Can One Displaced Hero Save a Galaxy?

(Chapters 115-117)

Novus Peregrine

Disclaimer: I am, very tragically, not in charge of Disney. All rights to Star Wars belong to Disney (so far as I'm aware). Likewise, My Hero Academia is the creation of Kōhei Horikoshi, not me.

Chapter 115: Whispers in the Dark

– 1 Month Post Senate Announcement –

– Ithor - 24.4 BBY -

Kadrian Sey had no idea why her new master wanted Senator Tendau Bendon dead. The Ithorian senator was, like most of his species, a pacifist. Perhaps this was a test, to see if Kadrian had the proper mindset to be one of Darth Tyranus’s Acolytes in truth? If there were any lingering doubts about the supremacy of the Dark Side in her, she supposed that assassinating a peaceful senator who, even more unlikely, appeared to be an honest and humble politician, would have brought them to the surface.

She had no such doubts.

Peace Was a Lie.

She might not be a Sith yet, but she knew their code from study of old archives at the Jedi Temple, and that truth had resonated with her long before she was approached by the former Jedi Master. It was a self-evident reality, so far as she was concerned. The Republic touted itself as being in the middle of an unprecedented thousand years of peace…as if there weren’t tens of thousands of beings murdered on worlds across the galaxy every day. The Republic ignored local wars, blatantly in most cases, doing its best to pretend events like the Stark Hyperspace War and the Invasion of Naboo hadn’t happened. Which didn’t even cover the billions of slaves who certainly didn’t know the Republic’s supposed ‘peace.’

No, the Sith were right. Peace Was a Lie, and only power mattered. The power to reshape the galaxy how it should be, rather than foolishly accepting it as it was. Kadrian Sey felt nothing but simmering rage as she squeezed the trigger of her detonator, watching and savoring the feel of death in the Force as the sanctimonious proponent of ‘peace’ was blown away with his entire entourage. If Tyranus had thought she would hesitate, he knew better now. She was certain she had just secured her place as one of his Acolytes.

Eventually, she knew, her strength in the Dark Side would make her his apprentice as well…whatever those other fools who he’d allowed to try their hand at becoming the same thought. She knew it was her that would come out on top.

… … …

– Castell - 24.4 BBY -

Trenox’s smile was bloodthirsty as he marked his prey. Perhaps, once, the fact that he was going to enjoy the chaos he was about to unleash would have appalled him. Yet, Master Dooku, now Darth Tyranus, had opened his eyes to the truth. The galaxy was in desperate need of order, and the only way to achieve that order and make it stick was through power. The Count, having spent decades at the very top of the Jedi Order yet achieving nothing for his efforts, had seen this clearly. The galaxy only understood strength, and to shift it to a more pleasing direction would require they prove they had it.

Unlike many of the other fools who had flocked to Dooku, taking direction without understanding the purpose of the great man’s orders, Trenox did understand his assignment. He liked to imagine that was why he’d been given the job of murdering Shu Mai and making it look like an unknown Jedi had done it. Many of the foolish who thought they would be Tyranus’s new right hand if they succeeded well enough at their tasks would have questioned why. Shu Mai was, after all, a major supporter of the growing Secessionist movement. As Presidente of the Commerce Guild, she was bringing a lot of money and influence to the cause. So why kill her?

Trenox was not so simple-minded.

No, he fully understood why her death was required. Their movement had taken several body blows as some connected to its mid-levels were raided by the Jedi and found to be corrupt. They’d lost a number of senators and rich business beings to those raids, and lost momentum in the debates as their corruption had been revealed. Too many were now associating the Separatist movement with corruption, rather than recognizing that the goal was to flee corruption.

The narrative needed to change.

The death of Shu Mai, who was unquestionably unscrupulous but had always stuck within the legal letter of the law as written? Seen by her allies both in the Guild and the movement as being done in by a Jedi wetworks team when they couldn’t prove a proper crime against her? That would alter the story going around, twisting it to cause fear in the other backers. Fear that, if they didn’t somehow protect themselves, the Jedi would come for them, too. They were already in far too deep to merely go home, so it would force a recommitment. Combined with a propaganda assault to stall the victories the Jedi were making, and the lost momentum could easily be regained.

The fact that Shu Mai really was a piece of utter scum simply meant he felt even less bad than he might have otherwise as he lopped her head off with his lightsaber. The wounds he’d left killing not just her, but her guards and droids, would make it clear what sort of weapon had been used. Spun correctly and correlated falsely with the raids the Jedi were performing throughout the Republic, this would do the job of redirecting focus and opinions of the galactic masses nicely…

… … …

– Alaris Prime - 24.4 BBY -

Ror neither knew, nor cared, why the specific Jedi he was targeting had been marked for death. He only cared that he was, at last, being given the chance to prove himself to Darth Tyranus by striking down a Jedi! It hadn’t been that difficult to convince a group of Trandoshans to smuggle him onto Alaris Prime, the fool lizards all-too-interested in scalping some Wookiees to please their stupid ‘Scorekeeper.’ Utterly ridiculous. The Force was the only greater power out there, and it certainly didn’t care how epic your killstreak was.

Whatever, it didn’t matter to him.

All that mattered was that Mavra Zane was to die by his lightsaber today. Preferably along with any padawans or initiates she’d brought to the planet, if he could reach them before her body was discovered. Giving an ugly smirk as he saw her out scouting again, apparently part of some plan to establish a small Jedi Temple here on the planet, he knew it was his moment to strike. He lept down from the tree, blade extended to lop of the inattentive Jedi’s head!

…

…

…

Ror never saw the blue lightsaber blade that cut him down without remorse. Master Adi Galia tisking as his failure to even dodge. She’d expected him to do so, having planned to take him alive by removing his arm after he’d dodged. Master Zane, who had been well aware of Ror’s poorly-hidden presence and acting as bait, doubled back and shook her head at the sight.

“I guess they don’t make assassins like they used too?”

Adi Gallia snorted at that comment but frowned down at the corpse of the Dark Acolyte.

“Incompetent though he might have been, his presence here at all is concerning. It almost certainly means that something leaked regarding our attempts to put a temple up here. We might have to abandon Alaris as an option, as well as trying to figure out where the information leaked from. No one but the Order and the locals were aware, and the Wookiees are far too honorable to sell the information. Which means…”

Master Zane scowled, following the train of logic easily enough.

“Which means the leak must have come from within the Order. The fears that we might have infiltrators, or that some of ours might have been turned, might have more credence than I’d wanted to admit.”

Master Galia nodded.

“Hopefully, the leak is only someone in the support staff, or a you padawan not used to information security needs. If we have to start investigating our own Knight and Masters, with the way things are already somewhat fractured, it might just lead to the Order splintering in truth. Doubly so if we find out the leak was deliberate. After all, this fool was a danger to the children that would have been sent here soon.”

Both women’s expressions turned grim as they considered the possibility. Hopefully, the Jedi Investigators would be able to find the leak before something far worse than this incompetent fool wrecked their hard work…

… … …

– Serreno - 24.3 BBY –

Count Dooku looked through the reports of the many potential Acolytes he’d collected, noting which ones had succeeded at the tasks given to prove themselves and which had not. A few had died, but clean up teams had made sure that it wouldn’t track back to him or his faction, and those were the weaklings anyway. Even that fool Ror had served his purpose. He’d been far too unsatisfactory to keep, and their ‘secret’ new temples being discovered might just convince the Jedi not to disperse the way they were considering. That was a potential annoyance to the Great Plan.

A few more of the acolyte potentials had failed and would be eliminated, unworthy of receiving more than the basic instruction from him he’d already offered to each. Though even among the failures there was one he might yet have a use for. One way or another, the failures were both expected and nothing to be concerned over. After all, enough had succeeded to do exactly what his Master wanted.

The debate within the Senate had been derailed for too long by the Hutt Crusade and the attention it drew. Tempers had lessened and a few annoyances like Bail Organa and Eeshrin Ot'Hyne had made inroads in calming things farther with the distraction offered. Countermeasures had been taken, of course, to keep things from cooling off entirely. Yet, he and Sidious had both known that the scale of the distraction was working against them. That they would need to wait things out a bit. Honestly, given that it had given him longer to work on recruiting some assets and his Master had slipped several pieces of useful legislation through with the Crusade as an excuse, it was hardly a setback.

That said, it was time to get the galaxy back on its collision course in full.

