The Weaving Force: Chapter 85 (Patreon)

Chapter 85:

Komari Vosa:

Nar Shadaa was all oil and shadows. The gossamer thin glamor of neon lights and opulence resting at the heights of the hab blocks and the famous “Promenade” did nearly nothing to hide the seedy, wretched underbelly of this world where crime and suffering was, very literally, the lifeblood the world sustained itself with. 

The Red Wake was docked securely; a private hangar with enough security to fend off a small army. Say what you want about hutts but when you paid them they made sure you’d want to pay them again for their services.

But that’s about all the good she had to say about this place.

She descended from the high rises, casinos, hotels and luxury apartments. Down down down into the dark and oily shadows far below.

This place teemed with life. A million, billion souls whispering, screaming around her. A cacophony that drowned out the force itself. It was nauseating, almost disorienting really.

But still, down she went; deeper and deeper into this rotting husk of a world.

The various slums and derelict hab blocks littering the lower floors of the mega city always had colloquial names. Given to them by the residents rather than their “designations.”

It was after all, easier to know the “Blacklight block” as opposed to ‘City sector 050729’.

She had the privilege of heading towards ‘The grind’ Part scrap yard, part bazaar, part hab block, part repair bay, and it felt like the grime and rust and moss of a billion tons of steel and concrete had all been dragged down here over millennia. Thousands of years of it all accumulating across every surface she could see. The underbelly of the underbelly.

At last, her auto-pilot taxi began its final approach to the registered landing pad. The sleek, smooth lines of the speeder and its clean interior standing out amidst the literal filth they were lowering themselves into.

When the doors opened, she was greeted with the smell of burning wires and heated metal. She closed her eyes, gathering her patience before she extricated herself from the seat and out into the world beyond.

She could feel eyes on her immediately. The wretches and dregs staring with open hunger at her, no doubt seeing clean clothes and expensive equipment as a potential target.

The signs were covered in grime and filth, but the Hutseze was still legible- at least to a generous stretch of the word legible.

She wasn’t far from where she needed to go. Just under four hundred meters or so.

And as she turned around to keep marching; she wasn’t surprised to find several people now having drawn close, weapons in hand.

“Hey there Miss. You look a bit lost. Maybe you need some help getting where you need to go.”

There were some chuckles at the Rodian’s words. It was a mix of species that was choosing to shake her down, the aforementioned Rodian, Weequays, Humans, a Gamorean and an Aqualish. 

Eleven in total.

She could feel the deception behind his words. The malice hiding just beneath the surface. 

It was all the excuse she needed.

She drew one of her blades, the red saber hissing as it was lit before she tossed it.

It sailed across the air, skewering the Rodian through the face- his friends stopped laughing then, jumping back startled. 

Someone screamed ‘Jedi!’ which spiked her ire; the apathy now becoming annoyance.

The saber stayed in the air as the rodian flopped, what was left of his skull being split open as his weight dragged him down. 

The Gamorean- stupid and brutish as they were -charged, a hefty club looking to crush her skull.

Her second blade came out, slicing the weapon in two. The brutish pig stared stupidly at the stump of the handle before his head was lopped right off.

With their leader dead and now their muscle; the remaining men lost their nerve, turning tail and running away.

She reached out in the force; finding the one that had called her a Jedi.

Ethereal hands wrapped around his neck, the human gave a startled, choked shout as he was dragged up, feet kicking and thrashing inches off the ground.

She twisted.

The crack of his neck went off like a gunshot in the now sepulchral silence of the undercity. 

Eyes were still on her. But she doubted anyone would be bothering her again.

She reached with her hand, pulling the tossed blade back into her hand and deactivating it before she holstered both sabers.

She kept on walking.

It was quiet.

When she finally made it to the designated location, she wasn’t surprised to find a warehouse. Rust covered and grimy like the rest of this wretched place.

But the door.

