The Force Wills - Chapter 178 (Patreon)

Conqueror shuddered as the docking clamps on her nose were violently disassembled by accurate blaster cannon fire.

(AN: Word of warning, this chapter deals with a theme of suicide.)

The last of the tractor beams went offline with a direct concussion missile strike.

“Reverse thrusters, bring us around and max burn for interdiction point aurek!” I snapped. “Captain Ontir, I need you at Point Besh to intercept outbound to the Kailor hyper point. Send your fighters after the freighters that still haven’t jumped to hyper. I’m afraid the governor’s order will not make it in time for those ships.”

The view ahead spun as the massive depot station swung out of view, replaced by void and the occasional point of light that showed the sheer volume of ship traffic.

No matter what speed we moved at, it was very much a case of trying to shut the barn door on a herd of horses trying to bolt out.

For an interminably long 90 seconds it was a race between Conqueror, Deceptor, her fighters and the queues of the freighters approaching the hyper points.

During that time I was frantically squawking the general emergency frequencies that every decent freighter captain should’ve been listening to or at least would have a droid listening to.

“Condition Ruusan, Ruusan, Ruusan! All traffic in Broest system is under emergency quarantine. This is General Ahsoka Tano of the GAR Navy. All ships are to cut engines and secure hyperdrives. Stand by for a formal order from the governor.”

Conqueror blasted my words out on a constant loop.

I brought up the largest tactical holo my command chair was capable of, showing every ship sensors could track leading away from the planet and its orbital structures.

The effect of my words and broadcast washed outward and I counted dozens of fluctuating emissions as various freighters heeded my command.

That still left hundreds continuing towards the two major hyper points.

“Come on, come on. Listen,” I muttered under my breath.

Such was the volume of traffic coming and going, that there was no magical button or order that could bring this flow to a halt instantly.

“Comms, the instant we have the governor’s declaration, send a long range message to Wukkar and Kailor that any ship outbound from Broest is to be quarantined. Make sure to append a data package that the authorities there know what they are detailing with.”

“Understood, General.”

As both ships rushed outward, more and more freighters began heeding my desperate broadcast. A big part that helped was seeing two Navy Acclamators accelerating like hell straight up and past your back, with all their guns bristling. That alone would make any freighter captain hesitate and think about their life choices, not to mention their career when the cards fell on the table.

Finally, in what had to be a bureaucratic record, just two minutes later…

“General, broadcast on emergency frequencies from the governor, declaring the entire system under quarantine,” announced Comms.

“Stop our own broadcast. Let's see if this makes more of a difference. Guns, bring Ion cannons online.”

“Ions charging, General.”

Conqueror didn’t have a full suite of Ion Cannons, as her role was never envisaged to be used as a full traffic interdictor. Yet she did have six of them tucked away that could be brought to bear only in the forward arc. With good enough maneuvering and accurate gunnery, it should be relatively easy.

“Approaching interdiction point, General.”

“Thank you, Nav. Bring us and Deceptor in a patrol pattern of the jump points.”

In the few seconds that we were on station, three new empty freighters appeared from hyper, whilst four freighters were still burning for the point as if they had every intention to jump. Deceptor on the other hand, had seven freighters burning toward the Kailor point.

I felt my fists clench and fought to keep them from smashing against my armrests in frustration, “Captain Ontir, you have my full permission to fire warning shots across the bow to wake those captains up. You don’t have Ions, fire to disable as best you can.”

We both knew even with the most conservative of low power shots from capital turbolasers and the most accurate gunnery, there were no guarantees.

“Understood, General.”

I stared at the four freighters still coming my way, now reaching 150k km and still showing no signs of hitting the figurative breaks with reverse thrust.

“Comms, give a direct broadcast to those incoming ships.”

“Frequency open, general.”

“Guns, go active. I want a lock on all four. Ready torpedoes.”

“Going active, General. We have a targeting solution. Torpedoes ready.”

A quick tap on the holopanel brought up the com system, “This is General Tano to Royal Siren, CG431, Spectator and Emissary. You have received a Code Ruusan quarantine order from the Governor of Broest and myself. Scans indicate your com system and transponders are active. You have received this order. Yet you are continuing towards the Wukkar point. Engage reverse thrust immediately. You have thirty seconds to comply.”

I listened as Ontir gave his own ultimatum to the ships still bearing down on him.