The Jedi had surprised them by escalating first, but that too was useful. Their desperate attempt to cut out enough of the mid-level corruption in the Senate so they could shift the course away from war had, in fact, driven a number of useful pawns into Dooku’s hands. Those pawns, combined with the campaigns of terror both he and Sidious were launching to agitate both sides, would return the secession debate to galactic focus.

As it should be.

As they willed it to be.

Besides, he admitted, this series of operations had rid him of the shrill self-centered voice of Shu Mai. That sociopathic, self-centered bitch had been migraine inducing to deal with from the start. As evidenced by him resorting to calling her such names even in the sanctity of his own mind. Making a note to favor Trenox, in particular, for a job of ridding him of her, he turned his attention to making sure her replacement would be someone properly…malleable. Preferably with a less headache-inducing voice.

… … …

-Tipoca City – Kamino-

– 24.2 BBY -

“Yes, Minster. The updated timetable provided by the client will be most beneficial to the results. Not only will far more of the original order be ready for instant deployment, but it has granted us the chance to better explore alternate variants. The Prime Donor’s clones are a good fit for a surprisingly wide set of roles, but fare somewhat poorly in the less martial aspects of running a military. Specifically, we believe introducing an alternate profile for medics is almost certain to increase efficiency. Some exploration is being given to a possible pilot variant as well.”

Lama Su’s head subtly shifted from side to side, a thinking gesture common to most Kaminoans. Recognizing it for what it was, Nala Se waited out her ultimate boss’s moment of thought. It only took a minute or two before the Prime Minister gave a shallow nod.

“Very well. While I will only authorize small test runs of the new configurations until the client sees results and either approves or denies them, I can see the value in exploring the concept.”

Nala Se nodded her acceptance, pleased she’d be allowed to more fully explore her theories. They rarely got to clone armies at this sort of scope, after all. It should be taken as a chance to learn and improve the efficiency of the result. She had one more point to bring up, however. Though it shouldn’t be a controversial one.

“A final remaining point. The delay, combined with the aging treatment, will mean some of the early clones will be moving past their peak by the time of delivery. While it was considered a waste of resources before, it may be advantageous to reverse the rapid aging in the older clones now, so that the client will be fully satisfied with a larger number of peak clones, instead of some that are beginning to decline in their reflexes slightly.”

This time, Lama Su didn’t hesitate.

“Do it. At least for the oldest batches of clones. If we want large follow up orders from the Republic, providing them the best product at time of delivery is critical.”

Acknowledging the order once more, she moved on, wanting to get back to her lab.

“By your leave then, Prime Minster, I have work to do.”

The man waved her off and Nala Se quickly excited his office. She was moving quite a bit more quickly than normal, excited at the approval for alternate profiles. While the Prime Donor was an excellent source of genetic material, she had been getting bored now that she’d fully explored his limits. An attempt at a female line of his genetics would perhaps produce something useful. Yet there were also those among the Cuy’val Dar trainers that might make better options.

The prime two among them were a doctor, Mij Gilamar, and a female Mandalorian medic. The two being the ones who worked with the clones to train their medics up. Both, or a combination of their genes, might prove a better template for medical staff among this particular army. The Prime Donor clones were rarely gifted in that area, and she hadn’t been able to isolate what made the rare exceptions different. With more samples and more product lines, she might be able to figure it out…

… … …

– 24.1 BBY -

Devilla the Hutt’s heart was bitter, yet satisfied, as she watched her death come for her. Her throneworld wasn’t the first to come under League assault, the damnable monsters seemingly possessed of an unending stream of tricks. Like those utter nerfshit troop transports that somehow released a thousand troops instead of the hundred or so they should have physically been able to hold. Despite those tricks, her own forces had managed to take a significant bite out of her attackers, just like the defenses of the other throneworlds they’d taken so far. They would lose money on this assault, her own accounts deliberately drained off, her treasures smuggled elsewhere to hidden caches they were unlikely to ever find, and several of their capital ships had been destroyed entirely.

Nor would this be the end of her line.

The League were just as foolish as the Republic. They were not killing any Hutt under a certain age, too squeamish to do the job of eliminating their enemies entirely. Devilla had two children young enough that the enemy would not kill them, and they would know the locations of the caches when they were old enough. Like always, the Hutts would simply outlast their enemies, even if they were brought lower than ever before by this cursed Crusade against them. The Hutts would rise again, in time, as strong as ever. Stronger, even, for the weak and decadent having been pruned.

In the meantime, of course, her satisfaction was reserved for the revenge she would have on her enemies in death. If she couldn’t have her world, than no one would. Her sons were already off world, on a surrendered space station. The chattel were of no more use if they’d failed to stop the assault. As she watched the enemy forces reach her palace, she gave a final, grim smile and pushed the button on the ancient Republic Superweapon that one of her clan had stolen a copy of the plans for.

The first groundquake was instant, as was the Baradium Fission device that wiped out Devilla and her capital city, along with thousands of League troops and tens of thousands of their droids. The increasingly fast groundquakes that followed, triggered by an ancient copy of the Shock Drum, would rapidly destabilize the planet in a matter of hours. Despite the best attempts of the League, tens of millions of locals that had served the Hutts would die. The only positive at all was that this particular throneworld had been lightly populated due to the Hutt clan it belonged to preferring to keep it otherwise pristine.

The agony and pain in the Force felt by thousands of Force Users as the planet became a small wound in the Force itself would bring the final series of assaults against the Hutt worlds to a temporary halt. The League navy ground its collective teeth in frustration as they suddenly found a need to infiltrate every single world before conquering it. The need to allow the Jedi and other Force forces to find and disable other such super weapons before there enemies could wipe out their own planets would slow the final death of the Hutt empire by over a year and a half…

… … …

– Coruscant - 24.1 BBY -

Mas Amedda was pleased, as he read through the reports from the various factors he’d set loose. The Supreme Chancellor had given him the task of undercutting the gains the Jedi Order was making in popularity with the public. Their sudden burst of activities, revealing dozens of corruption scandals within the Senate and other movers in the halls of power had caused quite enough chaos. The fact that those scandals made for good press for a group that the Senate had been trying to marginalize for centuries on top of that was completely intolerable.

Doubly so when he knew his master’s plans to purge the Senate on a grander scale were being impaired by the fools and their sanctimonious actions. Mas didn’t care one wit that his boss had confided to being from a different religious background than the Jedi, one that Jedi had always hated and attempted to genocide. The plan to gain far greater control over the galaxy, returning central authority to the Chancellor’s Office where it had always belonged, was far more important than their religious tiff. The Republic had lasted over 20,000 years under a strong central government. Now, not even a thousand after the idiots that put together the ’reformation,’ the Republic had become hideously corrupt and was doomed to fall apart.

Something obviously had to be done.

If that something just so happened to also increase Mas Amedda’s own standing and power? Well, there was no harm in being rewarded for your hard work on the galaxy’s behalf, now was there? Now, while the emphasis on the Jedi being child kidnappers had played out well, Mas was fairly certain they were starting to run into pushback on that front. Too many stories from worlds aligned with the Jedi were producing more accurate accounts of Jedi recruiting policy. Better to let that particular angle settle back to a long-term simmer.

Hmmm, instead…yes, that would do. The Chancellor had let him into the archives of some of the more questionable activities the Jedi Order had gotten up to. A carefully controlled leak of one or two missions where corrupt Jedi had clearly ruled in favor of the rich and powerful would do nicely to cut their current popularity boost off at the knees. After all, if the supposed ‘anti-corruption’ Jedi were, themselves, obviously corrupt, then just who were they going after? Those who didn’t bribe them enough? Political enemies?

Yes. Yes, this would do nicely…

Chapter 116: Stirrings in the Shadows

– Dathomir – 24.3 BBY -

Allaya Djo grimaced as she dueled three Nightsisters at once, only keeping up because of how much less skilled the trio were, compared to Master Morne. How the raid going on all around her had gotten past the scouts of not just the Singing Mountain Clan, but the three other clans that had agreed to meet at a neutral site, she didn’t know. However, they’d done it, if not for the far superior skills at detecting the Dark Side that she’d learned from her Master, they’d have taken the conclave completely by surprise. As it was, she’d managed to shout a warning and rally defenders as the Nightsisters closed in.

Now, as she fought off the leader of the Nightsister raid and two of her subordinates, she could feel it as the tide was turning against the attackers. There were deaths happening on both sides, more than there should have been on her own since no one clan had brought more than a handful of their best and weren’t working together. Yet these clans had brought their best, and her warning had prevented them from being taken off guard. Spells flew as she managed to dance around the Lightwhip of the leader and finally stab one of the lesser enemies through her heart. Spinning to use the dying Nigthsister as a shield, she bared her teeth at the remaining duo.

