A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  31

  Coruscant, 40 BBY/960 GSC.

  With Obi gone on a mission and having been told to avoid the temple, I found myself a bit at loose ends in the days following my debrief with the High Council. So, I fell into a bit of a routine: morning exercises followed by study and breakfast, lunch and some time spent exploring Coruscant, then more training in the afternoons, followed by supper and meditation with my computation orb.

  To my surprise, Siri Tachi sought me out every afternoon once Obi left for a spar and to do a bit of training together. She opened up a bit as we trained together and I found the girl to be quite pleasant to speak to—very straightforward, with little care for what others thought of her. Very much a tomboy though—not that it was a bad thing.

  While I was out exploring Coruscant, I spent some time and money preparing, both for the return to Serenno and for potential future missions—purchasing tools, parts, technology, and other resources including a droid, and then making some minor modifications to the Rusted Silver to accommodate the droid. I also spent some time upgrading my pistol and rifle, and testing out the new accessories and components I’d bought.

  As for the droid, I’d purchased an R3 astromech. Those were reserved for military or government agencies due to their much higher specs and better sensors than the R2 unit, but the Jedi happened to be a government agency and a little gentle persuasion was enough to get one fresh out of the box. Before I even activated it, I did a little digging on the space internet for unlicensed and definitely illegal modifications that one absolutely should not make to their R2 droid, to see what the current consensus was on arming them.

  There were a frankly shocking number of modifications possible, but I quickly sorted through the wheat from the chaff. The most popular and most useful places for larger weapons were all exterior. Apparently, with a little bit of modification to install a universal hardpoint adapter, the upper section of the legs where they connected with the main body made for an excellent mounting point for a variety of weapons from missile launchers, to flamethrowers, to blaster rifles—and power and data for any targeting system could be spliced right into a data port on the leg. While you could mount something on the domed head, that would defeat the purpose of getting an R3 model just as surely as replacing the clear dome with an opaque one, or painting over it like an idiot and in so doing, obscure the sensors I paid good money for!

  Internally, there were all sorts of modifications one could make, but one of the most popular was a hidden storage compartment carrying a variety of tools—from a holdout blaster, to grenades, extra ammunition, or in my case even a spare lightsaber. There were also mentions of adding an extra manipulator arm that could wield small tools that were otherwise impossible for that type of droid to use, or even pick up.

  I also did a deep dive comparison between the various astromechs available on the market to see what features had been added—or cut—from them lately. Then, I made a list of components that other R-series had and the R3 lacked, and found some instruction manuals for conversion and installation, so I could upgrade mine.

  Once I had figured out what I wanted, I made a list of weapons parts and immediately went on a little shopping trip to pick up my new toys. I will say, it really is amazing what you can find in a black market with a bit of subtle manipulation and persuasion—or just blatant use of the Force to convince criminals to do what you want.

  So it was that I was wrist deep in a very annoyed, freshly activated astromech droid—R3-A9—when there was a knock on the door to my ship. Reaching out, I felt the familiar presence of Master Dooku and quickly stood. “Stay there, Arthree,” I instructed and wiped my hands off on a rag as I made my way to the hatch. Opening it up, I sent Master Dooku a smile. “Master.”

  “Tanya. May I come in?” he asked, and I nodded, grabbing a chair for him from their storage area and making my way back over to the droid as he sat down. “I will be leaving for Serenno within the hour.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

  The older man chuckled, then shook his head. “I had an interesting conversation with a young lady by the name of Taria. She tells me you will be taking on some duties for the Order?”

  “I accepted her offer, yes,” I confirmed.

  “She contacted me with a mission. She should have already sent over the details, but I’ll summarize.”

  That was news to me. Then again, I had been busy dealing with Arthree and installing parts, so it was entirely possible I hadn’t heard the sound of my holocom beeping over his complaints in binary. I didn’t speak machine language, but the tones were easy enough to understand—and while I was tempted to install a module to let him speak in Basic, everything I’d read online had strongly advised against it.