The seconds ticked on by, with no reply and no reverse thrust detected.

“Comscan, go full active on those ships. How many life signs on board?”

It didn’t take long for the clone who managed the many sensors of the Conqueror to deliver an answer. “General, Royal Siren has twenty, CG431, sixteen, Spectator, 32, Emissary, fourteen.”

None of the bulk freighters bearing down on us were of the exact same ship, ranging from the smaller Corellian Action VI, the classic BFF-1, to the thin skinned freighter behemoths from Mon Cala that were five kilometers long.

There was no way you could convince that many people to effectively commit suicide by Navy!

Unless the captains or someone with access had locked themselves into the bridge and right now we were watching eleven active mutinies in progress. No, something didn’t feel right here. The whole situation strained believability, especially when I brought up the ship profiles and history, speed reading through every captain’s public and confidential record.

These men and women had decades of ship duty behind them, with only one being relatively junior and new to the job. Even that one had nine years of small freighter experience.

“Comscan, confirm your readings for me.”

Seconds later the answer came, “Confirmed General. My scopes tell me the same thing, even with a full system refresh.”

The timer ticked past thirty seconds and the bulk freighters entered into extreme gun range.

How I wished for the magical photon torpedoes of another universe that could dial its yield down.

“Guns give them a single warning salvo across their bow.”

“Understood, General. Firing.”

Twelve of the turbolasers adjusted on the Conqueror’s forward arc and released bright blue bolts into the void.

A few seconds later, the Deceptor did the same.

Each bolt missed their targets by a mere dozen meters, which if you factored in relative velocities and travel time, was very good gunnery by any metric, even for computer controlled fire directors assisted by the gunner’s own skill.

My fingers drummed on the chair armrest and I watched every scan profile in the tactical holo for any change…

Nothing.

Constant forward thrust and even indications that the hyperdrives were spooling in their initial readiness cycles.

“Nav, Z positive by 600 kilometers. Guns, Ion cannon solution on the Royal Siren and Spectator. Port turbolasers target CG431, starboard targets Emissary, with 15% power.”

It felt like I was speaking with ashes in my mouth, my spine came alive, and my stomach twisted on itself.

Were they really going to do this?

I pushed my prescience forward, reaching out and straining my senses across the intervening space towards the incoming ships.

Come on! Reach! Go!  Ignore stupid preconceptions. Prove Dooku right! 400k kilometers is NOTHING.

My current reach was planetary distances. Extending from a high orbit down to a planet. Going further always felt like… no, not impossible. It was frightening as hell! Spanning the mind through that gulf of emptiness…

Let go, Ahsoka.

Conquering my own reaction to suddenly hearing that voice, which was threatening my fragile control, was the single hardest thing I could imagine achieving, yet I somehow managed.

Very easy for you to say, Master Jinn.

Then, like a diver facing an entirely new depth, I plunged.

My own perceptual anchor on my body strained like never before…

I needed to know. I must know.

…

Then I did.

Fear is the mindkiller.

“Guns, open fire!”

The electric white bolts of ion cannon fire screamed across the vastness of space, just as the freighters crossed 50k km range. Joined a moment later by dull blue turbolasers.

Royal Siren’s meager civilian shields were barely an obstacle. The ion fire washed over the dorsal hull and immediately the lights and engines began stuttering.

Spectator’s engines cut out immediately.

CG431 and Emissary’s shield were battered down, resisting the initial turbolasers rather impressively, but the follow-on barrage began biting down into the engine blisters, sending debris and hull spraying outward on ballistic arcs.

The Deceptor’s fighters swarmed around their targets, doing strafing runs of each freighter’s engine blisters.

I reached out across the gulf of distance and pulled them all into the Battle Meditation.

In less than a minute four of the seven freighters were mostly disabled, coasting on their velocity, listing due to thruster malfunctions, their reactors auto-scramming as damage control kicked in.

The remaining three charged forward, seemingly intent on a collision course straight for the Deceptor.

The Acclamator could easily outmaneuver these ponderous freighters on any ordinary day.

Captain Ontir would not hesitate in the necessity of sacrificing himself and his command for victory or a greater objective, I could feel that. Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary and whoever was in charge of this entire mess on the other side was trying to force the Republic’s hand.

The Deceptor fired dorsal thrusters at the last possible moment, Ontir letting the opponent believe that they were succeeding before abruptly disabusing them of that notion.

