A Young Girl's War Between the Stars [Youjo Senki/Star Wars]

82

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars82

Coruscant. 35 BBY/965 GSC.

“—nothing but vile slander, I say!”

Darth Plagueis, in his public identity as Hego Damask, held in a sigh and the urge to use Force lightning on Viceroy Nute Gunray until he stopped being a constant irritant. Once more, he reminded himself that Gunray was Sidious’s puppet and for as annoying as he was, the neimoidian was still too useful to kill at the moment and revealing his power in public would only end poorly.

Hego hummed, the munn nodding along to whatever new complaint Gunray had voiced. Going back over the Viceroy’s ramblings in his mind, it seemed this complaint was directed at something the Countess of Serenno had done, shortly before the secession and the official announcement of the formation of the Confederation of Independent Systems.

Apparently, Dooku’s sister had been attacked and the would be assassin killed, but he was identified as a spy for the Trade Federation. Countess Jenza had then immediately taken to the news outlets and begun broadcasting to anyone who would listen on the holonet as she lambasted the Trade Federation as cowards and aggressors. Hego had caught a few of those and everything he had seen led him to one obvious conclusion.

“It sounds as though one of two things happened. Either your spy saw an opportunity to advance and decided to act of his own initiative, or he was discovered, captured, and planted there and the entire operation is a false flag. It matters little what the answer actually is, the results are the same, regardless. This gives Serenno, and by extension the CIS casus belli against the Trade Federation and something for their people to rally behind. Never doubt the danger of rabble roused behind what they feel is a just cause.”

Gunray frowned at that, before shaking his head. “You are wrong, Mr. Damask. Of course the truth matters! This is blatant slander. It damages my reputation and paints me as a fool. Either I’m too incompetent to hire professional assassins to get the job done, or I can’t control my people! Both are bad!”

Looking around them at the other people making their way into the Senate chambers, now turning their eyes to the Viceroy, Hego sighed. “Do speak up, Viceroy. I don’t believe they quite heard you on .”

Gunray turned his head, taking in their listeners, before scoffing. “Pah! Let them hear. I want them all to know, , not waste time allowing incompetent amateurs try their hand at it!”

Thankfully, they broke off from the crowd as one of Gunray’s assistants opened the door to the Viceroy’s floating platform. As the group stepped inside, Hego paused at the threshold as a faint thrill of danger echoed in the Force. Raising an eyebrow, he turned his head this way and that but couldn’t quite pinpoint it—either there were sources of danger, or the danger was very diffuse and contained within the Senate chambers.

, he mused, leaning a bit closer and extending his senses just a bit. The closest sensation of danger seemed to be the platform itself…

“Are you coming?” Gunray demanded.

, as though he had authority over . The sheer nerve—!

Hego smiled, shaking his head. “If you’ll excuse me for a few moments. I’m feeling a bit ill. I’ll return shortly.”

With that, he turned and walked away, letting the Viceroy huff in annoyance and detach the hovering platform from its anchors on the wall. Hego waited a few moments, then made his way back to the door, leaning against the wall beside it and looking out into the Senate chamber to watch and see if he could spot the source of the threat.

Soon enough, a chime sounded and the lights focused on the Supreme Chancellor as his platform moved into the middle of the Senate floor. “I hereby—”

Hego tuned him out as he felt a ripple in the Force. A tremor, and then a sudden swell of that drew his eyes upwards an instant before the unmistakable sound of a lightsaber igniting filled the room. He found himself at the beautiful red blade, anticipation and excitement welling up inside him at the show that had just begun.

Hego closed his eyes a moment before the lightsaber shifted and took out the overhead light with a bright flash, opening them again in time to see the above dive down onto Orn Free Taa’s platform and behead the fat twi’lek. A quiet chuckle escaped him as the head spun through the air and landed in the lap of a senator on a platform below.

Screams filled the Senate chamber, along with an absolutely wave of raw terror. The sheer unfolding was delightful. Ah, how he wished he could just unmask and join in the fun…

At that moment, a pair of Jedi who had apparently been in attendance responded. Focusing on the pair, Hego thought he recognized them as belonging to Mundi’s retinue—a couple of Knights who had earned early promotions thanks to Mundi, if he recalled correctly.

