Robert Meta
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Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 193
🕑 Added 2025-01-03 16:35:55 +0000 UTCWith negotiation finally over, Princess Leia invited us to a closing session of sorts, which basically amounted to sharing drinks in a much smaller room, more private setting. General Dodanna and Rieekan, as well as Commander Vitali, all departed to begin preparations for their newly purchased goods, as well as to gather our twenty-seven million credits. Once we had received our payment and we finished offloading what we had negotiated to keep, both the Munificent and the Diamond class ships would be delivered to any location the Rebels chose. The three Hardcells, on the other hand, would be passed over when we could confirm the planetary shield was of good enough quality.
Once those who couldn't attend left, Princess Leia poured us a toast to a successful negotiation, which we shared happily. It seemed that, now that she knew what we were looking for, Princess Leia was determined to give us the full diplomat treatment. We talked mostly about our fight against the Empire, and I revealed that, for a short while at least, the Skyforged would mostly be focusing on settling into its meteoric growth. We had new people to hire, ships to tend to, and a whole new group of starships to streamline. With the Forge now the lead ship of 3rd group, I was even more eager to complete the naval-focused group, which meant procuring a third C-Roc.
When our afterparty was finished, it was finally time to leave. We were paid, and after paying out three thousand credits to all of the ship crews, the remaining money was sent to the Skyforged accounts. When we confirmed the money was safely in our accounts, we handed over the locations for all of the Rebellion's new ships, which were just a few lightyears away from where the Forge and Boxi's Fury were undergoing their final scans and searches by the engineering crews. The Hardcells would remain in deep space, alone, until our planetary shield was delivered.
The last thing we did before leaving was say goodbye to Ahsoka and Vaz, the latter of which had agreed to stay behind with the Togruta. They were both immediately starting Ahsoka's investigation and would be accompanied by a pair of commando droids, though Lefty was coming back with us.
"I suspect they won't cause trouble," Ahsoka assured me as we pulled back from a long hug. "The Rebellion wants whoever was responsible caught almost as much as we do."
"I'm worried about the traitor, not the Rebels," I pointed out.
She gave me a look, and I raised my hands in defense.
"I know you can handle yourself, but that doesn't mean I'm nothing going to worry about you," I explained, before leaning in to give her a final kiss. "Keep us in the loop as much as you can, especially if you leave the planet. I need to know where to send the fleet if you need a rescue mission."
She gave me another look, before giving my arm a reassuring squeeze and turning to walk down the ramp of the Talos Chariot. She and Vaz would be using the Starcaller to get around as needed. I insisted they needed something to get around in, and the freighter was a surprisingly powerful little ship. I felt much better leaving her and Vaz alone when they had their own ride, rather than just leaving them to the mercy of Rebel logistics.
Once the two had climbed into the Starcaller and out of sight, the group one fleet began the preflight checklist, taking our time before finally lifting off. We left the planet behind, jumping to the deep space location of Boxi's Fury and Forge. The journey was blessedly short, and I spent most of my time in my enchanting room, preparing for the future influx of members.
Once we arrived at the deep space location, we landed the entire 1st group inside the Lucrehulk's massive hangar bays. It is astonishing how easily the whole 1st group fit inside, and I couldn't help but laugh at how much more room there was around us when we first stepped out into the massive hangar.
Once we were all settled in, all that was left was for us to wait for Miru and her workers to give us the all-clear to jump back to Omega Station. There, we would evacuate all Skyforged personnel and assets, getting them all on board Fury.
Then, it would finally be time to head home, where the remainder of our fleet was.
A day and a half after we landed in Fury's hangar bays, and after another two days of hyperspace travel, we arrived at the space station. We had called ahead before we started our hyperspace jump, meaning that once we arrived, our people were more or less ready to move.
Of course, the people weren't the only things that needed moving. We spent three whole days transferring our assets. Between the spare V-wings, our stored equipment and supplies, as well as our spare parts, furniture, and other home goods we had been bringing on board for the families staying on the station, as well as the nearly five thousand B2 and other droids being stored inside the Munificent welded to the station.
It was a blur of moving, shipping, gathering, and storing things. Thankfully, we now had a pretty sizable amount of robotic manpower to keep up with such an endeavor, not to mention the space.
God, did we have space.
The Lucrehulk was, frankly, absurdly large, and despite what one might think, it wasn't just the ridiculously huge hangar bays, though that certainly did play a part. The ship was easily double the width, all the way around, of an Imperial star destroyer, as well as double the height!
