Chapter 57: Chapter 57

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

Corulag Military Academy, 36 BBY/964 GSC. Three years since joining.

“Lt. Mereel. Thank you for coming,” Col. Cagilo nodded to me as I stepped into his office. “Close the door.”

I closed the door and moved to stand in front of his desk, at attention. “Sit down,” he ordered, and I took a seat. Picking up a datapad, he waved it at me. “I see you’ve put in for graduation.”

“Yes, colonel. I believe I’ve learned everything I came here to and I’m ready to return to my normal duties.”

Leaning back in his seat, he stared at me for a moment, assessing. Throughout my stay here at the academy, I could count the number of times I had spoken with the colonel after our first meeting on one hand. However, after that first meeting, every other time we had met, he had treated me fairly and as he would anyone else training at his academy, at least as far as I could tell. He had apparently revised his assessment of me and was treating me seriously.

For a brief moment, I felt doubt on his part, and a brief protective instinct. I understood the reasoning behind it, of course. I was a young woman, only just growing out of being a child. He was likely worried how I would fare in the real world.

I felt the moment he pushed it aside. “Alright. But first, tell me about Mandalore and Serenno. I’ve spoken with Dooku about you, off and on, updating him on how your training has been going. I asked him once what made you different, after you made it clear you were here to stay whether I liked it or not. He told me to ask you.”

“Ah,” I murmured. “Yes, I suppose it stands to reason that the Jedi would seal those records… It would make them look bad.”

The man across from me raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

I smiled. “Well I imagine that if it became public knowledge that the Jedi allowed someone who wasn’t even officially a Padawan, a child of single digits age, to go off and take part in high stakes negotiations followed by a guerrilla war, then it would look bad for them.”

The colonel blinked, then frowned. “I see. Just how involved were you?”

“I’ll give you the short version.” Leaning back in my seat, I began. “Master Dooku’s brother Ramil staged a coup on Serenno and took over after his father died, sending his sister Jenza into hiding. Jenza asked Master Dooku for help, and he agreed. The Senate refused to send aid, because Ramil had withdrawn Serenno from the Republic and the Jedi High Council refused because their masters the Senate refused. Master Dooku asked for help and two other Jedi Masters answered—his friend Master Sifo-Dyas, and his former Padawan, Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Master Qui-Gon brought his Padawan, Obi-Wan, and Master Dooku brought me. We knew it likely wouldn’t be enough, so we sought out allies.

“We traveled to Mandalore to recruit aid. One of the Mandalorian factions had requested aid from the Jedi and been denied because the Jedi didn’t want to get involved. We met with the leaders of the two factions actually willing to talk: the New Mandalorians, led by Satine Kryze, and the True Mandalorians, led by Jaster Mereel.”

At that name, the colonel frowned. “As in…?”

“Yes. I’ll get to that in a moment,” I nodded. “Meanwhile, while the Masters and the leaders met and negotiated, the third faction began moving in the background. Tor Vizsla, leader of the Death Watch, came up with a plan to derail the negotiations and eliminate his opposite numbers, all while avoiding the Jedi tracking them down and killing them. And to do that, they needed a hostage. So they targeted the youngest Jedi, to kidnap and ransom back.”

I nodded again. “Their conditions were that the Jedi would abandon the negotiation and allow the assassination of Satine and Jaster to go through, then the Death Watch would return me to them, after the Jedi left the planet and promised not to return.”

“And here you are,” the colonel pointed out.

I smiled. “And here I am,” I agreed. “We were aware of the Death Watch going in. So while the Masters were negotiating, I watched and waited. I established a regular pattern of traveling between our ship and the hotel by myself.”

“You used yourself as bait.”

“And they took it. They kidnapped me and brought me back to their camp,” I confirmed.

“And then?” the colonel asked.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my personal holocom and flipped to the stored videos. “It’s better if you see for yourself.”

Placing the holocom on the desk, I hit ‘play’ and sat back. Col. Cagilo kept a straight face through the whole video, but his emotions gave him away. Worry, at first. Then surprise. Shock. Awe. A bit of fear. Finally, amusement and a bit of respect as it finished playing. I collected the device and flipped to another video.

