Mandalorians.

Speaking of which, the biggest job of getting the cargo ship ready, which I had named Trojan, had been restocking it with food supplies fit for human and togrutan consumption. The trandoshan diet was not something we could live off.

The ship emerged from the spine of the Resolute right on time and given we were in an active warzone, Wraith Squadron pulled escort duty in getting us to the hyper point.

Thus began the six day journey, which would see us taking a dog leg back to the Perlemian Trade Route, before turning directly south at the Columex system, to snake down the eastern periphery of the galaxy.

“Would you have done it?”

I was on the first watch for the bridge, keeping an eye on the ship’s systems. The trandoshans had kept it in pretty good shape and there weren't any immediate issues, but a lot of the systems and components were older than I was. R2 had himself plugged into the ship’s computers to also keep an eye on things.

“Of course I would,” I answered Anakin as he dropped himself into the co-pilot station a few feet to my right. The layout of the bridge was eerily similar to another beloved bucket of bolts in another universe that was very dear to my heart. I had been very tempted to name the ship that, but I was saving that name for a ship that was worthy of it. “If there had been fewer prisoners and River wasn’t here, then I’d have done this by myself.”

He rubbed his face wearily. “Snips, I get that you’re not a kid anymore. Kriff, you could probably attempt the Trials at this point and I’d fully support you, but going on your own like that…”

“It’s stupid, yes, but it was a probability path that was laid out for me and I had to act initially based on the assumption that I would walk it alone.”

His eyes showed that he understood. Bendu had taught volumes on the Force and how it interacted with those sensitive to it.

“Did you know about the padawans?”

I reached out to the computer MFD controls on my left and brought up the holos of the padawans in question. Say what you will about trandoshans, they kept meticulous records and physical scans of who they caught. Just like a hunter would keep trophies. They didn’t bother with their actual names though, that was irrelevant to them. It took us cross-referencing facial scans with the Jedi Archives to find that out.

“Yes, but only that they had been captured at some point on a joint training mission and it’s only because my path now intersects with theirs. As far as the Jedi Order knows, their ship had gone missing, with their last contact being in the Taanab system.” I tapped a few buttons and brought up another holo. An ordinary, somewhat handsome, human male from Chalacta. “This is Knight Ledun Okis, who had led the training mission, also declared missing.”

“That’s quite brazen of Garnac, that’s still well in Republic space, in the Mid-Rim.”

“The challenge of capturing them without anyone being the wiser, no doubt appealed to them.”

Anakin brought up a holo and started studying the padawan’s performance records from the temple. “They’re good,” he eventually declared. “That they’re still alive according to your senses despite being hunted for months speaks highly of them.”

I was careful to nod and agree with Anakin. The truth of the padawan’s survival was not something I would speak of for now. Their training and Force sensitivity surely helped, but they were not doing so by acting according to the Jedi Code.

My eyes ranged over the holos. The first padawan, Kalifa, a long faced Corellian with soulful brown eyes and cheek length brown hair. Second, O-Mer, a male cerean and finally Jinx, a male twi’lek with the more common green skin.

“How have the interrogations of Garnac been going?” I asked.

“Slowly,” Anakin said, his right hand curling into a fist, creaking the gloves. “We should have all the tactical intel we need by the time we arrive in the Trandosha system though.”

“Good, though I think it might also be prudent we make a stop by the planet Kashyyyk.”

“The wookiees would be very interested in Garnac’s little guild.”

8888888888888888888888888888888888888

The following week of travel passed with an uneventful monotony of powering through hyperspace and only dropping out to transit between waypoints or systems that required it. We turned west at the Boonta system, switching hyperlanes before passing through systems such as Bimmisaari, Charos, and Balamak, before finally arriving in Kashyyyk.

We didn’t land on the wookiee homeworld as the Trojan was no doubt listed as a known trandoshan ship, so we remained on the outskirts of the system and got on the Holonet.

