111

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

111

33 BBY/967 GSC. Naboo Conflict +100 days. Hyperspace, en route to Serenno.

Levitating the last of my armor over to the stand for it in my quarters, I grabbed my cleaning kit, then sat down in my rolling office chair and got to work in nothing but my underwear and an old tee-shirt. Cleaning supplies danced in the air as I directed them to work over the armor, giving it a good, thorough cleaning to get all the gunk off and buff the silver exterior back to a shine, all while I used my hands to work at the more delicate helmet. On the table nearby, my other gear was laid out—lightsabers, pistols, rifle, and collapsible staff all waiting their turn.

It felt good to be out of the field and have some time to relax. To put away the armor and be able to lounge around. To let my guard down and not have to worry about an enemy attack coming at any moment. To have time to decompress and process everything that had happened—or not, and just let my mind fall into the wonderful, meditative state of allowing my body to work on auto-pilot as I focused on nothing at all.

The door to my office/quarters chimed and I reached out with my senses. Confirming who it was, I mentally lamented the interruption to my meditation, but social obligations were what they were. Having friends required putting in effort, even when you didn’t want to sometimes. So, I called out, “Come in.”

The door opened and the familiar forms of Aylin and Cindy entered, making their way through the office space when they saw I wasn’t there and entering the bedroom/living area. Almost immediately, I found myself accosted, or perhaps molested would be the better description, as Cindy wrapped herself around me in a hug—happy feelings coming from her as she squeezed me.

I sighed and reached out, returning the hug with one arm as Aylin sat on the couch opposite me. Putting the bottle and glasses she had brought in down, she began pouring drinks. Cindy eventually let go and sat down as well. Taking up her glass, the blonde drained half of it in one go and let out a satisfied sigh. “I’m so glad that’s over.”

“That bad?” I asked absently, taking a small brush to one of the seams in the helmet to remove a bit of dirt.

“You have no idea. You got to do all the fun parts. But guess who got stuck with the cleanup!” the blonde griped.

Raising an eyebrow, I briefly sent her an amused and knowing look. “You say that like you didn’t enjoy every minute of it.”

“Ugh. Listen. It’s different. Fixing something that went out is just part of the job. I don’t mind that. But having to replace battle-damaged armor panels, tear out and replace miles of slagged wiring and thousands of fuses, or keep fixing the same set of thrusters over and over because some fucking idiot keeps trying to cowboy it and push his fighter past the limits of what it can do is not my idea of a good time! And all of that was just for one group of idiots! The machines function perfectly fine, it’s the organic flight control system that’s the problem!”

I turned an exasperated look on Aylin, who smiled and shook her head. “Oh no, don’t look at me. I’ve been dealing with this the entire time. I promised her ten minutes of uninterrupted time complaining directly to you.”

Sighing, I nodded and sent Cindy a nod. “Very well. Let’s hear your proposed solution.”

“Retrain every last one of them. Six months in the simulator before they’re allowed to touch one of my birds again. But for the troublemakers?” The blonde leered, and I felt the gleeful malice rolling off of her. “I’m sure I can whip up something to motivate them. I’m thinking… shock collars that go off any time they do something that would damage their machines.”

“Hmm…” I considered it for a few moments before offering an alternative. “One month of refresher simulator training for the worst offenders. Post their scores publicly. A little shame among their peers will go a long way.”

Cindy pouted. “You’re going soft, boss. And I really liked the shock collar idea.”

Rolling my eyes, I continued, “Fine. The lowest scorers after the first week get their choice of…” I hummed, wondering what would be a sufficient punishment detail. “Ah. Cleaning the toilets in the marines’ barracks, or—” Cindy’s blue eyes stared with an intensity I had rarely seen on the blonde. “Or a shock collar.”

“Yes~!”

“You will make sure they’re safe!” I growled, and she nodded.

“Sure, sure! Safe enough for a marine to use.”

“They play hot potato with live capacitors and you know it!” I growled. “If you want a shock collar, you get to be the one to test it! On yourself!”

Cindy laughed. “Deal. I won’t make anyone suffer anything I’m not willing to.”

