Chapter 37: Chapter 37

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

Serenno, 39 BBY/961 GSC. In orbit.

Arthree beeped in alarm almost the moment we dropped out of hyperspace. Frowning, my eyes were drawn to one of the screens, telling me I was being painted by a lot of unfriendly active targeting sensors. My sensors read several small groups of ships in orbit around Serenno—groups of six that seemed to be equidistant around the planet in six different positions, including over the poles. It wasn’t the tightest security I’d seen on a planet—that honor went to Coruscant, where there were hundreds of Republic Navy ships just loitering in orbit—but it was more than I was expecting.

Each group appeared to be made up of light cruisers and frigates—what my sensors registered as older models. Consular-class frigates that had been upgraded with lots of guns and a number of other frigates, corvettes, and gunships. Additionally, a number of fighter wings patrolled back and forth in the spaces between the groups of larger ships—Belbullab-22s, not cheap from what I remembered.

Oddly, comms in the area were being jammed. Unless it was expressly routed through one of the comm buoys circling the planet, encrypted, and authenticated, it wasn’t getting anywhere—with the obvious exception being tight beam transmissions, since those required being directly between a target and the intended recipient to jam them.

I throttled down the sublight engine, slowing the relative speed of my approach to the planet and frowned as a wing of five fighters veered off onto an intercept course, but not going as fast as I knew they could from the specs. It was less like a pack of sharks that had scented blood and more like they were curious and investigating.

Most damning of all, perhaps, was that I could sense something going on. I could feel the tension coming off of everyone in orbit. Tension, anticipation, frustration, a desire for… retaliation? Thinking of it, I was reminded of my time in the trenches. In those long spans of hours, sometimes days, where things went quiet. Where nothing happened and we were forced to wait for the next engagement. It was like being under constant siege, and the desire for something, anything to happen to finally let off some steam.It felt as though they were looking for an excuse.

My thoughts were interrupted as a transmission came from the lead fighter. My computer told me it was being relayed from one of the cruisers closer to the planet. I answered, and found it was audio only.

“This is the Ranger.Unidentified blastboat, you are flying with your IFF off. This is Serenno controlled space. Identify yourself and your purpose for being here or leave Serenno space immediately.”

Something about the man’s tone instantly put me on edge. He was alert, wary, and just this side of hostile.I didn’t like it, at all.

Still, it’s only been a little over year. After the pirate incident, it could be that they’re a bit jumpy. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, for now.

“Ranger, this is the Rusted Silver, pilot Jedi Padawan Tanya Mereel. I’m here to visit Master Dooku,” I answered, sending my digital credentials—newly updated, to reflect my updated legal status after my time on Tython. I did love seeing that emancipated tag on it.

There was a brief pause, before I received a response. “Count Dooku did not inform us of any visitors.”

“Yes, well, he’s aware I’m coming. Now, if you’ll please kindly stop painting me with your targeting, I’ll be on my way down to see him—”

“Rusted Silver, I’m sending you a course to follow. You’ll dock with one of our ships where you will be detained until we can verify your claims.”

Frowning, I said, “If you’d shut off your jamming, I could just call Master Dooku and have him confirm I am who I say I am.”

“That won’t be happening. If you don’t follow the course I’ve sent to you, we’ll assume your intentions are hostile and act accordingly.”

My eye twitched, before an idea occurred and I smiled. “Very well, then. I’ve always wanted a cruiser of my own~.”

There was another pause. “Excuse me?”

Laughing, I asked, “You really don’t know who I am, do you? Are you some wet behind the ears ensign? Go ask someone who can grow proper facial hair what happened the last time I had to board a hostile ship in orbit over Serenno. I’ll give you a hint: you probably just celebrated the one year anniversary of the fireworks show I put on for Serenno City. Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

I cut the connection. Just to raise the pressure a bit, I flipped my own targeting on and lit up the Ranger—if I was dealing with some communications officer having a bad mood and acting unprofessionally under the stress of his job, pinging them would alert their tactical or weapons officer, which would in turn alert the entire bridge at minimum, effectively jumping straight to the top of both the priority queue and the chain of command. Read full story at n͟o͟v͟e͟l͟f͟i͟r͟e͟.net

The fighters accelerated towards me and Arthree rocked where he stood at my side. “Hush. I’m aware that they’re nearly inside missile range. It won’t come to that. And if it does… well, I suppose things are about to get very exciting, very quickly.”

