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Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 63
🕑 Added 2023-09-08 15:35:28 +0000 UTCAhsoka Tano reached out and took my hand, her confusion at me knowing her name only flickering on her face for a moment before she pushed it down. Once she released my hand, she crossed her arms, cocking her hip in a way that I was almost positive I had seen her character in the cartoons do.
"I would have thought a commander that General Syndulla spoke so highly of would know operational security a little better," She said, looking at the General.
"As far as I'm aware, Commander Loc and his crew have no idea you are here," The green-skinned Twi'lek defended. "They might not even know you exist. You're not exactly common knowledge."
"That's just the Boss," Tatnia said from beside me. "He does that sometimes. Know things."
"Really?" The orange-red-skinned woman asked, looking back at me. "What kind of things?"
"Well, I know that not greeting Luke Skywalker is a bit rude," I said, stepping around her slightly to offer my hand to the young adult. "Sorry about that. It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you as well," He said, in the voice of a young Mark Hamill, glancing at Ahsoka before shaking my hand.
"So… What's the plan?" I asked, turning to General Syndulla. "We jumping right into things?"
The rebel leader shook her head before turning to her aide and telling them to call the briefing. About five minutes later, all of us were led down to a large briefing room.
The seats were staggered like an amphitheater, with a holoprojector at the central low point. It looked vaguely similar to the setup they used in Return Of the Jedi. Unlike the room aboard the Home One, this was carved directly into the stone. As we took our seats, Luke sat down beside me, trying his best to look casual and confident. He looked like a kid in way over his head who thought he needed to look like he knew what he was doing.
Probably because that's what everyone expected of him.
"Hey, Deacon…" He said quietly as a few dozen people made their way into the room, slowly filling it up. "So Ahsoka was pretty determined to meet you, but she wouldn't say why. Are you… you know…?”
"No, sorry," I said, shaking my head. "My stuff is a little different from yours."
"Stuff?" He asks, looking confused. "You mean the Force?"
"I use magic, something totally different," I explained before casting Fast Heal on him.
The yellow gold Restoration infused magic spiraled up and around my hand before pushing into the young Force-sensitive. He jerked away, half standing as the magic faded, his hand going to his hip where his lightsaber was.
"Woah… what was that?" He asked, looking down at his hands before rolling his shoulders and stretching his back. "My back isn't sore anymore…What the hell was that?"
"It was a healing spell," I responded, smirking at Ahsoka, who was now openly gaping at me.
Of course, everyone else was as well. It seemed that glowy magic attracted a lot of attention.
The young Force-sensitive silently looked at me, though he did settle back down into his seat after a few seconds. He looked like he was struggling to find the words to ask a question that he hadn't really formulated yet. I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Don't think too hard about it, Luke. You had no idea the Force existed a couple of years ago, right? Well, just add a second strange, physics-breaking energy source on top of that."
"I…alright," He said, though he clearly wasn't ready to drop it. "Are there more of you? Can you help defeat the Empire?"
"As far as I know, I'm the only one," I said, shaking my head. "As for defeating the Empire… kind of a big ask for one person, don't you think?"
Before he could reply, I noticed that Nevue had joined us, sitting in the row directly under us. Ayme and Lario were with him, as were four other people I didn't recognize. When they settled down, he turned to look at me.
"I caught your show from the entrance," He said with a raised eyebrow. "I thought you were keeping a low profile? You realize everyone is staring at you, right?"
"Kinda hard not to," I said with a shrug, ignoring our openly eavesdropping audience. "But it's the same problem with our first raid. I can either keep it secret and not use it, or I can use it and, in the process, break the secret. Besides, I broke out of prison, killed an Inquisitor, stole a ship worth a few million credits, and I have no plans on stopping anytime soon. It was gonna get out eventually."
"Well… It's your secret," He said with a shrug. "Or it was, at least."
"You guys have worked together before?" Luke asked, Nevue looking at Luke for a moment before nodding.
"We are the ones who secured the computer core this information is coming from," Nevue explained, reaching over to shake Luke's hand. “Commander Loc, just call me Nevue.”
"Luke Skywalker," The Tatooine native said, causing Nevue to chuckle.
"Really? I had no idea."
Luke frowned and nodded, pulling his hand back, once again trying to keep his confident facade going.
"Still getting used to being recognized?" I asked.
"That obvious, huh?"
Before I could respond, the crowd started to quiet down as General Syndulla made her way to the lower portion of the room. As she began to walk around the central holoprojector, it lit up, displaying a scattering of dots, like static, before coalescing into a large mountain face made of some sort of dark rock, much darker than Thila Command was carved out of. I could see three large hangar bays from the angle being shown.
"Thank you all for coming. You have been chosen to participate in this raid, one we hope will provide a significant amount of supplies, both combat and general logistics, as well as a potential base location," She explained, slowly walking around the projector. "This is what we are temporarily calling Alpha Base. It is a secret CIS facility dating back to the Clone Wars. According to the information we were able to pull from the computer core, provided for us by Commander Loc's and Deacon Roy's teams, this base was a secret testing facility for the Separatist Army programming division. Essentially, this was where droid programming was created, tested, and prototyped before being sent off to production facilities to be uploaded to various droids, ships, and other systems controls."
The image shifted into a wireframe, spinning around the mountain to show a cutout of what the interior structure of the base looked like. If I was imagining the scale correctly, this base was extensive, dwarfing the base we had raided before, which explained why so many people were in the room.
"Due to the nature of their experiments on the programming of artificial intelligent war machines, the entire facility was isolated from the normal CIS network. The only communication between it and the outside world was actual physical communication. Any finished product was passed on through data storage devices."
The image on the large holoprojector shifted slowly, going in the opposite direction that the General was walking.
