The Weaving Force: Chapter 72 (Patreon)

Chapter 72:

Steren:

The chair was cold.

The room was cold.

Steren tried not to squirm in his seat. Miralans didn’t do well in the cold.

He’d been at work when they arrived, armed and armored. They had some kind of special authority from the Republic to operate on his planet…

And they had a Jedi with them.

Even if he wanted to say no, he was pretty sure his boss would have fired him on the spot if he made some kind of trouble in the shop.

He couldn’t afford that…

So he went with them.

They didn’t speak on the speeder ride back and he didn’t dare try to talk to them very much either.

He was escorted into the building, and all but shoved into this cold, gray room. No words spoken, no charges laid. The door slammed shut behind him, and he didn’t know what to do.

The room was bare. A metal chair, a metal table, four reflective mirrors on the otherwise four bare walls.

There were holes in the table… meant for chains and handcuffs.

The pale lights overhead made it look cold… clinical.

Outside of that… there was nothing else.

Not even specks of dust.

So he just sat.

He sat and he waited.

And waited.

And waited and waited.

He felt like he was waiting for an eternity before the door opened.

As soon as he laid eyes on the person entering he was pretty sure he could have waited for a while longer…

Like, forever… really.

A Mandalorian woman marched in, her armor a mixture of metal silver and burgundy red.

She had a file under one arm, a strange green blaster on her hip and… caf.

She marched forward without a word, with the stiff-legged walk of someone who is used to wearing armor. The heavy boots on her feet echoed through the crypt-like stillness of the room.

Gently, she set the file on the table. The steaming cup of caf made a ‘clok’ sound as she set it down and slid it towards him.

He stared at the cup, and the woman pulled back the seat with nary a sound before she sat.

A moment later, the helmet seals hissed, and she pulled the thing off her head, revealing bronze skin and brown hair.

She placed the helmet on the desk and clasped her hands together over it, resting between the helmet and the file as she offered him a small smile.

“Hello, Mr. Steren,” she said, her voice strangely… polite, given the circumstances.

“Yeah uh… hi,” he said awkwardly, opening his mouth to speak before deciding against it and shutting up instead.

She nodded. “Do you know why you’re here?” she asked.

He lied, shaking his head mutely.

Her expression didn’t shift. She reached over, opening the file at her side before plucking some black and white images from them, sliding them over for him to see.

And there he was.

Across from him… other Mandalorians.

He recognized the scene. Just a few months ago. When he’d smuggled them onto a departing ship to get past customs.

She presented a copy of the shipping manifest. His signature on the bottom, clearing it.

His eyes shut, feeling the walls closing in around him.

“How about now?” she prodded, her voice still soft.

Steren sucked down a slow breath through his nostrils, his heart tight with fear and coiling dread in his chest.

“Please don’t kill me,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Kill you?”

“I know how Mandalorians do things.”

“I have no intention of killing you, Mr. Steren,” she said. “It's not how I do things.” She leaned forward slightly. “All I’m here to do is give you a choice.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What choice?”

“Help me help you,” she said. “We know you’ve been helping the Death Watch. Cooperate and this can go very smoothly for both of us.”

He couldn’t help it, he snorted.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then, I’m afraid… this goes rather poorly for you,” she said, and she even sounded sincere in her ‘sorrow.’ Looked it, too.

“That’s not a choice. It’s an ultimatum,” he accused.

She offered a shrug. “I’m afraid, for the moment, it’s the only offer I can place on the table.”

His lips pursed, reaching forward to take the cup and a heavy swig of the caf.

His favorite blend.

He gave her a suspicious glare that she seemed utterly unaffected by.

“It’s not that simple,” he said.

Her answer was, ironically, very simple. “It can be.”

Steren shook his head. “You don’t understand, I-”

He shut up.

The Mandalorian woman’s head tilted. “Help me understand, then,” she requested. “Why help them? You’re not Mandalorian. As far as our investigation goes, until just a few years ago, you never even had contact with them, nor had you ever been involved in Mandalorian politics. Are they threatening you? That they’ll kill you? We can protect you.”

“If I cooperate?”

“I’m afraid so.”

His smile was bitter. “Are you willing to pay my bills too?”

That made her raise an eyebrow. “We checked your financial records… you’re not getting any extra income that we’ve noticed.”

He thought about shutting up then. Staying quiet.

But he’d already said enough. Why bother?

Hell… it was almost a relief to get this off his chest.

“Not me,” he said. “My daughter…” Now he leaned forward in his seat. “Genetics they said… latent gene. One in a million. Rare. Degenerative. I get their agents and weapons through customs, they foot the bill. That’s the deal. I could care less about Mandos and their issues… no offense.”