The Acclamator slipped under, the freighters passing within just a few kilometers over the upper superstructure of the ship.

Ontir had matched his relative velocities almost perfectly, giving his gunners the maximal chance for time on target and accuracy.

Low strength turbolaser volleys fired once, twice, and finally a third time.

“Comscan, tell me those ships aren’t going anywhere?” I asked calmly.

“Engines on all ships are down, reactors scrammed, varying levels of damage to their hyperdrives based on detectable emissions. Some could engage, but they’d never leave hyperspace again.”

He had barely finished his report when one of the freighters Deceptor had disabled, became a small brief flash of light, then an expansive spherical debris field that raced outward.

“Which ship was that?” I asked stoically, fighting to control my anger.

“CS Constellation, HHG-42 Bulkstar class freighter, General.

“Crew compliment?”

“31 lifesigns were registered before the explosion.”

I stared into the tactical holo, looking at all the ships that had obeyed the order, the ships that were arriving with every minute. An audience that had watched the Republic Navy disable and now destroy a civilian ship for trying to run from an interdiction. Something inconvenient like the facts wouldn’t matter, when I had just handed to my opponent the perfect anti-Republic propaganda footage. The Code Ruusan declaration and quarantine of the system would only matter in the aftermath.

The bulkhead door to the bridge opened and Anakin strode through in his full armor, his half-robes billowing behind him.

I felt his understanding, his…

He strode up to my chair and placed a single hand on my shoulder. “You did everything right, Snips.”

“The blood of 31 people was just thrown into my hands,” I said hollowly. “Master. Please find who did this. I refuse to believe that over a hundred career spacers and crew would willingly charge down the barrels of our guns.”

“I will. Make sure you contact the Council. It’s highly possible that the bioweapon has already reached Coruscant or other Core Worlds that Broest feeds.”

“Next on my to-do list,” I sighed wearily. “Flight Ops, launch S&R shuttles.”

This was going to be a fun conversation.

888888888888888888888888888888888888888

“Quick briefing, so listen closely.”

Anakin stared at the mix of 501st and 96th ARC troopers that occupied the troop shuttle’s hold as it raced through space.

“We do not expect trouble, but be ready for it. Our primary task is rescuing the crew of the Royal Siren, secondary is to investigate why they disobeyed a valid quarantine order from the governor and General Tano. Therefore, your weapons will be on stun at all times… unless trouble appears.”

“How sure are we of that, sir?” Rex asked wearily.

“We’ve scanned these ships thoroughly, but every possibility is there that the Separatists have developed new masking that hides their droids from long range scans.”

“One minute to dock!” called the pilot.

“You know the drill. Helmets locked, make sure your seals are tight and life support topped up. We are not breathing the air on these ships until it’s been cleared.”

“Yes, sir!”

Anakin knelt next to the ventral airlock mounted in the floor of the troop compartment and began working its systems.

The whole shuttle shuddered briefly.

“Hard dock!”

The doors opened, revealing the outer airlock door of the Royal Siren.

It was the work of a few minutes to stab a logic probe and slice through the security, forcing an equalization cycle.

When the way was open, Anakin jumped, letting the shuttle’s gravity give him just enough momentum, before he was caught in the Siren’s own artificial grav.

A quick flip and he was on his feet in proper orientation, with his lightsaber ready, but not yet lit.

The airlock room was deserted; not a living soul or any sensor-masked war droid reception waiting for them. Just the background din of a starship’s straining life support and still active systems humming in the air.

“Clear!”

The ARC troopers handled the gravity change with more care and less speed, but soon enough Anakin was joined by two squads, whilst the reserve squad would remain behind and guard the shuttle.

“Aurek squad on me. Besh, head for the engine room.”

Anakin took point and headed straight, whilst Besh turned left at the first intersection.

The ship’s lights were flickering occasionally, still being affected by the residual ions that had washed through all its systems. The crew corridors were narrow, utilitarian, shaped as a squashed oval, as if they were walking through the blood vein of a greater beast, with exposed ducting and conduits in the walls. It hardly seemed to deserve having ‘Royal’ in its name.

Over the next half hour they traversed carefully through almost eight hundred meters of corridor and cargo holds; the latter filled with caverns of packaged and unpackaged food.

“Where is everyone?” Fives couldn’t help but ask over the squad net.