“That’s why Dooku wasn’t worried about you.”

“One reason, yes,” I confirmed.

“So you took out the enemy leadership,” he led, and I nodded, before picking up where I had left off.

“Yes. That lightsaber Tor Vizsla had was apparently important. It’s called the Darksaber, and it’s essentially a symbol of office. Similarly to how Jedi lightsabers are a symbol of our own office. Except only the leader of all Mandalorians, the Mandalore, was allowed to wield it—and it can typically only change hands in combat. By killing him and taking it, I technically claimed the position of Mandalore, for anyone who actually follows the old ways. Of course, that presented a bit of a problem. I was undergoing medical treatment, floating in a bacta tank at the time, so I didn’t learn all of that until after, but Master Dooku made a deal with Jaster. The Darksaber would be returned to the Jedi and in exchange, Jaster would be allowed to adopt me into his clan and I would act as the bridge between the Mandalorians and the Jedi—living proof of our bond, as a Mandalorian Jedi. I accepted, and events on Mandalore were settled soon after. From there, we departed to Serenno, with aid from the Mandalorians.

“We dropped into the system early and found Serenno blockaded by pirates—hired mercenaries, really. Masters Dooku and Qui-Gon, along with Obi-Wan, took a small security force along with Satine and Jaster, and descended to the planet from the back side, in a gap between pirate patrols while I went with Master Dyas and the main Mando force. Our group was too large to slip past them in a timely manner, so I proposed an alternate solution: a one person insertion, from space.”

The colonel laughed. “You’re telling me you jumped out of a perfectly good space craft, took an EVA across thousands of miles of space, somehow didn’t splatter yourself on the hull of one of the ships or miss entirely and fall into atmo and burn up, then what? Took over a ship and distracted the enemy fleet?”

Placing the holocom back down, I played the video taken from one of the Mandalorian ships, along with sensor readings. Col. Cagilo watched and growing incredulity as exactly that played out.

“No. I destroyed most of the fleet and crippled the remaining ships. Then I used their largest ship as a weapon to take out the enemy’s largest base on the surface, after using its torpedoes to destroy many of the smaller ones.”

The man reached up and ran a hand down his face as the video finished. “Okay. Anything else?”

“I engaged in a months long jungle based guerrilla war campaign against pirate forces, conscripts, and droids, where I spent most of that time running solo ops to cripple and demoralize the enemy while the Mandos and Master Dyas handled other things.”

“I see why the Jedi would seal those records, if that’s what happens when they leave you unsupervised for too long,” the man muttered. Shaking his head, he said, “Alright. I’ll approve your graduation. There’s one final exercise you’ll need to take part in.” I sat up a bit straighter at that. “You would have already taken place in one of these if you had joined the normal way, but you didn’t so I’ll explain. We send our graduating lieutenants out with a company of soldiers under them to run a training exercise. Four platoons—a minimum of sixty men you’ll be responsible for. It’s a month long field exercise, after which you’ll be promoted and earn your captain’s pips.”

“What sort of training?” I asked, wondering if this was going to be some inclement weather or inhospitable world training.

“Peacekeeping. There are a few places we keep our eyes on that pirates like to set up bases on. Some are fairly far out from the Core, but they’re along major trade routes. There are a few options available,” he hummed, considering me for a moment. “Jungle combat doesn’t bother you?”

“It’s almost as miserable as a desert. Everything gets wet and takes forever to dry, and if you aren’t careful, you’ll get jungle rot,” I grumbled, and he nodded. “I take it there aren’t any nice, temperate worlds in need of pirate extermination?”

The colonel chuckled, shaking his head. “Those are premium slots. They’ve all been taken already. Sorry. Your options are jungle or desert.”

Resigning myself to the coming discomfort, I made my choice. “If I have to choose, then I’d rather deal with a jungle than a desert.”