  I motioned for Master Dooku to continue and he explained. “Word of potential dark side corruption to the Force nexus beneath the temple has spread to the members of the other Councils. The various Councils have decided to preemptively scout several locations which were known to house Jedi temples at one time or another in our past and determine their suitability for habitation today. It is possible, likely even, that these locations have become dangerous in one way or another—either due to shifts in a planet’s climate, disease, deadly flora or fauna, or pirates or similar having taken up residence on one of these abandoned planets, perhaps even using old Jedi temples as shelter.”

  “So, it’s a reconnaissance in force mission,” I surmised, and Master Dooku nodded.

  “Just so. You will be going to Tython, in the Tython System, located in the Deep Core. The hyperspace lanes in the area have shifted over time, so it may take a bit of work to actually make it there. Once you find the system, sweep it for potential threats before moving on to Tython. We expect a full survey to take roughly a year, so you should prepare to be there for some time—and unless there is an emergency, you will likely not receive any form of support.”

  Humming, I turned on the holo projector and connected to the Temple’s map database, bringing up Tython’s last known location. “Isn’t this more a job for the Exploration Corps?”

  “I pointed out the same thing,” Master Dooku shook his head. “None of them can be recalled in time to complete this in a timely manner, and most of them are either doing something they can’t simply walk away from, or they are out of contact. Instead, Jedi from nearly every part of the Order have been tapped for this mission—most of them volunteers.”

  Frowning, I asked, “And the assignments were given based on their skills and what part of the Order they’re in?” When Master Dooku nodded, I murmured, “The only reason to send a Shadow would be if they expected trouble…”

  “Or that you may encounter something dark, or perhaps forbidden. Tython is the birthplace of the Jedi Order—or rather, the home of the Je’daii, who then became the Jedi. They were much more… open in their approach to the Force then, than we are now—working with both the light and dark sides of the Force, until the Force Wars divided the Je’daii Order along ideological lines between light and dark and led to the creation of the Jedi and Sith orders. There is a worry that something, a temple, library, holocrons, or other artifacts may be intact—along with leftover ancient technology spanning over thirty thousand years of history. That is, again, in addition to the potential danger of wildlife or those who have made it their home since the Jedi last left.”

  “I see.” Thinking it over for a few moments, I asked, “What’s my budget? Am I allowed to hire contractors or outside forces, or am I supposed to do this solo? Obviously, you can’t realistically expect a single Padawan to conduct detailed scans and investigation of things I’m not even aware would be important. What materials and resources are the Order providing? If I purchase materials myself, will I be reimbursed?”

  Master Dooku laughed. “All of that is in the data packet you will have received by now. This is a test of your resourcefulness and in knowing when to admit you do not know the answer and ask for help. Hiring a small team of civilian experts and someone to guard them would not be outside of the expectation—so long as you obviously handle anything that needs discretion yourself.”

  “I understand. When do they want this done?”

  “As soon as possible,” was the answer, and I couldn’t say I was entirely surprised.

  That seemed to always be the way of things—upper management or someone up the chain of command wanted it done yesterday, under budget, and for it to be perfect. Insane demands from those completely divorced from reality. As the saying in the lower echelons goes: fast, cheap, accurate – pick two.

  “And after the survey is complete?”

  Master Dooku smiled. “Come find me on Serenno.”

  With that, we said our goodbyes and I closed up the ship. Looking around, I found my holocom and checked it, finding the mission details waiting. I read over everything, then called Taria to get some clarification.

  The Jedi were okay with me hiring on contractors for the job, and when I’d asked, they didn’t have any preferences for who I hired or where they came from, so long as they had the necessary expertise, could do the job, and would keep their mouths shut about it after. With the emphasis on information security, that ruled out any of the large, private survey firms on Coruscant—or most places, really. Nowhere that would have to write down where money came from and account for their location.

  I got back to work on Arthree as I thought it over, quickly installing his sensor upgrades and making the necessary modifications to mount a variety of different weapons on his new hardpoints. Eventually, I would design a small system to install different loadouts automatically, instead of doing it by hand, but that may have to wait until I got a bigger ship, because I wasn’t sure I could fit it on the Rusted Silver.