She didn’t know what had stirred the Nightsisters into this sort of blatant attack. She did know that they were going to regret it. The shared enemy would break the deadlock of negotiations that had been ongoing, bringing the other three clans of Witches fully into the fold. Their clans were, aside from the Singing Mountain, the most progressive on Dathomir. Once they struck back at the Nightsisters and solidified this new alliance, Allaya would be able to provide slots for the most open-minded of her sisters and new allies at the Ossus Academy. Not to mention giving over the instruction droids needed to bring the menfolk up to snuff on working with more modern technology.

True equality on Dathomir would be a long time coming, but she had the tools to set things in motion to get there now. To create a new caste system based on many she’d seen out in the greater galaxy, one that would be a bit more fair to all. Added to the greater exposure their best and brightest would get to the galaxy and the ways of the Force through the academy as well? The future was looking bright for their planet for the first time in a very, very long time.

They just needed to deal with these accursed Dark Witches and figure out why they were so dead set against that happening…

… … …

– Dromund System – 24.3 BBY –

Despite the seriousness of their current expedition, Izuku was grateful to get away from months of politicking. The three months since the first session of the Council of Free Stars had been extremely busy. Jumpstarting an interstellar government, one that was at least partially democratic and had over a thousand worlds to administer, was a back and mind-breaking task of epic proportions. It would have been much worse if he hadn’t deliberately designed things to offload as much of the day-to-day operation of the League as he could onto others. Yet, even having planned it that way from day one, setting up the various apparatuses of a true government had been an intense amount of effort.

Thankfully, they were now in a time window where those that had been appointed to create and fill up various departments like the Treasury and Judiciary had their marching orders and needed time more than attention. Likewise, an additional fifty worlds were set to join the Council in another two months, which caused a break in the buildup to make sense twice over. Of course, he and his still had plenty of other issues on their plate, one of which had led to them using this break to investigate something that had been on the back burner since they’d first encountered Zavra.

It said a lot about how little Izuku liked politics that part of him still considered their current trip a vacation. The ‘lost’ world of Dromund Kaas was not the sort of place that most would think of in the same sentence as words like relaxation, after all. Particularly not with how utterly the entire world reeked of the Dark Side, even from where they were parked well out of the planet’s orbit. Of course, the relatively close confines of a Toru II with only Aayla, Zavra, Shaak Ti and a droid crew aboard did help offset the unpleasantness somewhat. The trip, based as it had been on Zavra’s very outdated knowledge, had taken them nearly two weeks from the closest still mapped hyperlane she could identify.

Even the Force had been…oddly reluctant…to give up a path to the system. The closer they’d gotten, the harder the Veil had pushed back, ultimately blinding everyone but Izuku when it came to using the Force for navigation. His own ability to see a path forward had been restricted as well, not by lack of access, but by how far he could use his unique connection to the Cosmic Force. Tapping into it was overwhelming if he didn’t limit the range, and even narrowing his senses down to just tight corridor forward through nearly empty space had resulted in short jumps. Typically, no more than a few lightyears at a time, then he needed to recover for a few hours before trying again.

Admittedly, the fun ways the girls had helped him ‘recover’ from the mental overload had eased the journey. But that still didn’t change the fact that it shouldn’t have been so hard. The fact that it had been, that the Veil had clamped down so hard and tried to keep them away, had set the entire group on edge before they’d even made it to the system. Which had proven to be a good thing, as near as they could tell now.

They’d come in under stealth, both for the ship and their own tightly-held Force Cloaks. Something which Shaak Ti admitted made her glad she’d decided to leave her Padawan behind for this. Her original reason for doing so had been Zavra’s warning about old ghosts that tried to possess Force Sensitives. Now, she knew there had been other good reasons. Asajj was talented with Force Cloak, but hadn’t put a serious focus on learning it over more traditional combat skills. It was doubtful she could have remained constantly under the technique for days the way the four of them were operating.

“For a supposedly abandoned planet, there is certainly a lot of movement down there, and I don’t mean the various monsters.”

All four of them had been studying the results of a multiple-day far-orbit passive scan of the planet. It was Shaak Ti who finally paused the stream of data from her holopad. The devices were another of Mei’s designs that hadn’t made it out of League space. Having far more computing power than a datapad, combined with the ability to project multiple full-color screens and a hard light keyboard, they were an immensely useful tool. All four of them had been using them to view multiple datastreams at a time, as they tried to analyze Dromund Kaas. Those datastreams, pre-processed by analysis droids to highlight notable areas, had caused immediate concern from all of them. Shaak Ti had simply the first to voice it aloud. It was Zavra, looking confused, who spoke up next.

“I admit I’m not surprised to find someone here, but the greatest activity is around a set of marshes that didn’t even exist before. Some of this make sense, Kaas city still being ruins is no shock, for example. Not after invasion by the Republic, then bombardment by the Eternal Fleet. But the Dark Temple was still nearly untouched, the Force Nexus there is too potent for mere bombardment to do anything too it. Yet, despite it still being there, those on the planet are thousands of klicks away. In a structure that isn’t a fraction as ancient, though still steeped deeply enough in the Dark Side to be felt even against the background Dark of the rest of the planet.”

All three of the others nodded, having noted the same thing, though they’d dismissed it more easily than Zavra. For reasons that Aayla was quick to bring up.

“There have been multiple Sith resurgences since then. I know there was at least one major battle here during the New Sith Wars, for example. It could easily be a structure built then, or even after, given that it’s still active. They might have wanted to stay far away from the body-snatching ghosts you mentioned, too. Didn’t you say the Temple had been sealed for a long time even by the Sith Empire of your day? Before some fool blew it open and caused a whole new round of ancient-Sith possessions?”

Zavra frowned but nodded, clearly struggling to remove her own view of what was important on Dromund Kaas from the current reality. She very rarely showed the effects of being out of her own time, and none of the other three particularly liked the way she was looking at the datastreams of old ruins. There was a mix of pain and wistfulness there that they weren’t quite sure how to deal with. It wasn’t like they could sympathize with wishing the Sith Empire hadn’t fallen, after all. Speaking up to divert her Zavra from whatever thoughts were clinging to her mind, Izuku tried to shift their focus to the ‘now.’

“Whatever they are up too, the fact that it reeks of the Dark Side even against the backdrop of the rest of the planet says, to me at least, that we might just have found something important here. There are very clearly Dark Siders down there, possibly quite a number of them. Though there seems to be at least some native civilian population, too.”

All of them nodded at that, even as Zavra seemed to shake herself free of past memories and refocused on the towering temple situated on the lone piece of solid ground amidst a marshland. The edges of that marshland were a good fifty klicks from what could only be some sort of resurgent Dark Temple. Past that marshland edge, though, were both a series of villages…and a far more modern looking military base. It wasn’t large, thankfully, only the sort of quick-build forward outpost that you could throw up with mostly prefabs and droid workers. Big enough to land transports or gunships at the small facility there, but not much else. The villages were clearly more populated, but just as clearly far more destitute.

“Slaves, almost certainly. If not in name, then at least in practical reality. Dromund Kaas had a large enough population, a lot of it slaves even in my time, that only a total destruction of the world as habitable would likely have gotten everyone. Whoever built the newer Temple and even newer military base likely found natives already present. Ones who couldn’t resist a hostile takeover.”

Shaak Ti nodded at that, reactivating her own holopad and using it to throw up a map of the planet on the central display of the small mission briefing room they were using. Hotspots where some form of active ‘civilization’ had been identified were displayed on the map she’d put up.

“Aside from the villages and the outpost near the Temple, everything else looks like subsistence provision. Land cleared as much as possible for farming, with primitive facilities and minimal technology. I’m betting those were the real ‘native’ locations before whoever is occupying that new Temple came along. They likely took control of those natives by force and are diverting their limited food production to supply themselves.”

Everyone else nodded or made noises of acknowledgement at that. It wasn’t atypical even for pirate groups to pull that sort of thing on local settlements. It helped keep you off the galactic ‘grid’ if you didn’t have to ship in food, after all. Though the fact they did have a modern facility for at least small shipments…Izuku couldn’t help but ask the obvious.

“How did they even get out here? Even the mapping data Aayla pulled from the Jedi Archives before she distanced herself said this region was basically all lost space after the New Sith Wars. Nor could the League’s intelligence apparatus find us any maps when we had them quietly poke around for something.”