The first began leap frogging across platforms in an effort to attack the Sith from behind, acting as a distraction. At the same time, the other Jedi jumped to a higher vantage point, in preparation to pounce. The Senate guard likewise prepared to act, but they were of no consequence as far as he was concerned.

To Hego’s amusement, the unidentified Sith turned just as the Jedi wielding a blue lightsaber took a flying leap at them—lightsaber raised in preparation for a big overhead strike upon landing. They—, Hego’s sense of the Force told him—raised a hand and the Jedi halted midair, caught in the Force.

There was a sudden, swell of Force, and then a bar of solid white plasma connected them—not a lightsaber, but Force lightning. But this was not the Force lightning that he and especially Sidious preferred—the kind that set the nerves alight and crippled an enemy with pain, killing them slowly as it burned their body up. It was not a technique to weaken the enemy, interrogate them, or even allow one to enjoy a bit of light afternoon torture just to savor a captive’s misery.

No, this was the sort of lightning one saw in a storm—raw, untamed, . It was a weapon. A technique whose sole purpose was to kill faster than an enemy could react. A brilliant flash of energy and a roll of thunder that hammered the ears and rattled the bones. In that single instant of contact, it blasted a hole through the Jedi’s chest, before an almost negligent Force push sent his body flying away—like tossing out the trash.

The attack told him two things.

Firstly, that this Sith was not the sort of sadist that Sidious embraced being. No, whoever she was, she was a warrior. A weapon sharpened to a deadly point. An assassin, perhaps.

Secondly, she was rational. Calculated. Not a mad attack dog like Maul.

The second Jedi made his move, jumping down and nearly catching the Sith, before she turned and locked blades with him. They struggled for a moment and Hego watched, feeling out the Force as they struggled not just with their bodies, but with the Force itself. The Jedi’s light side versus the Sith pulling strongly on the dark. They seemed to be nearly evenly matched and, a moment later, they broke apart and began trading blows, lightsabers clashing as they danced around the corpse between them.

Then, Hego felt danger in the Force again and a brief flex of it from the Sith, before danger from one of the floating platforms and it exploded in a fireball. Hego barely contained a laugh as the senators on that platform died to the explosion, debris falling down. Terror peaked as more screams filled the room, followed by another explosion, and another.

There was something to it, something to the explosions. A pattern that, when taken together, produced—

The Jedi turned to look and the Sith capitalized on the brief moment of distraction, claiming his head.

Reaching out with the Force, Hego found the explosive beneath Gunray’s platform and disconnected it, before hitting the emergency return button on the wall. He would never hear the end of it from Sheev if he let the puppet die. His apprentice would complain for about having to find a replacement.

However, the act didn’t go unnoticed, as the Sith turned and Hego felt as her eyes locked with his through the blank, round helmet covering her head. For a moment, they stayed like that—a short standoff as they both felt each other out, assessing whether the other would move against them first. flared in the Force again, pointed directly at him for just a moment—a warning. Then, she turned and leapt away, disappearing into the hallway in a blur of Force speed.

“Move aside!” Gunray yelled, nearly bowling Hego over as he rushed off of the platform. “The ship! Call the ship for extraction! We’re getting off of this planet!”

As the panicked Viceroy and his people fled, Hego followed in their wake, a smile on his face as he considered this new Sith. Her actions and reactions. Her skill—what was displayed and what.Her power—what she showed and what she . Her presence in the Force—hidden one moment, a looming darkness the next.

Hego was not a betting man, but he would say those were slim odds. Astronomical, even.

It was much more likely that this was enemy action, acting against himself and Sidious. Perhaps unknowingly, perhaps not. After all, at least one Jedi had discovered their plot and even managed to identify Hego as Darth Plagueis before being . It was entirely within the realm of possibility that he had gotten a message out, before his capture and subsequent interrogation, followed by demise.

That raised a few questions.

Hego was certain that there were several people who fit that description, but something—not quite the Force, but something more than intuition—told him that the most likely suspect was someone they were already aware of and acquainted with. A Jedi, dissatisfied with the current Order. Someone familiar with the Republic and its workings, who had been set up to die by the Republic. Someone high up in the Confederate political structure. A child soldier with a specialization in infiltration, demolition, and assassination. Bloodthirsty, but not a slave to her hunger.