If it came down to a fight, things would end poorly for those B-22s. They were heavy starfighters—heavily armored and shielded, decently fast, and fairly well armed. They were tough contenders. A good choice for a planetary defense patrol.

However, the GAT-12 Skipray was a blastboat made expressly for the purpose of taking out other fighters or assaulting ships larger than it. It was built as what was effectively a multi-role super-heavy fighter, made specifically to punch well above its weight class, and one of those roles was doing system patrols and taking out squads of snub fighters or other fighters. Your average Skipray was expected to be able to take on groups of fighters three or so times its number.

My ship was just as armored as the B-22, if not more so. The shields were stronger. My guns were bigger. The excessively large power plant for its size and its larger sublight engines increasing its thrust to weight ratio also meant the GAT-12 could out-accelerate and out-run most things, short of a dedicated interceptor. Worse for them, if I decided to go weapons hot, I’d be shutting off the targeting computer and switching to formula control—not only would they not know who I was aiming at, but I wouldn’t miss.

Thankfully, it never came to that. Just as the fighters entered their effective range, my sensors picked up a transmission and they peeled off, before slowing and matching my speed as they returned to their formation and headed back towards the planet. A few moments later, I received another relayed transmission from the Ranger. Answering it, this time I was greeted by the hologram of an older gentleman, keeping his expression decidedly neutral. I shut off the targeting system.

“Apologies for the mix-up, Ms. Mereel. I’m Captain Borgin of the Ranger. We’ll have our fighter wing there escort you in and my communications officer will be sending you encryption keys to use the relays so you can communicate with ground control.”

“Thank you, Captain,” I nodded. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened here? Everyone seems… very tense. The last I knew, we had left Serenno in the care of my Master’s sister Jenza, and Master Dooku returned only a month and a half or so after we left.”

The captain sighed quietly. “One moment,” he said, before looking outside of the feed’s pickup. “Transfer this call to my quarters.”

The feed went into a standard ‘Please Hold’ placeholder for a few moments, before Capt. Borgin’s image returned, this time appearing to be seated in front of what was likely a desk in his cabin, from the background. Taking off his hat and setting it aside, he studied me for a moment in the feed before beginning to speak. “I’ll let the Count fill you in on the full details when you get planetside, but I can give you a general overview based on what we know. Nothing sensitive, you understand.”

“Of course,” I nodded.

“The Jedi and Mandalorians left Serenno to Countess Jenza. There was a minor succession dispute after you left, between the Countess and her sister-in-law, that ended with Kostanza fleeing with her young son, Adan. That was all resolved before the Count returned. Shortly before Count Dooku returned however, we noticed a marked decrease in shipments coming and going from Serenno. Serenno Intelligence learned from some of the pilots still waiting to pick up goods that an order had gone out to all Trade Federation vessels, and from there to all traders, that the Trade Federation was stopping their trade in and out of Serenno and other non-affiliated traders were advised to do the same or risk angering the Trade Federation.”

Frowning, I asked, “An embargo? Sanctions?”

“Not officially. Not legally,” the man shook his head. “Our government contacted the Republic, but they were no help, aside from clearing up that they hadn’t officially ordered any sanctions or embargo. Just that, because Serenno had yet to officially re-declare its alliance to the Republic after Ramil’s withdrawal, that we had lost certain protections and representation in the Senate.”

Shifting in my seat, I considered that for a moment before shaking my head and dismissing my first thought that the Republic had asked the Trade Federation to quietly pressure Serenno to rejoin—because the Trade Federation was slowly working towards withdrawing the planets they controlled from the Republic and were building up for a war with the Republic. “So the Trade Federation decided to take advantage of the situation and cut Serenno off for some reason. Surely they’ve made demands since then?”

“Oh, they have,” the captain nodded. “They want exclusive access to a newly discovered mineral. We denied them. Their representative said that all Trade Federation business to and from Serenno was cut off until we complied. That was around the time Count Dooku arrived and claimed his position as Count. He’s now ruling alongside his sister.”

“And the increased security? The patrols? Last I knew, Serenno didn’t have a navy.”

