Chapter 60: Chapter 60

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

Felucia. 36 BBY/964 GSC.

It was silent in the Force. Dead silent.

For the first time since arriving on this miserable planet, the world was quiet. There were no danger signs. No constant attempts by the planet to reach out to me. Not just the surrounding area. No. I could feel it in the Force. The silence had spread across the entire planet. The world itself waited, its attention focused on me, seemingly holding its breath to see what I would do next.

I sat quietly. Waiting. Listening. Clearing my mind and meditating. Forcing myself to be calm, when internally calm was the furthest thing from my mind.

I remembered the scene I had dropped into. Burning buildings. Men simply obliterated from a bombing run, turned into so much meat that the barracks looked like a charnel house. Those that had survived the explosion, buried under rubble and slowly being suffocated and burned alive.

Blood. Smoke. Ash. Shit. Burning human and other flesh. The scents clung to my clothes. My skin. My hair. Hung in my nose. I could faintly taste it on my tongue and in the back of my throat, when I didn’t taste anything but bile. The visible parts of my skin were covered in soot and ash, so much so that I couldn’t even tell what color my flesh was underneath, and my normally white hair had been dyed gray.

My muscles were tight, my body trembling with the barely contained need to move, to act, to fight. The oppressive heat and humidity of Felucia were like sandpaper on a raw wound, a constant irritation that worked to make finding any sort of peace in the moment a near impossibility.

I wasn’t angry, I was furious.

Part of me felt like a leashed dog baying for blood, pulling at the chain holding me in place keeping me from launching myself at the enemy and tearing my way through their ranks as the rationalist part of my brain soothed it with quiet words. Not of ‘settle down’ or pleas for peace, but the sweet promises of ‘not yet’ and ‘soon.’

I had lost men before, yes. Several times in my past life. And at first, I had felt nothing. They were replaceable cogs in the machine. Faces and names I barely bothered learning. Meat shields.

We had spilled the same blood in the same mud. Shared the same joys and pains of loss. We had huddled together in the trenches at night as artillery bombardments rocked us to sleep. They became real to me. People who mattered as more than a competent set of hands holding a rifle beside me, and a bullet sponge between me and the enemy.

The last time I’d lost this many people at once, I had lost everyone I’d cared about at the same time in my second life. That had ended in nuclear fire and I wound up here.

I’d had over a decade now to put it behind me, and I thought I had. But no, it seemed like that would always be a sore subject for me.

Now, with everything so fresh, I could see their faces in my mind’s eye.

Weiss. My reliable second in command, steady as a rock.

Grantz. The uselessly handsome and naive young man, who grew into a competent officer in his own right.

Viktoriya. My friend. Loyal to the end.

I couldn’t save any of them.

I took a breath, my muscles clenching briefly. The Force roiled within me for just a moment under the force of the emotion behind the memory, before settling.

Then, something changed. I blinked as I sensed a familiar presence. Master Dooku’s steady presence. I focused on that presence and slowly felt myself calm. The anger was still there, but it grew cold.

Opening my eyes, I saw nothing but the smoking ruins of the Republic Forward Operating Base. Not a vision anymore, just the harsh reality.

I was back on Felucia. Back on this tropical Space Vietnam hell.

Taking a deep breath, I ignored the charred smell of flesh that lingered long after the bodies of our fallen had been zipped up, on their way to being shipped back to their home worlds in pretty boxes as if they had ordered dead friends and family members through the interstellar mail.

I looked over to the mess building, slightly blackened from the fire but still standing in the midst of the other, less lucky structures of our FOB. From a mess hall to a triage center, and now, to a morgue for the brave fallen. Their body bags heaped on top of each other in a large pile inside the sealed pantry. It was not the amount of dignity the dead deserved, but it was the only way to keep them out of reach of the Felucian jungle and its many scavenger species until the Republic came by to pick them up. And hopefully, by the time they arrived, the pile of dead Republic soldiers wouldn’t be any higher.

The odds of being that lucky were low, but if there was something I knew for sure, it was that the other guy’s pile was going to be much higher after I was through with them.

Footsteps on spore-ridden Felucian dirt drew my attention. They stopped right behind me, followed by the click of a gloved hand tapping on helmet in a salute.

“LT, the evacuation unit just radioed in,” the sergeant reported. “They’ve reached the capital and are taking off on a civilian starliner for the Core worlds. No enemy contact encountered in transit and no further casualties sustained, though… some of the critically wounded didn’t make it.”

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“Good,” I nodded. “Medevac was a success. What’s the status of the LAATs’ field modifications?”

“Just finished. They’re fueled up and ready for your inspection, sir. But…” The sergeant spared a momentary glance at the two LAATs sitting on the cleared landing pad. The pilots and gunners gathered beside them talking, steaming cups of caff in their hands. One last drink before the fight. “The pilots… they did the calculations. Given the increased takeoff weight and our current fuel situation, we’ll be cutting it close. Might not be enough for a second sortie.”

“I know.” I stood up with a grunt. I slung my rifle and gestured for the sergeant to walk with me. Our boots crunching the damp fungal soil we walked to the two remaining LAATs for a closer look. Large misshapen durasteel armor plates cannibalized from the other two wrecked LAATs stuck to the fuselage like patchwork on pants, mostly focused on the bottom and the cockpit.

“Officer present! Stand to for inspection!” the sergeant announced to the crew, who barely noticed us. In a heartbeat, the pilots and gunners straightened up. Mugs on the ground, salutes snapped to helmets and ragged survivors became soldiers again.

“At ease,” I stopped just enough to return the salute before walking past them and to the nearest bird.

I slammed my fist against the uneven weld seam, once and twice, listening for the hollow clank of shoddy work. It held firm, hopefully enough to shrug off an extra shot or two from any enemy air support that would otherwise down the LAAT and render fire from the ground pointless, from anything short of a dedicated emplacement or vehicle mount. With luck, the pilots would be able to adapt quickly to the additional weight. Evasive maneuvers would be necessary on this sortie.

