Chapter 77

Geonosis, Geonosis System

Arkanis Sector

As the warship plunged into the arid atmosphere of Geonosis, Asajj Ventress struggled to shut out the staggering cacophony of sensory input and focus on finding her centre amid the chaos. Not from the turbulence, no, for the faux-freighter was solid of form and build and there was hardly a shudder as they whipped through a thundering sandstorm, but from the commotion on the deck. The flagship of the Storm Fleet, Storm-001 and the ships it led were all designed with the cover of a PCL 27 A-class freighter in mind, to disguise their true nature as warships.

Which meant they all possessed utterly massive bow cargo doors that spanned flank-to-flank, ostensibly to facilitate the off and onloading of the vast volumes of freight these ships fueled the galaxy with. Cargo bay doors meant cargo bays–smaller ones, not on the scale of a real A-class freighter–but large enough to be repurposed into a modest hangar bay. If hangar bays didn’t need airlocks or atmospheric containment shielding, that was, since the doors opened directly to the outside.

Except, the cargo bays weren’t being used as hangars–not in any traditional sense, at least.

From the railings of an observation platform above, Ventress silently watched the Onderonians scamper about on the bay deck–like ants scurrying in the shadows of giants. In the dim lighting, enormous wyverns writhed and grated against their steel prison, snapping and clawing in their restraints. Dxunian warbeasts, Ventress rubbed a phantom itch on her newly acquired mechno-arm, and lunar dragons. The dark side of the Force was thick and heavy in the bay, as if the gargantuan warbeasts lived and breathed it, as they should, spawned from the Demon Moon of Onderon.

In fact, there was more turbulence from inside the ship than outside.

Asajj Ventress absorbed their emotions, their frustrations, their pent up rage, accumulated over weeks and months cooped up in these metal cages. Ventress never thought of sympathising with monsters, but she did now. Plucked from their homeworlds, herded aboard warships and taken to where none of their kind have ever gone before. The stars in the sky.

The assassin felt a tinge of nostalgia. She was like them too, once.

Relating to beasts are you now, Asajj? Dooku’s voice asked her, look at how far you have fallen.

But they are not so mindless, are they Asajj? Ky replied, the Force flows through all living beings.

Are you? Ventress thought quietly, anybody would be resentful, trapped in a cage where they could not spread their wings. And as if the dragons heard her, they settled down; tamed, apparently, for at least just the moment. Immediately sensing the unnatural lull in their warbeasts, the Onderonian handlers seized the opportunity to scramble their caparisons and harnesses over the mighty creatures, affixing equipment for battle.

“I don’t know how you keep doing it, but damn me to Dxun if I am not grateful,” Captain Vander clambered up the gangway with two women in tow, “I don’t think these warbeasts would last another day in here.”

All it would take was one going on a rampage to kill all of us, the thought had never been more present in Ventress’ mind. Just the idea of a single brutal, hundred-thousand pound dragon finally snapping in the middle of hyperspace transit...

“There’s only so much you can do,” Kavia Slen shrugged, bearing a frivolous grin that conveyed nothing of the weight of the situation, “My engineers had already retrofitted all these ships into flying menageries. This is as ‘home’ and ‘home’ gets out in space.”

There was a bed of dirt and vegetation on the deck, ivy and blooming flowers on the bulkheads, and drooping willows and vines cascading from above, concealing the roosts of Dxunian raptors and devourers. The shipboard artificial environment and gravity systems had been hijacked to imitate the climate and gravity of Onderon as much as possible–an oppressive, sultry boil that made Ventress’ skin slick with sweat. And of course, everything else necessary to transform a freight bay into a rainforest vivarium, and maintain it. They’ve done an incredibly impressive job of it, considering most of the work was done in-transit, considering–

“You’ve done a fine job of it,” Naradan D’ulin rested her hands on her hips, “Considering the smell.”

The smell. It smelled like what a rainforest vivarium would smell like; except inhabited by half a dozen lumbering dragons and a score of smaller flying warbeasts that inhabited the canopy, eating and sleeping and shitting and everything else that monsters do.