“No, the navy is new,” the captain confirmed. “Count Dooku managed to negotiate trade deals with a few different planets for sacanium, outside of Trade Federation channels. It’s turned quite a profit already. Enough to purchase ships and fighters, hire people to operate them, and start a small training academy on the surface. I myself did some service in the Republic Navy, before retiring home to Serenno, and was called to re-enlist temporarily to help train our new recruits. As for the patrols and increased security… the Trade Federation haven’t directly attacked Serenno, but they have been attacking non-aligned transports coming and going from the system. We’ve had to start rotating escorts for them. We’ve caught a few ‘pirate ships,’” his doubt about that claim was obvious in his tone, “setting up and attacking traders and the planet itself.”

“So they’re trying proxy war tactics,” I mused. “And they’re doing this with regularity?”

“Every few shipments. It’s seemingly random.”

I shook my head. “It’s never random. You’ve got a traitor or a spy somewhere, with access to the details of incoming and outgoing shipments. There’s probably also a large pirate vessel somewhere in the system coordinating things.”

“We’ve suspected as much for some time, but our patrols haven’t found it, if it’s out there.”

Considering for a moment, I grinned, “I could help, for pay of course.”

The captain chuckled, before shaking his head. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m fairly certain the Count would have me walked out an airlock if I put his padawan in danger without his approval.”

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“I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad,” I rolled my eyes. “Well, this conversation has been enlightening and has given me several things to bring up with Master Dooku when I touch down. Thank you, Capt. Borgin. It was a pleasure speaking with you.”

“You as well, Ms. Mereel. One more thing, though.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Don’t be too surprised at the reaction you get when people start figuring out who you are and what you did. The good and the bad. There are a lot of people down there who are appreciative, but there are also others. There may be some who were pressed into Ramil’s service, or the families of those who were and who died, who aren’t entirely satisfied about the way things shook out. Watch your back down there.”

Having a sneaking suspicion, I asked, “The person I was speaking with before. Was he…?”

“We don’t ask and the records were expunged to give those people a clean slate, after the Jedi questioned them.” Pausing, the captain sighed and shook his head. “It’s possible. However, it could be the stress from being up here. Once again, I apologize for the ensign’s behavior. It was unbecoming. Have a good day, and enjoy your stay on Serenno.”

“Good day,” I nodded, and the call disconnected. Behind me, Arthree beeped inquisitively. Glancing over my shoulder, I asked, “How do you feel about hunting some pirates?” The droid gave an affirmative beep and I grinned. “That’s what I like to hear. We have a key to access the comms buoy now. Do you think you can listen in on comms chatter and analyze it for possible pirate activity? Anything that mentions incoming and outgoing shipments, any calls directed anywhere in the system that’s not on planet.”

Arthree gave a beep that started affirmatively and ended negatively. Frowning, I asked, “Is that a maybe?” Another affirmative beep. “You might do it or,” I paused and he gave a negative beep, “you might be able to?” An affirmative beep. “Good enough. Do your best. In the meantime—”

My computer chimed with another incoming call and I turned to answer. “Rusted Silver, this is Serenno Ground Control. Sending you a landing vector for Carannia now.”

“Roger that, control.” I nodded as my computer chirped and I laid in the course given. “As a courtesy, I’d like to inform you of a gizka infestation aboard the ship.”

There was a pause, then, “Belay that last course instruction, Rusted Silver. Sending you new coordinates. We have a decontamination field outside the city for incidents . You’ll land on the field and keep your ship sealed until we arrive with a decon team.”

Frowning, I asked, “They aren’t going to board my ship, are they?”

“No. But you’ll need to temporarily shut down your life support system so they can connect a gas canister and flood the ship with poison to kill them, then an agent to neutralize any that remains. Afterward, you’ll want to set your life support system to deep cycle the atmosphere and do a full exchange from the planet. The team will explain the whole procedure when they arrive on-site.”

“Very well, control. Rusted Silver out,” I agreed, and punched in the new course. Considering the small presence I could feel in the Force, I hummed, before deciding to warn them about the cat to make sure they didn’t accidentally kill it. I didn’t want it on my ship, but that didn’t mean it had to die.

This news about the Trade Federation is concerning, though. I’ll need to look into it more when we touch down. If worse comes to worst, someone’s head may need to roll to prevent a full scale war…

Serenno, 39 BBY/961 GSC. Carannia.

Resetting the life support system to normal, I stepped out of the ship and pulled off my helmet. Call it being overly cautious, but after the captain’s warning, I hadn’t wanted to be inside my ship with someone outside with canisters of poison.