Moving on, I inspected the biggest field mod: the side turrets. The turret mount of the trucks’ blaster cannons had been welded to the side as ordered. After all, reliable sources of covering fire was the best gift you could give to fireteams moving up or disembarking from a transport. My hand on the barrel, I rotated the assembly through its entire arc. Left and right, up and down. I committed into memory its maximum firing arc as well as its maximum depression. Given that information, I thought back to the terrain surrounding the pirate base, and picked out some prospective LZs to make the best use of the new turrets’ accurate, automatic fire.

On a datapad, I marked the coordinates down and handed it to the pilots. “Load these LZs into the nav. We’ll adjust insertion and extraction points based on enemy resistance. And finish your preflight checks!”

While the pilots were punching in the coords, I hopped on one of the turrets and bounce-tested it like some kid with a pogo stick. The four turret gunners initially gave each other confused looks as I did so, but that confusion eventually grew into unease and slight horror as they watched me do this for all four side-turrets across both LAATs and realized why I was doing it. They were going to be sitting outside an aircraft, suspended hundreds of yards in the air and going a hundred miles an hour with only a beam of metal and their own amateur welds holding them up. And that was all before factoring in enemy fire.

Hopping off the last one, I turned to them. “The welds will hold,” I said with a flat tone. “But keep your bursts short and your heat low. I don’t want any stoppages during the assault.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” The gunners swallowed, saluting sharper than necessary.

I memorized their names. These four especially were all going to get medals, either on their chests or on their coffins. None of them were trained for this, but they had guts. And that’s all that mattered now. “As you were.”

I turned my attention to the infantry squads just gathered on dusty clearing beside the landing pad.

A few squads were present and doing their kit checks. One squad had their squad lead checking their rifles in sequence as if for parade, appraising their sights and checking their seals with sharp metallic clacks, before handing them back. Another squad was running their spare power and gas cells through a scanner to check capacity and integrity before handing them back to each squad member to be stacked and stowed.

The specialists were also doing their own checks.

A trio of medics had unpacked their medpacks on some crates. Lines of bandages, bacta injectors and surgical kits all laid out on the metal, counted and appraised, before they were carefully stuffed back. A pair of soldiers squatted over a RPS-6 rocket launcher, sticking colorful mushrooms in the netting to hide the metal sheen and the tubular silhouette. The loader carefully slotted in a round before locking the mechanism with a final click. A lone scout sat on a mushroom, his sniper rifle set aside, as he stared at a battered holopic in his palm. He kissed it and tucked it back beneath his chestplate before repainting his chestplate with fresh mud, dew still clinging on soil.

Not one word spoken louder than a murmur. There was just the Felucian jungle air filledwith the sound of buckles snapping, straps tightening, and the steady rhythm of men and women of the Republic gearing themselves for what was definitely our final battle on Felucia.

I frowned as I counted only thirty soldiers, or three whole squads. “Where’s the rest of the volunteers, sergeant?” I asked, my voice flat. At least the ones already here remembered their academy training. If only the rest of them were as prompt. This was an air assault, not a safari tour. Or maybe they were patrolling the perimeter? I glanced at my chrono. “I made it clear we’re moving out at 0300 sharp.”

“That’s all thirty-four volunteers including the gunners, sir.”

“Thirty… four?” I repeated, trying not to choke on the number.

We came to this planet a hundred and sixty soldiers strong. Now, 39% of them were cooling in body bags over in the mess hall, an extra 21% had just been medevac’d off planet. As for the remaining 41% or sixty-six able-bodied Republic soldiers… A whole HALF OF THEM wanted to just sit around with the bodies of their brothers and sisters in arms, while the rest of us marched out and made the scum who killed more than sixty of our number pay?! We had more guns than people who were willing to use them! And in the corner of my eye, I spotted one, a silhouette just leaning against the doorway of the mess hall and watching us. Clearly, one of my own soldiers who was clearly part of the other half who weren’t coming along.

Worst of all, that was only one of the thirty-five. It looks like the rest weren’t even going to see us off… Except this one did. Maybe, that was enough.

I was about to meet the soldier’s eyes. Maybe quietly convey with my expression that we could always use another by our side. One more rifleman in a squad could mean the difference between the entire squad dying or surviving. But just as I steadied my features, the silhouette turned away, likely to slip back into the bunk and go back to sleep.

…It seemed that I was wrong. It wasn’t one of mine at all. I know that I said they could just walk away, but I did not expect Republic soldiers from my own academy to be so… so—! If the Mandalorians or even the 203rd were here, they’d have—!

I took a deep breath.

No, I stopped myself from getting too emotional over it. Focus on the now, the objective and what I had to work with. Three squads of ten soldiers, two LAATs for transport/close air support… And one of me.

The pirates’ operation on Felucia was already dead, it was just a question of how many of them I was going to personally put down.

“Uh, Lt. Mereel, sir?” The sergeant’s hesitation caught my attention. “It’s almost time.”

I checked my chrono. He was right—02:59:50. I inhaled, long and deep, and as the red glow ticked over to 0300, I exhaled it all in a shout.

“ALL SQUADS, FORM UP IN THE LAATS!”

The thirty men and women stiffened, helmets turning to me, then surged into motion. Buckles snapped, blasters slung onto shoulders, and boots thudded over spore-laden ground as they double-timed it to the LAATs.

“Squad One with me on CAS1! Squads Two and Three on CAS2!” I directed before thumping my fist on the side of CAS1. “Pilots! I want us airborne the instant the last boot’s in the cabin!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” They answered, and almost immediately after, the two LAATs had their engines turning and burning, so to speak. The repulsorlift turbulence producing that distinctive, fluttering electronic whine. The gunners scrambled up to their newly welded turrets, strapping themselves into their harnesses, capacitors whining.