"Unfortunately, due to the high-security nature of this facility, the central computer core is located deep underground behind at least three reinforced doors, all of which will take time to crack, even with slicer resources," She explained, the projected image refocusing on a room deep inside the mountain, connected to the rest of the facility by a few hallways. "This all but eliminates the possibility of rushing the core in order to send the droids a shutdown command. If we want this base, we will have to clear it out completely."
As she talked, the image zoomed back out, once again showing the whole thing.
"This mission will be broken down into three stages. The first stage will be a starfighter assault, undertaken by Green Squadron, piloting a mix of A-wings and X-wings. Their mission is to disable the heavy turbolaser and other defenses that are built around the mountain exterior."
A crude but effective animation of a few X-wings flying around the facility played before disappearing.
"Once their defenses are down, the troop transports will land in one of these hangar bays," General Syndula continued, three hangar bays blinking green before settling on the highest and largest. "This is stage two, where we set down teams in the hangar to create a fallback position."
As she talked, the animation showed gun emplacements, barriers, and sandbags, focused on the two entrances into the large hangar.
"Once the hangar is secured and defended, stage three will commence, where a team will head deeper into the facility to destroy hostile droids and shut down dangerous systems," She explained, looking across the briefing room. "This is not going to be a fast mission. We will be taking our time and clearing this facility step by step. I will not send my men into a grinder when we can just as easily take our time and do this properly."
With a forward operating base set up, the projection showed a group moving further into the facility. It played through a few times before stopping zooming back out to the same full view as before.
"Hangar Base will be commanded by Lieutenant Soran. The strike team that will be heading deeper into the facility will be led by Ahsoka Tano. She has more experience fighting droids than almost anyone else and served in the Clone Wars. The team will be made up of Commander Loc's retrieval team and Deacon Roy's own mercenaries. Luke Skywalker has volunteered to work with them as well."
I nodded to the General, who nodded in return before continuing her briefing.
"Now, while the data we uncovered says nothing about the strength of the droid units stationed there, because of the importance of this facility, we can assume there is going to be plenty of resistance. I'm going to hand the briefing off to Ahsoka so she can go over some of the threats you may encounter."
Ahsoka stood and nodded to the General, who made her way to an empty space along the lowest level of seats. Once she was seated, Ahsoka nodded to her before turning to address everyone.
"Thank you, General. Since it is the pilots that will start this engagement, I will start with what threats they may encounter."
Over the next few hours, the Clone Wars veteran reviewed most of the threats we were likely to encounter, starting with the starfighters and making her way through the CIS ground forces. Eventually, when she had finished going over Commando Droids and Droideka, she handed over the briefing to the General again.
"Thank you, Ahsoka. Now, while Green Squadron will be the primary driving force for the stage one attack, the Verdant Dream, a C90 blockade runner, will be providing additional backup as needed. After stage one is complete, our ground troops will be carried down from the Lead Vessel, a Nebulon-class frigate named Glory, by a pair of Aegis-class shuttles, the Mover and Shaker. They will land inside Hangar Bay One and remain there as the final fallback and retreat point for the ground troops."
As General Syndulla listed off ships and names, projected images of the ships appeared behind her, showing off each vessel, pointing out spots of interest and their basic information.
"The Glory will arrive in several hours, and the operation will begin three hours after that," She completed. "Are there any questions?"
Across the room, one of the soldiers raised their hand, and the general turned to face them.
"Yes Lieutenant Soran?”
"General, what are the chances that people are still alive in this base?"
"It is very possible, even likely." She answered. "Which means teams must be ready for tactics that are outside the box, as they could have a biological commander."
The group continued to ask questions, clearing up a few things until they were finally satisfied. When no one else raised their hands, General Syndulla gave one more look around before nodding.
"Very well. I expect all ground troops to be ready in hangar seven in seven hours. Green Squadron, I want your ships fueled and prepped by then. You'll be escorting the Mover and Shaker to and from the Glory, where you will land and travel the rest of the way to our target. Good luck, everyone. May the Force be with you. Deacon, a word if you would."
As the majority of people stood and exited the briefing room, I made my way down to the lowest level of the briefing room, stopping in front of General Syndulla. Ahsoka walked up behind her as well, stopping to hear our conversation.
"I assume by the light show you performed earlier that you won't be hiding your abilities during the mission?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah. We've been making waves, so it's only a matter of time before I've got the big guns coming after me," I explained. "Besides, I'm not about to put anyone at risk to keep myself safe, not when we are dropping in somewhere dangerous."
"Fair enough, I won't pretend I'm not glad to have someone of your… abilities fighting with us on this," She admitted.
"Thank you. If that's all?"
She nodded, and I turned to leave, my crew following behind me. Before I could make it out of the Luke caught up to us.
"Hey, Deacon. Mind if I tag along? Red Squadron already left for another mission, so…"
"Yeah, sure, Luke, we are heading back to our ship. You're welcome to join us," I said with a nod and a smile. "You got everything you need for the mission?"
"I'll probably stop by my locker to grab a few things first," He responded.
"Sounds good. You can join us for lunch," I said before looking down at Ahsoka, who had been watching our conversation. "You're welcome to join us."
"... Alright, I suppose getting to know your crew would be a good idea," She responded. "Lead the way."
I smiled and turned, walking out of the briefing hall and into the stone-carved hallway. I took two steps in one direction, only for Tatnia to grab my arm and pull me back.
"Our hangar bay is this way," She explained, nodding down the opposite hall. "Unless you planned on going the long way?"
"Right… I would have figured it out eventually."
Comments
lenkite
Hopefully the CIS droid research base doesn't self-destruct. Something that does illegal AI research nearly always has a self-destruct option.
Robert
Soooo shall I start the shipping hype?