Some sixth sense told me that I was walking into a verbal trap there. I turned to Aylin who shook her head. “Don’t agree to that. Firstly, I’m pretty sure she’s zapped herself enough times rewiring ships that she can tell exactly how much voltage is running through a wire by how much it tingles.”

“It’s an acquired skill,” Cindy nodded. “It’s really handy when you have to squeeze in somewhere tight and don’t have the room to bring in a probe, and a droid is too stupid to do it right.”

“Secondly, her pain tolerance is way higher than you’d think it is. It does not have the same effect on Cindy that you’re going to get from the average aviator. She’s… built different.”

The blonde giggled, turning pink and sending Aylin a look that told me that was probably not something she wanted aired. “Shut up!”

“Ah. A sexual deviant, then,” I nodded. “There’s always at least one in any military group.”

“It’s not like that!” Cindy protested. Aylin and I both sent her looks that clearly said she wasn’t convincing us. “Really!”

“Uh huh,” I shook my head. “Does that satisfy your concerns with our pilots?”

“Hm? Oh! Yeah, for now,” Cindy nodded.

“Excellent. Any other concerns I should address?” I asked, turning the helmet over and reaching in to begin picking out stray white hairs.

“Nothing on my end,” Aylin shook her head, and Cindy nodded along. “So, I’m curious. How did you resolve the gungan situation?”

Turning back to cleaning my armor, I smiled. “Oh, I didn’t. I merely convinced them to resolve it themselves.”

“She did something tricky,” Cindy translated, and Aylin nodded.

“It wasn’t exactly clever or innovative. The gungans are simply so stupid by comparison that it worked wonders.” They nodded, Aylin sending me an expectant look urging me to continue. “We instigated a civil war by planting some explosives, firing off a few weapons, and leaving behind fresh bodies belonging to rival gungan factions. We also used some holograms to make it seem like each rival faction was attacking their opposition to remove them, so they could claim leadership of the gungans as a whole. So now, each gungan faction thinks that no less than two of their rivals are trying to wipe them out to the last and will stop at nothing to see it done. They stopped sending terror cells at the Naboo and have begun diverting them at each other.”

Not just their terrorists. No, most of them were mustering forces and preparing to march on their enemies. So far, the plan was working beautifully. And all we had to do was capture and interrogate some gungans, find out who they hated, build a web of who hates who and who are longtime allies, and then spend a couple of days moving teams into place and simultaneously attacking.

“Clever,” Aylin chuckled.

“Nasty,” Cindy shook her head. “I’m surprised the queen signed off on that. She seemed too nice for that kind of skulduggery.”

“Padme is,” I murmured, letting out a quiet sigh. “She’s entirely too naive. That’s why I didn’t tell her before doing it and none of the men left behind on Naboo to temporarily reinforce their security and guard our own people are aware of it, so as far as they know, this is natural gungan infighting in the wake of their leadership being killed.”

“And you’re not going to tell her, just in case?” the blonde asked, and I shook my head.

It was Aylin who answered, however. “Operational Security and Plausible Deniability. If she doesn’t know, she can’t say something and have it spread, and ruin the op. And if anyone asks, she can honestly reply that she didn’t know.”

“Precisely,” I nodded. Finished pulling my hairs out of the helmet, I set it aside and moved on to the next piece.

“Our orders were to return to Serenno. Do we know why?” Aylin asked.

Picking up my glass, I took a sip and sighed. “Master Dooku said there’s going to be a full Senate meeting and I’ll need to give my report on Naboo. As Naboo has yet to elect a senator, Padme will be phoning it in via holocall. They want to do a full deep dive into the entire thing to make sure we handled everything by the book and within the letter of the law. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘I.’”

Frowning, Cindy asked, “So they’re, what? Digging into your actions to find some problem? Are they trying to cause trouble?”

“Yes and no. Yes, they’re looking for any little thing they can find that may have been mishandled. It’s not out of malice, however. Given who I am, my positions, and my relation to Master Dooku—along with the fact that the Confederacy is new and this is our first large scale engagement with the Trade Federation—they want to review everything and make sure nothing untoward is going on. That we are upholding the ideals we founded the Confederacy on and not simply falling back into the ways of the Republic.”

Saying that didn’t make it feel any less like a personal attack just because of who I was, though. Because it was.