Shaak Ti was the one to answer.

“It might not actually be lost. A few locations, including old Sith worlds like this, aren’t available without specific requests to First Knowledge. It’s entirely possible that they might still know the route, or a possible route. Korriban was deliberately renamed Moraband and then largely ‘misfiled’ on purpose, for example. As a way to limit the number of idiots who thought it was a good idea to go poke something they shouldn’t. Especially young Jedi Knights who think they know everything.”

Zavra snorted at that, some of her humor returning at Shaak’s acid tone. Though Aayla’s tone was curious as she asked an obvious follow up question.

“How the heck do you know that, then? You were a Knight until fairly recently, and haven’t exactly been back to visit the archives since you were promoted.”

Shaak shrugged, half-waving the question off.

“I was, but I was also one of the few Knights brought in on trying to find the Sith. One of the things that was done early on was send a pair of Masters to Korriban to check on it. There were signs people had visited since the last check, which had been let lapse for longer than anyone realized, but there was no one on planet that they could find at the time. That was…five or six years ago now, I think?”

Well, that certainly made sense. Only an idiot wouldn’t check the old Sith homeworld for activity when the Sith Order mysteriously popped up again. It had likely been one of the first things they checked. It also, however, tickled the back of Izuku’s mind. It only took a moment or two for him to connect what was bothering him and blurt it out.

“Then they really might not know where Dromund Kaas is…the compound at the edge of the Marshland is new, but the Dark Temple isn’t. No way they wouldn’t spot this if they also checked Dromund Kaas at the same time they check Korriban.”

All three of the girls frowned, then nodded almost as one. Aayla was the one to speak up in reply.

“That checks out. It also means there’s an important question to ask, though. Namely…do we try to quietly raid this place ourselves? Or are we going to have to bring in the Jedi Order? They don’t have the amplifying crystals that made Beldorion so dangerous, and if we land away from the Temple and under stealth, we could potentially sneak in. If the Sith are here in numbers, though…”

They each fell silent, expressions flickering as they each worked through the possibilities. Zavra was the one that brought up the most relevant point quickly.

“How many Jedi are good enough at Force Cloak not to be detected coming in? Whatever these people are up to, the Veil was actively hiding them. The last thing we want is to warn them and have them flush any useful trail, if this doesn’t prove to be the main base of operations for the current Sith Order. Which, given what you told us you saw on Dxun, Master, doesn’t seem likely,”

Izuku frowned at that, running back over everything he’d gotten from his vision of Bane’s life. Sighing as he did, he saw Aayla and Shaak Ti had already come to the same conclusion he was reaching.

“Even from here it is obvious there’s more than one Force user down there. They haven’t been overly subtle in using it. Which means, unless there are only two and we caught both of them present, this isn’t likely the Banite Sith at all. At the same time, it doesn’t seem likely to be fallen Jedi, either. A third group entirely?”

Shaak Ti’s normally serene expression looked like she’d bitten into something sour as she answered both their questions.

“It’s entirely possible, Izuku. This is a lost Sith world, one we haven’t been checking on since the end of the New Sith Wars. Though with the modern facilities also present, it’s still possible they know something. As for Zavra’s question about Jedi and Force Cloak…not many. I, myself, only brushed up on hiding my presence with it after I was read in on the Sith threat, and Aayla still had to help me refine it on our route in. Tholme, the Dark Woman, a few Sentinels here and there. Force Cloak isn’t a common disciple any longer. Trying to assemble a strike team the size we did for Tisht would be nearly impossible.”

There was a moment of silence as they all processed those statements, then Aayla sighed.

“I’d say that means we need to check with our own resources. Better question, perhaps. Is this worth recalling Celeste? This is her area of expertise and still might be related to the overall hunt for the Sith.”

Izuku was quick to shake his head in the negative.

“No. She said she has a serious lead, in her last communication. As much as I’d like to have her here, waiting isn’t a good idea on either this or whatever her lead is. I’d say our best bet is to handle this ourselves…after we sneak out system and wait for a task force that can raze the place if things go badly enough wrong. Once we lead a few Volitions and an interdictor nearby, we can try sneaking in and finding out what we can. Best case, it’s something we can handle on our own. Second best case, it isn’t but we can pull out to get help. Interdict the planet and organize another major assault like on Tisht. Worst case, we die horribly and the Volitions do their best to raze everything and Interdict the planet until someone else can check the ruins.”

Debate went on for a few more minutes after Izuku outlined the plan, but none of them protested the basic premise. At least none of them had pointed out that he really shouldn’t be risking himself like this. As far as he was concerned, getting the chance to stab someone who deserved it would be great for his mental health when he had to go back to the whole ‘ruling’ thing…

… … …

–Coruscant - 24.3 BBY –

Darth Sidious scowled in irritation at the report he’d gotten back from Dathomir. The Dark Side had warned him of a disruption to the future by some group of meddlers or other. Something that would stab at an important piece on the board. Even with the Veil, the Dark Side had been frustratingly vague on what the threat was, however. He’d set his best, what few were aware of his dual identities, including Kinman Doriana and Sly Moore, on trying to find out what the threat could be. Kinman had pulled through again for him, by discovering that the League had quietly built their own Force Academy. His agents hadn’t been able to find its location just yet, but Sidious had been sure that it was the threat he’d sensed. Bad enough the Jedi were dispersing somewhat, but an entirely new Force faction with serious support would derail many plans.

An investigation through the Dark Side had revealed that many of the future attendees of this upstart academy would originate with the Witches of Dathomir. A nuisance, but one he could strike at immediately by manipulating the Nightsisters. He had few enough uses for the fools anyway, and Talzin had become a problem with Maul’s death. Promising her a way offworld if she killed the leaders of the other clans was easy. It’s not like it wouldn’t be easier to kill the stupid bitch once she lifted off, away from Dathomir and the power it gave her.

With the information he’d provided her from use of the Veil to peer into the future, that her targets were gathering to discuss some sort of alliance, she should have been able to wipe them out. Yet, something, someone he could barely even sense, had diverted much of the damage of the strike. Whoever it was had a damnably good Force Cloak, to hide even from his own powers enhanced by the Veil, and they’d prevented the planned decapitation strike.

No matter. The clans would be busy fighting the Nightsisters now regardless. That would divert them until he could arrange assets to simply bombard them out of existence. Nodding to himself as he felt the threat to his plans lessen, he shifted gears to focus on the League itself. They were proving irritatingly good at counter-intelligence, which was going to make finding this ‘Academy’ of theirs annoying. Perhaps he’d just hint to the Jedi about its existence and let the meddling fools find it for him? Phrased carefully, the more reactionary members of their Council of Fools would undoubtedly launch an inquisition against any such institution…

… … …

– Dromund System – 24.2 BBY –

It had taken a week and a half, after retreating somewhat from the system, to get all the pieces in place. A pair of Volition-class cruisers, fresh off of repairs after a previous battle, had been quietly directed their way. With those ships, one of which was actually the Knight Errant, on station and ready to jump in if the worst should happen, the girls and Izuku had snuck back into the Dromund Kaas system. They’d taken the slow, cautious approach, even with the Toru II’s stealth systems, gliding in under total emissions control and using minimal power for descent. They’d ultimately landed within the marsh itself, leaning into an old smuggler’s trick by finding a spot deep enough to near-totally submerge the unnamed Toru II they were using. The ship was designed for the possibility, and more than powerful enough to push its way back out of the muck once they were ready to leave.

Every single one of them were grateful for their armor once they got out of the ship. True to his thoughts on Dxun, Izuku had gotten both Shaak Ti and Zavra fitted with variants of the ‘Bunny-Armor’ that used phrik as the main material, instead of just phrik plating. Of course, at this point, despite still being quite attractive looking, you wouldn’t know it had started life as a ‘Bunny Girl’ themed joke. Mei had gone over the design with multiple passes, improving it each time, and Aayla had swapped to the current iteration as well, much to Izuku’s annoyance.

He understood why, he really did, even if he hated her switching to its lesser protection compared to her previous full hardsuit. The partial-coverage armor that focused on vital areas instead of his own full-coverage design was both lighter and sacrificed less agility. Nor were the areas not covered in proper armor plate even all that vulnerable, with the bodyglove that went under their suits an armored variant that could stand up to vibroblades and at least grazing hits from most small arms. I wouldn’t turn a direct hit with a crew served weapon like the plates would, nor would it do anything at all against a lightsaber blade, but all four women that now owned a set used high-agility combat styles.