It was camouflaged, blending  in with the surrounding filth…

But she recognized high grade starship metal when she saw it.

A proton torpedo might have trouble getting through this thing.

She activated the intercom, receiving silence and static in reply before she spoke the passcode she’d been given.

“The secret of power isn't strength but resilience.”

A beat of silence.

Then the doors hissed open. 

The blast of cold air that hit her as the massive locks parted from eachother made her realize just how balmy and sweltering the surrounding rust pile around her was. And while the exterior was ‘blending in’ the interior as she stepped in was a wholly different story.

Smooth, clean floors. Pale blue light-

And surrounded on three sides by Mandalorians in full Beskar plate holding weapons of every kind. 

These were not the sloppy, stupid thugs of the outside world.

She counted thirty.

They were spread out, holding distance that would give them time to react to an attack, none of them were in the way of the others crossfire 

Slowly; she raised her hands above her head. 

The Mandalorians kept their guns on her.

She panned her eyes across her attackers, and the room itself, spying Clan banners hanging off a distant wall; she recognized some.

Vizla, Shiv, Bonteri, Jayran, Kast. Mostly minor Mandalorian clans from what she could see, barring of course, the Vizla. 

There was movement to her right, she shifted her eyes that way, finding, on this second look, one of the Mandalorians was smaller than the others. Much smaller. They were hiding him, or her behind the bulk of other members. But that indeed was a child holding a gun .

That was the weak point- if she needed to use it.

There was a clomp of heavy footfalls, steel pounding against steel, a noticeable hitch in the step. A limp.

“Now; what in the blue balled Corellian hells does a Sith want in my Lab? I suggest you answer before we kill you and dump your body for those scavengers to pick your corpse clean like they wanted to earlier.”

Her eyes trailed up to the rafters above. It was an old man, skin like old leather, creases and liver spots decorating his grimacing features. His white hair and full beard contrasting sharply against his coloring. He too was armored in full Beskar plate, but unlike his contemporaries, his armor still bore Vizla colors. “I take it you’re in charge here?”

The old man sucked on a cigar, the embers lingering on the thing as tendrils of smoke escaped the cage of his teeth. 

“Last chance.” He said. “You tell me why you’re here. I’m not gonna ask again.”

The men around her subtly tensed, bracing themselves to shoot.

Komari considered for a moment leaping up to the rafters and taking the old man hostage.

After a moments consideration she dismissed the idea. She could. But crippled and old or not, that was still full Beskar plate. He might hold out against her saber and if even a few of his men had Jetpacks she couldn’t afford to not get him on the first attempt because it would likely be her only attempt. 

That, and she was here to just talk. Not kill.

Not yet anyway.

“This hasn’t been paying for itself.” She answered, lowering her hands to rest on her hip, ignoring how the men tensed just a bit more. “The one that’s been footing the bill wants an update. I’m here to check and make sure the money’s being used for its actual purpose. Not any personal projects.”

The old man snorted. “I suppose killing you means we lose the funding then?” He mumbled, as though he were weighing the option of killing her vs the money he’d potentially lose. 

She could almost laugh. “You suppose right.”

The man took another drag of his cigar. Then barked out something in Mandalorian.

As one the men around her lowered their weapons, some still watching her, but most turning away to return to whatever it was they’d been doing. 

The old man started to turn away, walking with that limp of his. 

“Jump up here like I know you can Sith; I’d like to get back to work today.”

Komari frowned beneath her mask, eyes narrowing on the old man’s back before she did as he bid and leapt up into the high rafters above. 

She heard a subtle gasp, from the child at her right before she was out of earshot, her boots crashing down ono the catwalks above as she followed after the old man.

—

He led her deeper into the facility.

The warehouse’s interior had been completely changed. Part armory, part forge, part ammo and weapons depot, part factory and part lab.

It looked like these Death Watch members were gearing up to fight the galactic war by themselves. 