They were explicitly going to nitpick until they found something to stick me for, so they could test. So they could see if the law applied equally to everyone. Unfortunately for the Senate, we knew that much going in and I had countermeasures prepared. I had kept meticulous track of every on the books operation and decision I’d made, and had come up with legal arguments to defend every last one of them—even my supposed ‘breach of parley’ with Nute Gunray in order to steal his ship.

As for the off the books operations, well, those wouldn’t see the light of day as a matter of national security. The Senate had no need to know the gritty details, because they would inevitably be turned against us by our enemies—who had done the same or worse and never faced consequences.

Did I believe that just because someone else did it, that morally justified those acts? No. Absolutely not.

But my argument was much simpler: morally justified or not, they were necessary to get the job done. And as any soldier knew, doing dirty jobs inevitably ended up in those sent to do them being covered in muck. It was the least the government could do for those who did the jobs no one else wanted, that no one else could or would do, to clean off their tools and see that they were taken care of after.

Unfortunately, politicians tended to run one of two ways in the galaxy: entirely corrupt like those I had been tasked with removing, or hopelessly naive like Padme. It was a rare thing to find someone who was not corrupt, but also understood the necessity of doing distasteful things because the other options were even less palatable.

“So I should prepare to defend my own actions as well, then,” Aylin murmured, and I nodded.

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“Very possibly.”

“I thought this was the sort of backwards punishment of excellence and gumming up of the entire works that we broke away from the Republic to do away with,” the woman sighed.

“Oh, it is. That’s part of my closing argument, in fact. A more politely worded version of, If you want to keep being a wrench in the works, go back to the Republic where you belong.”

Finishing the last of her glass, Cindy poured herself another. “Man I’m glad I don’t have to deal with politics. I don’t know how you two do it.”

“Reluctantly.”

“Painfully.”

Aylin and I shared an amused look and a brief smile, before I turned back to my armor and gave it a last look over. Deciding it was acceptable, I moved on to my first lightsaber. “How is the new troop compliment settling in?”

“Rather well. The marines love them,” Aylin reported.

I winced. “Oh, that bodes poorly for someone.”

“Right?” the woman chuckled. “They’ve been doing drinking games—”

I took a breath and let it out slowly. “How many?”

“How many?” Cindy asked, as Aylin grinned.

“How many are pregnant?”

The captain laughed. “None, yet.”

“‘Yet.’” The word hung there, ominously. An unrealized threat, lurking. Waiting. Thankfully, the clones had countermeasures in place against pregnancy.

“So, did that situation with the Sith ever get resolved?”

Shaking my head, I sent Aylin a nod. “Master Qui-Gon and Obi are taking the body back to the Temple. We’ll see how the High Council responds.” Turning my attention to Cindy, I asked, “And the ship we recovered?”

The blonde mechanic grinned. “She’s a beauty! Definitely Sienar’s work. This thing is crammed full of bleeding edge tech. Cloaking, shielding, advanced capacitors and solar array, hyperdrive, engines—oh, the engines! Boss, they don’t run on fuel!”

I blinked and Aylin perked up at that. “What do you mean?” the older woman asked. “All starships need fuel—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Cindy waved her off. “Okay, so your starship fuel powers the reactor, yeah? But it’s also burned for the thrusters. We’re using combustion engines, right? So not only are you burning fuel to keep the lights on, but you also need it for go juice, to make the ship move. Yeah, this doesn’t do that! The engines are all electric. Not sure of the science behind it yet, but I know from testing that they’re way more efficient and produce more thrust per pound than anything we have in production. We absolutely need to stop by Mandalore on the way back and drop this thing off for the eggheads for the engines alone. If we reverse engineered it and started putting it on our fighters and ships, it’d be a huge leap forward and give us a big advantage over the Republic or the Trade Federation.”

A smile spread over my lips as I asked, “How much of an improvement?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I don’t have all the equipment here to test that. But just going by the mass of the ship versus the thrust it produces, at least fifty percent.”

Nodding, I hummed. “Any complications? Interference with other systems?”

Cindy shook her head. “None that I can see. It runs all of its onboard systems with the engines burning just fine. We’ll need the shipyard’s facilities to determine anything more than that.”