“Let’s see,” Col. Cagilo hummed, tapping away at his keyboard. “Alright. Felucia. Tropical greenhouse world out in the Outer Rim. It’s covered in jungles, swamps, and fungal forests. Your assignment is to go in, make contact with the locals in the capital of Ku-weigh Tay-oh? Am I saying that right?” he trailed off, clicking a few times. “Kway Teow? Fuck it. If they wanted their city called right, they’d have named it in Basic. Find the biggest fucking collection of mud huts and ask the locals where the pirates they asked the Senate for help with are. Then go out and take care of ‘em.”

I nodded. “What sort of support will we have?”

“Only what you bring with you and what you can get from the locals. We’re dropping you off with men and equipment. You’ll have a few LAAT/is, some T1-Bs, A-A5s, AT-PTs, speeders, and some housing units. We’re supposed to send some new KDY equipment out for someone to test—a few AT-TEs. All Terrain Tactical Enforcers. If you want ‘em, you can have ‘em, otherwise we’ll send them with another team.”

“I assume this will take the place of other, standard equipment?” I asked, and got a nod in answer.

New, untested prototypes or the standardized equipment everyone is familiar with and hates?

It was a common dilemma even in my first lifetime, though not one I was intimately familiar with at the time. The brass made a deal with some weapons or equipment manufacturer and wanted someone to go test their new toy in real life conditions. Then, one of two things happened.

The torpedoes used by my former people during the second World War were a good example of that new technology going poorly. It was an incomplete piece of technology that stuck a human being in a place they had no business being, in order to replace a piece of equipment we couldn’t develop ourselves in the time required, and it led to a bunch of people dying as human guidance systems.

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On the flip side, I remembered a story that had become a bit of an internet legend in the gun/war otaku community, about the American military. Supposedly, at the time a new type of light weight optic was developed, and they issued them to a group of soldiers and sent them out on a deployment to test in live combat. Afterwards, the UN were dispatched to investigate because it looked as though that group of soldiers had been taking and executing captives—which was a war crime. But no, the reality was the sight was such an improvement that they were routinely getting headshots.

Unfortunately, this was exactly the sort of low risk scenario which would be perfect to test such a piece of equipment in. We were expecting some light resistance from pirate forces, but not enough that four platoons of Republic ground pounders couldn’t handle. The ‘AT’ in those designations stood for All Terrain, and a jungle seemed like a good place to test their ability to navigate adverse terrain—not to mention stress test them in heat, humidity, and water given the swamps. And if we did run into unexpected trouble, it might be handy to have something the enemy weren’t expecting.

“Okay. The troops are already here, sitting on the Acclamator. New ship, new gear, new troops,” he sighed, before sending me a serious look. “Take my advice. Get out while you can. The Republic is gearing up for something and you don’t want to be in when it goes down.”

“I am aware,” I nodded. “When can I join them?”

“I’ll put in the order today. A transport from the Acclamator will arrive in the morning and take you up.”

I stood. “Permission to leave the base to purchase personal equipment?”

“What’d you have in mind?” the colonel asked, curious.

“Last time I was in a jungle, I had an environment suit. It helped immensely in managing the heat and humidity. I’ve since outgrown it and would like to get a replacement.”

“Granted, lieutenant. Dismissed,” he gave a nod and I left the administration building.

Making my way to the motor pool, I signed out a speeder car and took off for Curamelle. As I flew, I allowed my mind to wander.

A few days from here to Felucia by ship. A month on planet. Then another few days back, assuming our pickup arrives when they should. From there, I can arrange to be graduated in private and leave. I’ll send word to Capt. Taris and let him know the schedule. I’ll contact Master Dooku once I’m ready to leave.

Acclamator-class Planetary Assault Ship. Hyperspace, en route to Felucia.

Standing at the front of a borrowed briefing room, I looked over the four platoon leaders and sixteen squad leaders gathered—a group of second lieutenants and sergeants, wearing camouflage fatigues and occasionally glancing between each other as they all radiated looks of disbelief. Seeing I had my work cut out for me, I folded my hands behind my back and looked over the small crowd as they stared back.