  The next day, I made my way over to the campus of Coruscant’s largest university—the aptly named University of Coruscant. My robes and lightsabers were more than enough to convince campus security to let me enter and not to hassle me. From there, I looked up a map and started across the campus.

  Eventually, I found myself knocking on the door to a faculty member’s office—not a professor, but someone in one of their more obscure planetary research and survey departments. Effectively, the civilian, university level of the Jedi Exploration Corps.

  “Come in,” a man’s voice called, and I entered, closing and locking the door behind me, before casting a noise canceling formula over the door to make sure no one heard. The man sitting at his desk was a human offshoot of some sort I couldn’t place, with light purple skin and red hair. He raised an eyebrow as he looked me over. “It’s not often that we get visitors from the Temple. Oh, sorry, my name is—”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “I’m not trying to be rude, but I just need to pick your brain, and I’ll need you to forget you saw me after this.”

  If anything, that only seemed to intrigue him more. “Very well. How can I help you, miss Jedi?”

  “I need to survey a planet. Off the books. I need to know if it’s habitable. Test the water, air, soil, plants, animals, atmosphere, radiation, climate—everything you’d want to test to make sure you aren’t going to die horribly. I need this done in a year. How many people would I need and from what fields of study? What sort of equipment would we need? No fluff, no trying to sneak in some overly expensive single use tool, just tried and true multi-purpose tools that won’t break under a little abuse and can be repaired easily. What would be a fair market rate for people with those skills?”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Sitting forward in his chair, the man hummed as he began typing away at his computer. “That’s quite a tall order. Well, let’s start with the basics. You’ll need a ship, a pilot, a mechanic or engineer, and a medic. I assume that since you want this done off the books, that you’ll want to limit the number of people involved, which means you shouldn’t have a ship that requires a large crew, and that limits the size of the ship you can use.

  “The Order can provide a ship. I can pilot it myself, but I would prefer not to have to, so I’ll make basic piloting skills a requirement,” I mused, motioning for him to carry on. He did, going on to list half a dozen fields that he felt would be absolutely critical to mission success, with enough overlap into other fields that they could do multiple jobs if necessary. Finally, he printed out a flexi sheet with a list of equipment.

  “That’s the gear you’ll need, if you don’t already have a dedicated ship with this stuff installed. The mobile lab is modular, comes in a variety of sizes, and can be installed into practically any cargo hold large enough for it. The rest of that stuff is basic equipment that fits what you’re looking for.”

  Six to eight people. A ship big enough for them. Mobile lab unit. A year’s supply of food for them. Spare parts for anything important that might break down. Extra fuel, since we’ll likely be using the ship as living quarters.

  “Thank you,” I nodded, before gesturing at him. “You look tired. You should take a nap and forget you saw me.”

  The man yawned, “Yeah, a nap sounds good.”

  He was snoring by the time I closed the office door behind myself. Taking out my holocom, I placed a call to Taria and waited. She picked up a few seconds later. “Tanya? Any luck?”

  “I’ve narrowed down the sorts of people I should be looking for and the equipment I’ll need. Do we have a light freighter or a small cruiser that can be managed by one pilot and a mechanic?”

  Taria nodded. “The Order has several civilian vessels that fit the profile. You’re just looking for cargo and living space?”

  “Pretty much,” I confirmed. “We’ll need to have a mobile lab unit installed if we don’t have a ship that’s already been outfitted for the Exploration Corps, so I’ll need something big enough for them to work in.”

  “I’ll see what we have and send you the details,” the aqua haired girl agreed, before hanging up.

  True to her word, I had a message with several options sent to my holocom before I made it to my destination. Scrolling through them, I eventually settled on one that would suit our needs and sent a message back: Please reserve the YT-1930 for me.

  With that settled, I slipped into the university’s IT department, where they housed their servers storing all of the data associated with the school—including the student records. An overly cautious security guard tried to stop me, but a wave of my hand and a few words sent him back to his desk and made sure he would ignore me. Finding an office occupied by a very bored looking IT worker, I quickly had him look up the records I wanted and send the data to my holocom, then delete all records of having looked up and sent the data and the security footage of my entering and leaving the building, before encouraging him to have a nap and forget I was ever there as soon as I left and he deleted the recordings.