Sheev didn’t need to know. If he asked, Hego would keep his observations to himself, for now.

After all, it didn’t hurt to have a backup.

Sheev was a schemer and, for all his power, he was a coward. One day, he would eventually kill Hego, according to the Rule of Two. It was a lesson that Hego knew that Sheev hadn’t truly learned from Hego’s own story of his former Master Darth Tenebrous and the secret apprentice, Darth Venamis.

Plagueis did not believe in the Rule of Two. He wanted to conduct research and find a cure for mortality, then rule the galaxy in perpetuity as an immortal Sith with an equal without having to constantly watch his back for the moment when his apprentice decided to usurp him.

Sidious, however, power. He was not content with what he had. Constantly, obsessively hoarding more and more, and looking upon anyone he felt might be a rival with fear and paranoia. The boy had never outgrown that. Never truly become confident in his power. Thus, he was content to spin a grand scheme and manipulate things from behind the scenes.

Maul, on the other hand, was a blunt instrument. A weapon. A font of endless rage. He had no mind for politics. No inclination to plan more than what was required to execute the current objective. No. No at the Force. No desire to delve into its greater secrets.He was an utter as a Sith.

As he stepped into the speeder that set down in front of them to carry them to the spaceport and the Viceroy’s ship, Hego made up his mind to reach out to Dooku and feel the old Jedi out.

Jedha. 35 BBY/965 GSC.

Stolen story; please report.

The High Council sat in silence as they watched a hologram play out. On the screen, three children emerged into the center of a hedge maze, visibly chatting amiably. Two, Mace recognized as the girls Tanya had brought with her to Jedha not too long ago, in her ill fated attempt to introduce them to the Order. An attempt that was cut short by Mundi’s rash, franklyactions—and he still felt that simply forcing Mundi into retirement didn’t go far enough. If he’d had his way, Mundi would have been imprisoned.

The blonde one he knew to be her Padawan—Asajj, if he remembered her name right. Asajj Mereel, because the newly minted Knight had apparently adopted the girl into her Mando clan and was, legally speaking, .

The redhead… Well. The only thing that moved faster than hyper drives was gossip, and the Order was no exception. Rumor was, the girl was related to Dooku. His daughter, most likely. That, or his niece.

And while having children wasn’t explicitly against the rules of the Order, it was something Mace frowned upon personally—and not simply because of the dangers of a Jedi being too close to someone. He knew his reputation—that of a hardline traditionalist. And they were right. But he wasn’t heartless.

What parent could simultaneously and give a child the relationship they needed, while also maintaining the detachment required of a Jedi? The bond between parent and child was much deeper, much stronger than that between Master and Padawan. Denying a child that would be cruel. It would be better for the Jedi Order if they avoided the dilemma altogether.

.

Not , but it was something Mace wouldn’t trust to most Masters, let alone a fresh Knight. But… he would wait and see how it played out. If she succeeded in raising both to Knighthood, he would be willing to put her name forward for promotion to Master.

.

As for the civilian boy, Mace didn’t know him or his mother personally, but Master Plo had been thorough on sending them the necessary reading material ahead of this briefing. He was Lux Bonteri, the son of Republic Senator Mina Bonteri… who was now a Confederate Senator, aligned with the Separatists. There was nothing special about the boy on file, aside from who his mother was.

In the hologram, the children explored the center of the maze for a few moments before the boy took a seat on the ground and flopped back to look at the stars. The girls moved to join him, only to both turn at the same time towards one of the other entrances to the maze—clearly having sensed something in the Force. A moment later, Master Krell walked into the center of the maze and the boy shot to his feet.

Frowning, Mace considered how the besalisk Master would look to a group of children, two not even in their teens.

Master Krell was huge compared to them—both wide and tall, twice their height or more, looming out of the dark. An unknown, likely Force user they weren’t expecting, who hadn’t been introduced to them by their Master, in a place they weren’t expecting to meet one. And given they were Tanya’s Padawans, she had likely warned them against Sith—even if she didn’t specify Sith as the threat, any unknown and aggressive Force user would likely be considered hostile until proven otherwise.