Considering them for a moment, I nodded. “I see there are some of you who have your doubts about my presence and whether or not I’m qualified to be here. If any of you have any issues with my command of this operation, please speak up and we can settle this here and now.”

There was some quiet murmuring, but no one took the bait. Feeling them out with my senses, I met the eyes of one of the four lieutenants who would be leading a platoon—the one who felt the most likely to react if prodded just right. He was a zabrak—of the red variety with gray markings, but not the one that still occasionally showed up in my dreams. The man radiated a slowly growing sense of anger and disdain, and resentment.

“Unless, of course, you’re afraid? Don’t worry, nothing said or done here in this room will go on your permanent record.”

The zabrak man, a Lt. Cao Saz if I was remembering the personnel files I had studied last night correctly, stood and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t believe you’re fit to lead this mission, sir.”

Nodding, I smiled, and a collective thrill of fear rolled across the room. “Thank you for speaking up, Lt. Saz. I was afraid I was going to have to pick someone. I find it’s always best to let someone volunteer for a demonstration. That way they can’t complain, later.” Shifting my attention to the others, I ordered, “Move the tables and chairs back and line up along the walls.”

There were a few questioning looks, but the men quickly did as I’d ordered. Reaching up, I removed my rank pips and stuck them to the wall at the front of the room. “I’ll make you a deal, Lt. Saz. You’re confident in your hand to hand skills, are you not?”

“I scored top of my class,” the man answered with a nod.

“Excellent~,” I murmured, turning back to him and starting to roll up my sleeves. “The rules are simple. First to submission or knockout. No weapons and no damage that would render someone incapable of participating in the upcoming operation. If you beat me, we’ll swap pips and you can lead the mission. I’ll report it as falling ill and issuing a field promotion, and so long as you succeed, I’ll make sure my report shows that you stepped up and performed exceptionally well, above and beyond the call of duty. How does that sound?”

The man considered it for a moment before asking, “And if I lose?”

“Your asses are mine. All of you. I will PT you into the deck until we get to Felucia.” Looking around, I met the eyes of everyone there. “Collective punishment. You’ll only have Lt. Saz and yourselves to blame, because none of you spoke up. You will all also be expected to be my sparring partners for the rest of the trip. And in case you’re thinking of including those under your command in an example the old saying shit rolls downhill, don’t. But don’t worry though, I wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything I’m not willing to do myself. I’ll be right there beside you. Or, you could all put the tables and chairs back, sit down, and we can get started on this briefing like professional soldiers and forget this ever happened. The choice is yours.”

The gathered soldiers all shared looks and I felt it as agreement settled across the group. On an unspoken signal, someone turned and nodded to Lt. Saz. The man grinned. “We’ll take our chances.”

“I’m so glad to hear it.” I moved towards the center of the room and held my hand out. “Do we have a deal?”

The man shook my hand and nodded. Then, by mutual agreement, we backed away from each other several feet and waited. Pointing to one of the other lieutenants, I said, “Start a countdown from three, then the three of you are on referee duty.”

The fight, if it could be called that, was extremely short and entirely one-sided. A single exchange ended in Lt. Saz grappled and pinned to the deck, both arms wrenched behind his back, and the man wearing my thighs as earmuffs as I took care to avoid stabbing myself on one of his head horns. He howled as I torqued both arms up a bit. Trying to roll over didn’t work to his favor as, with him on top, that just put his own weight on his arms and I wasn’t bothered by the weight of him trying to crush me or bash me into the deck since he couldn’t get the proper leverage to do so.

“Give up now, before you dislocate something by accident,” I warned. “If we have to get a medic or send you to the med-bay that means paperwork, which means notes in official reports that we have to explain.”

I felt a brief moment of indecision from Lt. Saz, before it turned into resignation. “I give.”

I let go and shoved the man off of me, before rolling to my feet as he did likewise. Looking around the room, I asked, “Anyone else? We can make it double or nothing and resume the PT after we’re done on Felucia if you’d like.”