Technically, Izuku did too, but his had always been a more reactive style, developed in self defense against his mentor. Combined with the way he used his shields, he was far more of a ‘tank’ than any of the girls were. For them, speed and agility were safety, so the lighter/more flexible armor was a better fit. Thankfully, after multiple design iterations of increasing seriousness, it really was good armor, and included the ability to be sealed with helmets. If you did so, it became EV-Vacuum rated for up to three hours, complete with its own compressed oxygen supply and air scrubbers. Much worse than the three days that Izuku’s own armor was rated for, but still potentially lifesaving.

More critically, at the moment, was the fact that it kept the funk and dubious chemical makeup of this Darkside-infused swamp on the other side of an armor layer from them. Which was deeply appreciated by all of them as they stuck to ‘ground’ travel, so as not to show up on any sensors the Dark Temple might have. There was enough metal, and more than enough lifeforms, sunk in the marsh for them to not be easily detected. The same wouldn’t be true of emissions if they used flight packs, speeders, or other means of speeding up their travel. Likewise, they were sticking entirely to mental communication, something they’d gotten good at as they’d attempted to reproduce Izuku and Aayla’s Force Bond. Without full success so far, unfortunately. But it was more than enough to let them communicate mind to mind, even under Force Cloak.

‘Coming up on where solid ground starts. If they’ve got a proper sensor net anywhere, it will be here.’

Three acknowledgements were sent Aayla’s way. She and Zavra were, by far, their best infiltration experts. Aayla, however, was both more used to working as part of a team and more up to date on various technologies from the modern galaxy. As such, the rest of them had easily agreed that she would guide them in on the Dark Temple. Not that they weren’t all keeping their eyes peeled, looking for anything that could spot them or trip them up, but it was Aayla that was guiding their sneaking approach.

A mental nudge from her a minute or two later had them all pausing, hidden in various bits of foliage, as she carefully examined the area in front of them. They couldn’t risk anything more than the most passive of Force usage, since their enemies might well be alert for any Force use that wasn’t their own. Which left just mundane infiltration skills and the passive sensors in her amor for Aayla to lean on. Thankfully, it appeared that was more than enough.

‘There’s a simple detection grid, but it’s old a kriff and not even powered on. It likely returned so many false positives from the local wildlife that they turned it off in annoyance. I imagine they expected they’d feel anyone coming from a long way off, anyway.’

More than one of them nodded at that. It tended to be a common hubris among Force users. You’d think that, knowing how hard both droids and certain Force-blank species were to detect, the smarter ones would know better. At least according to both Aayla and Zavra, though, that wasn’t the case. Arrogance and laziness working together apparently tended to make even experienced Jedi neglect more mundane means of security, and Force Cloak was so rare that most never considered the issue of needing to deal with someone that could use it.

‘Hold here, I’m moving forward to make sure there’s nothing farther in.’

Possessing themselves of patience, the group waited for Aayla to sneak a bit farther forward and check again. The patterned repeated twice more until Aayla had reached the actual walls of the Dark Temple. Signaling it was safe and she’d detected no more sensors, the rest of them were quicker to move to join her. This close and now bunched up together, Izuku chose to stop risking even the tiny chance of their telepathy being detected by speaking aloud.

“Well, we’ve made it this far, but the question is how to go farther. They didn’t exactly build their imposing ‘Fortress of Doom and Darkness’ with convenient windows for sneaking through.”

The dry delivery of the overly dramatic name got snorts for Aayla and Zavra, and an amused twitch of the lips from Shaak Ti. It was Zavra that proposed the solution a moment later, though.

“No windows, no. But places like this? They always have hidden get away tunnels. Probably one each for every paranoid Dark Sider who’s ever lived here, and this close I can tell there’s at least a half dozen of them here right now. Let alone historically. Give me a bit of time and I can find us a way in.”

That…probably checked out, honestly. More to the point, Zavra would know, given she’d served one such Dark Sider and served with quite a few more. Her familiarity with the Dark Side was likely why she could still detect anything, for that matter, while the rest of them were feeling a bit blinded by the Dark Side Nexus here. Izuku nodded approval of the plan, with Aayla and Shaak Ti quickly doing the same.

Perking up and practically sneak-skipping, which she somehow made a thing, Zavra began flitting from shadow to shadow, looking for something only she knew. True to her word, it only took her a quarter hour, with them following more slowly and carefully behind her, to find a passage. A tiny amount of Force use had to be risked to trigger the mechanism that released the door from the outside. Once they did, and disabled some low-tech traps inside, they found themselves in a cramped passage obviously leading deep into the Temple. Zavra nodded in satisfaction.

“Classic Sith. It’ll likely lead right to their bedroom or office, too. You have no idea how many times I assassinated some idiot that built something like this. They never seem to believe anyone else will ever learn about them and use them to get in, instead of them using it to escape.”

Amused as they rest of them were by her color commentary, they all did their best to remain serious as they moved deeper into the structure. It was a seriousness that was, unfortunately, rendered easy to maintain as they’d long-since all realized they were stepping deeper and deeper into a full-blown Dark Side nexus. Even Force Cloak might not be enough to hide them completely, if someone connected enough to that nexus was paying attention. Their tension rose by the minute as a result, as they snuck through the escape tunnel.

Thankfully, despite their fears, they apparently remained undetected…and even had the good fortune to come out into a dusty bedroom. Apparently, the escape tunnel Zavra had found had been an older one, possibly with an owner that had been long dead. Now within the Temple itself, they began to carefully and cautiously scout out the area. This far into the Nexus, the feeling of the Dark Siders that had been clear from orbit was…muddled, at best. Which made avoiding them while looking for information problematic.

They managed a few rooms, which gave them a small amount of information. A religious text they secured, mentions of someone named Darth Millennial, and murals depicting some figured and a quotation about the Rule of the Strong. It was Shaak Ti who tisked at that, apparently recognizing the figure.

“Skere Kaan. He founded the Brotherhood of Darkness near the end of the New Sith Wars. That might prove this place isn’t connected to Bane, as Kaan would have been one of the Sith Lords Bane directly betrayed into destruction at Ruusan, according to your vision from Dxun, Izuku.”

That brought frowns to all of their faces, as one of their worst-case scenarios was realized. It was Aayla who spoke it aloud.

“Kark. That means there really are at least two groups of Sith mucking about. Just how badly blinded to the truth has the Jedi Order been, that there have been multiple groups of our greatest enemy screwing around in hiding, building up strength?”

Any response from the others was cut off by the sound of a half-dozen lightsabers snapping to life behind them. They spun, facing the entrance they’d been distracted from, and found six cloaked figures with red blades bared.

“Very blind indeed, Jedi. Even more so to think you could sneak into the sanctum of the Prophets of the Darkside. I admit, your Force Cloaks are exceptional. But not nearly enough to protect your presence here, inside a Nexus of the Dark Side we’ve made our own.”

Izuku, Shaak Ti, and Aayla had reached for their own blades, but didn’t manage to activate them before another Dark Side presence surged. Not from these ‘Prophets,’ but from Zavra. Who smirked even as she sauntered forward, Force energy so dense it was visible to the naked eye swirling in her palm. She threw aside her helmet with her free hand, causing widened eyes among their enemies as they looked upon the face of a pureblood Sith.

“Oh, I knew you knew! I totally sensed it! But, then, you idiots don’t have a lick of skill with Dark Sorcery! You never even noticed when I took control of the Nexus! Now, please be good little doggies and scream for me.”

Dark tendrils of powers struck out from the very walls, spearing five of the Dark Siders through the heart, despite useless attempts to ward them off with lightsabers. The sixth one fared slightly better, shielding himself by wrapping himself in the Dark Side, batting the sixth tendril away…only to cry out in agony as Zavra’s free hand came up and lashed out with Force Lightning he was too distracted to block. The man went down, writhing in agony, until Izuku managed to power through his shock and flick out a blaster pistol and stun him. Zavra, eyes glowing with power, nodded to him.

“Thanks, Master! We can question him later! Not, let me concentrate, these others are already dead, but I will rip what I can from their minds before they are hollowed out by the Nexus! Oh, and don’t worry, I can already tell you that these morons didn’t sound any alarm! We’ll have hours to go through the Temple for information and loot before anyone checks on them~!”

Shuddering at the cheery sing-song voice coming from someone actively channeling a ton of the Dark Side, all three of the others did their best not to shy away from Zavra. Or from the forms of the five ‘Prophets’ whose faces we contorted in silent screams as they were held aloft by the tendrils spearing them. They would definitely be talking about this later. For now, they would trust that their mutual lover had it under control.