  Short list in hand, I found a quiet spot and put in a call to Jango. It took a few moments for him to pick up, and when he did, I saw the man seemed to be in bed—a woman I recognized as being in his team during the Serenno mission sleeping beside him. “Tanya? It’s… four in the morning, local time.”

  “Sorry. I was wondering if you and your team were available for a job?”

  He cracked a yawn, then sighed tiredly. “Sorry, no can do. Gonna be busy for a while here. Give Jaster a call.”

  “I will. Thank you. Sorry for waking you.”

  He made a dismissive grunt and I hung up, then checked the local time in Sundari, where I suspected Jaster would most likely be—conducting business with Satine. Seeing it wasn’t far off from the current time where I was on Coruscant, I called him and waited.

  Jaster picked up and studied the feed for a moment before relaxing slightly. I raised an eyebrow at the reaction and he chuckled. “Kind of expected you to be under fire if you were calling me.”

  “Haa. I’m not that bad,” I sighed, shaking my head.

  He sent me a skeptical look, before asking, “You’re not exactly the social call type, so what’s going on?”

  I nodded, appreciating that he got straight to the point. “Can you spare some people for a job? One of the teams I worked with on Serenno would be ideal.”

  “Gimme the details,” he said, the feed on the other end moving as he apparently went somewhere more private.

  “Recon in force to survey a potentially hostile planet that used to be home to several Jedi temples for potential habitation. The mission is expected to run a year. Whoever comes will basically be doing babysitting duty for a small group of scientists doing the actual surveying, with the possibility of clearing out any pirates or other hostile forces that either attack us or which will need to be cleared out for if we come back later. I would be grateful if you could also throw in a pilot and mechanic capable of flying and maintaining a YT-1930 and medic. Secrecy is a must as well.”

  He thought about it for a few moments before asking, “Who were you going to hire to do the actual surveying?”

  I grinned. “I can’t pay a professional survey company to do it, because it needs to be off the books. So, I’ve done some digging and put together a list of a bunch of starving university students struggling to pay their debts. Top of their class, but no one with a free ride. People who would be perfectly happy to take a year off of school, go on a dangerous mission, then take the money and keep their mouths shut after once I pay them enough to pay off the debts for their schooling and a little extra on top.”

  Jaster snorted, rolling his eyes. “Clever, but if you’re wanting to keep it secret, odds are one of ‘em is gonna run their mouth. Especially if you’re recruiting from Coruscant. You’d be dealing with a bunch of bright eyed idealists normally, but if you’re already selecting people willing to take money to keep quiet, odds are good they’d be just as willing to take more money later to spill their guts to anyone who asked.”

  Frowning, I nodded slowly. I didn’t like it, but it made sense. In looking to take advantage of desperation, I’d find only desperate people willing to be bought—and there was no guarantee they couldn’t be bought again. “What do you suggest?”

  “Similar strategy. Recruit from a university, from among people who are the best in their class. People who are hungry to prove themselves, or who are bored and craving excitement. But most of all, people who are divorced from the Republic, Coruscant, and the politics of the Core.”

  Blinking, I asked, “So, recruit from Mandalore?”

  Jaster nodded. “Yup. They’ve got all the qualities you want, with the added benefit of knowing that if they fuck off you have my permission to disappear them. Send me the list of what kind of people you’re looking for and the requirements you’ll be testing the planet for. We’ll supply the people, a ship, and whatever equipment they think they need and rendezvous with you. The Jedi are footing the bill here?” he asked, and when I nodded, he grinned. “What’s their budget?”

  “As long as I can justify the expense to get it done inside of a year, they’re willing to pay. Make sure whatever you spend, keep an itemized record of.”

  Laughing, he said, “Triple the initial number you were thinking for security, that way you can have a full team on watch around the clock and if you do need to deploy some of them, your numbers won’t be stretched too thin. I’ll make sure everyone going on this mission are all familiar faces and that they know you’re in charge. I’ll send a transport, a couple of escort fighters, maybe a bomber just in case, supplies, and a freighter with some prefab housing containers to set up a more permanent command post to operate out of—that way we’re not living out of the ships and have a defensible position. How soon do you need this?”