Silence and annoyance, much of it directed at Lt. Saz, was the only answer. Nodding, I collected my pips and put them back on. “Good. Now, fix this mess,” I gestured at the tables and chairs and they hurried to put everything in order.

Once they were finished, I began. “We’re going to Felucia. It’s a tropical greenhouse world, so expect miserable temperatures, enough humidity and moisture in everything to prevent fires from starting without serious effort, and that nothing is going to ever be quite dry. We’re lucky enough to have been issued some prefab housing and facilities for this mission. Water purification, air conditioning, sonic showers and laundry. I expect you to make sure the men make use of them. If someone under your command gets put out of commission from heat stroke or jungle rot, I’ll be nominating you for solo scouting ahead of the group.”

Looking around the group of soldiers nodding, I continued with the briefing, going over everything Col. Cagilo had told me and everything else that was included in the actual digital mission briefing. The loner I went on, the more the group settled down from being disgruntled to men focused on the task at hand.

I’m really getting tired of having to prove myself every single time. Hopefully, in a few more years, people will stop seeing me as a child and start taking me seriously.

Felucia, Republic Forward Operating Base.

Sitting on a boulder, I meditated in silence as the men worked behind me. All around me, the planet of Felucia was alive with the Living Force. Like Dathomir and Tython, the planet was alive with the Force—wild and pure in a way that places like Coruscant weren’t.

There were differences, though. Dathomir was like a wild jungle cat—it was a predator and if you didn’t respect it, it would turn you into a meal. Tython was more like the storms that covered its surface. It was a display of the fury of nature, predictable because of the moons that caused the phenomena, but without direction or malice—it would kill you if you weren’t careful.

Felucia… Felucia was an entire planet riding the razor’s edge of madness. Like Tython and Dathomir it was both light and dark, but the entire ecosystem was far more in tune with itself and the Force than anything I had sensed before. Everything here was sensitive to the Force—extremely so. Every plant, every fungi, every animal.

And they all responded the moment I descended within range. I was a stone dropped into a lake and I could see the ripples spreading outwards.

Fortunately, it seemed the reaction wasn’t too bad so far. The environment itself felt disgruntled at my presence, like animals sensing a new predator entering the area… or a body detecting something foreign entering it and trying to decide whether it should fight it off. So far, the reaction was just attention, however. It felt strange, but I could feel the entire environment around me turning to focus on me, studying me in a way that was disconcertingly intelligent.

So far, nothing had decided to react violently, and I hoped it would remain that way. I had some theories about the why of that, but the best one I had was that the planet’s ecosystem itself rejected imbalances in the Force. I imagined most other Jedi or Sith would set off some kind of reaction—either a defensive reaction of the planet trying to drive them away, or pushing the planet into madness. But as balanced as the Force was within me, it was closer to the natural flow of the Force on the planet itself, so it was possible that the intelligent ecosystem recognized that I didn’t belong, but was smart enough to determine that I wasn’t going to push it one way or the other.

Or maybe I’m imagining it and assigning human level intelligence to something that is, at best, as smart as a plant that detects when animals are eating the leaves and so reacts by turning nice, smooth leaves into spined leaves. Not intelligent, just an evolutionary reaction to stimulus.

There was a problem, aside from the danger of potentially upsetting the entire planet and triggering some sort of reaction. The entire ecosystem was dangerous and with everything being Force sensitive, everything was setting off my Force senses to some degree. From the little mushroom on the ground nearby seemingly contemplating murder to the overgrown preying mantis looking creature hiding in the treeline thinking I didn’t notice it and trying to decide which of my men it wanted to make a meal of.

It’s Dathomir all over again. I’ll have to learn what I can safely ignore and adapt. That could take some time. And in the meantime, I can’t rely on the Force by itself as an early warning system.

Almost as bad, several things out there, including some of the mushroom trees, had emotions. Most were simple things, but a lot of them were more complex—enough to throw off my emotion sense as well. For all I knew, there could be a band of pirates out there already spying on us and I wouldn’t be able to pick them out from the native wildlife.

Even my detection formulas were coming up short.