“Most of the crew's lifesigns were clustered around bridge and engineering. Eyes peeled, almost there.” Anakin answered.

He halted their advance at an intersection, holding up a fist, before signaling ‘four’ potential hostiles.

A single gesture and they breached into the corridor with weapons raised.

“Republic Navy! Don’t move!”

The four miserable looking figures slumped against the corridor walls flinched and gasped.

Three humans and a togruta male in stained overalls, staring at them with wide eyes.

“Hands! Show your hands!”

It took a few tense moments but all of them raised their arms, showing them completely empty in the flickering light. Scattered around them were tool boxes and just ahead was the firmly closed bulkhead door to the bridge.

Anakin only needed only one look to begin seeing the picture of what had been happening on the Royal Siren and potentially all the other ships.

“Where’s your captain?”

The four crew looked at each other with a grim acceptance in their emotions, before the togruta stood wearily, keeping his hands raised. “I am captain. Captain Gosek Valim of the Royal Siren.”

“Well, Captain Valim, do you have a good explanation for why your ship just tried to run through an interdiction quarantine?”

The togruta with light red tattoo patterns on his face and long lekku nodded, “That would be because one of our new crewmen went crazy. Kiledonn Hali, a local hire, forced us out the bridge at gunpoint. Took control and even sliced me out of my own ship’s systems somehow. We’ve been trying to get back into the bridge ever since, but then your ion cannons made a mess of everything! I’ve been waiting for the crew to get back here with a plasma cutter, but engineering is quite far away with our turbolifts offline.”

Anakin nodded, not sensing any lie in the Valim’s explanation or emotions. “Understood, Captain. My name is General Skywalker of the 501st. How attached are you to that bridge bulkhead door?”

He blinked in brief confusion, “Attached? You mean-”

Anakin casually activated his lightsaber, “What can your repair budget handle?”

“Oh, yes, uh, as little damage as possible, please. I shudder already at the cost of making her spaceworthy again.”

“Since you were clearly the victim of enemy action, and we shot you with Ion cannons, you can apply to the GAR for partial repair reimbursement.”

Anakin stepped forward and stabbed his blade precisely at one of the primary hinges, pulling it down and making a few more strategic stabs and cuts.

“Oh! Well, I’ll make sure to do that.”

“Stand back.”

Anakin made a mild gesture once everyone was out the way and hundreds of kilos of airtight bulkhead door lifted into the air, hovering back before resting against the corridor’s side.

Aurek squad breached into the revealed bridge immediately, weapons tracking and doing localized sweeps.

“Clear!”

The bridge on this Mon Cal built freighter was spacious, circular with the smooth organic lines characteristic of the aquatic race that had built it originally. It had received general upgrades and retrofits to accommodate land walkers, but it was still a remarkably nice work environment for a freighter bridge; spacious, chairs that hovered on repulsors, expansive transparisteel vistas that looked directly out into the void. The flickering lights and systems were the only thing that really detracted from it.

Anakin’s attention was immediately drawn to the central captain’s chair, where a lifeless arm hung from its side, a blaster pistol dangling precariously from a trigger finger.

He called on the Force, fortifying his body and readying a kinetic shield, just in case, as he carefully stepped around the chair.

The view was what you’d expect from a close range, self-inflicted blaster shot directly to the left temple. Most of the right side of the skull was gone; a scored carbonized mess, the brain tissue mostly gone and what was left was only a smoking ruin.

He beckoned for Valim to come look.

“This is Hali?”

The togruta winced slightly but nodded, “Yes.”

Anakin put the grisly sight out of mind and focused on the two odd things on the bridge that definitely didn’t belong.

Hali’s dead body was clutching a large datapad on his lap, which was connected with a dedicated conduit link to a large device that was built on an astromech droid chassis that still had its legs and deployable wheels for maneuverability.

It had a clear dish antenna, sixty centimeters in diameter where the head would be, and underneath was an array of 32 computation holostacks, glowing with blue light. The workmanship was quite remarkable, for something that was also custom built and assembled. Nothing like this came from a factory floor, except for the holostacks themselves.

“What is that?” Valim squinted at the device. “Besides the obvious, it’s a ton of portable computing capacity that can communicate.”  

Anakin made double sure his armor holocams were recording and even established a link back to Conqueror that would save it as well on the databases there. “Rex, I want all your helmet cams up and recording. Should’ve done this from the start.”