“Team leads, ensure that your squad’s illuminators on!”

The illuminators were a very basic form of IFF. They would highlight our troops a specific color to our night vision equipment—in this case, blue. That way, the gunners on the newly added turrets hanging out the sides of the LAATs wouldn’t have any friendly fire accidents.

And speaking of friendly fire accidents, I’d hate to assume that any of my troops were idiots, but I had to to make sure.

“Selectors to safe! This will be a bumpy ride!” I reminded them. And a concerning number actually had to sheepishly flip their blasters’ to safe after a glance, air assault was only barely covered in basic. And a Republic soldier would often graduate without rappelling off anything more challenging than a training craft in fair weather conditions. And that was from Corulag! I could only wonder how much worse it was in other less… established military academies.

I strode to the first LAAT, rifle slung, boots crunching as the lieutenant hurried ahead to the LAATs. Reaching up, I checked my ear piece, making sure it was secure. “Radio check.”

“We read you five by five,” someone answered, and I nodded.

Reaching the LAAT, I stepped up into the troop area and grabbed hold of one of the door grab bar—and definitely not because I was too short for the overhead ones, still. “Last check! If you’re not on board, you’re getting left behind! Squad leaders, sound off go/no go!”

I listened as the squads who had all volunteered reported they were ready. When they were finished, I grinned. “Commence operation!”

Repulsorlifts spooled to full power, and the deck thrummed beneath my boots as the LAAT lifted off quickly.

We all watched as the jungle spread out below us as we climbed, accelerating quickly, engines roaring as the wind whipped through the troop area. “Remember! When we arrive in the AO, if it moves and it’s not wearing an infrared illuminator, it dies! And if it’s wearing Black Sun colors, I want it dying even faster!”

Down below, I watched as the glowing fungi that lit up the planet at night began to dim—the darkness sweeping forward in a wave. A mile wide strip of land that went dark between us and the target area. Things began to stir, fungal growths swaying, trembling under the passing of creatures moving, scattering as we passed overhead.

Nervous energy radiated from the troops in the cabin with me, shifting their weight from foot to foot, tapping fingers nervously on armor. As for myself, I had only one question on my mind.

How will the pirate commander deploy his manpads?

The enemy commander, unfortunately for us, was not stupid. He was very clever, in fact. It already took considerable skill in logistics and finance to manage a lucrative pirating operation, and I should know because I ran one myself. But this was also the same guy behind that infiltration with the mining droids.

Above all else, the manpad question hung over everything.

For as long as I had my entire force right here in these two LAATs, a couple of rodians with black market missile launchers would be all the pirates needed to win. They wouldn’t have many after that fire, perhaps a few tubes. But more than enough to down a LAAT or two, depending on how they were deployed.

So, how did the pirates deploy their manpads?

The question grew more urgent the closer we got to the AO.

If I were in that pirate commander’s chair, I’d see the geometry as plain as I do now. Our base, their base, and a straight line cutting this mushroom jungle between them. That’s the obvious approach corridor for the LAATs that they know we have. Deploy the manpads along it, overlap the fields of fire, and sooner or later a Republic LAAT flies straight into the teeth of multiple simultaneous missile locks. Evasive action was going to be tough even for a Jedi pilot, some rookie Republic flyboy would stand no chance.

One clean hit and half my forces will be lost in a fireball among the mushroom forest. And even if they allowed the other LAAT to land uncontested, the pirates will have won the ground fight before it began.

But… Scattering those missile squads all across the AO was also sensible. The pirate commander didn’t have to kill us in one dramatic stroke that way, but enforce a massive no-landing zone. A LAAT disembarking troops was an even more valuable and easier target than a completely landed LAAT. Spreading the manpads out across clearings and river bends—the places we actually have punched in as possible landing zones—and he’d pepper us with missiles and blaster fire while we burn time searching for a gap. And time was his ally in this battle.

So which kind of commander was he?

Finally, we drew near the AO, the cliffs with the waterfall running down them loomed large, a monolith under the bright moon that cast a shadow on the area below it.

But the moment that came into visual range, hell broke loose.

Fire streaked up from below and a formula I had running picked up multiple man portable missiles launched from below. The LAAT’s sensors picked up the emissions a second later, and the pilot’s voice crackled over the line. “Multiple missile lock! Hold on! Taking evasive action!”

The two LAATs rolled in evasive action, as if trying to tip us out of the cabin, and I reached out.

“Woah—” The ensign glanced at me, my hand the only thing that kept her from falling right off after she lost her footing. “Uh, thanks, LT.”

Well, I got my answer: the pirate commander wanted us dead, and he wanted it sooner rather than later. What a coincidence! I wanted the same thing for him! Raising my rifle, I spun up a targeting formula and calmly called out. “Pilot, break off evasives, then yaw left by thirty.”

“Yes, sir!” The pilot acknowledged, the entire LAAT turning left to give the whole squad behind me a clear view of… the four missiles burning through the Felucian air to blow us right out of the sky. A good quarter of them began panicking.

I opened fire, red bolts of plasma streaking out and intercepting anything that looked like it was on course to hit the craft. Three exploded then and there, with the last rocket being caught on its tail and sent it spiraling into the jungle below.

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“Gunners, continuous suppression at these coords!” I ordered, and twin streams of red lit the night from each LAAT, sweeping back and forth through the forest in the general area the shots had come from—and as orange plasma streaked up from the ground, I added those to the list of targets and, in the background, adjusted a detection formula I had been holding in reserve before letting it run. At the same time, I used a formula to track back the path of every missile and another to scan the area. Finding targets there, I grinned as I lit them up with precision the likes of which they had likely never seen before—and never would again, as I put rounds in heads and chests.