“Seeker Umnunoo,” Anakin greeted the large holo of the wookiee law enforcement officer we had helped solve a murder with last year.

“Knight Skywalker, Padawan Tano,” she greeted us in Shyriiwook, with a bow of her shaggy head. “This is a surprise call. I notice you’re in the system.”

“That we are. We have a rather urgent problem I’m hoping you can help us with. We’re sending you a data packet that contains all the details. Long story short, we have uncovered an illegal trandoshan hunting guild operating out of Wasskah. The bastards tried to abduct my padawan, but learned the very hard way that it’s not a wise thing to do at all. We’ve also since learned that there may be more captured padawans.”

With a few button pushes I sent the files along the connection.

Umnunoo held up a hand, “One moment.”

She frowned as she began studying a datapad, until she began growling under her breath. It didn’t take her more than half a minute before it looked like she wanted to tear apart her datapad.

“This does not surprise me. We’ve had an increase in reports of missing wookiees lately. They were all taken in remote areas and no clues or evidence was discovered on what could’ve happened. If the trandoshans now have such stealth capabilities on even their cargo ships then it begins to explain many things.”

“We have taken over such a ship and will be on our way shortly to Trandosha. It would be greatly appreciated if the wookiees could provide us with some extra backup that could arrive within a shorter timeframe than the nearby Republic warship.”

“I’m taking this directly to King Grakchawwaa. With this in hand, he can mobilize many tribes worth of wookiee warriors and combat ships. Go Knight Skywalker, rescue your young. Every moment we speak here is another moment those trandoshan scum are hunting them.”

“Thank you, Umnunoo.”

“May the Force be with you both.”

Her holo vanished.

I didn’t need any prompting to turn the Trojan on a new course, directly towards the Trandosha homeworld. Whereas Kashyyyk was the third planet of the system, Trandosha orbited the local star as the fifth. With their current positions, it meant the in-system trip for the Trojan was just over 480 million kilometers.

Just over five and half boring hours later, I finally decelerated the ship into a low orbit of Wasskah.

We ran passive scans and both Anakin and I explored Island 4 with Farsight.

With that in hand, we began a final briefing for the assault in the module that housed River.

R2 displayed a massive holo of the island and what would be our primary target.

“As you can see,” I said to the assembled Blades and ARC troopers. “The trandoshans don’t actually live on the island itself. Instead they run their hunting preserve from an Ubrikkian Floating Fortress, that permanently hovers above the lowest cloud cover over the island, roughly an altitude of 800 meters. They use small hover pods to ferry themselves to the island to conduct their hunts.”

“Fortress is too small to land on with the Trojan,” Rex noted.

“Yes, the ship generally lands on one of the large beaches to unload their prisoners onto the island. This means that this will be an aerial assault with jetpacks. R2 will fly the Trojan on a casual approach that will bring us to within half a kilometer of the fortress. We’ll egress from the ship, fly over and begin the assault. The Blades will open the attack with their missiles, whilst the ARC troopers will suppress and pepper the exposed exterior areas with fire and targets of opportunity.”

“It will be done, manda’lor,” Ursa declared.

“At that point, we will infiltrate the fortress itself and take out any hostiles.”

“What if anyone surrenders?” Rex asked pointedly.

“Doubtful it will happen,” Anakin said, folding his arms. “They know what they are doing here is against every convention of civilized behavior across the galaxy. Even their own government would wash their hands of them. That’s not even taking into consideration what the wookiees would do to them. That being said, if someone does surrender, stun them.”

“What about the prisoners on the island that are being hunted?” asked an ARC trooper in the back.

“If a hunt is currently ongoing during our attack, myself and General Skywalker, will divert to the island immediately. In any case, once a beachhead is secured on the fortress, the Trojan will come in for another pass and drop off River.”

Almost everyone eyed the savrip who was messily eating some meat whilst he absently stared at the hologram with a fascinated look.

“Commander, are you sure that’s…” Rex winced and stopped himself.