  “You know how it is. They need it yesterday, as cheaply as possible, and it has to be done to spec,” I grumbled, and he nodded. “If we could start within the month, that would be ideal.”

  “Okay,” Jaster agreed. “I’ll get back to you once I have everything ready on our end. Where are we going? Need to know what sort of fuel budget we’re looking at and if we need to send a tanker.”

  “Tython. It’s in the Deep Core. We might need to do a little scouting because the hyperspace lanes have apparently shifted over the years. When we get close, I might be able to find the correct path using the Force and save us some time. I’ll send you all of the files I have on it, but no one has been there in a few thousand years. The part of the Order that sent me is worried about potential dark or Sith-related artifacts. It was also the site of the Force War, so it’s possible that there may be other dangers we’re simply not aware of. I won’t needlessly put our people at risk though. If it looks too dangerous, we’ll pull back and reassess, or leave entirely if necessary. The Order is willing to accept that it’s uninhabitable, or too dangerous for habitation, as an answer.”

  “Understood. I’ll give it a look over. Talk to you later.”

  The call disconnected and I sent off a message letting Taria know the plan had changed and I wouldn’t need the freighter. Then, I sent Jaster the files I’d put together on Tython. With that done, all I could really do now was wait and prepare.

  Tython, 40 BBY/960 GSC.

  My lightsaber shut off and I lifted the tree I’d felled and then cut the branches off of out of the way using the Force, tossing it into the pile with the others. Looking around at the field the initial survey team had chosen with my help after finding a Force nexus, I nodded and tapped my ear bead. “The LZ is clear.”

  There was an acknowledgement and I moved off to the side of the field, sitting down on a cauterized stump. Taking out my canteen and a ration bar, I ate a snack and took a break. Inhaling, I took in the scents around me. The smell of water and temperate humidity in the air. Trees, flowers, and other vegetation. Freshly turned earth where I had used the Force to level the ground. The aromatic smell of wood smoke from my saber cutting down and trimming trees.

  Best of all was the silence.

  Not to my ears. No, the forest around the landing site was full of the sounds of life. Bird calls, insects, the occasional other animal, the constant sound of moving water from a river and waterfall nearby, wind rushing through the trees and grass.

  To my empathic sense, the place was quiet. There was nothing complex going on here. Just animal emotions as they went about their lives. The very few people I could sense moving closer on the edge of my range were easily ignored.

  To my Force senses, however… this place was more alive than Dathomir. Tython was strong in the Force—ridiculously so. There was a constant play of light and darkness, currents of the energy drifting over the planet like wind—and occasionally, where they met, lightning storms formed; naturally occurring storms of Force Lightning.

  There were Force nexuses everywhere on the planet—more than I could bother to count. Light, dark, and mixed—like the one I’d found for us. From orbit, I had sensed that and so much more—places and things calling to anyone nearby in the Force. Things that, when they noticed me, had perked up and shown a worrying amount of attention and were, even now, calling out for me to come find them.

  I knew now why they wanted to send a Shadow—and had a lingering suspicion of why they sent the newest one. There were really only a few possibilities. The most innocent was exactly as Taria had stated: they just didn’t have the people and my record spoke for itself. The others… Well, it was entirely possible that being the newest, I was simply expendable in a way an older Master simply wasn’t. Alternately, it could be a test to see how I performed and if I was honest about anything I happened to find. Or it could be some combination of those things.

  Noise from above drew me from my thoughts and I looked up as a decently sized cargo ship came into sight overhead, casting its shadow over the area. It wasn’t a Baleen-class, but it was still large enough to carry the multiple cargo containers it quickly began to unload with the aid of Mandos using repulsor lifts.

  I watched, letting them work as they put down several containers, pulling up the list I had been given by Jaster on my holocom and marking them off as they were placed down. Each one had a separate function, and Jaster had apparently bought the good ones—modular containers meant to be used to quickly establish an outpost on a planet, or to serve as semi-permanent housing and facilities for colonists going to the Outer Rim.