Reptilian and amphibian facial features and body language were harder for human stock to read—their lizard brains were hard coded to interpret them as dangerous and it was a difficult impulse to overcome, that often took years, sometimes decades. But even knowing that… Looking at it through the eyes of a Jedi Master and someone who havedecades of experience dealing with other species, Mace could say with certainty that Master Krell’s body language threatening. He had chosen to take an aggressive posture with them, in order to intimidate them.

Master Krell said something, but his lips were hard to read. Whatever it was, the two Padawans reacted by drawing their lightsabers and trying to back away. They hadn’t ignited them yet, but they very clearly felt threatened enough to feel the need to have a weapon in hand.

On one of the other feeds, where she stood speaking with Senator Bonteri, Knight Mereel looked towards the hedge maze. Her face, which had been about as relaxed as Mace had ever seen her, suddenly hardened before she drew her saber and launched herself away at Force speed.

Mace reminded himself.

It took seconds for Mereel to reach the center of the maze and find Krell looming over her Padawans. One of the other feeds showed her from the front as Master Krell began speaking. She ordered her students to leave, but a motion from Krell had their path of escape blocked off. It would take a moment or two to clear it, either with lightsabers or the Force—plenty of time for him to feign an attack on them and force Mereel into defending them, limiting her options. The move was very clearly calculated on Master Krell’s part to use the Padawans as a distraction.

Mace winced, sighing through his nose. That did it. Whatever Mereel did next was justified, both in the eyes of the Order and Republic law—and whatever laws the Separatists observed. Being completely honest, Mace would have struck Krell down where he stood if it had been him in that situation.

fuck

What came next surprised him however—and Mace wasn’t the only one. The camera feed near Mereel’s feet glitched out for just a second, before clearing up, revealing…

No ordinary animal it seemed, as the cat sprang across the distance between Mereel and the children at Force speed, before the camera glitched again—a much larger distortion this time. When it cleared up again, the children were gone.

can’t.

His thoughts of the potential implications of that from a tactical standpoint were put on hold as the fight began. It started fast and only sped up from there, as Mereel launched the first strike, then proceeded to pick apart Krell’s style as Mace watched.

She was good. She had advanced far from that little spar they’d had, a few years back.

Mereel specialized in Form II/Makashi, which was to be expected given who her Master was—that hadn’t changed, aside from her getting better. Mace saw a blend of other forms in there, but for the most part, she wasn’t fighting form against form—she was explicitly working to counter Krell’s own style and choice of weapon.

After a short breather, where Master Krell looked like he was starting to run down physically while the younger Knight Mereel looked to be in better condition, they clashed again. Mace felt the end coming soon and, sure enough, the decisive blow was struck within a few more seconds as Mereel ruined one of Krell’s arms and took the other, after demonstrating the use of illusions in combat.

The outcome from there was obvious.

Angered at the loss of his arms, Krell grabbed Mereel by the head and made to stab her. He apparently either hadn’t read her file, because she was known for wearing beskar armor, or he had assumed that because she wasn’t wearing visible armor that meant she wasn’t wearing . So when Krell’s lightsaber skittered off her side in a shower of sparks, Mace only nodded and added that to his mental threat assessment of the young woman—if he had to fight her, he had to assume body strikes would be pointless, even if it looked like she wasn’t dressed for combat.

Finally, the killing blow was struck. The Force blade Mace had seen once in person, and had heard the results described when used against a living being. A single swipe of her hand partially decapitated Master Krell, leaving only a bit of muscle and skin at the back of his neck to hold his head on as he began to bleed. Master Koon stopped the video there, quickly dismissing the image of Master Krell’s death from the projector.

Shielding. An invisible blade that could cut durasteel. Flight. And now illusions in combat and not just as a convenient tool when she didn’t want to use a holocom to record things.

Mereel didn’t use her most powerful tools against Krell, or what usage there was, it was minimal and not obvious. Her use of Force lightning was a bit concerning, but Master Koon hadn’t made mention of sensing the telltale remnants of using the dark side of the Force, so Mace would assume that her use was likely similar to Plo’s own use of that skill. She had acted in defense of her Padawans and the son of a senator.