I gave him a mild glare, “He will not go on a rampage and he understands what to do, Captain Rex. Savrips are not mindless beasts and I can keep him on track. You’ll see.”

“Exfiltration will be with the Trojan, which will continue to orbit around the island at four kilometers,” Anakin continued. “If the Fortress is damaged or falling, return to the ship immediately. If the Trojan is compromised, our fallback point will be here on the western end of the island. We will then hold out and wait for our wookiee reinforcements. The Clarity has a hyper-emergence precalculated for a direct Trandosha exit. However, this entire mission is clandestine and we don’t want matters to escalate to that level. There are credible indications of Trandoshan groups that are allying themselves with the Separatists, due to their dissatisfaction with the current status quo of their representation within the Senate.”

Which was basically the fact that the wookiees had a direct senate seat, representing the sector, whilst the trandoshans merely had a liaison.

“Questions?” Anakin scanned the room, meeting everyone’s eyes. “Good. Do your final checks. We deorbit in five.”

88888888888888888888888888888

The embarkation ramp opened with a blast of rushing air.

Beyond was darkness and we could only vaguely see the rippling surface of the water below, reflecting the eerie light coming from the large green sphere of Trandosha hanging in the sky.

“Go, go, go!”

The assault team rushed and sprinted into the open air without hesitation.

We let gravity pull us down for a few seconds, getting some distance between everyone, before jetpacks began igniting.

My jetboots ignited and with a twist of my arms and the Force, I pushed into controlled flight. 

I would never get over the awesome rush of flying like this.

The Blades led the way into the smooth left turn, followed with a brief climb.

The hovering fortress came into view immediately, rapidly growing larger.

“Missiles!” I ordered.

Every mandalorian engaged their helmet targeting, with M8 coordinating assignments.

A positive tone sounded and twelve small missiles burst from the integrated jetpack launchers.

The missiles traced white exhaust behind them through the night and unerringly homed on their targets.

I felt the thumps of the explosions in my lungs as the entire southern side of the fortress lost their laser cannons, reduced to useless slag and debris that rained down onto the sea below.

“Clear, go!” I ordered.

An internal alarm went off as everyone landed on an open deck of the fortress.

We made it all the way to an exterior armored door before the first signs of resistance showed.

Exterior Repeaters tried to open fire, but those with an angle on us couldn’t depress downward far enough because both Anakin and I had them in telekinetic grips.

ARC troopers, who I had in a surface level Battle Meditation, needed no prompting to immediately fire on the Repeaters, which only needed a few shots for their exposed barrels to be ruined.

Anakin and I plunged our lightsabers into the door and began pushing down through the thick battle rated durasteel.

It was relatively slow going, but we had four lightsabers working the problem and it wasn’t even seventeen seconds before we had a door cut.

Anakin pushed forward with his hand and the armored door surged inward with a Force Push propelling it.

Only a brief scream was heard as an ambushing trandoshan was slammed by the mass of steel before being pancaked under it as Anakin let go.

With Mandalorian Blades on the left and ARC troopers on the right, we advanced into the fortress.

I stopped dead in my tracks however, when I sensed another trandoshan cargo ship approaching the fortress. The Force and my Prescience were practically screaming in my montrals to stop and attend to this problem.

My hand gestured to advance even as I raced between the lines of the assault team to retrace my steps.

‘Skyguy, keep the assault going!’ I thought.

‘Sithspit, better have a good explanation for this later!’

I burst back out into the open and saw the cargo ship flaring to begin landing. This one only had a single module on its back, so it could fit on the fortress’ decks.

The pilot clearly knew something was wrong as the slagged cannons all over the fortress showed, but when I appeared with lightsabers flashing in the night. I felt his alarm and he reacted by instantly pulling back up, trying to leave back for orbit and flee to Trandosha.

I couldn’t let that happen.

The Force shuddered and roiled as my will came crashing down onto the cargo ship.