I don’t think this is what Dooku imagined his secret fleet would be used for, Ventress thought humorlessly at the sight. Not that it would even be on his list of grudges when I’m done with him.

“We space the waste regularly,” Kavia patted the mercenary’s shoulder without fear, leaving a greasy glove-print on the Mistryl’s purple robes, “So it could be worse.”

“I can imagine,” D’ulin replied drily, “And I’d like it to keep it that way, thank you.”

Ventress silently agreed. She looked around the ship, which juddered and shook as it plummeted toward the planet’s surface. The air was thick and still, reeking of dirt and sweat. The last Onderonian warbands were hooking themselves onto the bridles of their warbeasts–actions that the lunar dragons recognised. The ship shuddered again–this time as the largest warbeast roused from its dormancy, shaking off the dust from weeks of inactivity.

The Force tensed, like a rope strung taught and ready to snap. Soft, guttural snarling filled the hold, followed by clicking mandibles and rustling wings.

“The Geonosians won’t be fooled by the Storm Fleet’s signature for long; their bioscans will immediately blow our cover,” Naradan D’ulin began her final brief, as the warmaster of the operation, “Sharihen and the Mistryl fleet will be stationed in low orbit to cover the operation in case the Geonosians scramble fighters from other hives across the planet. We’ll reach as low as possible before the bugs start shooting–these ships can take a pounding, so we might as well use their armour. Are the Beast Riders ready?”

“More than ready,” Vander crossed his arms, “They’re... well, they’ve never even set foot in a starship before. Right now? The Clazca and Ezelk Warlords are as pent up as their warbeasts, and just as eager to spill alien blood.”

Naradan nodded sharply, “Good. They’ll spread out across the dropzone, engaging the Geonosian defences. At the same time, the Storm Fleet will execute a saturation bombardment of the Stalgasin Hive, where we have discerned the master codes to be. While the bugs are occupied being bombed back to the Old Republic, Captain Vander’s commandos will lift us down to the factory. From there it’s a standard infiltration operation. Got all that?”

Vander grinned, “Clear as day.”

Ventress voiced an uncommitted confirmation, fingers–flesh and steel both–wrapping around the cold metal railing as she closed her eyes and concentrated on the Force. There was still a phantom itch on her mechno-arm, despite her best efforts, but the steady hum of servos became a comforting rhythm in counterpoint to the ship’s engines, a focal point that brought her consciousness into a state of calm. Focus. Find your centre, Asajj.

“Your hand alright?” Kavia asked curiously.

Asajj lifted it and flexed its bearings, listening to the whirr.

“It’ll serve,” she decided.

But it’ll never be the same. There was no replacement for flesh, nerves, and blood. The mechno-arm was crude and improvised, crafted out of what limited materials were available aboard the Mistryl destroyers. General Grievous proved that mechanical reflexes could be a league above organic ones–but not with a brain that’s already been trained and honed for years. Not unless you started from the beginning again.

And that’s where Asajj Ventress was yet, she was afraid. She would have to learn her signature dual wielding form–Jar’Kai–all over again. The Mistryl had done their best to wire the mechno-arm, but they were not Arkanians. The reflexes, the control–they would all be so different from what Ventress knew, and even the most minute difference could mean life or death in combat.

She counted her stars; she wasn’t about to duel a Jedi, or anyone for that matter. Just kill some bugs. That’s easy enough, isn’t it?

“Anytime now...” Kavia murmured, unconsciously bracing.

Storm-001 whined and shook as it slowed, gravity pulling at Ventress’ bones. The metal under her boots trembled, and as if she could already feel the hot sun outside, sweat beaded on her lip. They must be close to the surface now, and she imagined that if the hold had a viewport, she would look upon a familiar world of sand and spires, bright orange striped with harsh black shadows.

A distant explosion rocked the ship.

An even closer one knocked it off its vector.