It was easy to forget just who trained Zavra, when she mostly used Light and Neutral abilities, but clearly she hadn’t exactly been innocent of Dark Side use when she’d been the Empress’s Hand. What that meant, exactly, they really probably ought to have been more concerned about before. While deep in enemy territory wasn’t quite the time to bring it up, though. An interrogation for later, once they were out of this place and could talk about it at length…

Chapter 117: Marshaling of the Light

– Antar System – 24.3 BBY –

Rahm Kota smiled with grim satisfaction as he watched out the shipyard window as a construction droid finished painting an emblem on the side of the Dreadnaught. Once painted a dull grey, the ship had been repainted in bright white and gold, and the droid was putting the final strokes on an older and more militant version of the Jedi Crest. Instead of a pointed star surrounded by spread wings, those same wings now surrounded a stylized hand holding a lightsaber aloft. It wasn’t the banner of the old Army of Light. There was too much risk in reusing that. Instead, it was a more obscure emblem from the Jedi past. One that would still be recognizable as a variant of their Crest, but which would show that this was very much not a diplomatic vessel.

Despite not reusing the banner, he had little doubt the name would be the same, if they had cause to use this ship and the others that were even now being worked on. Unfortunately, as much as he genuinely wished that not to be the case, the fact that he’d been given the go ahead for this project months ago was telling. Even the High Council, as stiffly divided as they still were on some matters, could not deny the weight of evidence. War was coming, and neither the Jedi Order nor the Republic were ready for it.

Not yet, at any rate.

They would be.

At least the Order would, to the greatest extent Rahm himself could arrange for. This, the first ship of the Katana Fleet that had finished full refit, was one of six currently being rebuilt at the now much-expanded and carefully hidden Atarian Ranger shipyards. Nor was such the only place that work was being done. A quietly purchased mobile shipyard was out among the Katana Fleet itself, doing initial repairs to get ships elsewhere, and someone had gone digging in the archives for other options. In doing so, they’d stumbled into mentions of the infamous Space City.

The near-planet sized space station properly known as the Nespis VIII spaceport was a truly ancient mega construct, even by the standards of the Jedi Order. First built sometime during the dawn of the Republic, it was added onto many times until, roughly 10,000 years ago, it had become one of the Twenty Wonders of the Galaxy. One of the few not suspected of having been built by a precursor race, in fact. The massive city in space had made it through thousands upon thousands of years of galactic conflict, including both the Old and New Sith Wars and the destruction of the Cron Drift. These days, however, it was largely abandoned.

In fact, the Jedi Order had been one of the few groups who still visited it semi-regularly. It was, after all, one of the very few places in the galaxy where a full backup of the Jedi Archives existed. Aside from them and various artifact hunters who liked looking through that station for prizes to sell to collectors, virtually no one visited the massive station any longer. Which was incredibly convenient, as it happened, as the massive station had once possessed the ability to service and repair even ships the size of a Katana Dreadnaught.

Rahm hadn’t been out there yet himself, leaving the refurbishing to others in their compartmentalized conspiracy. He had the reports as the overall leader of the effort, though, and knew there were already an additional three Katana-class ships under rebuild at those facilities. A number that would grow in time, as there was a lot of old capacity there that could be brought up to at least a basic level of function. Which was all they really needed to handle the ships, considering the fleet they were restoring wasn’t honestly that old and in quite good shape. The Katana Fleet had only been out in the deep black for twenty-two years before Master Krintu had stumbled upon it six months ago, after all. Which, given the number of droids that had been included and were still doing upkeep, meant that the ships were remarkably well preserved.

They were also, it had to be said, something of a testament to Rendili’s designers.

The original, laughably inappropriately named, Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers had possessed a plethora of issues. Slow, under-armed for their tonnage, with poor power systems, and far too large of a crew requirement. Their only true good point had been being incredibly tough, with excellent shields and even better armor. What had been largely lost in the many, many jokes made about the infamous ‘Dark Force,’ after it vanished, was that Rendili hadn’t made merely cosmetic changes to the ships. Reducing the crew complements from 16,000 to barely over 2,200 had left them with a lot of free space, and their designers had known better than anyone what the design’s flaws had been. In their attempt to tempt the Republic into more purchases the power systems had been entirely rebuilt, the armament upgraded substantially, and the original hangar expanded.

Original Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers had been armed with 10 medium turbolasers, 20 light quad lasers, and 20 heavy laser canons. Heavily armed by the Ruusan Reformation limits, yes, but hardly suitable for the name of the class. With the Katana-class, the designers had gotten wise and leaned into gaps in the Ruusan limitations. The quad lasers had been upgraded to heavier models and listed a ‘point defense,’ the heavy laser canons had been ripped out and replaced with capital ship grade ion canons which hadn’t been restricted half as heavily by the Reformation. The medium turbolasers had remained…in theory. They had, however, stolen an idea from KDY and made those ‘medium’ turbolasers so robust that they could be ‘overcharge’ to fire something much more like a heavy turbolaser bolt. So much so that very minor tweaks made now were converting them into heavy turbolaser batteries.

Then, of course, had been the shields and small craft. The shield upgrades had been run of the mill, but brought them up to snuff with any modern warship, if not actually a bit better than anything of comparable size. The original version of the vessel had also only supported a single 12-fighter squadron. With a lot of extra space still available, even after beefing up the armament and shields, the designers had tripled that capacity and added space for dedicated landing craft. The ships even had experimental AT-PT walkers aboard, a product line of Rothana Heavy Engineering that hadn’t survived the loss of the fleet. Not to mention the Variable Altitude Assault Transports (VAATs) required to deliver the walkers and troops.

While still not exactly deserving of the name ‘Dreadnaught,’ Rahm had to admit that the Katana-class refits really had been a massive upgrade. More than enough so that they genuinely deserved to be called a heavy cruiser, at least. It was a shame they’d suffered from the Dark Force disaster, really, as a revitalized Judicial Forces with plenty of ships of this class would have gone a long way to prevent some issues like the Stark Hyperspace War or Invasion of Naboo. Hell, it would also have left the Republic in far better shape for what he could feel in his bones was coming.

Well, the Republic’s loss was the Jedi Order’s gain, for now. They had two hundred of these ships to restore, after all…and working on so many of them would give them the expertise needed to build still more of them if they needed them. Added to efforts to quietly secure as many of the Munificent II and Defender II class vessels that the League of Free Stars were now phasing out from their main fleets, and the renewed Army of Light would have a very solid core to build around. Even if it likely wouldn’t be nearly enough to truly counter what the Trade Federation was building.

As he turned away from the view, his grim smile turned into an urchin’s grin that would have surprised almost anyone who knew him. That grin was brought on by the sight of a handful of happily arguing Jedi Sentinels that had ended up working with him to finance all of this. When he’d first started approaching a few people to question about how that little detail might be cover, he’d be very startled by a quick discovery. Specifically, that the Sentinels sub-sect of the Jedi Order had made a long-stand game out of coming up with ‘the most creative ways to break the economy with the Force.’

Apparently, the fact that Sentinels often went undercover had inspired a multiple-melinna-long right of passage, of sorts. One that had new Sentinels challenged into figuring out how to fund undercover operations without getting yelled at by the Order’s logistics people. It turned out that the most independent-minded of the three major ‘branches’ of Jedi had a long habit of not exactly reporting all their assets. Which rather explained how so many of them seemed to have their own ships, come to think of it. To be fair, as had been hastily explained to him, they all kept a careful eye on each other to make sure no one was abusing their little tricks to live lives unbecoming of Jedi. They were just…’augmenting their ability to do good by creatively redistributing wealth from criminals into operational funds.’ A near-direct quote from the Sentinel who’d explained it to him, and which still made Rahm’s lips twitch as the way the woman had somehow gotten it out with a straight face.

Not that he was complaining now.

Frankly, the sheer number of ways they’d come up with over several thousand years was mind boggling. As was the contents of some of the Sentinel-only ‘black’ accounts that had built up over numerous generations following the tradition. Even with a lot of money going to various charities, those accounts had contained billions of credits. Billions of credits which his eager group of reprobates had cheerfully turned into a hell of a lot more via use of some of the more common and untraceable tricks. Sports betting with foresight used to predict outcomes, gambling against rigged establishments, market manipulation based on predicting inside trading. Those were just the more normal methods, with increasingly bizarre ones that nevertheless worked helping hide the flow of credits still farther.