It tried to gain altitude but achieved nothing, its thrusters flaring and fighting against me.

I called on the Force to strengthen me further, pulling in more and more power.

My legs blurred as I pushed myself into a sprint, my boot jets flared and I was airborne.

The instant I had landed on the upper hull and against the forward transparisteel of the bridge, I let go of the ship and instead forced my telekinesis on the infinitely more manageable flight yoke.

The trandoshan pilot screamed in fright at seeing me grabbing onto the nose of his ship. He futilely yanked and yanked against the yoke.

I settled the cargo ship into a stable hover, even as my lightsabers stabbed into the transparisteel and cut a circular hole around me.

I pulled back on the yoke, pitching the nose of the ship upwards and gravity did the work of pulling me and my impromptu transparisteel platform into the ship.

“Aaah!” The trandoshan flailed as he lost balance and fell as I bucked the ship.

I pitched the ship back into a horizontal orientation and jumped forward.

My knee landed hard on the stomach of the prone trandoshan. He groaned and gasped as the impact drove all the wind out of his lungs.

“What the kriffing hell is going on?!” shouted another trandoshan, who stormed onto the bridge.

The Darksaber slashed through the neck of the pilot below me, whilst my left blade spun into a blurring green saw that also relieved the second trandoshan of his head.

I stood up and walked through the bulkhead door and used my right blade to preemptively slash the Repeater above my head into pieces.

The third trandoshan on the ship burst into the hallway and unloaded on me with a disruptor carbine that I didn’t recognize.

My green blades moved and spun rapidly in front of me, deflecting every bolt into the corridor around me, causing the lights and power systems to flicker.

Stupid fool, you’re going to disable the entire ship at this rate.

I deflected a blast straight back and it slammed into the chest of the trandoshan, who began burning and sizzling as his atomic structure was broken down. Only smoking bits of his clothes were eventually left, which fluttered to the deck.

My blades rendered the weapon to pieces as I walked past.

When I entered the cargo module of the ship, I froze.

“Stop right where you are, Jedi!”

The last trandoshan on the ship had a disruptor pistol aimed right at the only prisoner in the module.The prisoner in question was cramped in one of the cages they used and could do nothing to move or dodge out of the way.

“One more step, any movement, and the wookiee dies!”

With a thought, I engaged the ship’s autopilot switches and kept it at a steady hover, freeing my focus completely for the very delicate work I was about to do.

“How did you imagine this was going to work?” I asked dryly. “That I would just surrender, drop my lightsabers and let you promptly shoot me to die horribly to that disruptor?”

He snarled pointed teeth at me, “No Jedi I-”

I smirked at this point and took a single step forward.

Naturally, nothing happened.

“What did you do?!” his head twitched as he found he couldn’t move at all.

I made a little come hither gesture with a finger and his disruptor flew across to me, I twirled my wrist and the Darksaber rendered it to pieces.

“Nothing you need to worry or know about,” I stepped forward and slashed him across the neck.

His head dropped meatily to the ground, whilst the rest of his body just slumped and collapsed on the spot.

Another slash from my right saber cut through the cage lock and I recalled my blades to my belt and deactivated them.

I next removed my helmet with a brief twist and held it under my arm, before smiling at the wookiee and opening the cage door. “It’s all right. I’m Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano.”

The wookiee gazed at me with beady black eyes, before nodding and awkwardly climbing out of the cage. He was only slightly taller than I was and his coltish build made it obvious this was an adolescent. His chaotic fur was a deep chestnut and he made irritated grumbling noises as he tried to smooth it out to some semblance of order and comfort.

When he was comfortable, he thumped his chest and began growling in Shyriiwook, “Thank you, Master Jedi. For my freedom.”

I nodded but held up a hand, “We’re not out of the Shadowlands yet. How good of a shot are you?”

“By the standards of my tribe, I’m adequate.”

“Well, I don’t precisely know how wookiees are trained, but I spotted a weapons locker on the bridge. Come on.”