Master Pong Krell’s hostility, his words and actions, painted him as firmly in the wrong right up until the end—when Mereel , in that moment when she took his second arm and immediately follow up with the decapitation strike. He chose to continue the fight and try to kill her, and she had merely returned the favor. From any reasonable standpoint, it was a clear cut case of self-defense.

Mace wondered, as the room erupted into a shouting match.

“She’s gone too far this time, Yoda! She must be put down, for the sake of the Order!”

“If not put down, then contained. Send her to The Prism.”

“Have you lost your minds?! He threatened her Padawans!”

“After Mundi attempted to kill her right here in the heart of this very Temple, is it any wonder that she made Master Krell pay the price for the attempt with his life?”

“A Master has been killed and the killer was one of our own Order. Justice must be done!”

“He threatened her Padawans. .”

“One person doesn’t get to decide that! She should be brought to stand trial!”

“Two Masters of this Order, one who sat on this very Council, have tried and failed to kill her. If you want to make the attempt a third time, or try to capture her and send her to the Ghost Prison, .”

“Knight Mereel is a member of this Order! She deserves to be here to defend herself if you’re going to put her on trial, regardless of the circumstances.”

Master Plo cleared his throat, only to be summarily ignored. Grand Master Yoda thumped the butt of his cane on the ground, silencing the room. “More have you to say, Master Plo?”

“Yes. Though, I’ll let Knight Mereel speak for herself,” he said, before tapping at the controls on his chair. The holo projector activated again, showing a video apparently recorded from Master Plo’s own holocom.

“— Plo in the recording said.

Knight Mereel shook her head. all She paused to gesture at Master Krell’s body. “That is what the Sith want.”

The Council chambers were silent as they took that in, the members sharing glances between themselves. There was a tension in the air. Everyone could feel it. The weight of something that had been approaching for a long time finally arriving, unable to be denied any longer.

Grand Master Yoda took a deep breath, before letting it out in a long, tired sigh. His next words put voice to the shared thought no one dared speak aloud.

“Begun, the next Schism has.”

The largest Mace had ever sensed. He thought they had a few more years, time to prepare before the war, but it seemed that things were moving faster than he had anticipated.

Before anyone could say anything one way or another, surprise and shock radiated through the Temple from several distinct sources. They all exchanged curious looks as one of those sources of emotion rushed towards the High Council chambers. A few moments later, the doors burst open as a young man burst inside.

“Masters!” he paused, practically doubling over as he panted from the run.

“Come now, speak up lad!” Master Jocasta Nu urged the young man. “What’s wrong?”

“Holonet!” he got out, pointing to the hologram. “Any channel!”

The others exchanged confused looks, even as Mace touched his chair controls and switched the projector over to a news station. The holo screen was immediately filled with the familiar sight of the Republic Senate chamber, filled with people. Emergency services, performing first aid before evacuating the injured.

Smoke filled the area and a few of the floating platforms piled in the bottom of the chamber were still on fire. Judging by the scorch marks and damage to other platforms and the walls, someone had set off a large number of explosives.

The shot pulled back to the inside of a studio, leaving the footage from the Senate on one half of the screen. Mace unmuted the video feed. The news anchor paused, reaching up to her ear before saying,

The screen changed again, this time to one of the many camera feeds from inside the Senate, just before the attack. They watched as the Supreme Chancellor’s platform floated into the center of the room and he started to call the session to order, only for a loud boom and a flash of light to fill the room, and the main lights to cut out.

Backup lights turned on almost immediately as the camera switched, just in time to focus on a figure clad in black robes, wearing a featureless black helmet, and wielding a red lightsaber to fall from somewhere near the ceiling and land on one of the platforms—this one containing an obese twi’lek man that Mace vaguely recognized as one of the more troublesome and corrupt senators.

The swung their lightsaber and the footage pixelated, censoring the strike—but it was obvious what happened, as one part of the blur flew away, separating from the rest and spinning to land in another hovering platform. Pandemonium filled the chamber as people screamed and reacted.