“Alright. We’ll make a detour to stop by Mandalore and drop it off,” I agreed, looking to Aylin who took out her personal holocom.

“Helm, this is Keen.”

“Captain.”

“Change our destination to Mandalore. We’ll be stopping there before going on to Serenno.”

“Roger that, ma’am.”

“Keen out.”

Putting away the holocom, she asked, “Any chance of some shore leave when we get to Serenno?”

I nodded. “Give the crew three days. Rotate essential crew out as needed to let everyone get some leave. After that, run shipwide drills. I want the aviators conducting training and our marine and clone troop contingent out in the field doing their own training. I’m not sure how long we’ll be there, but we can use this time to sharpen ourselves ahead of the next conflict.”

“I’ll see it done,” Aylin agreed.

“Enough about work~!” Cindy groaned, before turning and laying out on the couch, plopping her head in Aylin’s lap, to the brunette’s amusement. “So, the girls seemed close with that kid Qui-Gon picked up on Tatooine. Did they get a boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes. “They’re children. He’s a boy and their friend, but I would hardly go as far as to say that qualifies for being a ‘boyfriend.’”

At least they got along fairly well. Despite my… misgivings around Anakin and the way the Force moved around him, and especially how it interacted between him and Padme, the boy was intelligent and had talent. In the short time he and the girls had been together, he had picked up several things and taken to using the Force like a duck to water.

As though he were born to it…

I was never one to believe in prophecy. ‘Prophecy’ was just what the uneducated called pattern recognition and educated guessing, when it actually came to pass. When it didn’t, it was little more than a wild ass guess.

However.

The Force was a known factor and I myself knew how to see into the future—or at least, view potential futures. Mostly, I used it in combat. But I explicitly chose not to use that ability for looking further into the future, to avoid setting myself down some predetermined course set in place because I had seen the course I was trying to avoid. In this case, a prophecy could believably have more weight to it as less of a prophecy and more the result of someone’s looking into the future with Force Precognition and writing the result down.

Qui-Gon had shared the prophecy of the ‘Chosen One who will bring Balance to the Force’ with me, in the downtime after destroying the Trade Federation fleet. While I was willing to lend some credence to the possibility that it was the result of precognition, the so-called prophecy was so loosely worded that it was easy to claim many people fit the description, depending upon how one defined ‘balance’ within the Force. In fact, I could name six off the top of my head.

The first, of course, was Qui-Gon himself—a man who learned how to balance the duties of a Jedi with the realities of being human. Then there was Anakin, if Qui-Gon was correct. Next was Mundi—a man who had been steeped in the dark side of the Force unintentionally, then burned it out with the light, and now a zealot who sought to destroy everything ‘dark.’ Fourth, was Master Windu, who balanced the light and the dark in his fighting style. Fifth was Palpatine. If his goal was to eradicate the Jedi, then balancing the scales by resetting them to zero was technically a form of balance. And finally, there was myself, and my internal balance of light and dark.

I couldn’t completely dismiss it as bullshit, but I was deeply skeptical about who it referred to and what this supposed balanced Force looked like. And while yes, I was willing to admit that Anakin was strong and the Force around him felt strange, I wasn’t sure that was a sign of him just being more powerful than his peers, or of something more. In fact, according to Revan, Anakin barely qualified as average for a Padawan in his day. I knew I was strong and skilled compared to many of my peers, but from the way Revan told it, I would just barely be a peer force compared to an Old Republic era Jedi or Sith. So perhaps this prophecy did refer to Anakin, and its idea of him bringing Balance to the Force would be to grow up, go forth, and have many children, and thus through those children increase the strength of Force users.

There’s really no way to tell, so there’s no point to worrying about it now. Don’t let it drive your decisions. Unfortunately, it seems Qui-Gon is caught up in that trap. Well, I wish him luck with it.

Shaking my head, I put away my finished saber and grabbed the second, turning my attention back to the conversation. “How is our guest settling in?”

“Oh, Shmi’s lovely,” Cindy smiled, before sighing. “At a bit of a loss, though. After a lifetime of being a slave, she doesn’t really know how to handle not working and just relax. It’s been a challenge keeping her occupied.”