I put on my helmet again, my mind too busy with immediate survival to really worry about the question of just why the Force twisted like a hurricane around this wookiee. I just knew he had to survive.

On the bridge again, I immediately spotted a problem as the young wookiee hurried to the weapons locker.

The assault team was now divided into two groups and whilst the first was still busy with the job of clearing out the fortress room by room, the second was trying to keep the exfiltration route secure and not having an easy time of it.

This was due to a large group of trandoshan hunters having spilled out of the fortress from a northerly exit and trying to flank the assault team.

“Frak,” I swore and tapped my comlink, “R2, where is River?”

“I was unable to deliver him, Jedi Tano. Those trandoshans on the exterior decks would’ve disabled the Trojan by focusing all their disruptor fire.”

“Good point. Keep your distance then, I’ll handle it.”

The wookiee stepped up next to me carrying a disruptor rifle, but my attention was instantly caught by its design, the beige coloration and the only manufacturer marking on it, a large stylized ‘T’.

“Shabla chakaar*,” I swore viciously in anger. It was the fracking Tenloss Syndicate, an ally of the Black Sun, who also dabbled in legitimate business, one of those being manufacturing. This being the convenient method they could actually build these disruptor rifles and sell them on the black market.

“What?” the wookiee asked in confusion and not understanding.

“Nevermind, we need to deal with those trandoshans. Preferably in a way that doesn’t see us vaped.”

He growled an agreement and looked around, “Do we care about this ship?”

I shook my head, “No, they’ve not fired at us because as far as they know, their buddies are still on board and they just don’t want to land in the middle of a firefight.”

The wookiee nodded his shaggy head and with quick strides dumped himself into the pilot seat, taking a few moments to familiarize himself with the controls.

“Have a seat, Master Jedi,” he barked.

“You have a plan,” I said as I sat down behind the co-pilot station.

“Yes, I want to thank these yuugrr** for abducting me,” he growled with a vicious satisfaction.

The cargo ship’s engines spooled up, but the wookiee just sent it on a gentle coast towards the fortress, as if he was going to land.

I couldn’t help but grin madly as I perceived what the next minute would bring.

The trandoshans on the deck had taken cover behind a variety of cargo pallets to pepper the rear guard of the Republic assault team.

The ship gained a bit of speed, bringing its course to fly directly overhead.

The young wookiee began frantically tapping on different MFDs before he reached over to open a small recess with a number of manual levers.

“Eat slugs!” he cried viciously, before pulling hard on one of the levers.

The entire ship shook as the rear cargo module detached.

Gravity did the rest and not a few moments later it crashed directly on top of the trandoshans.

I felt half a dozen die in an instant, crushed under the weight of the module. In the next moment, the module crumpled and shattered as it was subjected to forces it had never been designed for. The remaining enemy was scattered and flung away as debris and residual fuel in the module ignited. Some were flung over the side of the fortress, to fall to their deaths in the distant ocean below, others burned or were impaled by shrapnel.

The Republic rear guard waited for everything to settle before they emerged at a run and began blasting the few survivors.

“What’s your name, young wookiee?” I asked, even though I had a very good suspicion.

“I am called Chewbacca.”

Well, that certainly explained why the Force and destiny coils around him, good grief! I thought in amazement.

“A pleasure to meet you, Chewbacca.” I tapped my comlink. “R2, you’re clear to approach again. Drop River off, I’m sure he’d love to greet any other trandoshans that try to flank us.”

“On my way, Jedi Tano.”

888888888888888888888888888

A/N:

Shabla chakaar* - Mandalorian: fucking criminals/scumbags

yuugrr** - dim-wittered predators of Kashyyyk, who steal wookiee children, but usually end up falling to their deaths because they can’t distinguish which branches would take their combined weight.

Chewy! Chewy! Finally being able to write our favorite wookiee had me giddy all the time. Stay awesome folks and have a good weekend. Cheers.

88888888888888888888888888888