Then, the strangest feeling. Storm-001 shuddered violently, creaking and groaning as it strained against some invisible pressure. A vibration carried through the hull and into their bodies, travelling through their bones and veins. Ventress’ pulse quickened to dangerous levels, despite her disciplined breathing. Leaves fell from the canopy as Dxunian raptors squawked and yelled in surprise. The larger wyverns on the deck rustled, but otherwise seemed wholly unmoved.

Just as quickly as the sensation came–it was gone.

“Sonic wave artillery,” Ventress gritted her teeth, “Geonosian tech. Their blasters use the same technology. You get hit dead on, and your heart will explode.”

“The ship didn’t get affected much,” Vander looked around, eyebrow raised, “Considering we aren’t dead.”

“This ship is big,” Kavia pointed out, evidently realising the implications, “The damage will be spread out. But get hit a couple more times, and the ship will be disintegrating under our feet.”

“How many more times is a ‘couple?’”

“Two to a hundred,” the engineer shrugged, looking towards the Mistryl warmaster.

Naradan D’ulin paused, meeting Vander’s gaze, “Get them out there.”

“You got it, lady!”

The Onderonian Captain wasted no time bolting off onto the hold deck, animatedly waving his arms and hollering commands in a tribal tongue. The Beast Riders recognised the commands–as did their wyverns, and the warbeasts all stirred in anticipation.

“Open the doors!” Kavia shouted into a comlink, to a faint reply.

The flood of sunlight poured in like liquid fire, overwhelming the eyes with a searing, blinding white. A torrent of blistering air followed, blasting through the open hatch with the force of a gale, carrying with it the arid scent of scorched earth and dust. She expected the vessel beneath her feet to buck at the sudden change of air resistance, as she had experienced on many dropships before, but the Storm-class destroyer was built like a doonium brick, and didn’t shake easily.

Unlike the ship, however, its passengers were much more affected. Inside the craft, the temperature rose instantly, stifling in its intensity, while the wind blasted out the humidity along with tonnes of vegetation and brush, sending them aloft and sprinkling onto the sandy dunes. Warlords and warlords alike whooped and crowed, pumping themselves up for battle, whilst Beast Riders strained their mounts against immediately leaping into the clouds.

“Are all the warbands ready!?” Naradan shouted over the winds, her Mistryl squad assembling around her whipping robes.

Kavia squinted against the glare, trying to cover her datapad with her sleeve, “The engineering crews are coming down! Once we’re all here, we’re good to go!”

“–Wait, coming down?” Ventress couldn’t help but ask, “You’re joining us out there?”

Kavia looked at her as if she was out of her mind, “What? You want us to stay here?”

Ventress resisted the urge to run the woman through with her lightsaber, “I don’t see what purpose you’d serve on the ground. You’re an engineer. We don’t need extra weight.”

“I can ride a warbeast with my eyes closed and both arms tied behind my back, egghead,” the engineer rebuked, “I swept this old bucket top to bottom, and it’s all automated, provided the right programs. Beyond that, it’s a giant steel coffin. No sane person would want this to be their grave.”

As soon as the mercenaries confirmed there were no armed enemy combatants left in the room, they spread out to cover the exits–reminding Ventress of the same tactic they used back the Llon Nebula.

“Poggle,” Ventress cooed sweetly, “Would you be a dear and hand over the master codes to the Droid Army? Only if you value your life, of course.”

Poggle was trembling so forcefully that it seemed as if he might just fall over. The same cowardly old bug as always, Ventress grinned viciously. Where it all started, so will the beginning of the end. Once I have the master codes, I will relish the sight of Dooku’s precious droid armies turning on him.

But just when Poggle the Lesser seemed to keel over out of fright, he froze–then chuckled. A horrid clicking noise that scraped at the eardrums. Then the chuckle rose into a full blown laugh–a loud, terrible thing that made Ventress realise they had been outplayed.

“What is he saying!?” Naradan D’ulin demanded, piercing Zenji needles held between her fingers.

“Dooku was right!” Poggle laughed at her, “You are but an uninformed, misled little novice, Ventress.”