“I gave in and let her join the galley staff and help with cooking,” Aylin admitted. “I’m paying her the same wage as a new recruit assigned to the galley. She tried to refuse, but I told her it was either accept, or you’d force the money on her anyway.”

I nodded. “Yes, I noticed that. Any trouble with the crew?”

“Not a bit,” Aylin shook her head.

“Are you kidding? They love her. Half of them have started calling her ‘mom,’” Cindy laughed. “On the one hand, she’s probably the safest person on the ship at the moment. On the other… I think they might just mutiny when they learn she’s going to be leaving us once we get to Serenno.”

“I’m sure they’ll get over it,” I sighed. I briefly considered offering her a longer term position onboard, before deciding against it. The woman needed a home where she wasn’t someone’s slave and Anakin would need a place to go home to, that wasn’t a ship.

Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t influence things a little. “Is she any good?”

“Surprisingly, yes,” Aylin confirmed.

“If she can’t sit still and feels a compulsive need to work, then it’s best to put that compulsion to use in a healthy and productive manner,” I hummed, before nodding. “I’ll speak with Jenza and see about offering her some courses at the local college’s culinary school, then hire her on once she graduates. Assuming she accepts.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll talk to her and see if she wants to,” Cindy offered, and I nodded.

Good. That will serve nicely to bend the rules of the Order and see how a Jedi does when they maintain contact with their family, and said family is maintained in a happy, healthy, and safe environment. Master Dooku has already agreed to abolish the ‘no attachments’ rule within his new sect. This will hopefully provide an example of what that looks like to those on the fence about it.

And then… we can start encouraging inter-mingling and families between our Jedi and have them breed more Jedi. As opposed to scouring the galaxy for Force sensitives and then encouraging them not to breed, turning a precious, finite but entirely renewable resource into a non-renewable resource like a bunch of idiots! The absolute mismanagement of the Jedi lineage since the time of the Ruusan Reformation still leads me to believe that the entire thing was a Sith plot meant to slowly cull the galaxy of Jedi, by destroying the idea of a family of Jedi raising more Jedi and turning ‘being a Jedi’ into a single generation, self-correcting problem.

It has to be actively malicious. I refuse to believe anyone could have been that stupid as to not see the most obvious outcome.

33 BBY/967 GSC. Naboo Conflict +111 days. Jedha.

The speeder slowed to a stop under Mace’s guidance, before lowering down to land in the sand, in the shadow of a long toppled statue of some Jedi lost to time. In front of them, Qui-Gon’s ship was parked and the man himself, along with his Padawan Obi-Wan, and a young boy stood waiting. Even from where he sat, Mace could feel the boy’s presence in the Force—strong, if a bit nervous.

Beside him, Yoda grunted as he opened the passenger side door and slipped out onto the sand. Mace, Yaddle, and Jocasta likewise got out, looking around at the rest of the gathered Jedi. It was not just the Jedi High Council gathered here, but the Jedi of all the Councils and every Master in the Temple at the moment.

The gathered Jedi formed into a circle around a pile of wood Qui-Gon had likely brought with them for this purpose. As soon as Mace and the others joined the circle, Qui-Gon gestured to the ship’s ramp. As they watched, a black body bag hovered out under Qui-Gon’s grasp in the Force. He set it down to the side of the fire and gestured wordlessly for the others to see.

Mace and Yoda were the first to step up. Mace pulled the zipper down, then spread the bag open, revealing the contents.

It was a zabrak man, with black and red markings and short horns. He wore black robes and very light armor, but it hadn’t helped against the lightsaber that struck him. He had been killed with a single, nearly vertical slice, neatly bisecting him from the top of the head down to the right hip. A good, clean strokeon Qui-Gon’s part. Textbook, even.

Obi-Wan moved up and offered Yoda a lightsaber. It was broken, cut through in the center, but clearly a double-bladed saber. Yoda hummed, before pushing one of the activation buttons. Apparently, Qui-Gon’s stroke hadn’t hit the power cell or anything important to running the saber, as it flicked on immediately—an ominous red blade springing out of the emitter. Mace could feel the malice pouring off of the thing in the Force.

Shutting off the blade, Yoda passed it to Mace, before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Mace studied it for a moment, fitting both halves together, feeling the weight of it in his hands and the echoes of the Force and intent poured into it from its user.

