Robert Meta
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Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 179
🕑 Added 2024-11-08 16:35:34 +0000 UTCMiru and I waited for a few more hours before finally saying goodbye. While watching Luke lift progressively more and more stones with his mind was rather enthralling, I did have a project to get back to. When it was time, Luke took a break from his training to see us off, shaking my hand and giving Miru a hug. We also said goodbye to Yoda, which was when I asked his permission to try something.
"My healing abilities work in strange ways, and they are very different from the Force," I explained. "They can't beat time, at least not yet, but they will heal effectively anything, easing and smoothing out someone's decline. If you let me, it could help you a bit, maybe even make it easier for you to maintain yourself with the Force."
Yoda, deep in thought, looked out over the swamps that surrounded his home before eventually shaking his head.
"Now, I cannot. My task, almost complete, it is," He explained. "Once I have passed on my knowledge to Luke, try, you can."
"Alright, when I come back, we can give it a shot," I said with a nod. "In the meantime, try to take it easy."
Yoda chuckled and waved me off, Luke joining in as Miru and I left, the BX droids following after us as we once again braved the swamp. We made good time too, between my use of the Clairvoyance spell and the Frostbite spell. Clairvoyance consistently only led us through paths that we could actually traverse, and Frostbite made any wet, unstable ground much more solid.
When we arrived back at the ship, we climbed up the massive pile of trees we had landed in before heading inside. Miru quickly stripped down and out of her combat gear, rushing to one of the Sonic showers to clean any residue of swamp from her body, real or imagined. While she did that, I got the B2 guard droids packed away, as well as everything we brought with us. It would all need a thorough cleaning, but we had droids to do that back at the station.
Once everything was ready, Boxi and Miru took to the helm, running through the complete pre-checklist since we weren't in any rush. While she and Boxi were working their way through, Miru looked over at me as I was sitting in the third seat in the cockpit, doing basically nothing.
"Boss, did you even think about how we would get home with Luke staying here?" Miru asked, her eyebrow raised. "I'm not good enough to pilot this ship, and I'm curious if you even remembered that the BXs could."
"Nope, I completely forgot," I admitted easily, leaning back in my chair. "Thankfully, I like to surround myself with competent people and droids, or getting home would have become a hell of a lot more complicated."
Rolling her eyes at me, Miru stopped and leaned back in her chair as well, leaving Boxi to do the rest. She sat there, looking out at the fog, mist, and massive trees.
"Are you sure that he is going to be okay here?" She asked, chewing on her lip. "This planet really sucks, and I bet there are a whole bunch of dangerous animals and plants."
"Luke can take care of himself, and I trust Yoda to keep him from doing anything immediately lethal," I responded with a shrug. "They will be fine, and in a month, Luke will have a lot more training under his belt. I'm excited to see what he will be able to do, honestly."
"That's good, I suppose…" She responded, trailing off, not exactly sounding enthused.
"What is it?" I asked, turning to look at her over the consoles between us.
"It's... It's just not fair," She finally said, shaking her head. "He is all tied up in the Rebellion, and they expect him to be their grand savior. I mean, I get that being a Jedi is a big deal, but you'd think that he is the only capable soldier they know of, sending him on all sorts of dangerous missions like he is a beast of burden to order around."
"You're not wrong," I admitted with a frown, leaning back in my own chair. "They are putting a lot of responsibility on him. Honestly, they are lucky he has such a strong spirit. But Luke will be okay. He is tough, and he has friends like us to keep him on the straight and narrow. And when this is all over, we can see about getting him separated from whatever comes next so he can focus on the new Jedi, or whatever they call themselves."
Miru chewed my words over before reluctantly nodding in understanding. She once again continued the preflight checklist before finally starting the ship up and lifting off the planet. It didn't take long for us to break out of the planet's atmosphere and jump to lightspeed. Miru was still not in the best mood, so I pointed something out to her.
"You know, Luke left Artoo with us," I said. "He is an old droid with a lot of modifications. I'm sure Luke would love to come back and find his partner had regained a few of the capabilities that he used to have. As long as you don't get too invasive or do anything extreme…"
Miru's eyes lit up at the suggestion, smirking and nodding before rushing away to find the old astromech. I chuckled and double-checked that Boxi could handle the cockpit for now, before heading back into the ship as well. I didn't have any plans to learn magic or anything else on the trip home. Once I got back to the station, I was back on the enchantment grind, so I wanted to milk my "break" for as much as it was worth. The most work I did for the three-day trip home was talking to Miru about the upgrades Luke's dad made to Artoo. I couldn't help that much, but I did point out that he has some sort of thrusters in his legs that would normally allow him to fly for short distances.