Yes, some of that was empty space around the core, but that hardly made a dent. Lucrehulks were initially cargo ships, and while ours was the later redesigned combat version, there was still plenty of carryover. That meant that while the hangar bay was massive, there were also thousands of storage rooms around it, places for fragile, expensive, or otherwise unique goods to be stored. We easily stored everything away, and I was pretty sure we had used maybe five or six percentage points of the ship's potential storage, and it was only that high because we prioritized ease of access to maximizing space economy.
It wasn't just room for storage, either. I was pretty sure that whoever designed this ship got to the point where they had run out of things to fill the space, so they just started doubling up. I had seen the crew quarters during the previous tour, but there were also several floors of passenger space around the inner ring. Some of these were closer to apartments, a frankly ludicrous idea on a starship.
As expected, Miru was already frothing at the mouth, coming up with ways to use all of the extra space. She was working with a few of her underlings to come up with a streamlined production area for A-Wings. It would be tucked up into the space previously taken up by our fleet of C-9979s. We still had several of them, the ones that had been in deep storage when I ordered all available ships to engage the Executor, but there was plenty of room in the back of their storage for the production facility.
Speaking of A-wings, our new squadron and the technical plans arrived at Omega station on the third day of our evacuation. The A-wings were most certainly not new, but according to Miru's people, they were all in good working condition with no major or minor faults. I had the A-wings tucked along the sides of one of the many hangar bays around the inner ring of the capital ship.
Miru, who was also planning on adding her own flair to the A-wing design once she had a chance to sit down with them, was certain that with the help of repair and production droids, as long as we had a steady infusion of materials, they should be able to produce two A-wings a month. I told her to put together two facilities and to make sure they could repair A-wings as well.
Once we had everything loaded up and stored away, while our people started to settle into their new living situations, we started offloading everything that we had sold to the Rebellion. The Rebel Alliance now had an entire droid army stored in and around Omega Station, including several transport ships, tanks, equipment, and basically anything they needed to deploy and run the large fighting force.
That, of course, cleared out even more space.
"I'm glad we found Nirn first," I had said to Tatnia and Julus as we watched hundreds of droids moving around the massive hangar bays, clearing and moving things around. "My paranoid ass would have definitely converted this ship into an entire city so that the Skyforged Vanguard could be a completely nomadic group, moving around the galaxy, never in the same place twice. I would have converted a good-sized chunk of the ship to produce food so we could support a larger group…. I wouldn't have even considered living on Nirn if I had gotten very far into that."
"I don't know if I would be able to live for very long on just a starship," Julus admitted with a frown. "I was honestly getting a bit close to my limit when we started staying at Nirn."
"Really? Is it that much of an issue for you?" Tatnia asked, sounding surprised. "You've never mentioned that before."
"It wasn't that bad, especially since we were running missions planet side," He responded with a shrug. "I just prefer being on a planet to being in space. Vaz is the same way, but that's not really surprising."
Revelations about our crewmate aside, the preparation for our final departure from Omega base was rapidly coming to a close. I had no delusions that, once my people and I left, they would be moving the station so that we could no longer find it. It was a bit sad, considering just how long it had been our home, but it was time to move on to bigger and better things.
Once everything was settled, packed, and loaded, we finally made the jump to Nirn. The trip was thankfully short, and when we finally arrived, it didn't take long for the work to start again. I sent a large team of labor and other droids down to the planet's surface. As I had asked, Amescoll's people had located a flat area not too far from Vercopa for a spaceport, an area large enough to land all of our landing-capable ships. Having a place to set down would greatly reduce the wear and tear on the ships and give us a place to make external repairs if necessary, all without clogging up the Lucrehulk's hangars.
It would take a while for the droids to finish their task, especially clearing out a road between the city and the port, but with the entire team being made up of droids, it was basically just a set-and-forget scenario.
We also spent some time distributing a good amount of our new droid army to our ships, even the Naval-focused 3rd group. The Forge already had a security force made up of B1s and B2s, but the other ships needed some added security.
For the other two groups, these new forces were meant to augment our existing ground teams, secure our ships, and, if necessary, get sacrificed in order to give the ship a chance to escape. Depending on the size of the ship, these forces ranged from a few dozen B2s to speeders and heavier assets like Dwarf spider droids, which packed a decent punch for their size.