“I’d ask how you’ve managed to keep all of this hidden.” She said, following after him. “But this is Nar Shaddaa. I imagine bribes go a long way.

He snorted. “It's not bribes here. Just the cost of doin’ business. You pay the Hutt that owns the building; he can give less of a shit what you do. It's not like cops are gonna show up.” The old man said. “Most we have to worry about are rival gangs and- well.” He jerked his head to the side. “You saw the ‘quality’ of dreg we have to deal with. Just one of my men can rip ‘em to pieces if need be. Didn’t take long for word about a ‘warband’ of Mandalorians to spread. Now we don’t get bothered.”

She nodded; such was the way of the Galaxy. 

When you were powerful, you took what you wanted and others could do nothing about it.

“We offered, and were hired to do one thing and one thing only-” The old man said as they made their way towards the rear of the warehouse at long last, a cordoned off section.

He placed his hand on the pad, the scanner reading his palm before the door hissed open. 

He stepped in.

She followed.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting.

But wall to wall monitors covered in captured footage of the Jedi, Hebert and Dallon was hardly it.

The old man reached a chair, sitting down on it. “Watch em.” He said. “Watch em and make something to kill em’.”

Komari stared at the images, looking closer now, finding several small droids off to the side, uplinked directly into the servers, running numbers, analyzing data readouts

“And you’ve been doing this for how long?”

The old man’s expression darkened, some black bottomless hatred shifting behind his expression. “Since Corellia.” His eyes darted to the side, she followed it, finding a still image pict taken from a vulture droid seconds before it was destroyed, seeing as the Jedi Dallon stopped an Orbital strike over Coronet city.

Komari took a deep breath through her nose. “And?” She asked. “What have you come up with?”

He reached over, plucking a datastick and tossing it her way.

“The last backup we made just yesterday.” He said. “Take it. We’ll make another one today. It has everything.”

“I didn’t come here for a datastick. Tell me yourself!” She demanded. She couldn’t afford for her Master to withhold secrets like she knew he would. That… bitch was the reason she was in this situation in the first place. 

Any weakness she could find… she would use it. And she would enjoy watching the life drain from the perfect little Jedi’s eyes.

The old man stared at her. 

“The Jedi Hebert’s control of animals seems limited to insects. Doesn’t matter the planet, doesn’t matter the size. If its a bug, she can use it as far as we can tell. Her range-” He reached over, tapping a few keys on the holo and the monitors changed, becoming a topographical map of Coruscant and the Jedi temple, likely as a reference measurement.

Ambitious.

If they were using this kind of map it meant they were convinced they’d be attacking such a place one day. 

A yellow outline began to form. 

“Just about Three, to twelve hundred meters seems to be what she normally operates.” He said. But we don’t know for sure.”

“Why not?” She sneered. “You’ve had almost six full months if not a little more. Her range should be the first thing you had down.”

“Because she’s likely holding back.” He explained. “Not showing us her full hand.”

“What makes you say that?”

The images shifted again.

“Corellia.”

She could see it, a convergence of black little tendrils… an image caught from a ship… in orbit.

“She used that to block orbital bombardment targeting.” He explained, taking another long drag of his cigar. “All calculations put that range if she was on the planet’s surface -which we believe she was- at seven hundred and eighty kilometers at least.

The map of Coruscant returned, a red circle appearing now around the original yellow one that could barely cover the temple, now expanding far enough to cover the senate building and millions of other people besides.

“What’s worse-” The old man sighed. “We’re beginning to suspect she’s at least partially aware of what happens within that range.”

She crossed her arms, feeling her heart pounding under her ribs at the thought of this Jedi being able to sense everything within that sphere of influence in some way. Then calmed.

If she did have that kind of range- enough to cover the Senate building. Her Master would have been discovered long ago. “She doesn’t.” Komari affirmed. 

“We have footage of her reacting to threats she could never have known about. She-”

“Jedi precognisance that you’re overestimating.” She dismissed.