Her stomach dropped.

Poggle smiled, “You want the codes? Take them. It’s already too late. Haven’t you heard? There’s a war being fought.”

⁂

Attahox Approach, Attahox System

Hocatar Sector

We couldn’t find Calli Trilm.

Damn if I didn’t drive the whole fleet insane with my unreasonable demands, reviewing all the footage and checking all the logs and double checking and triple checking to formulate a reasonable timeline to retrace her steps and figure out where she was last seen. She wasn’t among any of the combined fleet’s overflowing medbays, nor in any of the depressingly empty morgues. It appeared, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Rear Admiral Calli Trilm went down with her ship.

There was no reason to search so hard anyway. Commanders died all the time in battle. That was war. Krett was missing, and so was one-eyed Aviso. Dead, probably. Frozen and floating among the wreckage at Rendili. So was Calli Trilm. But I couldn’t believe it–I owed it to her not to. She saved my life.

I wish I could’ve saved hers too.

Maybe I still could, maybe she had been taken prisoner by the Loyalists... but I knew that was hopeful thinking.

There was no point in not hoping, however.

Nevertheless, we made it to Manaan. Calli chose the place, if I heard correctly. Couldn’t have picked a better rendezvous location myself. Manaan was... in the middle of nowhere, frankly, and hundreds of parsecs away from the nearest large hyperlanes. The Loyalists could trace our jump vector, but the resulting search cone was so large they might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack. Interestingly enough, the world was once a thriving production world–producing kolto, an earlier alternative to the famous bacta healing agent.

The stuff wasn’t as potent as bacta, however, and its supply was incredibly limited–Manaan was the only world in the galaxy where kolto could be harvested. After a couple devastating wars that left the surface of the planet mostly uninhabited, with the local Selkath all retreating into the ocean depths of their waterworld, Manaan lost most of its strategic value.

Which made it the perfect spot for a routing Separatist warfleet to lick its wounds. We loitered there for a while–as long as we dared–though we never made contact with the Selkath people, tallying our losses, repairing what we could, and waiting for any stragglers from the battle to catch up. But the Republic hadn’t been inactive, unfortunately, and our pickets soon reported Republic scoutships sweeping the sector. Despite the fact that survivors were still trickling in once or twice a day, we couldn’t risk discovery, and immediately departed for our next destination.

And what was our next destination?

Well, the closest friendly world we could reach. That left somewhere on the Nanth’ri Front, which was morosely amusing, in a way. Where it all started, aboard Admiral Trench’s flagship over Nanth’ri... and we’ve just made one big circle back to here. Almost made me think nothing was gained from the whole venture...

Or at least, I gained nothing from the whole venture. Only losses.

The Confederacy, however? We bought the Confederacy time, allies, and resources. And most important of all; morale. We didn’t just punch the Republic where it hurts, we rampaged through their backyard–no, front porch–for two whole months. That had to be worth something.

The Confederacy could still punch well above its weight class, at least we proved that.

But now, after two, three months of no contact, it was time to return home. But return home to what? We bought the Confederacy time, not victories. At least, not victories on the home front. It was up to the Pantoran’s admiralties to ensure Operation Storm-Door was a success. Trench, I could rely on. Ambigene... he was ruthless, if nothing else, though I left him Anakin Skywalker as his opponent. I didn’t know anything about the other two, Kirst and Farstar.

Was the Confederacy back on its feet? Or were all of our efforts and sacrifices in vain?

My heart was trying to climb up my throat throughout the entire hyperspace transit, which took agonisingly long considering our damaged hyperdrives. It didn’t help that I had posted my flag on Diedrich’s ship, Kronprinz. Kronprinz didn’t have any viewports, and it was during that agonising transit that I personally answered an old question of mine.

Why do warships possess huge bridge viewports?

Kronprinz conducted herself exceedingly well without any.