It’s steeped in the dark side. Soaked in it, and in the blood of innocents.

Just touching it made him feel unclean. Shaking his head, he turned and handed it off to Master Nu, then wiped his hands on his robes. Other members of the High Council approached, getting a look at the body and the weapon for themselves, as he and Yoda retreated back to the circle.

“That’s it, then. Mereel was right. The rest of the High Council can’t deny it. Not with the proof before us,” Mace murmured.

Yoda nodded once. “Mm. Wish it were not the case, I do.”

“This is clearly the Apprentice. We should move on our primary suspect for the Master,” Mace said, careful of mentioning the man’s name in mixed company, lest it color the others’ view of him and give away their suspicions before they were ready to act.

“Circumstantial, the evidence remains. Cautious, must our approach be, given who he is.”

“I agree. It warrants caution,” Yaddle murmured as she joined them. “Our claim must be rock solid.”

Mace frowned. “And in the meantime, he’s free to act. I don’t like it.” Jocasta rejoined them and he looked to the older woman. “Master Nu, have your people uncovered anything?”

The woman sent him a confused look. “My people? Mace, have you forgotten? I am just a librarian.”

Mace sent her a flat look, which Jocasta returned with a raised eyebrow. “I’ll take that as a no,” he grunted.

“Take it however you wish, young man,” she huffed. “The question is, what are we to do now? If we assume this is the Apprentice, and the Master is still free to act due to circumstances beyond our control, then should we not begin moving against them in other ways?”

“What do you suggest?” Yaddle asked. “Should we reach out to our allies within the Senate and start directing them to oppose his moves?”

“Given that we’re all on the same page regarding the Master’s suspected identity,” Jocasta began, her tone making it a question. Mace and Yoda nodded, and that was enough for her to continue. “Using our own allies would only arouse suspicion. Instead, we should approach his allies. Not those who openly support him, but rather specifically, those who are open to ‘suggestion.’ Not directly, of course. Instead, orchestrate a leak of information. Let a few of them discover that others among their number are being paid more in ‘contributions.’ Their own greed and corrupt nature will do the rest. They will begin working against him until they get what they want. Then when one is placated, we move on to the next, and the next, before circling back to the first, as each one demands more than the last.”

“I hate political games,” Mace grunted. “They’re ineffective and a waste of time. All that’s going to do is slow things down. We need to put a stop to it.”

“True,” Jocasta agreed. “If you’re looking to do that, then I suggest approaching members of Republic High Command and convincing them to focus their attention on the Trade Federation.”

“War, his goal is. To drag us into the conflict, I fear his aim is,” Yoda shook his head.

“Then take a more direct approach against the Trade Federation. Speak to them. Lean on them. And when that doesn’t work, turn to more… kinetic measures,” Jocasta murmured.

Mace nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

The last of the Jedi Masters moved away from the body and Qui-Gon lifted it onto the pile of wood, drawing their attention. Obi-Wan carried a canister of starship fuel down from the ship and spread it over the wood and body, before backing away. Master Qui-Gon then produced an incendiary grenade and tossed it onto the corpse. A moment later, fire flared to life, bright and hot as it took to the wood and body.

“What about the boy? And Obi-Wan’s Knighthood?” Yaddle asked.

“If he says she’s ready for Knighthood, then I’ll take his word for it,” Mace said, earning a nod from Yoda. “As for the boy…”

Jocasta snorted quietly. “Your options are Qui-Gon teaches him or Tanya teaches him.”

“Trained, he shall be, under Master Qui-Gon. Need another of her, we do not,” Yoda thumped his cane in the sand decisively.

“I seem to recall you’ve said that about Qui-Gon himself in the past,” Jocasta chuckled.

“Speaking of Qui-Gon though,” Yaddle said, drawing their attention. “There’s still an open position on the High Council. Perhaps we should offer him the position again?”

“He’s earned it,” Mace nodded, gesturing at the fire. “The question is whether or not he’ll take it.”

“Convince him, we shall—or we shall not. His to make, the decision is,” Yoda nodded.

“It’s going to upset the balance of power on the Council,” Mace pointed out.

Jocasta smiled. “And maybe that’s just what we need now. Someone to shake things up.”