Then, a Jedi Knight who had apparently been sitting in on the session—one of Mundi’s, by the look of it—jumped in, attempting to ambush the Sith from behind. The reaction was immediate—a grab with the Force, followed by a bolt of Force lightning that burned through the man, then a casual toss away.

The second Jedi Knight failed his own surprise attack, and the fight that followed was short lived but exactly as Mace remembered from the footage Knight Mereel had sent in. The same robes, same armor, the same helmet, same utterly dismissive as they—no, as utterly dismantled her opponent. The explosions during the fight explained the marks and the destroyed platforms, along with the high body count.

After perhaps two minutes, the Sith ended the fight with another decapitation. There was a brief pause as the Sith’s head turned, looking at something out of view of the camera, before leaping away.

The Council once again erupted into noise. Meeting Yoda’s eyes, Mace nodded towards the door. The old Grand Master stood and made his way outside as Mace joined him.

“There won’t be any containing this,” Mace pointed out, and Yoda shook his head.

“No. Contain it, we cannot. React, the Order must.”

“And do what?”

Yoda hummed, stroking his chin for a moment as they walked along. Finally, he said, “Put the people at ease, we must. Address the Senate, I shall.”

“Alright,” Mace nodded. Thinking back to the footage, he asked, “Did you see that, there at the end?”

“Mm. Yes. Curious, it is. Investigate, we must.”

“I’ll see if we can get more video. I know there are more cameras in the Senate chamber than the ones they showed. If we can find out who she was looking at, it could be a lead.” Yoda nodded and Mace quietly continued, “A visible enemy gives us something to rally behind and unite the Order.”

“But for how much longer?” Yoda asked, just as quiet. “Too late it is, I fear. Done long ago, the damage was. What we see now, the consequences of our own actions.” A pause, then quieter, “My decisions.”

Mace wanted to say something to the contrary, but the Grand Master was right. Yoda had been in the order for hundreds of years now. He was one of if not most influential member of the Order in recent memory. That also meant that in a way, he was responsible for everything happening within the Order at the moment.

“What’s the alternative? Let the Order fracture, when the Sith have just made their opening move?”

Yoda considered for a moment before shaking his head. “Focus on the Sith, we will. The matter with Knight Mereel and Master Krell, consider settled we should.”

“And the Separatists? Dooku and Mereel?”

The old Grand Master frowned. “The time for conflict with other Jedi, this is not. The Sith, the true enemy are. A matter for another day, the Secession Crisis is. Wary they will be of other Jedi coming to negotiate. Time, we must give them.”

“The Senate aren’t going to be happy about that,” Mace murmured, before adding, “.”

“Impress upon them the need for patience and prudence, I shall. For if we provoke the Separatists, a war on two fronts we shall have. The Trade Federation and the Confederacy, allies of convenience they will make should the Senate act rashly.”

“Mm. And we’ve known the Senate to act rashly,” Mace rolled his eyes.

“…Trust you to prepare the Order for the worst outcome, I shall.”

Serenno. 35 BBY/965 GSC.

“That’s it, then,” Jenza murmured, watching the holocom from her seat beside Dooku, in front of the fireplace.

“The war has begun in earnest,” Dooku agreed, before taking a sip of his drink. He stared at the hologram, forcing himself to commit the scene to memory.

“Was this…” his sister started to ask, and he sent her a raised eyebrow. “Did you ask her to do this?”

“I gave her a series of goals to work towards and a list of targets.”

“Mm,” Jenza hummed, looking back to the hologram. “Then this… A terror attack. All those people dead—”

“Take a closer look,” Dooku said, as he backed the video up and focused in on one of the platforms. “The people caught in those blasts are all people from the list I gave her. Only people from the list.”

Jenza turned a searching look on him. “But there are so many.”

“It was a long list,” Dooku sighed, taking another sip of his drink. “I will admit, I was not expecting ,” he gestured at the hologram, “but I cannot say I am dissatisfied with the result. It achieves many of our goals at once and more besides. With this, the Republic will be left reeling for a time, allowing us time to move unimpeded. To fulfill our promises to our allies and liberate yet more from the Trade Federation.”

“And what about Tanya?”

The old man stared into the hologram for a moment, before quietly saying, “I will have one more thing to atone for when this is done.”