It was something that Ahsoka had insisted on in her own classes to the 501st, something she was undoubtedly doing for the 96th as well. Every soldier on the battlefield is a set of eyes, an intel gathering mechanism and in some cases even an evidence gathering mechanism in the aftermath of a crime. 

“Cams are recording, General,” Rex confirmed.

Anakin walked around the captain’s chair, viewing every angle before stepping forward and lifting the datapad from the corpse.

Most prominent on the screen was a single text window that displayed a suicide note.

I am not a Separatist.

I am a farmer’s son from Broest. My family has worked this soil for generations. We fed the Republic for decades and asked for nothing but fair prices and to be left in peace.

Now our harvests go to their armies. They turned my world into a supply depot for a war against people who also just wanted to be left alone. After Scipio, the finances of our family were devastated. We did everything right, but the greed and actions of financiers in its wake has our farm near bankruptcy. More ships came. More demands for food. Even our subsistence share was demanded. You can’t eat credits in a bank account, a bank which literally disappeared for a time.

Someone offered a way to stop it. To make the Republic choke on the food they stole.

I took that chance.

I failed. The hijacked ships are dead in space. The quarantine fell. My part is over.

I will not sit in a Republic cell and be paraded as their ‘terrorist’.

I will not give them the satisfaction of a trial.

My blood stays in this system, on Broest soil.

Tell my sister, I am sorry. To the others who believe in this cause, who helped me make this stand; one man wasn’t enough. To the Republic and the Navy cruisers who stopped me I say, every agri-world you bleed dry will eventually push back.

This is not about counts, senators, politics or ideology.

It is about not being owned.

Kiledonn Hali

Proud son of Broest   

Anakin closed his eyes, making sure to transfer the pad to his organic left hand.

When his anger was put behind him, his mind furiously looking back on the path, he had to remind himself that he couldn’t take this suicide note alone as truth. He could think of a dozen ways to stage what he was reading and seeing.

“Captain, did any of you completely leave the bridge corridor at any point?”

Valim frowned, clearly thinking about it before shaking his head, “I’m sorry, Master Jedi. I can’t say for sure. Everything was such a mess, it’s entirely possible. Our intra-ship comms were offline and I had a small crew to coordinate across a huge ship. I had to run all over the place.”

“And of course, the ion cannon strikes would make any bridge security sensor records unreliable,” he sighed with visible frustration. He swiped the suicide note text box away and regarded the control program beneath it.

On it were status display screens and multiple pre-programmed navigation protocols for the exact eleven ships that had tried to run through the interdiction.

He tapped his comlink and, aware that he was actually recording for posterity, changed his usual form of address, “General Tano, are you seeing this?”

“Yes, General Skywalker, I’m tapped into your feed.”

“This feels… off. That’s the best word I have at the moment.”

There were a few seconds of silence on the line. “I’ve reviewed the personnel jacket of Kiledonn Hali. He was a fully qualified spacer, in addition to being a farmer in his youth, he was rated to work on ship computer systems. He studied computing on scholarship at Alderaan. Everything I’m seeing here would allow him the expertise to slice and remotely control eleven freighter ships, which aren’t exactly known for military system security levels.”

Anakin shook his head, “You see the computing array? That alone wouldn’t be enough. There would need to be a physical relay installed in each ship’s navicomputer, to override and keep control. I bet you that the other ships are filled with crews which will tell the same story; sudden loss of navicomputer control and lockouts that prevent local override.”

“That would mean he’d need access to ten different ships, most of whom are either independent outfits or belong to different shipping companies. If we take at least some of his suicide note as truth, then it would indicate he had considerable help. General, something just occurred to me, could you take a closer look at Hali’s left hand for me.”

Anakin nodded, putting down the datapad carefully on the array, stepping around the chair and knelt down.

This close, the blaster pistol model, a BlasTech DL-22 heavy pistol came into close view, hanging limply. Its trigger guard caught on Hali’s left finger.

“His profile indicates he was left-handed, so it makes sense he would use that hand,” Ahsoka explained. “The thing that’s odd here is the visible bruising on that hand.”

His HUD isolated and scanned the surface skin of the fingers and dorsal side of the hand. There were multiple linear gaps in that bruising of unblemished normal skin.

“What am I looking at here, Ahsoka?”