The last thing we did before finally returning to the surface of Nirn was to inspect and tour the CIS Dreadnought, the newly christened Forge. The ship itself was in good shape, with no sign of what damage had brought it to the off-the-books repair site in the first place. We did find a surprise in the hangar bay, or at least it was a surprise to me. A full wing of Belbullab-22 starfighters, which had survived the fight with the Executor because the Dreadnought had them listed as unique assets of some kind, meaning standard orders did not apply to them. They were perfectly functional, and once we had some pilots for them, 3rd group would have another full flight of starfighters to bring to bear.
It also meant I needed to get back to enchanting if I wanted to keep the pilots stocked with enhancements, but that was for another time. I had already started preparing, but now it was a much higher priority.
When I was finally done coordinating stuff in orbit, at least for now, I rode the Chariot down to the surface, landing at Vercopa. We were greeted with cheers and congratulations for once again somehow coming out on top and making a profit from a situation that should have been a death sentence. Unfortunately, I had to do my best to calm the people down, bringing everyone back down to a reasonable level.
"While I am proud of what we were able to accomplish, it's important to remember that, in the grand scheme of things, we got incredibly lucky," I explained to a small crowd of thirty or forty people. "A lot of things lined up, and in the end, we came out marginally on top. But if any one of those layers had come loose, the whole thing would have come tumbling down. We are not invincible, and we cannot expect everything to just work out because it has always done so before."
The crowd sobered up as I explained how close we had come to dying a furious, explosive death, or ending up under the tender mercies of the Emperor. I did lighten the mood and point out we did still come out with a ship worth nearly half a billion credits, while all Darth Vader got was a significant loss and a serious bloody nose.
When the impromptu crowd dispersed, the jubilant atmosphere diminished slightly but still strong enough to prompt laughter and smiles, I retired to my home. It was still bare, and without Ahsoka there, it felt even more empty. I was tempted, about halfway through the night, to make my way back to the Chariot, where I was pretty sure I would feel more at home.
I stuck it through, however, getting at least some sleep before waking up and making my way around the settlement. I tried to keep mostly out of everyone's way, just walking around and checking out the city's progress. They had really bumped up their efforts, with almost two dozen three-family homes complete, just waiting to be filled. A larger apartment complex was also being worked on, which would provide a few dozen smaller apartments for smaller families or pairs.
About an hour into my exploratory walk around the city, I was stopped by a familiar face. Malua Var'Samallo, the Balosar Padawan, had been looking for me with a message from Yoda. Apparently, the old Jedi really wanted to speak to me about the job or mission he had mentioned before we headed off for the repair yard job.
After a brief explanation, I let the younger Force-sensitive lead the way to the old Jedi Master.
Comments
andrew rousseau
Lmao, Boxy and his crew slowboat flying a criplled providence to the rendesvous point
Nicholas Rambusch
Agreed, but also leave an opening for BOXI’S INEVITABLE ESCAPE!!!!
Fortunis
Epic. Now all the maintenance shit is cleared up and everyone is centralized on Nirn. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Miru does to the Lucrehulk. Considering the sheer internal size of the ship they could easily set up training facilities and simulators for pilots. Two complete production lines for A-Wings as well as Dexterity focused enhanced pilots is going to absolutely decimate other fighter groups. Nevermind having the sheer space to hold and launch what's literally an entire invasion force complete with fighter support all from a single ship. All they need to do to start expanding their holdings is pick outter rim worlds under the thumbs of groups like the Hutts or evil corporations and just start taking them over. Slow roll it to start then focus on worlds like Ryloth where the entire population has been enslaved, free then arm them and bam. Instant recruit pool. Even if they don't end up keeping the worlds they can still force concessions from the freed population like the right to have recruiting station/embassies on world and maybe things like trade and mining rights for certain resources.
Freya
Tyftc
SwiftFate
Really hope we get a Vader POV reaction chapter showing the aftermath of his encounter with Deacon and how he might be affecting the Empire internally. The inquisitors, emperor and Vader must all be completely thrown by his recent stunts
Nicholas Rambusch
Thanks for the chapter. I have to agree with Texan warrior, it’s good to see things becoming centralized!
TexanWarrior
It feels really good for the crew to get to this point. They're becoming a real planetary faction now. I can only imagine they're going to keep growing and become way more than just a thorn in the empire side. Once it's all said and done I imagine all the prep work Deacon has made will ensure that he represents the skyforge vanguard at the big table discussing the future of the Republic. Hopefully he can prevent the absolute idiocy and incompetence that plagued it in both Canon and Legends. But that's a long ways off! I hope you had a good vacation Robert! Glad to have you back!