“It seems like that did it,” I sent the technicians dispatched to decontaminate the ship a nod.

I couldn’t sense the gizka presences in the Force anymore. The cat, oddly, was gone as well. Not dead, no. When I’d opened the hatch to step outside and greet the technicians, I had briefly felt some sort of twist in the Force and the cat had disappeared—and an active scanning formula had turned up only the gizka inside after. So, I had washed my hands of the matter and decided that if it had run off on its own, that was fine by me.

“Alright. We’ll mark your ship as cleared to dock normally. Do you want us to send in maintenance and service droids to make sure the gizka didn’t do any damage, and repair any they did?”

I nodded. “Please do. I’ll leave Arthree behind to help coordinate.”

Once they were gone, I got back in the ship and took off, heading into the city and landing in the spaceport. Making my way back to my workbench and locker after powering the ship down, I stowed my armor, then cleaned up the bench and put away my tools, then folded the bench up into the wall. A bit of telekinesis with the Force had my bed made and then flipped up against the wall, folded away to make space, as the spare had been during my trip here after Siri used it. Dishes were cleaned and put away, laundry run through the sonic scrubber and put away folded into drawers, or into my bag since I would be leaving the ship. A check below showed everything appeared to be in its proper place.

Finishing my mental checklist, I made my way back up and collected my copied holocrons, putting them in my bag as well. Looking to Arthree, I asked, “Some maintenance and repair droids will be boarding shortly. Would you please make sure they stay away from my locker? And alert me by holocom if you pick up anything that might indicate the presence of pirates.”

The droid beeped in the affirmative and I nodded, before heading out, finding a blonde woman dressed in canary yellow overalls waiting outside, with a group of droids of different types waiting behind her. “Ms. Mereel?” she asked, and I nodded. “Heard you had a gizka infestation.”

“I did,” I confirmed.

“Nasty little shits. Love to munch on practically anything, but especially wiring. Surprised you made it back in one piece with them onboard.”

Shrugging, I admitted, “A cat stowed away as well and I believe it was hunting and eating them for most of the journey back.”

“Ahh, that’d explain it,” she grinned. “Good luck, that. What’d you name it?”

I blinked. “Name it?”

The woman stared at me like I was stupid. “Yeah. Ship’s cat needs a name.”

“…It ran away,” I murmured, and she winced, before eyeing the ship warily now.

“Bad luck. Alright, we’ll have her looked at and space-worthy again in no time.”

“Excellent. Could you make some modifications, while you’re at it?” I asked. After some time with the Skipray to get used to its systems, there were some improvements I wanted to make and if possible, weapons I wanted to add.

The mechanic grinned, turning to wave her droids towards the hatch. As they made their way inside, she asked, “What’d you have in mind?”

I motioned her to follow and led her back to the rear wings. Tapping the port sensor pylon, topped with an ion cannon, I told her, “I don’t like the fact that the ion cannons can’t traverse or elevate. Can you do something about it?”

Humming, she looked over where the pylon joined the wing, before nodding. “I think so, yeah. So, what I’d do is cut this entire pylon off, smooth everything up, then add a mount to the wing and route the existing cabling from the wing into the mount, then weld the pylon back up to the mount. Gonna have to run new cables through the ship to your targeting computer. It’ll make them more vulnerable if they get hit, but if you’re fighting something that can punch through this thing’s shields, you’ve got bigger problems to worry about. That should give it a hundred and eighty degrees of elevation and a few degrees of traversal horizontally, and if you adjust the wings to the vertical it’ll be the opposite. You’ll obviously have more elevation or traversal once you move the pylons out of line with the wings.”

“…I prefer to keep the wings locked horizontal, but if it actually gets me more ability to fire on enemies, I’ll keep it in mind,” I agreed. “Also, do you think you can add two more laser cannon turrets in to the forward wings, in line with the one up top? They need to be elevated enough, and have enough traversal, to fire backwards and hit a target flying directly in my shadow and enough elevation to shoot above the ship.”

The woman whistled. “Yeah, I can do it,” she agreed, scratching at her head. “But that’s a lot of guns. You taking on crew to handle it all?”

I shook my head. “No. I’ll need you to install a separate fire control system for them. There should be space on the ceiling to mount the display. We can work out the physical controls for everything once you’ve got it installed. I may need to pull some things out and rearrange things.”

