Chapter 48: Chapter 48

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

Zeltros, 39 BBY/961 GSC. Northern Province.

It’s strange, the things we come to miss, or find appreciation for only after we no longer have them. After spending six years growing up on Zeltros in this third life before leaving with Master Dooku, I had become accustomed to certain things. It was only now, four years since leaving, as I eased the sleek, gleaming chrome Nabooian bike off the ship’s ramp and took my first breath of Northern Province air, that it truly hit me.

The smell, taste, and humidity of the early morning air. The fragrant, pleasing scents of trees, flowers, and even the grass. For just a moment, I was transported back several years, to mornings at the orphanage, when I got up early to enjoy the peace and quiet outside for my morning routine before the rest of the kids woke up.

Shaking it off, I sighed and carefully accelerated away from the spaceport where we had temporarily landed to make some final modifications to the ship that were just plain safer to conduct in atmosphere. We could have done them in orbit, but I saw no need to risk my people when it would be safer and faster to just land and do it on the ground.

Getting my bearings, I quickly oriented the bike the direction I wanted and merged into the low level air traffic, obeying the speed limit and simply enjoying an early morning flight—the wind pulling at my hair and clothes, the cool morning air almost but not quite uncomfortable. Around me, I could feel the city waking up—or just going to bed in some cases. I knew from long experience that this was the only time I could find any sort of peace on the planet if I didn’t want to get blasted with concentrated horny and/or revelrous emotions.

Spotting my destination, I dipped out of traffic and brought the bike in, circling once as I took in the place I had called home for six years. Descending to the parking lot, I shut off the speeder bike and pocketed the key. Making my way up the stairs to the front entrance, I knocked on the front door and waited. I felt someone’s attention and curiosity pique inside and a familiar presence approach. The door opened and the familiar face of the matron greeted me. Blue eyes looked me up and down and her lips pulled into a small, soft smile as she radiated soft, fond happiness.

“Come in. Would you like some caff?” she asked, stepping away from the door.

“That sounds good,” I nodded. I stepped inside, closing the door behind myself, and following the matron through the familiar halls of the orphanage. We stopped by the kitchen long enough for her to request caff for the two of us, before she led us to her office. Taking a seat across the desk, I studied her as she sat.

The matron was perhaps in her thirties or forties. Given modern medicine in and near the core—and the fact that the government of Zeltros gave ‘free’ healthcare paid for straight out of the tourism funds that was on par with Coruscant—meant that practically everyone on planet received all of the best medical care money could provide, from birth. Longevity treatments were really the least of what was just routine for citizens of Zeltros. Which was all to say that the few lines and crows feet were all signs of stress that came from dealing with children, not age, and the woman still barely looked a day over twenty and just as beautiful as the rest of the citizens here.

That reminds me. I should stop in for a checkup while I’m here. Take advantage of the benefits available. If I don’t have to spend my own money on healthcare, then I shouldn’t.

“It’s good to see you again, Tanya.”

“You as well, Matron.”

“You’ve grown,” she smiled, studying me as much as I was studying her. “You seem… more at ease, as well. Life in the Jedi Temple seems to be treating you well. Was it what you had hoped?”

“Hah. Not exactly, no. I didn’t spend much time in the Temple and I didn’t really fit in there. I haven’t been back for more than brief visits in more than a year now.”

The matron raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Why don’t you tell me about what you’ve been up to while you’ve been away?”

“Mm,” I nodded. “But first, is there anything you need?”

She hummed, before shrugging. “I can’t say there is. You know how it is here. The government provides enough to keep the place running and the children fed, clothed, and educated.” The matron smiled again, this one coming with a flash of mischief. “But if you wanted to do something for us, I can think of something…”

“I’m sure the children would love to meet a real Jedi and see what one of their own can accomplish when they put their minds to it.”