  There were two dedicated to power—both running on normal generators and solar. Two for environmental purposes—filtering water and air, and supplying hot and cold water to the other units, though only one of those would be in use at the moment with the other kept offline as a backup. One for a shield generator—it couldn’t run for long, but if shit hit the fan or we were attacked, it should keep us from being killed in a single bombardment. There were some for housing for the student scientists, security detail, and myself—each one being eight bunks to a unit, save for the unit I would be using alone, per privileges of rank. Two units for sanitation—toilets and real, water showers. One unit for food preparation and a second serving as a chow hall. Four units for food storage, packed to the brim with food that had been frozen for transport. One for weapons and ammunition for the security detail. One with hopefully all the spare parts we would need. And finally, two fully kitted out with lab equipment and computers.

  That was a total of twenty shipping container sized storage units. I almost dreaded the bill Jaster would be sending me. Thankfully, I’d be forwarding that to the Temple and letting them handle it.

  Once they got the units down, the freighter pulled away and broke orbit while a group of four troop transports landed. I put away my canteen and stood, getting back to work. Pulling out my lightsaber, I made quick work of the tree trunks, cutting them down to the lengths I wanted and using the Force to move them around the camp. The Force was a very handy tool to help dig a trench around the camp to place them in for a base for the wall, then make more holes to stand supports for the wall up. It wasn’t long before I had a group of six Mandos going behind me, working on the finer details with power tools—something I knew they were all familiar with, since we’d had to construct more than one temporary fortification and shelter on Serenno.

  Eventually, one of the Mandos came up and pulled off his helmet, before giving a sloppy salute. I stood and returned it, waiting. “Everything’s all set up, commander. Gear checks out. Power’s connected and water lines run to the river. The eggheads are setting up their lab how they want it and figure they’ll start taking initial samples within the hour. Squad Two’s on babysitting duty for now and manning the comms and security gear. Squad Three are going to help set up fortifications and our defenses—they’ll have an observation tower and our emplacements set up soon. Air support is currently doing aerial recon and taking photos, if they find anything they’ll call it in. Squad One is going to get chow and rack out in an hour so we can get into a proper sleep rotation.”

  “Good work,” I nodded. “Any complaints, concerns, or observations?”

  “One of the scientists mentioned something about abnormal weather patterns? Freak lightning storms?”

  “I’m aware of them. They’re not ‘freak’ storms. They appear to be caused by fluctuations in the Force.” I brought my hands up, “Positive and negative energy rub together,” I brought them together to do just that, “and create lightning. It is something to be concerned about. If we get one in the area, make sure whoever is on watch brings up the shield.”

  It was honestly rather intriguing, the natural interplay of light and dark and its effects here. Given my own nature and how every Master I’d spoken with had noticed the balance of both light and dark within me, it left me wondering if I couldn’t duplicate the effect and thereby skip some of the effort required to make Force Lightning the normal way. But that was something to test later.

  “Understood, ma’am. That’s it at the moment, but I’m sure something will come up soon. It always does in places like this.”

  I chuckled. “Let’s hope we brought enough weapons to deal with it. I’d rather not have to face off against another dragon,” I murmured, and the man nodded. “Dismissed.”

  He gave another salute and hurried off. Stretching briefly, I turned back to my work of securing the camp after sending off a quick message to Taria letting her know that the camp had been established and my team would start work soon. As I worked, I focused on my Force senses and just listened, feeling the natural interplay of Force around me—like swimming in the ocean as the waves came and went, washing over me as I mentally floated there.

  In the distance, the tempting siren song of something interesting called to me. It had waited for millennia, however—it could wait a little longer. After all, I had an entire year here completely unsupervised.

  A year in the most Force rich environment I’d ever been in. Time enough to hopefully finish my computation orb and grow the seed of Force within it. Time to work on my Force techniques and senses. Time to further hone my physical skills. Time to learn more from the mental engram of the Gatekeeper.

  And best of all… no one holding me back. I could do it all at my own pace.

  This is going to be fun~.

  End Book One.