The mushroom jungle fell silent as the last pirate hit the ground with a smoking hole through his chest.

“That should be most of their missile launchers…”

Our LZ now clear, the two vehicles descended, dropping hard for the treeline below. As soon as they were low enough, the men dropped ropes and deployed, descending in teams quickly. One team dropped from each, then they moved on to drop another team, and other. Until the LAATs pulled up and began laying down suppressive fire again.

“All squads, selectors to automatic! Orient to the waterfall, and remember to maintain flank security! Don’t let any pirate leave this damned jungle alive!”

I dropped down below the treeline, hitting the dirt at a run as the detection formula I had modified began picking out targets for me.

Blaster ammunition came in a few different types, but it was all either gas, liquid, or plasma—tibanna gas and the like. Occasionally, larger units also used a power pack, and ship mounted blasters of course ran off the ship’s reactor—but that was in addition to the ammunition medium. The ammunition, along with the focusing crystal, was what gave blaster bolts their coloration—very similar to a lightsaber, with all standard blaster crystals being mass manufactured, which if used in a lightsaber would produce a red blade. There were exceptions, of course—the ammunition I used for my personal blasters, for instance, took on the color of the crystal, not the other way around.

Each type of ammunition had a different energy output, generally following the ROYGBIV pattern of lowest energy to highest, with few exceptions. The higher the energy output, the more damage each individual bolt did, and the more expensive the ammunition before accounting for variables such as rarity and difficulty of production. The Republic used ammunition that produced red bolts—as expected of military grade equipment, it was the cheapest crap they could get their hands on, produced by the lowest bidder. The pirates were using ammunition that produced orange bolts. Both of these put out energy signatures that were distinct, and more importantly, trackable.

The comms crackled. “Contact! North-West, 80 yards! Enemy squad is—Enemy squad is neutralized?!”

“You’re welcome, Second Squad,” I took my finger off my rifle trigger.

Which is all to say… The moment the enemy started firing, I locked in on the wavelength of energy produced by their blaster bolts. Every time the enemy fired, they told me exactly where they were hiding, and told me where to aim.

I watched with my night vision goggles highlighting my people in the dark. They marched over the enemy squad that I dropped, now just fertilizer for the bioluminescent mushrooms. “Watch your arcs! There’s plenty more of them out there. Continue movement-to-contact!”

A civilian would mistake this as me using my men as bait to draw out the enemy. But Fire and Maneuver was just basic rifle tactics. They, as the base-of-fire element, kept the enemy’s heads down behind cover, while I, the maneuver element, sneaked around the side where the enemy’s cover faced the wrong way. At fifty yards, maybe eighty? I wouldn’t even need a targeting formula to shoot them. And for that, it significantly eased the strain on me, extending my peak performance time and allowing me to kill a whole lot more hostiles over a longer span of time. The pirates may have time on their side, but they were going to run out of bodies long before they can make use of it.

It was just the most efficient tactic.

I scouted ahead, or at least as much as I could with Felucia effectively jamming my Force senses as the planet had started going wild the moment combat started, but never straying far from the platoon’s direction of attack. Listening to the radio chatter, I moved where I was needed, always there to assist my people in the dark as I ran past them, straight into the enemy. They never saw me coming as I passed between the tree-sized fungi, drawing my rifle up and opening fire as I eliminated a squad and moved on.

In the scant moments when I was airborne, I noticed that we were drawing closer and closer to the pirate base at the waterfall. They were getting desperate, and just as expected… my forces finally ran headlong into the heavy hitters.

The comms crackled. A voice shouting over a storm of blaster fire. “Fortified enemy position! North, on that hill! Kriff, I think that’s a laser cannon! Where’re those rockets, Third Squad?!”

I perked up. The thunder of that laser cannon audible even outside the comms as its report rolled over the jungle.

“Third Squad is pinned down! Enemy squ—Argh, medic!—Enemy squads pouring in from the North-east! P-Platoon strength!”

“CAS1, CAS2, continuous suppression east of the hill!” I called out, taking to the air and zipping over the forest to drop in behind the unsuspecting enemy position. “First Squad, I’ll handle the laser cannon, be ready to assault the hill in ten seconds!”

“Solid copy, lighting them up!” Both LAATs zoomed overhead, peppering with dense mushroom forest with blaster cannon fire, slowing the pirate’s offensive and buying both me and Third Squad those precious ten seconds.

I dropped down on the hill, crouching on a tree-sized fungi that hung over the enemy’s fortified position.

A DF.9 Anti-Infantry Battery, an armored soda can with a laser cannon on top, fired at my troops down at the base of the hill. No longer.

I dropped down, popping five shots off at the five pirates who were preoccupied firing downhill. I ignored the rest of the pirates in favor of opening the door on the back of the DF.9. A lone bug-eyed rodian sat in the cramped, foul-smelling interior, manning the gunner console like some videogamer. And just like a videogamer, he was angrily shouting slurs at the screen.

“Wermo chai mani, repoo poodoo!” (*All your mothers are sluts for retards, Republic shits!)

“Watch out, grenade,” I monotoned.

“E chu… ta?” the bug-face turned around just in time to see the grenade in my fist… right before I began bashing his skull in with it, over and over again. With one last juicy crunch of skull, the laser cannon went silent in his twitching hands, and I pulled the pin on the blood-stained grenade.

I had already darted to the other side of the hill, sniping off the suppressed enemy force one after the other by the time said grenade exploded. Better to take out the cannon itself—wouldn’t want it being remanned later and shooting at our backs. Still, they wouldn’t have deployed the DF.9 if it wasn’t close to their new base camp… meaning we had just breached the final layer of their defenses.

First Squad, now with control of the hill, joined me soon enough, firing into the pirate squads suppressed by the two LAATs.