“I can do that,” I agreed, a moment before the door opened and one of the older kids brought in a tray with caff and breakfast—fruit pastries similar to scones. As soon as the tray was on the desk, the boy hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Taking one of the familiar pastries, I let out a quiet hum of appreciation as I bit into it, savoring the sweet, tart taste of the fruit as the matron poured us both caff. “You still take yours with chocolate, don’t you?”

“When I can,” I nodded, and she dropped in half a chocolate bar before stirring and passing me the cup. “Thank you.” Taking a sip, I sighed in appreciation and made a mental note to stock up before we left, since I had missed the familiar taste of the beans grown on Zeltros. “Before I get distracted, you wouldn’t happen to know anyone else like us, would you?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, but I could feel she knew exactly what I meant in the way her mind closed off.

I sent her a knowing look over the rim of my cup. “Those who don’t indulge. Who haven’t lost themselves to hedonism.” Looking into my cup, I added, “Those who have rejected the unspoken social contract of Zeltros and refuse to prostitute themselves for the benefit of the government.” Taking a brief sip, I met her eyes again. “People who would rather make something of themselves or do something good for society, rather than contribute to the poor reputation our people have elsewhere in the galaxy.”

The matron sighed. “I may know of some. We don’t gather much in person. The government doesn’t like it. They’re worried we’ll do something self-destructive that will wind up harming the planetary economy. Why do you want to know?”

“I knew it,” I murmured. “I knew they couldn’t have all gone into politics. As for why… I’m looking for people who want to move off-world and get a fresh start. Master Dooku is now Count Dooku of Serenno, together with his sister Countess Jenza. Having a living lie detector around is handy, but I can’t be there all the time or cover everything necessary. So we thought we would recruit from Zeltros.”

Staring at me for a moment, the woman sipped at her caff before leaning back in her chair. “I’m going to need that explanation now. What happened, once you left?”

I smiled. “Very well.”

By the time I made it back to the ship, I was practically dead on my feet. Not physically tired, but mentally drained. I felt like a zombie as I made my way to my cabin. Making my way over to the section of the cabin that had been dedicated to planter space, I plucked a few fresh leaves off of my favorite plant and went about brewing a cup of tea at the small kitchenette—little more than a section of the wall that folded down into a prep area and a couple of heating pads. If I wanted anything more complicated, I’d need to go to the galley, but it was good for reheating things—and convenient for making tea, or caff.

Once the tea was finished, I poured myself a cup and made my way over to my desk, collapsing into the chair behind it. Tapping the keyboard for the computer to wake it, I took a sip, enjoying the mixed coffee, chocolate, and vanilla flavor as the Force within it seeped into my body, perking me up.

With that, I began typing out a couple of emails, both to Sgt. Dyre. The first was a request to have transport arranged for several passengers back to Serenno—complete with a list of names and photographs. I made sure to let her know that she may need to expect a few family units in addition to individuals. I wasn’t going to turn away an entire family that wanted to relocate, when that meant a larger pool on Serenno to recruit from in the future when those children grew up and chose their own careers—and without the hedonistic indoctrination omni-present on Zeltros, they were much more likely to take jobs that allowed them to use their talents productively.

The matron had been very helpful in supplying me with a list of names—if not of those who would be interested themselves, but at least they could put me in contact with those who were. After that, I’d spent the rest of the day doing something I was intimately familiar with from my first life: hiring interviews. It was exactly as dull as I remembered, and was the entire reason for my zombified stupor upon returning to the ship.

However, as much as I hated it, the fact of the matter was that I was the best suited to the task. Sure, I could have sent Sgt. Dyre to do the interviews, but I would have still needed to vet them personally and this was just faster and cut out the extra steps—not to mentioned saved the sergeant some unnecessary scut work. I had the experience, and between the empathic talent of my people and the Force, I was the most qualified person to recruit what was effectively going to be the core of Jenza’s personal… I hesitated to call them ‘secret police,’ but that was effectively what they would be used for—a mix of duties somewhere between counter-intelligence, information gathering, and interrogation.

