Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 368 (Patreon)

Hey everyone, just an FYI, there will be no posts on Friday the 6th and Monday the 9th of November. I will be taking a rather needed small break to spend some time with family. Normal posting will resume on the 10th.

Thank you for your support and patience!

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Despite it being relatively late on our side, it was just barely past midday at Alpha Base, which meant that my efforts to reach out to General Syndulla quickly paid off. Within ten minutes of the request, which only happened after a quick trip up to the Fury, the Rebel General was projected above our communication projector. She was dressed in a combination of her normal outfit and a leather jacket bearing her rank, the closest thing to a uniform I had ever seen her wear.  

“Admiral Deacon, it's good to see you,” She said with a smile. “What can I help you with?”

"It's good to see you as well, General Syndulla,” I greeted in response, matching her smile. “First, I have a question. Are you familiar with the results of the political summit we shared with Princess Leia?” 

“I am, all ranking members of the Rebellion have been kept in the loop,” she assured me. “I was glad to hear the Skyforged trusted us enough to create the Pages of Collaboration.”

“It's a fair draft, and I believe in the Rebellion, even if some of the officers are not my favorite people,” I responded. “However, that's not why I called. Part of the pages was the purchase of six Dovah-Class Heavy Cruisers.”

“Yes, I was very interested in that section,” She said with a nod. “Quite a few of our fleet leaders are clamoring to get one or two of them in their groups. Admiral Ackbar has already claimed the first two.” 

“I’m glad to see that our ships are in such high demand,” I said with a nod. “Part of the negotiation was the idea of adjusting their price according to any parts you could deliver that we would have to otherwise make or purchase. We believe we managed to find a source for one of those parts.”

I sent the summarized version of the information, outlining it in my own words as she scanned through the data. 

“This certainly looks like a good place to start, but I get the feeling that's not it,” she said, looking up from the console she was reading the data from. “Why present this yourself? Why reach out directly?” 

“Because I was thinking about offering a joint exercise,” I responded. “A ground team or two of my people working with yours. If successful, we can split the parts two-to-one, in your favor. It should come out to around a four million credit reduction for your side, spread between two ships.

“I see that, it's a generous offer, but why make it?” She asked, tilting her head curiously. “I was under the impression that it would be our responsibility to gather the parts.” 

“Yes, but this is a particularly large target, with series ground security and a small defensive force in orbit and an escort for the cargo transports,” I explained. “Not the easiest nut to crack, unless you're an astoundingly capable mercenary who has experience with this kind of mission. Plus, it's a good way for both sides to learn from each other. We could offer two ground teams to assist.” 

“That… Alright, I need to make some calls, discuss this with my peers,” She said. “I would likely have an answer for you by the end of the day.” 

“Sounds good. I’ll send over the full data file so you can make up your minds,” I responded, turning to look at my comms officer, who, after a moment or tw,o nodded and held a thumbs up out for me.

“What-” she started to say, listening for a moment for something off-screen, before looking back at me. “You're not keeping the details for yourself?” 

“No,” I responded, shaking my head. "Though Sheora wanted me to, and Tatnia will likely complain. While I would like to be involved, for a few reasons, I’m not going to hold it over your head. This information is freely given, as it should be between allies.” 

She watched me through the projector for a long moment before nodding in agreement. 

“We appreciate that, Admiral Deacon,” She said, her words ringing with honest sincerity. “I will get back to you shortly.” 

I nodded, and a moment later the projection vanished, and I took a seat on the huge captain's chair at the center of the large bridge. There wasn’t much left to do now but wait, not with Tatnia and Ahsoka down on the surface handling the mission prep. I quickly sent a message to some of the leaders of our ground teams, seeing if anyone wanted to join us for a mission. Vi Galti was the first to volunteer her squad, so I told her to start getting ready.