I felt the enemy begin to panic as they realized that this had turned into a slaughter. They quickly began backing up to the cliffs as we pushed forward, my pen slowly hemming them in, leaving them nowhere to go.

Then, of course, ‘complications’ reared its head.

Six of them. Their engines screaming away over the Felucian jungle. I frowned. “CAS1, CAS2, report! What the hell was that?”

“CAS1, LT. The enemy launched fighters! We’ve got six bogeys circling back around and heading our way. We’re not going to be able to outrun them, and our door gunners can only hold them off for so long. We should withdraw—”

“Negative! Stay on station!” I ordered, taking to the air and pushing through the canopy. “I’ll handle it.”

I spotted the enemy quickly as I climbed. My two LAATs had done something relatively clever and stacked up, one hovering just above the other, as they covered each other. The firing arcs made by the door gunners were enough to cover practically any approach, and the enemy fighters were leery of getting too close, when they kept having to jink around red streams of fire.

One of the pilots must have had more balls than brains, as he accelerated and dove in towards the LAATs, taking evasive maneuvers as he went to keep the stream of fire that rushed up to meet him away. He opened fire and I snapped off shots as I accelerated—aiming not at the junkyard fighter, but at the plasma bolts. The shots from my own rifle were enough to destabilize them before they reached our LAATs and I quickly intercepted him, popping a shot off into his cockpit and sending a round into his dome as I blew past the unshielded death trap they mistakenly called a fighter.

As the ship’s roll turned into a death spiral, the other fighters turned and engaged. I couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my lips as my heart hammered in my chest, the wind whipping through my hair and making my uniform pop. My body tingled as the familiar excitement of aerial combat sent my blood singing through my veins, pounding in my ears.

I wove around incoming blaster fire, taking aim and opening fire, downing another junk fighter by taking out its pilot. Then, the others were overtaking me, blasting by and burning hard to accelerate away so they could turn and make another pass. With Tutaminis, I could just absorb most of the energy of my flight, stopping on a dime, then burning hard after them.

By the time they were making their turns, I was practically in the middle of them—and the pilots knew it, as I felt their panic set in. I had their ships completely outclassed in speed and maneuverability. They broke ranks, scattering as I drew my lightsaber and took out the first one, driving the blade through the engine and letting gravity do the rest as I kept going.

I switched the saber over to whip mode and flicked it out, cutting off a wing and sending a fighter towards the ground, while at the same time, turning and firing the rifle with my other hand, putting a burst through another cockpit. With just one left, he nosed up to seventy degrees and burned hard, trying to escape atmosphere before I could get to him.

Focusing on the ship, I reached out with the Force and crushed the main thruster on the back. It exploded in a fireball, sending the craft tumbling wildly.

Touching back down on the ground, I was just in time to feel the fungal soil quake, the various junk crafts finally impacted with the ground. Greasy black columns of smoke rose beyond the jungle canopy, the various unstable reactors of those junkyard fighters unsurprisingly turning into fireballs.

I stopped to catch my breath, gulping down the dank jungle air for a minute before activating my comms.

“All units, give me a SITREP.”

“CAS1, left laser turret cooked off. But all other systems are green.”

“CAS2, only superficial damage to that extra plating. Systems green.”

“Ground team, all fire teams have linked up. We’ve just secured the waterfall and its surrounding area. Enemy contact light and sporadic.”

“Seven wounded. Four dead.”

“…Continue your mop up of enemy stragglers then fall back to the extraction point.”

It was a success. That’s what I told myself. We must have killed four times our number in pirates. And considering the reports, the fighting was finally tapering off as my men ran out of enemies to kill. It seemed like the night was just about done. We could mark this one as a success and go home.

But then an error in basic mathematics caught my attention.

My eyes widened as it practically stared down at me from the sky. I activated my comms again. “All units, if I don’t report in three-zero, you are authorized to exfil from the AO without me.”

Five smoke columns were visible, but there were six fighters. That meant one of them could still be intact. One of them could still give me answers.

“Lietenant Mereel, going dark.”

Darting above the treeline again, I spotted the sixth crash site not that far away. Heart racing, I reached the wreckage, a long but shallow trench with the crashed scrapyard fighter at the end. The intact corpse hanging out of the cockpit was a good sign. I peeled away the fragments of cheap durasteel until the ship’s nav-computer core came into view. My fingers almost shook as I ran the slicing protocol.

A map flickered: the last logged departure point blinking on the screen… not too far from where my own position was indicated.

That had been the largest wave of fighters which pointed to how they likely had dusted off from the biggest staging area in the zone. This had to be him, the pirate commander responsible for all those clever little tactics that got a lot of my men killed.

I moved fast, wasting no time.

Felucia’s massive mushrooms loomed higher as I pushed forward on foot rather than flying there. Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise after all. In between the long Force-assisted strides, I carefully checked my rifle, then my lightsaber, then my knife, then my remaining grenades. All the ways I could kill that bastard. I made sure every one of them was going to be serviceable and available to me once I closed in on his position.

My eyes went to the rapidly nearing dot on my map.

And by the Force was I closing in on his position.

I broke the mushroom-treeline to a clearing where a rudimentary landing pad had been cleared, with storage sheds hidden under the mushroom canopy. There, a distant figure was in the middle of pulling the camo-netting off the distinctive dagger silhouette of a Delta-6 starfighter, like a cloth made of mirrors. The light-bending piece of technology concealing objects under the netting both visually and from sensor scans. And that meant that even if I had swept this area with a dozen LAATs, they wouldn’t have found these fighters. The bastards likely had more of these little hidden staging operations scattered across the region. The source of all these damned fighters coming out of nowhere.

I inched closer, grip on my rifle tightening, and I finally got a clear profile on the target.