Well, personally, I love viewports. Because they didn’t make me so claustrophobic on board a ship. We had been orbiting Manaan, but I couldn’t see it with my own eyes, only through a camera display, and that just wasn’t the same. I even missed the chaotic swirls and boils of a hyperspace tunnel, despite how mind-numbingly boring the sight was after seeing it hundreds and thousands of times.

I honestly couldn’t wait to get off the ship and see anything but the same old stale steel compartments day in and day out–no offence to the Kronprinz, she’s still the most beautiful warship I’ve ever seen in my life.

In any case, we circumnavigated Mimban, as the world was hotly contested between the Loyalists and Separatists and their local government proxies, and we were in no mood to get caught up in another battle. The next major world down the line was Attahox, recently recaptured by the Confederate 3rd Fleet Group. Which was... General Atticus Farstar’s Fleet Group. Atticus Farstar... I wracked my brain. Who was he? What was he like?

A nugget of information came to me. Farstar was Sev’rance Tann’s XO during the Bothan Campaign! Seems to me he was elevated to generalship to prosecute the campaign, and maintained that rank well after the shake-up from the Militia Act.

We emerged outside the system’s hyper-limit so as to not give their interdiction net–if they had any–a fright. It must have been a sight for the local astro-service. Separatist Providences accompanied by Bulwarks and Dreadnaughts, and Venators and Victorys. We immediately blasted our clearance and transponder codes to anything and anyone that might hear us–though it was swiftly proven and unnecessary precaution.

Because we had the Kronprinz. And there was not a warship in the galaxy that looked like her.

“Commodore Diedrich Greyshade!” a voice hailed us from the transmission, “I am Commander Celis Mott of the Three-Hundred and Thirty-First Strike Division. Welcome back home.”

“Celis Mott,” I murmured softly, “He was a well-known pirate, when Nanth’ri was still a pirate haven. Looks like he found a new calling after the Militia Act.”

Was it Calli who told me that?

“Why plunder and steal illegally when you can plunder and steal legally?” Diedrich joked, before toggling the comms, “Glad to be home, Commander. It’s been a long journey. But it is not my place to say.”

The Columexi gestured for me to take his place. I cleared my throat and did so.

“Rear Admiral Rain Bonteri of the Twenty-Eighth Mobile Fleet speaking,” I spoke into the silent comms, “My apologies for trespassing into your AO, Commander Mott.”

“...Rain Bonteri. You’re a dead man.”

“I’m afraid my death has been greatly exaggerated,” I swallowed, “If I am going to die, I’d at least like to know why.”

“No... my apologies, Rear Admiral sir,” Celis Mott laughed nervously, “Voicing my pleasant surprise is all. You’ll be pleased to know we have the Loyalists on the run over here, so the sector’s quite secure.”

“I am indeed pleased to know,” I replied patiently, “May I speak to General Farstar?”

“Right...” Commander Mott paused, “I’m afraid the General has a... conflict of interest, so to speak. Especially since this is, well, you, we’re talking about. Rear Admiral, pardon me but I’d like to confirm, you are close to the Supreme Commander, yes?”

I shared a confused look with Diedrich and the other bridge officers, “We are on speaking terms, Commander, if that is what you meant.”

“She listens to you.”

“She does.”

“That’s... good to hear,” Celis dragged out his words, “Forgive me, but I will have to go behind the General’s back for this. Rear Admiral, please proceed through my AO until you reach the Trax Tube, then head north until you cross into Admiral Trench’s AO, where you will certainly be stopped again. Please do your utmost to reach Raxus Secundus.”

“What is your purpose, Commander?”

“I’d like for you to speak some sense into the Supreme Commander,” the former pirate told me, “Or at least, figure out what is going on. We are conducting a war at present, but we’d like to know who we’re conducting it for.”

Diedrich leaned into the comms, “Speak clearly, Commander!”

“...”

“While you were dead, Star Station Independence has occupied Raxus Secundus,” Celis Mott dropped the bomb on our heads, “The Parliament and Senate have been suspended by the Supreme Commander, and state of martial law has been declared in the Tion Hegemony.”