He, admittedly, was a little annoyed that the Sentinels likely could have funded the entire Jedi Order since the Ruusan Reformation without the Senate paying a dime. Then again, the Jedi had wanted to look beholden to the Republic for funding, so perhaps that wasn’t fair. Now, as they wiggled their fingers into the galactic economy with undisguised glee at getting a chance to put some of their more bizarre plans to work, he was confident their projects weren’t going to run into funding issues.

Coming up with enough personnel for the ships was a bit more of an issue, but he was hopeful some of his suggestions about the Agricorps and Explorer Corps would pay off there. At least to provide them with an officer core. Not to mention the expanded recruiting efforts that the Rangers were now engaged in. It still wouldn’t be easy, but the galaxy was a huge place and quite a few of the more honorable races out there retained a deep enough respect for the Jedi to make for fertile recruiting grounds. Which meant Rahm felt it was doable, at least.

When whatever disaster he could feel on the galactic horizon broke, Rahm Kota was going to do his best to make sure their enemies were unhappily underinformed about just how ready the Jedi Order was to face the onrushing storm…

… … …

– Ossus – 24.2 BBY –

At well over 800 years old, Grandmaster Yoda was not overly accustomed to dealing with people older and, very possibly, wiser than he. Certainly, he was far from the only centuries-old Jedi in the Order. Even just on the High Council, Yarael Poof and Oppo Rancisis were both in their third centuries, and Yaddle was only two centuries younger than Yoda himself. There were others outside the council that were even older, for that matter. He was one of the bare few who actually knew Master Fay’s age, Master T’ra Saa was well into her fifth century, Tera Sinube was well over four hundred, etcetera. Many of them were wise and Yoda was not nearly foolish enough to ignore their experience.

All of them paled next to the Neti meditating across from him.

He and Master Windu, in their respective positions as Grandmaster and Master of the Order, had been surprised when a physical messenger had arrived bearing one of the sets of security codes provided to Shaak Ti. The young Torgutan woman, clearly but subtly radiating the Force, but utterly unknown to either of them, had quietly come along in the wake of Ambassador Rotsino of the League of Free Stars delegation. In the chaotic energy caused by the Ambassador’s presence, Kalda Ra had faded into the background to the various Senators and political factions. She might, in truth, even have been missed by the Jedi Order if she hadn’t specifically sought out a private audience with Yoda and Master Windu. Something which, given she carried one of Master Ti’s high-security codes and a verifying message of who she was, had gotten her the audience she’d wanted.

They had been subsequently been taken off guard at the invitation that she’d carried as her primary message. An invitation for either of them, or one of a very small and select list of other Jedi Masters, to visit the planet of Ossus and the relatively new Ossus Academy, which they hadn’t even known existed. The fact that the invitation had come signed by Jedi Master Ood Bnar of all beings, another fact authenticated as real by Shaak Ti’s own message, had moved Yoda to personally take the invitation. After, of course, arranging to be gone on one of the rare ‘meditative retreats’ he allowed himself away from the Temple.

He hadn’t been able to pass up the opportunity to speak with a long-thought-dead Jedi who had been considered a legendary sage of great wisdom even in his own time. Nor had the request for secrecy bothered him, given all they knew that was going on in the galaxy at the moment. He had brought only a single other with him, a promising Jedi Knight named Vetna Mooncrest, as Yoda himself was no skilled pilot. The Route to Ossus required such and Knight Mooncrest was quite talented, while also being someone Yoda believed to have a sufficiently open mind for what lay at the other end of the journey.

The young woman was, even now, recovering from healing that Master Bnar had overseen personally. Healing that had fixed the congenital disability that had left Vetna requiring implants to function her entire life. The fact that Kalda Ra, the young Togrutan that had delivered the message, and had apparently only started training a bare six months previously, had done the healing? Healing that all the most talented healers at the Jedi Temple had been unable to provide?

It had been humbling to Grandmaster Yoda.

Even more humbling had been his talks since then with Master Bnar. The Neti had been over two thousand years old before he’d gone into hibernation, and possessed incredibly deep knowledge of the Jedi Order’s history. Much of that knowledge was of things, be it details of ancient events or outright Force Techniques like the healing Kalda Ra had used, that had long been lost to the Jedi Order. Some of it during the New Sith Wars, yes. But even more of it had been lost during events like the Sacking of Coruscant that had happened just a few centuries after Ood Bnar’s time. Indeed, some of the knowledge were things that had even been lost with Ossus itself to Exar Kun’s machinations.

Yoda felt almost like he was a Padawan again.

He didn’t hate the feeling, but he was certainly somewhat uncomfortable with the revelations of just how little the modern Jedi resembled their past. Particularly when Master Bnar had been able to legitimately highlight past mistakes that had been repeated within Yoda’s own lifetime…or a bit before, with the Ruusan Reformation. Nor was Ossus Academy itself the most pleasant of revelations, given just how different it was structure to the Jedi Order. Yet, with it being led by Ood Bnar, it was difficult not to call it a legitimate successor to the old, pre-reformation Jedi ideals. Ones that Yoda was finding all too reasonable, in light of many of the faultlines and cracks he’d begun to notice in the modern Order.

As they meditated together, the current Grandmaster of the Jedi Order contemplated ways to shift course to repair some of those issues. As well as what to do about the existence of this Academy in general. He personally had no issue with its existence, guided by who it was and with several of others involved being individuals that he genuinely respected. Yet, its existence was going to become public knowledge sooner or later, and he couldn’t say that the more traditionalist members of the Order were likely to take it well.

Sighing, he pushed the thought aside again to focus on one of the interesting new, or rather old, tricks that the venerable Jedi sitting with him had freely shared. Similfuturus wasn’t quite a lost technique the way some of what Bnar knew was. Yet the ability to use it a great range, including interstellar distances, was something else entirely. Something which, given Yoda’s strong connection to the Force, promised to allow him to communicate discretely with Jedi he’d set to tasks best kept out of normal communication channels…

… … …

– Nelvaan Shipyard Complex – 24.3 BBY –

Lieutenant Commander Aleste Greenscale, now assigned as the military attaché and liaison for Shil Tervo, had a hard time keeping the huge smile off his face these days. Studying all of those old ships form the Hutt mothball fleets, proving in the process that he was extremely gifted at adapting old systems to modern hardware, had been incredibly enjoyable. Just as enjoyable had been taking the opportunity of their little downtime to meet and get to know his now girlfriend Reeta Jewargtail. Yet, despite that period of his life being so amazing it felt like years rather than just one single standard, his new job was even better.

After all, there were precious few people in the galaxy that got to participate in the design of an entirely new battleship class.

Outside the Core Worlds, no one even had battleships any longer. Oh, sure, those converted Lucrehulk-class ships that had been found in the Nimban yards technically qualified. At least if you squinted hard enough. In truth, they were closer to upgunned and heavily shielded carriers than they were true battleships though. No, for a true battleship, you had to look to the major Core worlds.

Corellia had some massive Star Dreadnaughts still, and KDY’s Mandator-class Star Dreadnaught featured in quite a few Core Worlds defense fleets. Frankly, Aleste considered the Mandator in particular to be an insult to proper battleships, as it was pathetically under gunned for its tonnage, due to Ruusan Reformation limits. Though he personally suspected most of them had been ‘refit’ by the fleets they belonged to in ways that made their official armament so much false data.

The ship that his new boss, Mister Tervo, was leading the design of, though? Oh yeah, Project Miruko was a proper battleship. The name was still weird to him and he wasn’t sure what the significance of it was, but the hull design was going to be just in excess of five point two kilometers, with a truly exciting armament that included a modernized battery of the Silencers that had been copied off the ancient Harrower that Aleste had worked on. With multiple particle beam projectors as well, along with an upgraded version of the Graviton Beams that could create gravity shear on shields rather than being next-to-useless against them? The ships of the new class promised to eat Mandators for breakfast.

Without salt.

Of course, they were only two months into what was likely to be a multi-year design and prototyping program for the new battleships. But that just meant more time for Aleste to enjoy working on the single most exciting project he’d ever heard of! Yes, like was good for Aleste Greenscale, and he was hopeful it would stay that way…

… … …

–Coruscant - 24.1 BBY –

Mace Windu sat with Master T’un, both of them facing Master Taria Damsin as she gave her report. Taria was not the actual head of the Jedi Shadows, but Mace didn’t know who was. Master T’un, as the Master of Records for the Council of First Knowledge, almost certainly did. It was, after all, First Knowledge who the Shadows reported to. Something which might seem out to outsiders, but made perfect sense when you realized that the primary job of the Shadows between major wars was to hunt down Dark Side artifacts. The Jedi Order was hardly blind to the fact there were entirely too many old Sith holocrons, carvings, ghosts, and so on out there. Everyone of them they could hunt down and eliminate or hide in a vault was one that wouldn’t revive the Sith Order or create a Dark Side cult.