Ideally, I would use the rear ion cannons to soften up a target before hitting it with the laser cannons. Shields tended to block one or the other, and switching over to block one would make a ship vulnerable to the other. Moreover, the default setting was to block blaster type weapons—laser cannons, turbo lasers, and so on—and ion cannons could short out enemy systems, including shields. So the winning strategy with the Skipray was to use the ion cannons to do just that and either knock out the enemy shields, engines, or both and then finish off its prey at its leisure with the blasters. So having some ability to track targets with both at the same time when it was needed would be good. I’d have to work out what I could do there as I had time.

“Alright, if you say so. You’re the boss,” she shrugged. “How quick do you need it?”

I smiled. “How fast can you have it done?”

“Well, that really depends,” she shrugged. “We’ve been busy lately. It’s an all hands on deck situation with all the new fighters and ships and we’re pulling a lot of OT. The only reason you got a dedicated mechanic today was, well, who you are and who you know. It pays to have friends in high places. But the queue behind you is big, so if it’s not a priority, it’s gonna cost you.”

That was understandable, but if I was going to go hunting pirates for fun and profit, I wanted those modifications ASAP. If I managed to find whatever vessel they were using and capture it, I could either sell it back to Serenno to add to their fleet, or claim it for myself. I’d need to mothball it for now, but I was sure that having something bigger on hand would be useful one day.

“Mark it high priority and send me the bill.”

“Will do, boss lady!” she snapped off a sloppy salute, before hurrying inside—only to poke her head back outside.

“Oh! Almost forgot!” She pointed off to the side, where I spotted a Delta-6 fighter sitting there stripped of paint, bare metal gleaming slightly in the hangar lights. “We fixed up that old Delta-6 on the Count’s orders. Even did some upgrades. One of the new recruits crashed one of the B-22s when we first got them and warped the frame beyond repair, but most of the internals were still good, so I moved over most of its systems in my spare time, since the Count was footing the bill. Engine, laser cannons, hyperdrive, shields, life support, computer and instruments—basically all the good stuff. You’re lucky I did, because that thing was a flying death trap—surprised you made it down into atmo with her in the state she was in. Then we ripped off the hull armor and replaced it with a new sacanium alloy to trial run the stuff on an interceptor. It’s lighter and stronger than standard durasteel. With that engine, the lighter frame of the D-6, and that armor she should outrun anything in system.”

I was practically salivating at the possibility of taking it out for a test run. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to let you know what I think of the modifications once I’ve had a chance to give it a test flight.”

“You do that. Anyway, back to it,” she grinned and ducked back into the ship.

Shifting my bag to rest more comfortably on my shoulder, I left the hangar for the terminal. I expected to be ignored and have to find my own way to Master Dooku, but apparently someone had been alerted to my presence in an official capacity, because when I entered the terminal I found a uniformed security officer waiting—not just any security officer either, but one wearing the uniform of the palace guard unless I missed my guess. As soon as he spotted me, the dark haired man hurried over and snapped off a proper salute. “Ma’am! I’ve been assigned to bring you to the palace.”

“Very well. Lead on,” I gestured, and the man turned an about face and hurried through the terminal at a brisk walk, his head on a swivel as he kept alert. He was tense and wary, but not at anything specific I could see. More a general wariness for our surroundings. It seemed the captain’s warning about potential unrest had perhaps been understated.

We entered an enclosed speeder outside the terminal and quickly lifted into the air, flying away from the city. I watched out the windows as we flew along, leaving the city behind and heading up the side of a small mountain overlooking the city. Soon enough, I spotted the palace Ramil had been operating out of before he fled—having apparently grown worried about the potential possibility of someone simply destroying it with him in it. I had no idea why he would be worried about such a thing, really. It’s not like there had been any other convenient ships in orbit I could have used to repeat my first eventful visit planetside…

I didn’t really like the look of the place, architecturally speaking. The building, grounds, and spires surrounding it were, quite honestly, ugly—with the building looking like someone had taken the design of a ship and just turned it vertically—with the two big… things jutting from the sides looking like over sized ears or, on a ship, forward weapon emplacements. I would at least give whoever chose the location credit for that much—the view of the city in one direction and the view off the cliff ahead overlooking the countryside in the other direction was sure to be amazing from the top.

The speeder slowed and pulled into an underground parking garage. Getting out, I followed my escort as we took an elevator up to a security checkpoint. Instead of being waved through however, their security stopped me and had me go through a scanner—which, predictably, went off as it detected my blasters and lightsabers.