“The hot blaster that indicates this was not a suicide. Nothing in Hali’s psych reports indicate a propensity for it, no matter what his family farm situation was. It doesn’t mean much I know, given how these things can silently build over time in people. What you’re seeing there is bruising from a droid hand clamping down, and forcing the gun to discharge. It’s specifically a BX’s hand and given the coloration, it’s very fresh and happened before he died.”

Anakin surged to his feet, “Rex!”

“I’m on it, General! Aurek Squad, move out! Besh Squad, be on the lookout for BX saboteurs on board. Turn scanners to high gain, short range, it’ll be our best shot at burning through the scan masking.”

Valim turned pale, “Commando droids? On my ship?”

“It seems so, Captain,” Anakin nodded. “I want you to go with my men, and carefully speak to your crew in person. Spread the word. Your ship comlink will be compromised. No one is to be alone, groups of four minimum, arm yourselves if you can and you must have a trooper with you at all times. Understand?”

The togruta captain visibly steadied himself, then addressed the three crew with him, “Yes, General. All right, you lot. Get to your bridge stations, see what you can get working remotely.”

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

I wanted to do nothing more than get off the Conqueror and help with the hunt for the BX droids on the Royal Siren.

Military and practical prudence was firmly keeping my butt seated in the command chair. It had been hours already since the hunt had begun, and Conqueror’s targeting scanners were keeping a close visual lock on the massive cargo freighter. I even ordered a duo of Z95 fighters to keep the ship exterior under combat patrol with maximum sensors blasting space around it, in case the BX commandos tried to space jump.

We needed to catch and ideally disable these droids for a complete forensic scan.

I’d be damned if I allowed this clear enemy action to be swept aside as the misguided workings of a thirty year old farmer’s son turned spacer.

It was clear to me that not only was there a CIS cell at work here, but there was also the sense that a local element of the Broest population was acting in concert with this cell or even being outright manipulated into carrying out the attack. 

I was leaning more toward the latter point of view, since the staged suicide was clearly intended to give more credence to the words on Kiledonn Hali’s note. They had tried to create a martyr and were fomenting anti-Republic sentiment on Broest. The planet was not the only agri-world that served the Core, but it was the most well known to any spacer and the general public who used the Corellian Run often. If this world fell into open secession, the ripple effect on other agri-worlds would be significant.

Especially as Kiledonn Hali’s words would inevitably begin to spread; the CIS cell would make sure of that.

Those words had hit their mark in my mind and heart.

I had tried to model the ripple effects of the Siege of Scipio on the galaxy, only to receive the worst headache after hours of exploring a kaleidoscope of probability lines.

That the greedy finance houses or market players of the galaxy would try to take advantage should’ve been an obvious one. The sheer complexity of the financial system wasn’t helping either. M8 had already delivered me a three hundred page report on the monetary repercussions for Salliche Ag Corp alone, and what market actions had been taken. Just looking at Broest in isolation made up another few hundred pages.

What Hali had described about his family farm was the full unvarnished truth.

Whether their subsistence share had also been taken? That was something I couldn’t confirm or deny. It would require me to go down there and investigate in person.

Unfortunately, I could well imagine some mid-level Salliche manager, eager for more profits by supplying to the military, demanding more and more produce over time. I could imagine Salliche security used as muscle to intimidate farmers into complying. And it could happen under the nose of the wonderfully diligent and responsible governor of Broest.

We don’t have time for this, I thought angrily.

Yet we had run straight into a CIS cell carrying out its plot, perfectly aligned to entrap the Conqueror in a situation that we couldn’t ignore.

I looked up into the large flatscreen holo hovering in front of me. It was segmented further down to the live feeds from the cams in each trooper’s helmet that was currently hunting through the Royal Siren for the enemy. Their voices were coming through the tac net as well.

The freighter had been brought under control locally, the engines now providing just enough thrust for station keeping. It was now just a few thousand kilometers from the Conqueror’s port arc and every turbolaser with a bearing was locked on.

The blanket of Battle Meditation was firmly on every soul on board the freighter, a comforting hum in the background of my own mind. Each connection laid in my mind like an ethereal string, ready for me to surge through. Battle Meditation on its own had no theoretical limit in how many it could coordinate, it only depended on how far I could stretch it. Using it as a vector for Control was something else entirely.