Worse still, I wasn’t even finished. No, I imagined I’d be doing this for another day or two at minimum. I wanted as many recruits as I could get. It’d be better to have too many than not enough. If we had to charter an entire passenger liner, then I’d gladly pay out of pocket for it if I needed to—and then get reimbursed after submitting my expense reports, of course.

The second, more personal email was a requisition order. Setting foot on planet again had reminded me that there were things I had liked about Zeltros, even if the society wasn’t one of those things.

I spent a few minutes connecting to the local network and running a few searches for what I wanted, then built a list and collected some addresses. Once I was finished, I dropped that list into the email and shot it off with instructions. With any luck, by this time tomorrow, I’d have a collection of native plants to fill out my planters both in the ship and the Rusted Silver. I’d let someone else handle the planting for the ship, but I’d do those in my blastboat myself, since I could count the number of people I trusted inside my personal ship on one hand and only one of those was present—and I wasn’t going to bother Cindy when she was overworked enough.

With those sent off, I checked the progress reports sent by the crew on various things.

Cindy reported that the holographic camouflage modifications were proceeding on schedule. To my delight however, my blonde employee had taken the initiative to incorporate the improved holographic tech in other systems—not just our communications systems, but multiple displays, adding a new holotank style projector to the bridge to display battlefield information, and she had even ordered and set aside the parts for an ambitious little project for the rec room. A note at the end of her report suggested we put someone on Serenno and Mandalore in touch with the company making the tech, so I marked that as something to do for later—there was really no reason not to do a bit of trade here and get that tech imported for domestic use, both for civilian and government applications.

Cid’s status report was more terse—consisting of three sentences and a list. The initial install was finished, we needed to test it, and a list of material stock we’d need for the fabricator he’d made to make a supply of ammunition to store.

The rest were more along the lines of what I was expecting.

Readiness reports for various departments and systems and a summary of what our marine contingent had been up to from Lt. Taris. Provisioning status and requests for more materials that I rubber stamped from our quartermaster. A report from our gunnery officer that the automation modifications Cindy had made in converting our ball turrets to standard turrets was complete, everything appeared to be in working order, and fire control had been routed to a pair of consoles on the bridge for port and starboard control. The air boss reported our shuttles and VAAT were in working order, but he would really like a small fighter wing. That one I forwarded to Jaster to see about getting us a quartet of small fighters (not the trash snub fighters she had come with) and pilots for them, since that was really all the ship could comfortably fit. The ship’s doctor wanted supplies, a small staff of medical droids, and an autodoc—all approved. And of course, there was a report of all of the expenses we’d run up (materials, supplies, fuel) and payment owed to staff from the financial officer—which I had to dip into my funds and move into my business account set up for me through Mandalore to cover.

Looking at that last one and seeing the nine digit sum of credits owed, I groaned quietly and thumped my head on the desk. This was… it was all of the paperwork and management that came with running a military unit, combined with all the same for a small business. Because we technically were. I was now officially in the business of war—or at least, something close to it. Anti-piracy, harassing the Trade Federation and their allies, we were even registered with our budding alliance as a privateer and had a letter of marque so theoretically we could engage in a little legal piracy if we wanted to.

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Well, technically we were registered. By which I mean, the people who needed to know knew and those who didn’t need to know did not. There were no publicly available records for the ship. As far as the Serenno government was concerned, if anyone asked, she had either been destroyed or scrapped for parts. The ship wasn’t registered to any government. She didn’t broadcast an IFF or identification signal, or at least not her own—she would absolutely squawk as something else if we needed her to. She didn’t even have a name—nothing that the crew could mention in a bar somewhere to be overheard by nosy government officials or spies.

In other words, the ship was a deniable asset. A tool to solve problems quietly, or to cause problems for the enemy.