She nodded understandingly. “None taken.” A pause. “Still, I understand… I’d do anything for my own kids.”

He let out a huff of air. “You have some of your own?” Somehow the thought of these armored boogeymen having kids didn’t really seem… real, honestly.

“Two.” She smiled, the expression lighting up her face. “Twins.”

“They healthy?”

“They are,” she answered, quietly moving to collect the images and documents before moving to stand up.

Then, she paused. “Out of curiosity… the smuggled Mandalorians. What system did you book them to?”

His features scrunched up. “Didn’t the shipping records tell you?”

She offered another shrug. “It’d save me a trip to the records room.”

He gave another shrug. “Nar Shaddaa, I think? It was definitely in Hutt Space.”

“Three passengers right?”

“Yeah, last run at least.” He shrugged.

“Thanks,” she said, moving to march out.

“Where are you going?” he asked

“You’ve confirmed some information for us,” she answered. “I’ll inform my superiors and we’ll see what arrangements we can make to reach a deal for everyone’s benefit.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Just like that?”

She nodded, placing her helmet back on with a hiss. “Just like that.”

“If I say no to this deal what happens then?”

“That’ll be for the Corellian courts to decide,” she said succinctly, confusing him. The hell did Corellia have to do with this?

“Ahh, before I leave, would you like some food?” she asked randomly, halfway out the door. “You must be hungry.”

Mutely, he shook his head.

She offered a small nod. “Sit tight. I’ll be back shortly.”

The door shut and he sat there… again… waiting.

—

“You’re certain?” Satine demanded, Master Fay sitting beside her on the holo-call.

“As certain as I can be,” Master Ima-Gun Di replied. “I sensed no deception from him as I listened in.”

The Duchess closed her eyes, considering the information before opening her eyes again and looking towards Hannah.

“How do you suggest we proceed?” the Duchess asked.

Hannah took a breath, taking a moment to… shut off the little voice in her head, the one that told her what the right thing was.

“Keep him in place,” she said. “We keep an eye on him, let him continue in his role here without the Death Watch learning about it. He can inform us where they’re going and when. We can track their movements further from there. He’s more useful that way than he would be if we simply arrested or moved him into our custody.”

“And if he’s discovered?” Master Di questioned, lips curling into a frown. “They will kill him.”

“We can keep agents nearby to extract him, certainly keep a guard on his daughter so the Death Watch doesn’t move on her,” she said. “But his use here far outweighs the limited information someone of his level in the operation could possibly provide if we just pull him out now.”

Satine frowned, eyes shutting tight as she sighed with a resigned, heavy air.

And Hannah knew what the woman would decide.

“We’ll proceed as you say,” she finally affirmed. “What are our next moves?”

“We have the ship registry and number already,” Hannah said. “We’re tracking it - once we find its next docking port, we’ll check the cameras and keep following the trail as far as it goes. We’ll find where this cell is operating out of, eventually.”

“We already had the ship number and flight plan,” Di pointed out. “Why did you ask him just before you left?”

“It was recorded,” she answered. It was an old trick. One that, if used… usually ended badly for the party in question. “If we ever need to release it, or have Death Watch think he flipped…” she trailed off, shrugging.

The Jedi straightened, his frown becoming ever more severe.

…

“I see.” He said stiffly.

It wasn’t her fault. Anti-terrorist protocols were written and were effective at what they did.

She didn’t want to kill anyone or use anyone, but if the choice had to be made between one life and the death toll of another Corellia… well…

As Steren had said:

It wasn’t a choice. It was an ultimatum.

—

Alexandria:

“Ahh, Senator.”

Bail Organa smiled as he caught sight of her, raising a hand as he invited her to draw closer. With him were Mon Mothma of Chandrila and Padme Amidala of Naboo.

The idealist caucus.

Still, she shouldn’t be so… dismissive. These three had been crucial in passing the measure to enlist Mandalorian officers into the GAR.

“Bail.” She nodded as she drew closer. “Senators,” she offered towards the other two.

It had been enough of a surprise for Palpatine to not see it coming: the three most outspoken pacifists voting for a bill to bolster the military, even if in just a small way.

But Alexandria’s ability to cold read and play on their particular weak spots to persuade them had been very, very useful. Bail saw it as their responsibility to provide for the clones they’d made exclusively to fight. Mon Mothma wanted stability, and an officer corps provided that for the GAR.

And Padme saw the clones as the children of the Republic, and of Mandalore too, in a way. It was only right they not be left in the cold with nothing but a far too few Jedi to guide them.

Even so, the bill had only passed by a single vote, credited to senator Iblis of Corellia more than most others. But he hadn’t been a surprise. The man would have voted to give the clones drunken monkeys as long as said monkeys were trained enough to shoot droids and Neimodians.