Searching for life? Everything here was alive.

Detecting heat? The planet’s background heat was high and practically everything in the environment was hot enough that unless it was moving, it wouldn’t flag.

Motion? Everything moved, even the plants.

I was working on modifying a formula to combine multiple inputs and limit detection to anything roughly human-shaped, but that would take some time. Until then, we’d have to stay on our toes.

Which, I suppose, is fine in a way. It’s a decent training ground. Neither the environment nor the expected enemy should be entirely overwhelming, just negate the advantage that my extra-sensory perception gives me, forcing me to rely on mundane methods. It will be good practice, if I ever have to fight in a similar environment in the future—and given the coming war, there’s a chance it could actually come here to this very planet, so better I get experience now when it’s relatively safe by comparison to an all out war.

I was pulled from my thoughts by Lt. Saz coming up beside me. “The Acclamator’s orbital recon is finished. They’re on the line, lieutenant.”

“Go ahead and put them on,” I instructed, opening my eyes as he held out a holocom and turned it on. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ NoveI[F]ire.net

A view of the planet from orbit sprang up above the device, overlaid with data from the Republic’s top of the line sensors—and it told me precisely nothing I didn’t already know. From heat maps showing what could either be pirate encampments or fungal colonies, to penetrating radar scans of ships that might be new or which might be thousands of years old, to energy readings that showed a few very large moving masses of energy both on land and in the planet’s oceans like moving biological nuclear reactors. Even passive detection looking for scans from the planet were useless, because apparently, some things on Felucia just put out radio signals and other emissions like they’d eaten a ship’s sensor suite!

“Lt. Mereel, this is the Acclamator’s sensor officer, Ensign Pyle. I’m sorry the Acclamator can’t be much more help than this.”

“I understand, Ens. Pyle. If the planet is screwing with your sensors, there isn’t much you can do about it. That’s why pirates chose this location—even knowing they’re here, we’re going to have a hell of a time tracking them down. If you could send us the topo maps, we’ll make do.”

“Already done, lieutenant.”

“The captain had told me to inform you that we’ll be leaving within the hour and to remind you that if you need medical or other emergency evacuation, it will take a few days for us to arrive, so be careful.”

“Roger that,” I nodded. “We’ll see you in a month.”

“Acknowledged. Good hunting, lieutenant. Acclamator out.”

I nodded to Lt. Saz and he tucked away the holocom. “Status report?”

“Facilities are set up and secure. Power’s connected and everything checks out. Fourth Platoon is moving out to secure the perimeter now, while Third is going to start working to fortify our location. They’re going to dig trenches and cut down some of those big damn fungal trees to make a wall. Second Platoon is going to bed down as soon as we’re set up properly and try to get some rest, since they’ll be on watch tonight. As for First Platoon,” he grinned, and jerked his head towards where our armor had been dropped off. “What do you say, LT? Want to go on a little walk through the jungle to Kuait-o?”

I turned and considered the big prototype AT-TE—a six legged monstrosity that was meant to stomp and bull its way across practically any terrain. It looked somewhat like an ugly beetle, with its big humped back, six stubby legs, and a vertical head. And it was armed to the teeth. The body had six independently firing anti-personnel laser cannons capable of sustained suppressive fire, while on the back it had a big mass driver turret. The weapon arrangement made approach from the sides or rear just as much of a problem as being in front of it. Internally, it was carrying two speeder bikes and two AT-RTs—which looked to my Japanese eyes like something out of an Armored Core game or similar, but not nearly so advanced.

“Let’s go make an impression on the locals,” I grinned, and we started for the big walkers. “With any luck, seeing them moving through the jungle will scare the pirates into moving and revealing their positions. Make sure we’ve got aerial recon up to see if we can spot anything below.”

Lt. Saz nodded and reached up to touch his ear bud and relay my orders. Meanwhile, I was considering ways of disabling the AT-TE if I ever had to face one in combat.

I’ll take this opportunity to study the Republic’s new toy, so that if they manage to rush these out the door before the war kicks off, we’ll know how to deal with them.