Even if they were somehow right, all they had to do was catch the bitch on a space station. Komari had nearly killed her once before. She could do it again. 

Hebert wasn’t the problem. “What about Dallon?”

The old man eyed her for a long moment as if considering arguing before his fingers clacked on a key.

The images shifted again, a collage of various moments over the last six months. Hours upon hours of footage. 

“She’s not invincible.” The old man affirmed. Almost like he was telling himself rather than just her. “I don’t know what the trick to it is yet. But she dodges. She uses that lightsaber to parry blaster bolts. Someone who can tank a thermal detonator to the face consistently wouldn’t have a need to do that.”

“Six months of droids hard analyzing the footage and you can’t tell where her vulnerability is? She’s lost an eye! I can tell you she’s not invincible!” She sneered.

“Nothing has hurt her yet on camera.” He answered. “Jedi precognisance.” He offered her a smarmy little smile before it fell away, glaring at the images for all he was worth. “But something will. We estimate the upper limit of her strength is somewhere around thirteen tons.”

Oh? That was news. Of course there must’ve been a limit but how exactly did they find it out?

She had the rather absurd mental image of them sending one Mandalorian at a time to get punched with a kinetic impact reader strapped to their chest.

She pushed the morbid mental image aside. “How so?”

“She has trouble ripping through the outer layer of Starship hulls.” He said, one image superimposing itself of Dallon in a space suit ripping through the hull of a transport ship to free some of the trapped clones. 

She was indeed giving it more effort than normal it seemed. 

“That ship is graded at around thirteen to sixteen tons along its outer hull. So that’s what we’re aiming for.”

“Anything else?”

“Everything.” He sneered. “Flight speed. Reflexes. What Jedi tricks she’s using to dodge or reflect blasters. We’ve even discovered altered brainwave patterns in those around her in close proximity.”

A mass Jedi mind trick?

She hadn’t heard about that.

“You seem to have been devoting a lot more time to Dallon than Hebert.” She noted. Not that she blamed them. Of the two, Dallon was the most dangerous.

The old man’s smile was all teeth.

“Yeah.” He answered dully, that smile never leaving his face. “I would. Cause I’m the one that’s gonna kill her.”

“Personal grudge?” She couldn’t help but laugh just a bit at that tiny bit of irony. Did her Master plan this perhaps? “Get in line.”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “You get in line.” He held up his hand, two fingers rising. “Both my boys. Dead to this… perfect Jedi.”

Still, his smile hadn’t gone anywhere. It was black and cruel and full of hatred.

He would have made a fine Sith.

Still. “You’re hardly spry for your old age.” She noted, looking pointedly at his near useless leg.

He laughed. 

“Trust me.” When he looked at the images again; he spoke and there was a promise in his voice. Something that thrummed within the echoes and eddies of the Force. 

She could hear it even through the deafening cacophony that was Nar-Shaddaa 

“I’m gonna prove she can bleed.”(X)(X)(X)

So. Not gonna lie. Vicky has made some enemies.

Unexpected I know since she's such a loveable person. But sometimes, IDK you, paste a couple dozen Mandos across the pavement or crush them with some thrown masonry and it gets on people's bad side for some reason.

It is what it is.

Still, were building up to the next fairly major confrontation here relatively quickly. Next chapter we'll be back with Taylor and co in the temple as Vicky and Dennis leave for Nar-Shaddaa and yeah. Things will be coming to a head soon. :)As usual if you want to discuss the Patreon chapters we have a discord here:https://discord.gg/je4qmSeMWe have a tropes page here for those of you that can add to it:https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/TheWeavingForce

And we're still searching for an artist for those of you that know of any decent ones that are taking comissions right now. The next piece of artwork that's set to be comissioned is the Saxon Family. (Miss Militia, Aras, and the twins) probably on a family outing of some kind :D