A Chagrian, like a Twi’lek but with horns, tall and blue-skinned. The polish on his above-average quality armor could only designate him as an officer. That and the fact that he was the only one left after everyone else had been fed into the meat grinder. This had to be him.

And he was getting ready to leave.

I didn’t hesitate: I squeezed a round off, and not a moment too soon either. The blaster bolt caught him mid-hop into the pilot’s seat and struck his hip, where the armor was thin. His body seized up from pain, causing him to stumble and slide off the starfighter’s fuselage and onto the spore-laden ground. But I knew he wasn’t dead yet.

The jungle of giant luminous mushrooms seemed to pulse, pressing down around me in time with my own heartbeat.

I couldn’t tell when or how I closed the distance between us, nor when he had sat up, leaning against the hull of his Delta-6. But I didn’t really see or hear any of it.

My vision was red, my rifle’s grip bent and yielded under my clenched fist. I was faintly aware he was speaking calmly in Huttesse, a small smile stretched across his blue-skinned face and showed his crooked teeth, and his hands made friendly gestures while showing that Black Suns insignia painted across his armor. But I saw nothing except the walking wounded and the pile of body bags back at base. Smelled nothing except the fumes of burning fuel and charred flesh. Heard nothing except the roar of fire tearing through my FOB and the screams of my men.

Our eyes met as he apparently finished speaking. The Legadonian—for a moment, the face wavered. I focused.

The chagrian pirate carried an assured look of superiority on his face, as if thoroughly convinced by his own rhetoric and confident that he’d cornered me with his words. It was a vaguely familiar expression, but I couldn’t place where. So I pushed the thought aside the same way I pushed my selector to full auto. And if there was anything I was going to remember vividly of him, it would be that brief moment when his eyes widened in surprise and his mouth opened to protest when he realized that I didn’t care.

Then I squeezed the trigger.

At this range, at full auto, his armor didn’t mean a damn thing.

Recoil on my hand. The faint warmth of superheated gas accelerated out the muzzle warming my face in continuous flashes. The passage of time measured only by the cyclic rate of my rifle. His flesh disappearing bit by bit with every flash of red.

A smoking mess of scorched metal flakes and burnt meat collapsed to the ground.

A proper Jedi would have caught his attention by shouting down the valley, challenged him to a duel beside a waterfall under a full moon and likely captured him to stand trial for his crimes.

I gunned him down like the dog that he was.

I didn’t know when I started laughing, but I did realize when I ran out of breath and as if all the energy left my body.

I let the rifle hang from its sling as I caught my breath. And for one brief heartbeat, there was silence. No screaming or no gunfire. No orders shouted over comms or calls for a medic. Just me, the corpse, and this damned, cursed Felucian jungle.

But even that was taken from me.

Then the ground began to vibrate. Not from artillery, not from walkers, but from something far heavier. Leaves trembled, spores shook loose from the fungi above, drifting down in lazy spirals. My eyes went skyward, and there it was—descending through the haze. I rose into the air to get a better look, not obscured by the giant mushrooms.

The newcomer was big—some kind of large cargo ship that had clearly been modified for piracy, given the sheer number of gun emplacements and the fact that it had a familiar Black Suns logo painted on the side. Several of the cargo containers on its underside opened to reveal fighter bays. As I watched, they opened fire again, pouring fire down onto my troops as fighters swarmed out of it, like an angry wasp’s nest.

My tracking formula counted them as they spilled out—over forty fighters, and these were well beyond the cobbled together scrap I had just put down. They were all older models, but they were definitely someone’s military castoffs. I recognized Delta 6s, Belbullab-22s, and HH-87s, but there were a few others I didn’t recognize mixed in there.

And then it clicked. This was it—the hammer blow the pirate commander had been smirking about before I cut him down. Why he had seemed so confident that I’d let him go. His real threat wasn’t just some philosophical checkmate for a battle of wits he imagined us playing, it was also this.

I felt it in the Force as more and more of my men died, either just snuffed out, or hanging on just long enough to die in agony. Screams of panic and pain filled the radio as the fire continued, and there was nothing I could do.

The rage was back, white hot and screaming in my ears. But the part of my mind that was the career soldier kept control, analyzing the situation, looking for somewhere to direct that anger—and came up empty.

The ship’s shields were up, so I couldn’t just fly over there and cut my way in, to deal with them in person. My rifle wasn’t going to do anything. I would have to use a lot of power to do any real damage, but the odds were good that I’d just destroy the weapon for noting. What I had on me just wasn’t meant for the sort of power I could put out. The ship was too big to do any real damage with the Force.

And yet, for some reason, looking at the ship… it didn’t feel too big. It felt like, if I did it right, I could take it out. I had everything I needed already—inside me, and beneath me.

I split the Force within me and reached out to the planet below—

My radio crackled in my ear as I picked up a transmission being broadcast on all bands, cutting through the ringing in my ears. “—friendlies in the area, fire support incoming. Watch for the flash.”

I spun up a formula just in time. A blinding flash of light erupted from above at an angle, striking the ship and continuing on into the distance, some miles away to the west. The midsection of the ship shrapnelized—turning into burning metal confetti. The fore and aft fell—the fore much faster than the aft, as the engines kept going for a few seconds longer, then failed entirely.

Then, I felt something approaching. Danger, but not directed at me or my men.

My tracking formula highlighted them as they dropped into atmosphere and roared towards the combat zone. There were two types of ships—two larger ones, and thirty smaller ones. The smaller ships looked like single-person fighters, painted in an urban camo dark gray and light gray pattern, with gold accents. The larger ones were either gunships or troop carriers, and bore the same gray on gray and gold color scheme. Both had that appealingly angular aesthetic I’d recognize anywhere.