It would be interesting to work with the Mandalorian, since the crew she was in charge of was made up of ten of her own warriors, as well as eight Jedi, and normally, beyond Ahsoka, there were no other Jedi in the ground teams of the 1st Fleet. Of course, one of her Mandalorians was also a mage, though the female mage hadn’t passed into the Apprentice level of spells yet, which was becoming more and more of an outlier as our mages improved. 

Within a few hours, which I spent mostly napping in a nearby room, General Syndulla returned with news. 

“We discussed it, and we think that tentatively we agree,” she explained with a nod. “Though there was some concern voiced about what would happen if we were successful, stole these reactor panels, and then you ended up not including your pages in the charter. That would undo our need for them.” 

“I mean they are still worth quite a bit, so selling them likely won't be difficult,” I pointed out. “Not to mention I know for a fact you have at least three ships that use them, so keeping some spares would be a good idea.”

“They rarely need replacing, but you're not wrong,” she admitted.

“In the worst-case scenario, we can use my mothballed ships as collateral,” I assured her. “If for some reason things don’t go well with the charter, then we will trade you one of the ships for your portion of the panels.”

“You would trade with us if the charter failed?” She asked, sounding surprised. 

“Yeah. I mean, I would reduce the discount significantly and stop handing out freebies, but yes,” I explained with a frown. “You guys are a source of income on top of being allies.” 

“I see… Well, we would like to invite you to Alpha Base to discuss the mission and come up with a finalized plan of attack,” She explained. “I’ve been put in charge of this mission, and I’m hoping to have a rough idea of how to attack this by the time you get here.”

“Fantastic news, we will likely be leaving within the next ten hours, so expect it in three days," I said with a nod. "I'll reach out if something goes wrong and we are delayed."

After a few more clerical points, followed by a brief goodbye later, the call disconnected. With our involvement all but solidified, I confirmed the mission to Vi and Tatnia before going about solving our transportation issue. We could just borrow a ship from either the 1st or 4th Fleet, or any fleet really, but I didn’t want to weaken them any more than I had to. All of our fleets would be going on missions while we were away, so it was better to leave them with as much firepower as we could. Instead, I raided our mothballed shipyard in deep space, ordering that the two remaining IPVs be brought back to Nirn. 

Technically, only a few of the ships in the deep space storage spot were actually mothballed, since I had quickly traded out converting our starships to our improved, smaller crewsized standard for converting some of the space stations we stole to similar metrics. But that was okay because IPVs kept pretty small crews, so it was easy to round up ten crew members per ship, even on such short notice. 

By the time they arrived, all of our supplies were prepped and could be quickly loaded on board. I temporarily named the ships the Jump and the Jack, mostly because a few crew members refused to pilot an unnamed ship. 

They weren’t a fan of the idea of a temporary name either, but that was a problem for another time. 

As the ships were being loaded and prepared, the crew ran them through a very extended warm-up checklist, just to make sure the ships were in good condition, which had already been confirmed, but no one complained about confirming it again. Personally, I wasn’t ecstatic about traveling in ships that weren’t up to our usual maxed standards, but the IPVs didn’t really have much room for intense upgrades, so we weren’t missing out on much.

Four hours after ending the second call with General Syndulla, the Jump and Jack jumped to lightspeed from Nirn, heading through the shortest route through hyperspace to Alpha Base.

While the trip wouldn't be too long, the IPVs were a bit too small to get up to anything grand, so most of the trip was spent just hanging around, waiting to arrive. Space was so tight, in fact, that Vi had to set up a sleep rotation and share beds. It wasn’t awful, they could spread out to a degree, but without a few extra bedrooms like we had on our finished versions of the ships, there just weren't enough beds.

Eventually, however, we reached Alpha Base. It was busy as always, with its defense fleet stationed in a tight orbit, and other ships coming and going every once in a while, ranging from small starfighter groups to a small fleet of capital ships. I even recognized one of the ships we sold them recently from the blitz. 