Besides, coming back to the point of who knew about what, ultimately whoever the current head of the Shadows was, part of their job was to investigate Mace himself, in his role as Master of the Order. It was for that reason that the Master of the Order was never aware of exactly who the head of the Shadows was. Despite knowing he’d almost certainly been investigated when he ascended to the position, due to his creation of Vaapad, Mace had never even been able to guess. Which, frankly, he took as a good thing, since it meant whoever it was, they were good at their job.

What he did know, and why he was here listening to this report, was that Taria Damsin was a high-ranking member of the Shadows. Despite being relatively young, she was also extremely talented, and was the High Council’s current contact with their most elusive group. Personally, he was suspicious of her supposedly developing Borotavi syndrome on a mission not too long ago. No Jedi, particularly a highly-paranoid Shadow, should have failed to notice eating a poisonous mollusk. He honestly suspected that she’d been earmarked as the next head of the Shadows and was in the process of slowly, ‘tragically,’ vanishing from an ‘incurable condition.’

“That’s the last of it. We finally got someone in place to check on the Sorcerers of Tund and, while they are still there, there is no evidence that any of them have left their isolation. More concerningly, there is evidence that some else’s agents had managed to scour the planet before us. Almost certainly within the previous decade. Most likely, they snuck in as part of the Republic sticking their nose into the situation with the Toongs. They didn’t poke the Sorcerers themselves, as far as we can tell, but they certainly hunted down a lot of artifacts we’d rather have ended up vaulted or destroyed.”

Mace frowned, but it was Master T’un that spoke up.

“That, unfortunately, fits the pattern we’ve started to notice. Many of the places that the Shadows or other Jedi have visited, looking for the Sith, have found evidence that others beat them to it. Most likely the very Sith we are hunting, looking for more knowledge for their own collection. This is most concerning, as it means we may be dealing with a group who have collected quite a bit of esoteric knowledge from a dozen or more different sources.”

Sighing, Mace nodded.

“The High Council is aware, and just as concerned about that fact. Yet, there is little we can do but continue hunting and preparing. On the topic of both, how is recruitment of more Shadows looking?”

Master Damsin shrugged, looking a bit unhappy.

“It was going well. Until more than two thirds of our potentials fucked off to the Hutt Crusade. That action attracted a huge chunk of the Jedi most likely to be proactive. On the plus side, now that it is winding down a bit some of them are coming back, and they’ve gained new skill and mindsets that make them even better potentials than before. But we’re having to vet them extremely carefully to make sure they didn’t get into anything…unfortunate…in their jaunt through Hutt Space.”

Mace nodded, though again it was Master T’un who spoke up next.

“And the other initiative?”

Damsin brightened visibly, a smirk lifting one corner of her mouth.

“That one is going extremely well. We were right to think that a lot of the former initiates that had been shuffled off to the various service corps really just needed time to settle down. The tween and teenage years are truly a kriffing stupid time to judge someone’s personality stability. Seriously, who thought that was a good plan?”

Shaking her head, even as Mace fought a wince since that was mostly a post-Ruusan thing, Damsin went on.

“We’ve also found some troublesome individuals among the corps that we’ve had to…deal with. But so far several dozen former initiates have proven to possess the right temperament to be turned into undercover, Force Sensitive, agents. We’ve already trained up the first batch and begun deploying them in ways that will let us eventually follow up on the information provided by people like Masters Tholme and Shaak Ti.”

That information brought a pleased, if slightly grim, smile to Mace’s face. It had been a long time since the Jedi Order had needed a true intelligence service of its own, independent of the Republic. But that didn’t mean they’d lost all the institutional knowledge required to set up and run such things. Already, they were working to fold many of the independent networks various Sentinels had put together into a more cohesive overall whole. Adding some more capable, Force Sensitive agents and handlers, to glue the network more fully together would only improve the quality of the result.

“Let’s turn for a moment to discussion of new information from other sources, then. To see if we can aim them a bit better…”

The meeting would continue for some time. Just one more in hundreds needed to put the Jedi Order back on a war footing before it was too late and they were caught with their pants down…

… … …

Sasha Belphont had to admit, she hadn’t expected the life of a spy to be just as thrilling as some of the holodramas made it out to be. Oh, it didn’t actually match the holodramas, and she certainly knew that her own experience was far from typical for how most spies worked. The sort of nonsense action-holos got up to was really more the sort of thing that wetworks and blackops teams got up to, not spies. Proper espionage was normally much lower key than that. A typical spy should be unnoticed and unremarked upon. A file clerk, a security chief, even a maintenance worker whose job naturally gave them access most wouldn’t have.

Boring, in other words.

Normally, if things got exciting for a spy, it meant something had gone horribly wrong and they were in extreme danger. The thing was, though, that Sasha was not a typical spy. Well, not the most typical sort of spy, at least. Her sort of spy had also existed for most or all of galactic history. Honeytraps, concubines and mistresses, side pieces that people assumed were nothing but empty brains and spread legs, and thus said too much around. Her time at the Naked Nymph had been along those lines, though honestly on the tame end of the spectrum. She hadn’t had to actually fuck anyone, other than the cute LIS agent she’d seduced, and the occasional pawing at her ass and tits had barely bothered her.

She’d also proven that she was good at the job.

Enough so that, when the world where the Naked Nymph was located had been taken and pacified, LIS had decided she was a valuable asset and come up with a creative new direction to take her particular set of…skills. Specifically, they’d asked if she was willing to become a bit of high-society arm candy, an escort that specialized in handling clients like KDY executives or Trade Federation board members. Sasha, unlike the vast majority of their other assets, had pre-existing exposure to that sort of high society and influence. Her former Master had moved in those circles, and she’d been on display and expected to ‘know the rules’ as she served or performed for all types and sorts at his functions.

That combination of willingness to use her sex appeal and preexisting knowledge had caused the LIS to pitch the idea. Sasha hadn’t needed long to think about it, either. A chance to legitmately do all the shit she’d seen the actual nobles and such get up to? Eat the fancy food, get the 10,000 credit massages, and bathe in the blood of the most holy virgins? Sign her up!

Okay, well, maybe not that last one. She hadn’t seen anyone do that, thankfully, and didn’t have any interest in something that creepy herself. Totally sounded like something some of the creepier nobility and hereditary rich of the galaxy would do, though. Particularly the women, if they thought it would magically make the look younger. Seriously, she was grateful her former Master had come down hard on anyone who tried to fuck with her. Some of those rich bitches could be spiteful when you were prettier than they were.

Or had better tits.

Given that Sasha had the best tits. Crimson, bouncy and altogether glorious, she could forgive their jealousy. They’d known they were inferior in the bounty of bosoms, a small victory she’d mentally held over all their heads whenever she’d caught their glares. Sure, it was just naturally good genes and clean living on her part, but you took what you could get when you’d grown up knowing you were doomed to be a slave, and then spent half a dozen years actually as a slave. Knowing she also had better tits than all those other girls back in her clan that hadn’t been sold off still warmed her heart at night.

Mostly when she was playing with them, of course.

Enough about her tits though, at least for now. It was a topic that anyone could enjoy, but not the point! Well, they did have nice points, but…nope, focus! Even if this Blissex guy was kinda depressing to deal with, and his daughter was a right raving cunt, Sasha was making good progress with him! He obviously needed a sympathetic ear, and he was very high up the change in Kuat Drive Yards. Honestly, she even felt for the dude, as he was clearly unhappy making weapons of war, just as his old friend Tervo had quietly admitted to her. A gentle soul stuffed into a role making violence happen. She could work with that. By the time he left the resort world he and his daughter were vacationing on, she was sure she’d have him wrapped around her little finger!

She just had to hope that the background LIS had put together for her held up to the scrutiny his security people were undoubtedly putting her under. She was pretty sure it would, but nothing was certain given how good KDY’s internal corporate security was. Besides, the thrill of danger that it might not did add to the excitement of her new lifestyle a bit. Really, she’d never imagined she’d enjoy the thrill of this sort of hunt as much as she did, but she wasn’t about to complain that she’d apparently found some sort of calling in life…

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