The men on duty exchanged looks, before the higher ranking of them—a lieutenant by his bars—stepped up. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to relinquish your weapons here.”

“Did Master Dooku ask you to have me do so?” I asked, and he winced.

“No, it’s just a security measure. I’m sorry, but no one told us not to screen you.”

“Mm. So it would make you feel safer if I did?” I asked, and the man nodded again. “I see. While I appreciate your dedication to the job and being thorough and by the book, unfortunately I won’t be doing that. There’s no point. I’m a Jedi.”

“An unarmed Jedi is safer than an armed one,” the man chuckled humorlessly.

Looking around, I pointed and pulled a chair over with the Force. The men flinched and hands reached for weapons, but when I didn’t do anything else, no one drew. Holding up a hand, I created a mage blade and flicked my hand down the middle of the chair. It fell apart cleanly and the guards watching flinched. “I’m never unarmed. If you’d like, I can point and blow up the front doors or a wall just to prove the point? Or would you prefer I carve up one of the artistic pillars in the lobby there with a laser?”

“That, uh, that won’t be necessary. Give me, ah, give me a minute,” the lieutenant said and rushed off into their security office. He quickly placed a holocall and a few moments later, came back. “Okay. We’re just going to make an exception for you. Go on through.”

“Thank you. I apologize for the trouble,” I nodded, and followed my escort through to a separate elevator. He didn’t step inside, instead posting up beside the entrance. When I checked the panel, I saw it only had three buttons. Reaching out with the force and finding Master Dooku, I selected what I felt was the appropriate floor and rode the elevator up.

The doors opened into another reception area, where a human secretary sat at a desk doing something on the holonet on her PC. She looked up as I entered and smiled. “They’re inside. Go right in,” she nodded towards a large set of doors directly across from the elevator.

Nodding, I crossed the reception room and opened one of the big doors, only to pause at what I saw on the other side. Taking in the immense open room—what I supposed would be a great hall given that this was a castle—a frown settled on my lips at the sheer waste of it all. The ceiling was ludicrously high and the entire room was empty save for the far end, in front of a very large, green tinted window looking out towards the city.

Sitting at the huge desk in front of the window were Master Dooku and Jenza, speaking quietly. They looked up as I entered and smiled, Master Dooku waving me over. My boots were loud on the polished floor as I made my way up to the desk. “Master Dooku, Countess,” I nodded to the pair.

“You’re Dooku’s Padawan. Please, just Jenza. If I can call you Tanya?” Jenza asked, and I nodded.

“Padawan. It is good to see you again,” Dooku smiled, looking me up and down. “You’ve grown. I’m eager to see where your skill with a lightsaber stands. It will have to wait, however. Tonight perhaps. Before that, there are other things we must see to. Things we must speak of.”

Jenza reached out and pushed a button on an intercom on top of the desk. “Mira, please have a chair brought in for our guest, and refreshments for the three of us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the secretary answered, and the intercom clicked off.

“Before we begin, do you have anything urgent or time sensitive to report?” Master Dooku asked, and I shook my head.

“Nothing that won’t wait a few days. I planned to go out and hunt down the pirates in the system, once the modifications to my ship are complete.”

“Good. We’ve had no luck so far and I haven’t had time to go myself. Perhaps, with the aid of the Force, you can find them where our own fleet has unfortunately been unable. And I am afraid pirates are just the beginning of our concerns.”

The door opened behind me and the secretary, Mira, hurried inside carrying a chair. I grabbed it with the Force and gently pulled it from her hands, to a startled, “Oh!” from the woman, before she hurried back out of the room. Putting the chair down, I took a seat across from them.

Considering the pair of siblings, I hummed, before asking, “Why do I have a feeling this is leading up to a mission?”

“Good instincts,” Jenza chuckled. “I do have a list of things that could use a Jedi’s help handling, that Dooku can’t find the time to take care of himself. The pirates being one of them.”

Master Dooku nodded. “We’ll go over them later. First, it would be best if you understood the situation as it stands, before we proceed.”

With that, Master Dooku and Jenza began to fill me in on the events of the last year in Serenno—starting with an attempted coup during the succession crisis, escalating to the current unofficial embargo from the Trade Federation, and including more than one attempted assassination.

I was right. It seems I’m going to be very busy for the foreseeable future.