With the enemy frigate, or what passed for one, destroyed the pirate fighters seemed unsure of what to do next. Unfortunately for them, the incoming fighters didn’t suffer from that problem. Yellow blaster bolts streaked out ahead of the fighters, massed fire on a disoriented enemy. And though most of these fighters were shielded, unlike the trash I’d taken out before, a few unlucky ships were still taken out in the initial strike. They seemed to all realize at the same time that if they didn’t fight, they were going to be run down and killed. The pirates turned and engaged, and from the looks of things, the newcomers were all too happy to give them a fight.

The two larger vessels broke off and descended, and a smile pulled my lips up as the familiar armored forms of Mandalorians dropped from what were confirmed as troop carriers, jetpacks slowing their fall as they dropped into the forest. I reached up and tapped my earpiece. “All teams, all teams, we have friendlies dropping in! Don’t shoot the Mandalorians!”

Watching the fighters engage, I took a moment to consider my next move.

On the one hand, while the enemy ship was gone, there was still the potential to stir the planet’s own energy and direct it at the fighters. Unfortunately… with our own forces tied up with them, I couldn’t be sure to hit only the pirate fighters.

On the other, as much as I wanted to personally start chasing them down and help the fighters, I had wounded men on the ground and I wasn’t sure the enemy down there were entirely done. I could also do more to help by going down and using the Force for healing, than I could by adding one more to the air battle ongoing.

So the question was, which did I value more? The lives of my men, or killing the people who had attacked them?

A frustrated sound escaped me and I turned away from the dogfight currently ongoing. Diving below the canopy, I keyed up again. “Mando drop ships, this is Capt. Tanya Mereel, requesting immediate medevac for my men.”

“Roger that, Capt. Mereel. Get them to a clearing and we’ll take them back to the Redoubt.”

“Capt. Mereel, this is Sgt. Carlac, I’m leading this group of Mandos. All hostiles have been eliminated. I’ve got a couple of medics with me. If your Republic men will sound off, we’ll help drag them out where our transports can load them up.”

I nodded at the response. “Thank you, sergeant. You heard them, men. If you’re injured and can’t move, pop flares or smoke and we’ll come to you. If you can’t do either, sound off. Everyone who can move, focus on getting our wounded out into the open.”

With that, I got to work doing what I could to stabilize anyone in need of it, until they could reach the medbay of the ship Satine had sent. Above us, the sounds of fighting trailed off over the next few minutes, until the hum of the Mando fighters faded into the distance as they left, leaving behind only the two transports.

Standing under the shower, an actual water shower, I sighed as the tension drained out of my body. I just stood there under the high pressure shower head for a while. Then, I scrubbed until my skin felt raw while letting my hair soak in shampoo. When I finished rinsing off, I switched the shower over to high intensity sonic and stood under it another five minutes, letting it blast my body.

When I stepped out, I made a face as I still smelled the cloying stench—though just a hint of it, under the smell of recycled air, soap, and shampoo. At this point, I was pretty sure I’d have to wash my noses and sinuses out to truly get rid of the smell any time soon.

I wiped the steam off the mirror and began drying off as I checked myself over. Even now, days later, I was still looking for anything I had missed. Call it vanity, but I was glad my hair hadn’t been permanently stained. I would have been more than a little annoyed.

Stepping out of the bathroom into my personal quarters, my bare feet padding softly on the carpeted deck, I enjoyed the way the cold air made gooseflesh stand out on my skin and didn’t even complain as certain other things responded differently. After the oppressive, miserable mess that was living on Felucia, this was heaven.

Opening the small dresser, I found a black bodysuit in my size and smiled. I quickly stepped into it, followed by a set of socks and my chest piece, then dug in the closet. What I found was a one piece, coverall style uniform, also in black. I had seen some of the crew wearing them—not the Mandos, who were easy to pick out as they all wore armor, even if they went lids off. I got dressed in that and a set of boots, then pulled on my belt, with my lightsabers and staff.

Moving back to the dresser, I opened the box containing my pips and put them on. A star and three silver chevrons, denoting a lieutenant colonel in the Mandalorian ranking structure.

Apparently, I had been promoted at some point in my absence. I’d thought to ask why, but digging through my own personnel file available from the Redoubt’s computer had given me an answer. According to my service record, I had been promoted for service to Mandalore, in directing my little fleet of ships in hunting down pirates and quietly raiding Trade Federation operations.

Being a privateer paid off, it would seem.

The holocom on the desk chimed and I made my way over, hitting the button to pick up. It was audio only, from the bridge comms officer, according to the ID displayed. “Yes?”

“Ma’am, comms coming through from Corulag. A Col. Cagilo. What should I tell him?”

“Put him through,” I instructed, and sat down.

The holographic projector kicked on and I saw the colonel sitting at his desk on Corulag. He looked a bit more rumpled than usual. Looking up as soon as I appeared, he raised an eyebrow at what he saw. After a moment, he chuckled. “From lieutenant to lieutenant colonel. That’s quite the jump.”

I allowed myself a small smile. “From captain, actually.”

“How accurate was that report you sent?” he asked, having decided to move on and not comment further.

“I cut out all the ‘Jedi bullshit,’” I shrugged. “If you questioned the men personally, they’ll probably tell you some rather unbelievable stories. If that winds up in any official reports, you should put them down to… jungle fever. I’m sure our medics will corroborate this.”

“‘Jungle fever?’” he repeated, his tone somewhere between incredulous and amused.

“Oh yes,” I nodded. “Everyone was exposed to the spores of a certain type of fungi on Felucia. It produced hallucinations, paranoia, and the like. Impaired judgment. Only a few of us appeared to be immune, or resistant. As I’ve said in my reports, everyone conducted themselves admirably given the situation. Anyone who may have made a bad decision, well… They shouldn’t be blamed for circumstances beyond their control.”

“I see,” the colonel murmured. “And the reality?”