"That is certainly not standard," Miru said with wide eyes. "Thrusters? I think we should take a look at this first."
When we finally arrived back at Omega Station, it was time to get back to work, enchanting our armor and uniforms. I was determined to get this done sooner rather than later, and now I was feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the challenge.
I worked on my project for four days before my team finally returned home, their mission complete. By the time the Chariot finally landed, I was in the hangar waiting for them. Tatnia was the first off the ship, with everyone else following after. Nearby, the Loyal Hound was offloading the Mandalorians, and Corvak and his men were making their way to us. I greeted everyone, carefully making sure no one was hurt. Julus was a bit bruised up from a fall, and a Mandalorian had a dislocated shoulder from being hit and run over by a hover tank. I healed both of them quickly before turning to Tatnia.
"So, how did it go?" I asked, Corvak joining us as we did a casual debrief.
"Well, your guess was spot on. Someone from the city managed to find an old Clone Wars battlefield," Tatnia responded, all three of us walking away from the hangar as everyone went their separate ways. "Not sure why no one knew it was there, but it was a down-on-their-luck miner who blamed the leaders of the city for it. He and a couple of disgruntled friends repaired some tanks, got some droids up and working, and decided to try their luck as raiders."
"How did that go for them?"
"Well, most of them are dead. The rest are in custody," She responded with a shrug. "They'll probably be executed soon. Outer Rim justice is quick and brutal."
"Good, so at least we got paid. What about the loot?"
"We got a couple of interesting things, but there was a lot left on the battlefield," Corvak explained. "Lots of salvage."
"Thankfully, I made an executive decision and spent some money greasing palms," Tatnia added with a nod. "Ten thousand credits now, another fifteen in a month and the people asking the raiders questions will conveniently forget to add the battlefield location to their report."
"So we have a month to get what we can," I said with a nod, wincing a bit. "That's gonna keep the Whale Shark busy, since it's the best transport we have."
"Or we just let the Rebellion do it," Tatnia suggested. "Tell them where the spot is, and tell them the cost is a small portion of the recovered equipment or parts. We got a pretty good selection already, Boss."
"Alright, when you get some time, talk to Sheora to get in contact with someone who can cut us a deal. Focus on equipment first, but don't feel afraid to accept some credits as well. For now, go get some rest, I'm gonna see what you guys brought back," I said, patting both of their shoulders. "Oh, and split the reward for completing the bounty among the crew, the Skyforged will be paid with the equipment."
Tatnia nodded, and both she and Corvak headed off, leaving me to walk back to the hangar. Quartermaster Finder and some of his help were already working offloading the loot, the first find already lowering down on the Chariots cargo elevator. A pair of Dwarf Spiders, turned off and compacted as much as possible, were sitting on the lowering cargo elevator. At the same time, Labor droids and a few workers prepared large hover carts to carry the large droid weapons away.
Rather than wait to see what else was inside, I quickly climbed up the Chariot's boarding ramp. The front cargo area had been hastily reorganized, pushing crates and parts around to fit a single, almost entirely intact AAT. The large, curved front end was incredibly distinctive and much larger than I had imagined. It was massive, and as far as I could, the only damage was to one of its smaller laser cannons, which had been slagged by some heavy weapon. Stacked next to it were several savaged parts, ready to replace the damaged sections
I resisted the urge to climb inside the tank and inspect the interior, instead squeezing around it to look at what else they had brought back. Behind the large CIS tank was a trio of AT-RTs, the bipedal walkers crouched down for easy storage. One of them seemed to be in good condition, while the other two had various carbon scoring and damage. That said, neither of them appeared to be heavily damaged, and once again, a stack of spare parts was included. Behind the walkers were another pair of Dwarf Spiders were behind them.
When I was about to leave to check out what the crew had stashed in the Loyal Hound, when I spotted one of the Quartermaster's men walking into the hangar opposite the one that held the Brick. I quickly followed him, stopping at the doorway as the hangar was pretty full, holding three battle-scarred but mostly intact Saber-class hover tanks.