It might pay to keep these three in her back pocket.

So, with that in mind, she plastered a barely-there polite smile on her face. It wouldn’t do to oversell things.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said.

“Hmm, not at all,” Senator Mothma said. “We were just discussing the latest news from, well, the various fronts.”

Ahh.

“Padme has heard rumors of a new battlezone being opened.” The young woman in question grew slightly stiff at Bail’s words. Alexandria had long grown suspicious of the young girl’s “single” status. She was, in fact, fairly certain the girl was hiding an affair with the Skywalker boy.

This was just another notch in the list of circumstantial evidence.

She hid it well, to her credit. But when you have perfect recollection, little things tend to add up quickly.

Still, she clearly hadn’t meant to let this bit of information slip An error likely born from worry, if Alexandria deduced correctly that Skywalker was being deployed to this mysterious new front.

“Oh?” Alexandria offered. “Where?”

“Somewhere in the Outer Rim, to the galactic west,” Bail answered. “We’re unsure.”

“How many Legions?”

“At least two,” Mothma said. “Though possibly more.”

“Are you certain it’s not reinforcements for the battle of Atraken?”

Mothma scowled, fingers tightening over each other where they were ‘gently’ clasped in front of her. “The disaster of Atraken, more like. Have you heard about the civilian casualties?”

She had. “Up to sixty-seven percent of the planet’s native population, I’ve heard,” she said neutrally. Atraken had been one of the earliest pitched battles of the war. She was fairly sure both command structures saw it as a place to pound away at each other with their latest weapons rather than as a strategic objective.

Biological strikes, cutting edge weaponry, new ships, fighters, clone armor advancements. It was a testing ground more than anything.

For almost six straight months since Corellia, the Republic and CIS had been stabbing each other over that rock, and the planet itself was bearing the brunt of the collateral.

“An unmitigated travesty,” Bail growled.

Alexandria had to fight the urge to sigh. “What’s also concerning,” she said, trying to get the three to focus on the tactical considerations rather than their respective melodramatics, “is the potential for another attrition battle like Atraken.”

“You think that might happen?” Padme asked, the faintest trace of genuine, personal worry, there. Not simply the distant concern of a politician or someone removed from the fighting. “That - wherever this new front is - they might be posted there for months? Or that it’ll become just as bloody?”

Alexandria offered a shrug. “It's not impossible,” she answered. “Frankly, that would be the CIS’s winning strategy. The fact is that the clone army is far, far more limited than their droids. If they tied down enough of our resources with constant reinforcements to a few major battle zones we couldn’t afford to lose, they could overwhelm us by spreading our defenses too thinly.” The fact that they hadn’t done this within six months of the war was… bewildering.

Either CIS high command was just that imbecilic, or their production capabilities were not as powerful as intelligence reports indicated.

Amidala’s concern was etched ever so subtly on the lines of her face, but Alexandriawas the only one that noticed.

“The Chancellor will address the Senate again today.” Bail sighed. “I fear he will call for even greater emergency powers.”

“It is possible, but we’ve given so many extended powers already. We even postponed the elections,” Mothma bemoaned. “If he calls on even more powers now, he’d be doing so right before the Senate goes into recess. He’d have a proverbial blank check for the next four months.”

The woman, for all of her years as a politician, was still naive. It wasn’t a ‘possibility’ that Palpatine would call on greater powers, it was a certainty. And it was a vote that Palpatine would win easily.

And, for all her distrust of Palpatine, even Alexandria could admit that at this juncture it was necessary.

Reports from the front painted a bleak picture. The clones were being deployed almost as soon as they were off the proverbial production line. There were no available reserve forces outside of the Coruscant Guard itself, and a bevy of commanders and brilliant generals were carrying the CIS cause to, if not outright victories, then at least exchanges and stalemates that cost the Republic far too many clones, Jedi, and war materiel.

It seemed the only reason the Republic wasn’t utterly overwhelmed was a handful of… well… heroes, firmly holding the line.

Windu, Plo Koon, Yoda, Kenobi, Skywalker, Dallon, even Hebert. Just to name a few.

‘His hat on the battlefield alone is worth fifty thousand men,’ Wellington had once said of Napoleon.

It seemed the Republic was relying on the ready availability of exceptional pieces of headwear to do the heavy lifting for them.

Even if things were different, and Palpatine wasn’t a power hungry man hiding behind a kindly smile and grandfatherly air, the need for emergency powers would have been extremely hard to deny right now.

The fact that he was a power hungry man hiding behind a kindly smile… well… cross one bridge at a time.

“We’ll see,” she said. “Either way, it's time we head in.”

Each of them offered a nod to the others, parting ways to head towards their respective senatorial daises for the day's session.