Unfortunately, that meant that funds couldn’t come in through the normal channels. They either had to come from my perfectly legitimate business account on Mandalore, in the form of unmarked physical credits, or from whatever we could get from our work. The Serenno/Mandalore alliance were perfectly willing to pay for us to take on jobs, but the funds had to either be physical credits or in the form of materials and equipment—like the fighters we’d be getting. At the moment, we were basically taking out money against the payout for the job of disrupting the Trade Federation blockade and harassing the Trandoshans, save for whatever I was paying out of pocket through business channels and expecting to get reimbursed for later.

We’re going to have to start running jobs to make money. If we can capture ships and turn them over, Serenno’s willing to pay a fair price for them. Trandosha’s navy all uses KDY ships since Gallofree went out of business. Their ships are all decent quality, middle of the road in terms of cost, and nothing special or outlandish in terms of design—something anyone would be pleased to have. Of course, capturing ships goes somewhat contrary to the goal of destroying them. Or maybe not. Disappearing ships and no debris is even more worrying than obvious signs of battle…

Of course, if we do manage to snag some ships, we’ll need to both make sure they’re capable of flight and send over a skeleton crew to man them to take them home.

Humming, I considered the logistics of moving stolen vessels, before a smile pulled at my lips. I’m trying to do too much. There’s no need for us to move them ourselves—at least, not the whole way. No, we just need to go over, sweep for survivors, make sure they aren’t broadcasting any sort of signal to phone home, then put them somewhere to be retrieved later. Send a message back home, let them send people to pick them up, and we move on to the next target. That’ll save us days or weeks of travel.

That decided, I pulled up the galaxy map on the holo projector built into the desk—and was surprised, but delighted to see Cindy had already had the projector converted to full color. Looking over the route a ship would need to take coming from Serenno to reach Kashyyyk, I hummed as I considered my options.

Realistically, the fastest way to do this is going to be to have them send someone via the Hydian Way, then come up past Zeltros. So, why not send them here?

Switching over to the local map of the Zel system, I looked over my options. The Zel system had five planets, and from the inside out they were…

The gas giant Zeloa, very near our sun (Zel), which made little sense astrologically speaking and scientists speculated that it was placed there intentionally. It was set up for refining various gasses for fuel production. I didn’t want to alert anyone there, so Zeloa was out.

Second, the barren rock planet Zeldiis. Too close to Zeltros, the third, for my liking. I didn’t want these ships dropping out within sensor range of guests. Which likewise ruled out the fourth planet, Zelvahn.

That left only the fifth. A gas giant sweeper named Zellone. Surrounded by seventeen moons and a thin ring of smaller orbiting bodies that wasn’t visible to the naked eye. Far enough away that sensors could easily mistake any albedo reflection from newly arrived ships as one of the moons, and they would have to be looking hard to spot the infrared flare of a ship’s drives—which could easily be rendered moot if we had ships come out of hyperspace on the back side.

Short distance to the Zel system and back. Zellone is pretty much perfect for parking prizes and leaving them for someone to come collect. Okay, that’s what we’ll do.

One more task complete in the mountain of things I needed to get done before we set out, I drained the rest of my tea and moved on to the next item on the agenda.

Hyperspace, 39 BBY/961 GSC. En route to Kashyyyk system.

The shifting blue light of hyperspace washed over the bridge as a feeling of tension and anticipation grew in the air. The crew moved quietly and efficiently as they carried out their duties, making final ready checks before the drop out of hyperspace. I sat silently, occasionally glancing at the small display screen mounted on the right side of my chair, checking to make sure there were no problems being reported from elsewhere in the ship.

Looking over the bridge, I was still amazed at the transformation from what it had been before. Sure, it was nice and high tech when I’d first acquired it, but now it looked like a proper starship bridge. There were eight stations, not counting my own. Starting on the left from entering the bridge was our sensor station, which combined ECDIS with all of the sensor feeds, and was also responsible for our probe droids. Next was electronic warfare. Then port weapons control. Then primary navigation and secondary navigation at the front of the bridge. Following those was starboard weapons control, a position for our stealth/camo control, and finally communications.