Having so many at once was something I had only recently managed, achieving a new level of effective multitasking through the Force. It was an amalgamation of Battle Meditation, Mechu-Deru and Bonding in a way that was just shy of being straining on the mind. I was still exploring if there would be limits, but I had to be careful of putting those limits on myself via my own expectations.

I was still waiting on Qui-Gon Jinn to show his ethereal self to explain his brief little visit, but I fully expected the transcendent Jedi to remain aloof and in the background. There had to be some form of ‘rules’ for all those who had walked that path, or maybe it wasn’t something so rigidly codified. It could be that it was just Jinn’s prerogative based on his own judgement, given his own perceptions of the flow of time; which had to be far greater than my own.

The Force surged, my prescience dialed down to just five or so seconds…

“Tano to Locket, freeze!” I snapped through the com.

The 96th Legion ARC trooper obeyed immediately. Another few steps and he would’ve walked right into the waiting sights of the BX commando, perched in the gap between two rows of cargo pallets.   

“Hostile sniper, on your left, next row, prone, 90 meters.”

“Understood, squad converging.”

I frantically used Farsight, using Locket as an anchor, searching for more…

“Second BX spotted, 120 meters from Locket’s position, bearing 270, perched on a pallet with overwatch on the first BX.”

My fingers tented under my chin as I watched the ARC squad envelop the two droids from every possible angle.

“Targets under scope.”

I waited two seconds, “Execute.”

The ARC troopers popped out and with two rapid bursts from multiple angles the BX droids collapsed with sparks and smoke.

“Targets down.”

“Locket, advance, logic probe that thing. Rest of the squad, cover him.”

“Roger, General.”

I switched channels, “Master, incoming at the bridge…”

“Got them!”

Anakin’s lightsaber burst into life, his cam feed going blurry as he fought three BX droids simultaneously that had tried to sneak up to the bridge. He had already been waiting for them.

“Contact!”, “Contact!”

The troopers in ambush positions around Engineering and Life Support opened fire.

That alone told me that they didn’t have a tactical droid in support on the ship. It was the old tactic they had defaulted to in the absence of new orders.

Two minutes of frantic fire fights later, elven destroyed BX droids littered the floor, for the price of two dead troopers and three wounded.

“Wren to Manda’lor.”

Ursa’s holo appeared over my armrest, “Yes, Captain?”

“We’ve boarded and cleared the last of the usurped freighters at this jump point. Control has been restored to the local crews. Most of them asked to convey their appreciation and thanks.”

“Most?”

She shrugged, “Can’t please everyone, Manda’lor. One of the captains wanted to throw us off their ship before the engineers could even explain the problem. I managed to convince him of the wisdom of cooperation.”

My mouth twitched with humor, “Am I to expect a sternly worded complaint from his shipping company soon?”

“More than likely, Manda’lor.”

“Thank you. Before you leave, BX droids were engaged on the Royal Siren. I want you to do at least one sweep on each ship.” A ping from M8 distracted me momentarily. “It seems we’ve also cracked the sensor masking they were using. I’ll upload it to you now. I doubt we’ll find any more, but best to be certain about this.”

“As you command, Manda’lor.”

She clenched a fish on her chest in a Mandalorian salute before her holo vanished.

“M8, I want you and R2 to go through Salliche Ag Corp on Broest with a nanoscope. Slice whatever you have to, I don’t care. If they’re actually bleeding their farmers like this, I want the proof so I can shove my lightsabers down their throat.”

88888888888888888888888888888888888

Freshly showered and dressed in a more conventional, unarmored dark brown Jedi attire, Anakin breezed into the Conqueror’s Droid Works. It was almost a deck all to its own, dedicated to not only maintaining the droids of the ship, but also the analysis of captured enemy droids or their parts.

In the main work area, the eleven BX droids were laid out and disassembled, six of whom were on dedicated scanning beds, which also doubled as forensic scanners.

Ahsoka and Master Damsin were each hovering over their own scanner bed, waving or poking hand scanners into the various parts.

He watched the scene with slight pangs of… he wouldn’t call it jealousy, but rather regret?

Wasn’t he just as qualified, if not more so, to do examinations of enemy droids?

He quickly brushed off the annoying feeling. No, he couldn’t lie to himself. He and Ahsoka had reconnected with regards to training in general, having gone through a number of refinements in their respective lightsaber forms. She had helped him in turn further along the seemingly endless path to gain more fine control. Yet with Master Damsin’s training in the arts of Jedi Shadows, its sheer nature meant it was firmly off-limits to him.