“FUBAR from the start. Intel dropped the ball and we walked into an enemy who were prepared for us and wanted us dead, as a message to the Republic to give up Felucia. Supply fucked us when they left out our base shield, but marked it as there on the documents. I’m sure you’ve seen my reports on the new equipment’s performance, but to sum it up, they’re going to need some serious work and they are not subtle at all. I’d rather have had more LAATs. Also, highly recommend up-armoring those and adding door guns. Sensor sweep from the ship didn’t pick up anything and pretty much proved the current gen sensors are useless on Felucia. My own senses were equally useless. We did our best with what we had, but we were up against a better equipped force with a home field advantage, and using technology in a way we weren’t expecting.”

“The mining droids, yes,” Col. Cagilo nodded. “And the Mandos?”

“Officially? Just happened to be passing by.”

“Unofficially?” he asked, sending me a raised eyebrow.

“I was able to get a message out using a Force technique and a friend sent help. They provided fire support, then medical support.”

“Alright. That answers everything I wanted answered,” he nodded, then tapped something on his computer. A moment later, I received a file. Opening it on the computer sitting on the desk, I raised an eyebrow as I saw my Republic issued file had been updated. “After that mess, I put you up for promotion. There were some in command who wanted you busted back down to private for losing so many men on a ‘training exercise,’ but when they saw the footage taken on site and actually read the reports, they changed their tune. So, congratulations on your promotion, Major Mereel. I’ll be shipping your pips to Serenno, along with a couple of medals.”

“Medals?” I asked, incredulous.

The colonel nodded. “Your men put you up for one for saving at least a dozen of them yourself.”

There was a question in there somewhere and I answered, “Force Healing.”

“Useful,” he chuckled. “The other is basically, well, no two ways about it. The brass want this to go away. It’s going to stink like shit and they don’t want to deal with it. Too many people coming up on promotions or retirement to let word get out. So they’re throwing two ranks and a medal at you, in exchange for keeping your mouth shut. Consider the mission details sealed. Now, you don’t have to take the deal. You could kick up a fuss… But I’m asking you, as a favor, to take it.”

“Of course they would,” I grumbled, but nodded. “Very well, colonel. I realize the precarious position you’re in here. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and for Master Dooku. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Please consider this my official resignation from the Republic Army.”

“Thank you. And I’ll put in the paperwork. I’m sure they won’t complain too much,” he sighed. “Well, major, I wish you luck moving forward. Take care of yourself.”

“You as well, colonel.”

I disconnected the call and leaned back in my seat with a sigh. Considering the holocom, I decided to stop putting off the call I’d hesitated to make since I boarded the Redoubt. Typing in the number from memory, I waited for it to connect.

A few moments later, the screen came to life with another hologram—full color, this time. On the other side of the line were Master Dooku and Jenza, sitting in their office. The older man looked me over for a moment, before tension drained out of him—it was minute, but I had learned his tells. Jenza likewise studied me, as her brother said, “Tanya. It is good to see you well.”

“You as well, Master.”

“You’ve grown,” Jenza smiled. “No longer quite the little girl I remember.”

“Not done either, apparently,” I sent her a rueful smile. Shifting my focus back to Master Dooku, I said, “I’ve concluded my stint with the Republic Army. I’ll be sending my notes along with my report shortly, but I can summarize. In short, they’re under-staffed, under-funded, under-equipped, and under-trained. I had to stop myself numerous times from correcting errors in their training and tactics that my own wouldn’t have tolerated. The system is rife with corruption and not prepared to face any sort of ground war with even a near-peer. They’ve gotten fat and lazy, but they’ve got numbers. I’d expect any ground combat to go poorly for the current Republic Army at first, before they eventually drown the enemy in bodies. There are a few standout examples of exemplary soldiers and competent leadership, but they are few and far between.”

“I see,” Master Dooku murmured. “We suspected as much, but it is good to have that confirmed.” He paused, then corrected himself, “Good for us, at any rate.”

“Should I make my way to Anaxes next, and enroll in the navy war college?”

Master Dooku considered me for a moment, before shaking his head. “No, I think not. Not quite yet.” Sitting forward in his seat, he sent me a smile. “I would like to ask a favor of you, Tanya.”

“Of course. Whatever you need, Master.”

His smile grew amused. “You may not think so when you learn what it is,” he chuckled. “I would like you to go to Dathomir for me, and retrieve someone. A prospective Jedi student, from the Singing Mountain clan. Speak with Augwynne and she will introduce you to the student in question. After which, meet me at the Jedi Temple on Jedha.”

“Am I to deliver the girl to the Jedi, then?” I asked, wondering why they weren’t just sending one of their usual recruiters.

That amusement was back, and mirrored on Jenza’s face. “I would ask that you train her.”

I blinked. “Excuse me? I must have misheard. I could have sworn you said—”

“Train her, yes,” Master Dooku confirmed, nodding.

“That’s what I was afraid you said,” I murmured.

“It will not be for long. A year, perhaps two. Once she is ready, I will take her on as my Padawan. Before that, however, I would like you to prepare her. There are some tasks I have that your skills are most suited to. Consider it a… How did you put it?” he asked, looking to Jenza.

“A working vacation,” the woman grinned. “Don’t worry, we think you’ll enjoy this. I’ve reached out to Capt. Taris and your ship will be waiting for you when you get to Dathomir. The smaller one, not the corsair.”

I considered the pair for a moment, before nodding. “Very well. I’ll do it.”

I’ll stop by Mandalore on the way and get some new robes.

“So,” Jenza began, “how was your training?”

I sent her an unamused look. “An exercise in frustration and a constant test of my patience, which ended poorly.”

“Why don’t you tell us? We can catch you up on what’s been happening here,” the woman offered, and I nodded.

Standing, I made my way over to the small kitchenette in my quarters and began making myself some tea. “Fine. It began with a four way brawl where I established dominance over my peers…”