That was the standard layout but any of them could be repurposed with a few buttons and switches to handle the duties of one of the other stations if need be. That is, with the exception being conning—the other stations didn’t have the proper physical controls to direct the ship.

“One minute to hyperspace exit,” the ensign manning the secondary helm controls reported.

Lt. Taris nodded, moving over to lean over the back of the chair of the ensign on duty for the camouflage systems. She briefly glanced up before tapping at her console. “All systems green. Optical camo, emissions mimicry, and false IFF are all running, sir.”

“Let me know if anything changes,” the lieutenant ordered quietly, before moving across the deck to sensors and EWF. Reaching up, he wrapped a hand around one of the grab bars on the ceiling as the backup helmsman counted down from five.

Outside the transparisteel view ports, the blue and white of hyperspace faded to star filled black as we returned to real space. Ahead of us, Trandosha loomed large—an ugly, shit brown and algae green world covered in a yellow-green haze. I disliked it immediately.

“What have we got?” Lt. Taris asked, looking over the two screens.

“Looks like general sensor sweeps. They see us, but they’re not looking too closely,” the sensor technician offered.

“Bring up the fish tank.”

The man nodded and, a moment later, the interior of the bridge between the captain’s chair and the other positions was filled with a hologram that quickly propagated with data streaming in from the ship’s sensors. The layout of the system. The positions, bearing, movement, and sensor focus of every ship in the zone. Representations of radio chatter back and forth between ships and the planet.

“We’re being hailed by one of the Trandoshan patrols,” the communications officer reported, and one of the larger ships in the tank lit up yellow—a frigate that appeared to be part of a Trandoshan patrol fleet.

A brief thrill of something between a mixture of fear, anxiety, and aggression filled the bridge before I reached out and pushed it away with calm. This was our first real test of our stealth systems outside of using our own fighters and shuttles to do various active and passive scans, so it was understandable that they were nervous. We were firmly in enemy territory and if our disguise failed, if we were discovered, we were humped. Sure, we might be able to jump back to lightspeed before they got close enough to fire on us, but it would blow the mission and the enemy would be put on alert.

I trusted Cindy’s modifications. We’d tested them thoroughly. Not even the Rusted Silver’s top of the line sensors or the spy droids this ship deployed could penetrate the disguise. Not without being so close we were practically guaranteed to destroy them.

“Let’s hear it,” I acknowledged, and a moment later the woman clicked a button and a voice filled the bridge. It was Trandoshan, with the reptilian hisses under-laying the translated Galactic Basic audio.

“Trade Federation vessel Return on Investment, this is Trandoshan patrol vessel Krayt Viper. State your purpose for being in Trandoshan space.”

I met Lt. Taris’s eyes and nodded. At that, my XO spoke up. “Good afternoon, Viper. We’re a cargo vessel bringing a resupply for our allies over at Alaris Prime.”

There was a brief pause and I watched as they communicated with someone on the ground for a few moments, before we got an answer. “We didn’t request any resupply.”

“Nope. The ROI was dispatched as part of an… ‘outreach program.’ The Trade Federation wants to show its appreciation for its allies. The folks out over Alaris can’t come home and take shore leave with the blockade going, so the bigwigs decided to bring shore leave to them. Our cargo bay’s been converted for that purpose. We’re one part flying commissary, one part cantina. All courtesy of Viceroy Gunray.”

Another exchange between the Viper and Trandosha, another brief pause. Then, “Understood, ROI. Permission granted to visit Alaris. We will call ahead and let them know you’re coming. Though there is the small matter of the processing fee…”

Lt. Taris let out an audible sigh. “Of course. How much, Viper?”

“I’m willing to waive the usual fee in exchange for goods or services. What sort of entertainment did you bring?”

Putting on a smirk, the lieutenant answered, “Only the finest, straight from Nar Shaddaa—and in assorted flavors. Humans, Twi’lek, even a Zeltron.”