That the Jedi actually had such a clandestine part of the Order had originally come as a surprise. It was as if the general instruction from Obi-Wan, Yoda, and all the teachers in the Academy… on how the Jedi Order behaved, its institutions, was all…

Well, it wasn’t an outright lie, but it was just intentionally incomplete.

He looked up and as luck would have it, his eyes locked onto Ahsoka’s bot…

Mentally smacking himself, he turned his gaze to the much safer parts of the BX droids.

She was only wearing her skintight armor underlayer, whilst M8 was hooked up into the logic port of a terminal along the wall.

“Are things going all right here?” Anakin asked firmly, stepping forward to look at the readouts of the nearest scanning bed.

“We are making progress, Skyguy.” He could hear the dreaded note of teasing in her voice. “Particulate analysis and comparison. Not the most exciting thing in the universe, but will narrow down where these droids have been on Broest.”

He nodded, whilst he had the standard forensic courses that every Jedi was taught, what Ahsoka and Damsin were doing was specialist level forensics that was unique to Jedi Sentinels.

“Anything you can tell for certain yet?”

“We’ve narrowed down where they’ve spent the majority of their time on the planet, north-western continent of Se’ta. Not surprising, since it’s where the primary spaceport is,” Damsin answered absently, holding up a scanner readout and a datapad in front of her briefly, before diving back down to poking the BX droid. “The key is now to find something unique that will let us put a specific point on a map.”

“I assume that all the droid memory was unsalvageable?"

Damsin nodded, “The internal self-destructs on their memory modules are as thorough as ever. In fact, these BX show even further iteration on that system.”

“Read a development brief from Merr-Sonn that they’re working on a man portable ion charge system,” Ahsoka said distractedly, swiping her finger rapidly on a datapad. “If it works, we should have something that could instantly cause every system on a droid to stall safely for as long as the ions can endure, even the internal self-destruct.”

“Anything in that brief saying how long until they can deploy to testing? I don’t have to tell you both what an intelligence windfall it would be to actually capture a BX intact.”

Ahsoka’s eyes grew mildly distant, “Nine weeks at the earliest. They’re having reliability issues and most of the time the ion charge bleeds over into the launcher gun itself, then into whoever was wielding it. At that point, a trooper’s armor systems would be a write off.”

“Got something,” Damsin announced, a satisfied smile on her face. She swiped on her datapad and handed it to Ahsoka.

His padawan-general read it and quickly double-checked with another datapad. “Well, that certainly gives us something.”

Anakin folded his arms, “And that is?”

“We found a pollen spore trapped inside the chassis of this BX. It belongs to a flower that is only grown in one place on Broest. Most of an agri-world is solely devoted to food growth and production, but Salliche does also grow some sought after exotic flowers. Many in the Core like to display them in their living spaces. Point is, this BX caught this spore and it means we have a precise coordinate for where it would’ve walked to pick up one that’s this fresh.”

“How fresh are we talking about?”

“Less than two days based on the molecular decay. Other particulates we’ve catalogued now make sense.” She stabbed the datapad with a finger, a particularly satisfied smirk on her face. “We have a location. So Skyguy, feel like visiting a flower farm?”

Hmmm, the thought of picking some and sending to Padme definitely had some appeal.

“I can do that. What are you going to be doing?”

“I still need to be on hand enforcing the interdiction, I am the effective theater commander of the system at the moment after all. However, it doesn’t mean I can’t send an HK-HP for a much needed visit to Salliche Corp local HQ.”

“Is that the reason why M8 is over there?”

She folded her arms thoughtfully and angled a shapely hip in thought. 

Sithspit, Skywalker, he cursed himself, focusing on her face.

“Yes, let’s just say that she’s found evidence that this is much more than just a single cell of Separatists at work here. In fact, I believe we might even be looking at something that could turn into a local civil war if we’re not careful.”

Civil war… on an agri-world?

888888888888888888888888888888888888888 

A/N: The ripple effects of Scipio on the galaxy is usually a big picture thing, something so easy to just reduce to numbers on a ledger. The effect on the people is not just something that I wanted to handwave away, good and bad. And it is something that will haunt Ahsoka for many years to come.

Have a great weekend and stay awesome folks!