It didn’t take long for us to get permission to land, settling the two ships on the outskirts of the landing fields around the mountain base. For the first time in a while, I couldn't see any work crews on the surface of the mountain, which made me wonder if they were finally done modifying and improving the base.

By that point, the once CIS secret lab had been transformed into a seriously protected base, with two heavy surface ion cannons, the same large ball turrets we used, and several salvaged turbo lasers. They repaired all the previous weapons the facility had on its surface, and installed a planetary shield generator too. I also knew they had several fleets of CIS starfighters tucked into their many hangars, new and old, ready to throw themselves at whatever target the Rebellion required. 

It was far from what Nirn had, but they could likely hold off a decent-sized assault long enough for people to escape, without basically gambling and throwing lives away the whole time, which made it better than Hoth by a considerable mile.

Once we landed, we were greeted by the usual transport vehicles. Tatnia, Ahsoka, Vi, and her second-in-command for the ground team all hopped on board. It turns out that I was actually familiar with her second-in-command, as it was Malua Var'Samallo, a Balosar female and one of Amescoll's Knights who had been stuck on Nirn oh so long ago. Considering that when we first met she was eager to get off planet, I’m not surprised she was one of the Jedi who joined a combat group.

Once we were dropped off inside the base, we headed up to one of the briefing rooms. It was not a massive room like we had used before, but rather a simple utilitarian one, with a single small holoprotector in the middle of the decent-sized circular space, with chairs and tables circling around it. We picked our seats from one of the corners and settled in.

We were alone for a few minutes before General Syndulla, along with a handful of others, arrived. Hera introduced them as the Captain in charge of the ships we were being given for this mission, as well as the commando team lead we would be working with on the ground. 

By the way that the latter eagerly shook my hand and expressed excitement at getting to work with us, he was either a serious fan, or he was looking forward to seeing what her could learn as we were on mission.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the major difference between Rebel commandos and the Skyforged Vanguards ground teams was how much we valued our people, and how much we were willing to spend on keeping them safe while they kicked ass and took names. 

Plus my magic, which, to be fair, was a pretty big difference. My enchantments gave my ground teams a powerful edge.

After we had all settled in, Hera started us off by standing from her seat and walking towards the center of the room, activating the projector. She gave a brief reintroduction to our target, before looking around the room. 

“Now, the primary goal is to get the reactor paneling off the planet,” she said. “To my eyes, the best way to do that is to be as patient as possible and attack when they have just finished loading it up into their cargo ship, which, according to the data we have, will be a pair of Star Galleons.”

I winced, as while the Star Galleons were good ships I would happily steal, as they were tough and could haul a ton of cargo, they were also a pain to take over without disabling them first. They had a lot of security systems, and they were specifically designed to counter cargo theft. 

“They also have an escort, which will be waiting in orbit along with a small defensive fleet. We know the defensive fleet will be a single Vindicator-class and three Guardian-class light cruisers, but we are less sure about the escort, as they seem to change constantly. While we aren't sure what they will be, they have never gone beyond three ships, and usually it is a single Arquiten and two gozanti, which normally haul four TIE fighters each. We will have to engage quickly, inserting the combat teams to the ground to start capturing the Galleons immediately, or risk them escaping to orbit and either jumping themselves, or launching their cargo through hyperspace. 

“Now we have plenty of firepower to handle their escort and defensive fleet, even at their largest, but if the Star Galleons take off and join the fight, then things can get significantly more difficult. They may be transports, but they are armed and armored to fight off pirates.”

“So the idea is to jump in, engage the escort and defensive fleet while we insert and quickly make our way down to the surface, steal the cargo ships, and then jump out somewhere safe?” I asked.

“That's correct.  We will likely need separate ground teams, one to take the ships and one to strip down the cargo loading area of its defenses, so that they don’t take out the Star Galleons as we escape,” She confirmed. “That is the general plan. Of course, this is a collaborative effort, I am happy to hear from the experts."