I narrowed my eyes at the cheeky grin the lieutenant shot at me, but let it pass, for now. However, that seemed to be exactly the answer that the captain of the Viper was hoping for. “Excellent! Stop by Trandosha before you leave. Some of us are stuck on patrol up here for months at a time and could do with some entertainment. And I’m sure you’d appreciate the extra coin.”

“Absolutely. Will do, Viper. See you in a few days.” With that, the comms officer killed the connection and the lieutenant moved to the center of the bridge, just ahead of me. “Come about and lay in a course for Alaris Prime, then ahead one third. Nice and slow. We’re a cargo ship and we’re not in any rush.”

“Aye, sir,” the helmsman at the primary station replied, and the ship slowly turned and accelerated away from Trandosha, the planet on our port side as we pulled away. “ETA at current speed is fourteen hours.”

Slowly, the residual tension drained out of the bridge crew, leaving behind relief and a bit of elation at our success so far. I stood and stretched out. “Comms, give me shipwide.”

“Yes, ma’am. You’re on in three, two, one…”

I put on a grin. “This is your captain. We’ve made it through the first checkpoint. The enemy has fallen for our ruse. I know the deadline was tight, nearly unreasonable, but you’ve delivered wonderfully. You’ve really earned that overtime pay! Good work. Well done everyone. But let’s not celebrate just yet. Soon, we’re going to play a little game with them—a friendly game of hide and seek, with live ammunition~. First, however, we have to set the stage and clear out the players already on the scene. In just under fourteen hours, we will arrive at our destination and our next engagement. Until then, consider today a half duty day. Take care of what you need to, then get some rest. I don’t want you burning yourselves out before the main event. That is all.”

The intercom clicked off and I sent a nod to Lt. Taris. “I’m going to be in meditation. Please don’t disturb me unless it’s necessary. XO, you have the bridge.”

“Aye, ma’am,” he nodded, moving to take the seat I’d just vacated as I left for my cabin.

I locked the door and spread out my meditation mat. Pulling my computation orb off, I rested it in my lap, idly thumbing the beads on the necklace holding it as I closed my eyes and centered myself.

Reaching out, I felt for Obi and projected myself forward…

Blinking, I took in the forest surrounding us as I spotted Obi sitting in a tree just to my side. She frowned, then looked around, her eyes flowing over me for a moment before coming back to where I ‘stood.’ “Tanya?” she whispered.

I projected an illusion of myself so we could talk. “We’re in the Kashyyyk system, on our way from Trandosha. We should be here in fourteen hours, give or take. Then a little longer for a marine contingent of Mandalorians to descend to the surface and join you.” Read full story at NoveI(F)ire.net

The blonde smiled, nodding once before turning her eyes back to the ground below. “I’ll let Master Qui-Gon know.”

Following her gaze, I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Scouting. Mapping out enemy patrols.”

“Preparing for ambushes?”

She nodded, a rueful grin on her face. “Yes. Someone showed a talent for it on Serenno and since the environment is practically identical… Well, if it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it.” Glancing at me from the corner of her eye, she asked, “What’s the plan? Drop off some marines? Come down yourself? Stay in orbit and cause trouble for the blockade fleet?”

I grinned, and for some reason her head snapped to me and I could feel her disapproval and suspicion. “We’re going to try to wipe out or capture the small force visibly blockading the moon. Once we’ve taken them out, I’ll send the drop ship and your backup on the ground. Their goal is to destroy the droid production facility. As for me, I’m going to have my ship pull back behind one of the other nearby moons of Alaris, deploy some scouting droids, and wait for enemy reinforcements to arrive. Then, we’re going to harass them a bit.”

“I don’t like it when you get that look on your face,” she murmured. “You’ve got something nasty planned.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “Only if we can pull it off.”

“Uh huh. What are you planning.”

“Why spoil the surprise?” I teased, and the girl glared. “Anyway—”

“I’ll see you in a few hours—”

I pulled my projection back and laughed quietly at the frustrated look I’d left her with. Obi was definitely going to be angry later. She might even yell.