I did a quick inspection of the hover tanks, making sure to stay out of the offloading crew's way, before heading out of the Chariot. I had a quick convo with QM Finder, telling him I wanted the Sabers up and running first. At least one of them would be permanently stored in the Chariot, probably two of them.
They were the solution to our heavy weapons problem, and I was very excited to see them in action.
I also did a quick check of the Loyal Hound, finding that it was filled with parts and equipment as well, though it was mostly smaller pieces, like BARC and STAP speeders and several crates of recovered weapons, troop equipment, ammo and fuel for the tanks and other vehicles.
When I finished my inspection, mostly just an excuse to see all the cool toys I had once watched as a kid, I headed back to the living area, spending a bit more time talking to everyone. Ahsoka, who had snuck past me first as I was talking to Tatnia, was waiting for me in my room, freshly cleaned up and changed into casual clothes.
"So, Tatnia said you went out with Luke," Ashoka said after our initial greetings, laying back on the couch in my room. "She seemed to think you knew exactly who and where was waiting to train him on Dagobah. Did you always know?"
"Yeah, I knew he would get there eventually," I said with a wince. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but… well, they were in exile as much as hiding away. I knew Luke would eventually be directed there but until then… They wouldn't have appreciated it if we just showed up."
"Who was it?" she asked, pulling away to look me in the eyes.
"Yoda," I responded simply, wincing harder when Ahsoka's eyes went wide.
"Master Yoda survived!" she asked, her expression full of shock. "Why didn't we go and get him? He-"
"It's not that simple, 'Soka," I said, leaning forward and rubbing my face. "He… He can't leave Dagobah. And he isn't on vacation, he is in exile and in hiding."
I explained what Yoda had told us about his dependency on the Force, why he was forced to remain on Dagobah, and how he had been waiting for Luke. I explained Yoda's last hours on Coruscant and how his hiding was also a self-exile. In a lot of ways, Master Yoda was gone, and the old cooky hermit was what remained. I also explained that when I went to pick Luke up, she was welcome to come with me so she could see him again.
"I… I will think about it." She responded. "I'm not sure if I could face him again."
"You wouldn't be alone," I said, squeezing her hand. "And he seems to understand the need for the order to change. Luke laid it out for him, and Yoda accepted. Or at least he appeared to."
"I can't believe he is dying," Ahsoka said, shaking her head and letting out a long breath. "I will go with you. If he were to pass away without me saying goodbye when I knew where he was? I would never forgive myself."
"I'll be with you the whole time," I repeated, getting a smile this time, as well as a kiss.
"Thank you. Even if I'm still a bit annoyed you knew about him and never said anything."
"Sorry, hun," I apologized honestly. "It's kind of the drawback of knowing things. I can't just spew out a lot of it as I wish. Information can be dangerous, even when it seems innocuous."
"I'll forgive you," She said. "If you give me a back rub."
"As you wish," I said with a chuckle, before helping her up from the couch and guiding her to the bed.
Comments
Lord Belly
Also worried if Galen is gonna drop by, that guy is scary lmao
Lord Belly
Honestly now that they have the Arquiten, I could see him using KTOR knowledge and finding a Harrower or Interdictor from long past. A lot of treasures out there only he would know about; but they would need proper salvage equipment to even recover them, hell they could probably find a couple Venator’s close by that could be salvaged.
andrew rousseau
I mean he could also set a group of his battle droids to start salvage work as well, plus having some down time while salvaging valuble equipment could be good as well, rotating some of his ground crews to decompress after combat ops
Fortunis
Maybe. Or he can make the Rebellion do the scut work for a cut of the gear or a selection of other stuff. That keeps his people free for jobs while also getting some more loot.
Noob
Tftc
Freya
Tyftc
Duke of Coffee
Segs.
andrew rousseau
Yes, time to go collect as much salvage from the battlefield as possible, better having the heavy metal and not needing it than needing it and not having it plus the droids from the munificent mean crew shouldnt be and issue at worst, and honestly the rebels are assuredly tracking down other old battlefields so id like to see the vanguard collect and keep as much as they can from the old battlefield, maybe check out felucia and see if thiers any droid bases left from the shutdown code as well since i think i remember reading that several droid armies and bases were left abandoned on felucia after the shutdown code was sent
