11
A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars
11
Dathomir, 42 BBY.
Looking at master Dooku holding his newborn daughter for what may be the last time, I kept silent as he and Augwynne shared a quiet moment. The man was calm on the surface, but every now and then, I felt his emotions flare up revealing the storm he was keeping tightly in check. Just from the little bits I saw, he was a mess of pride, joy, sorrow, anger, longing, and more—felt in brief flashes so intense I’d had to wall myself off completely and still felt the occasional outburst slam against my mental walls.
There was nothing more to say on the matter, really. He had made up his mind to adhere to the Jedi code, regardless of the fact that this was perhaps the moment when he regretted it most. Nothing I said would change his mind—at least, not today.
Personally however, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Jedi weren’t insane, with their ‘no attachments’ rule. That a man couldn’t have a family in the true sense because connections lead to fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering as master Yoda so eloquently put it in one of his many lectures to the younglings. Ironically, that missed the fact that connections with other people made us stronger by giving us a network of people we could call on when we needed aid—that we could draw strength, skill, ideas, and other resources from. You should do everything you could to make and encourage connections with others and earn their loyalty. Even I knew that!
…Certainly, it took fighting a war and living in the trenches for a few years to drill that particular lesson in and teach me the true value of other people as more than useful ‘human resources’ or meat shields, but I’d learned in the end! And it galled to see that lesson I’d learned in the loss of the people I held dear to nuclear fire and the petty spite of a false god just… discarded as problematic.
Something to look into when I get back. I’ll dive into the Archives and see if I can find anything on it. Records of stable, normal relationships not falling to the dark side. Maybe I can track down when the change was made and why.
It was a problem for later. For now, I had more pressing concerns. Namely, research on Serenno. I needed data and I had hit a roadblock on my searching. The map data I found was all horribly out of date and something told me that was intentional. I was going to be doing some legwork tracking down whatever I could once we got back to Coruscant. If we were going to be engaging in a ground war, information was key. I wouldn’t go in blind if I had a say in it. I wanted to know the layout of every potential combat zone well in advance, and then I’d update that information once we got there—but the less I had to update, the better.
I also needed to dedicate some time in the archives to studying these ‘Mandalorians.’ Their customs, history, what to expect. I didn’t want to embarrass myself or masters Dooku and Dyas when we got there—or worse, commit some avoidable faux pas, offend someone, and destroy our chances of recruiting their aid before we ever got a foot in the door. The Japanese salaryman in me wouldn’t stand for the shame of being the reason we were unable to recruit allies to our cause, because I didn’t take the time to learn that you were supposed to bow exactly forty-five degrees to be polite and anything more was an insult, while anything less was considered not showing proper respect.
I was pulled from my thoughts as Dooku sighed and handed off their daughter to Augwynne. “Look after Allaya.”
“Of course,” Augwynne smiled. “You should visit when you can.”
Dooku began to make a denial, but after a moment, he nodded once. “As I can.”
Augwynne’s attention shifted to me, her eyes meeting mine. “Seven years. Make sure you’re here for your second trial.”
I nodded, giving her a smile. “I will,” I agreed, before glancing at Dooku and giving voice to a thought I’d been considering for a while. “Maybe she’ll be ready for a different kind of training by then.”
“Is that allowed?” Augwynne asked.
Master Dooku made to answer, but I quickly cut him off. “I wouldn’t know. I’d just be returning a favor that was done for me. If the council learned of it after the fact and informed me it was against the rules, I would of course apologize for the breach in protocol and promise not to do it again.”
Dooku chuckled, his hand landing on my shoulder. “Yes, it is a shame no one took the time to formally educate you on this matter, Tanya. It must have slipped my mind, what with everything going on with Serenno. And speaking of, I believe it’s time we depart. Are you ready?”
“Everything is packed and ready.”
“Good. Then let us be off. Augwynne, it has been a pleasure.”
The woman smirked. “The feeling’s mutual. Don’t be a stranger, Dooku.”
We left her in her office as Allaya began to squirm and make hungry baby noises, collecting our packs as we left. We passed the trip back to the ship in silence—unbothered even by the native wildlife. When we reached the ship, I stowed my gear and made my way up to the cockpit. Master Dooku had already taken his seat and gestured at the controls.
“Why don’t you get us underway, padawan?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and watching.
I nodded and began the preflight sequence. As I worked, I quietly said, “There may be an issue with the flight recorder. It may not properly record us on our way back from Serenno…”
Dooku sighed, then shook his head. “No, I’m sure it’ll function just fine.” At my raised eyebrow, he gave a soft smile. “I worry that if I return any time soon, I won’t leave.”
“Mm,” I nodded, looking away. “Serenno is a war zone, is it not? Even a master Jedi could be overrun and overwhelmed, or simply hit with an orbital bombardment and vaporized…”
The old man chuckled as the ship shook and began to lift off. “I’m sure I’ll be just fine. I still have much left to do as a Jedi. Chief among them, seeing to you.”
“As you say, master. Setting course for Coruscant.”
“Have you had any luck getting those maps?” he asked, his tone curious.
I shook my head. “Nothing less than a decade old. Smells like foul play.”
“Quite,” Dooku agreed. “Unfortunately, I won’t have the time to look into it when we return.”
“I’ve already made plans to start looking. I’ll check our Library and the records first to see if anyone has been there recently, then move on to the planet’s data center if I need to. If it’s been edited or deleted, there will be an audit log and likely backups. If this is enemy action, then hopefully our enemy is technically illiterate. Unfortunately, we can’t count on the enemy being incompetent, so I have other options in mind. Surely, someone on Coruscant has been to Serenno recently and, if so, their ship would have automatically taken and stored scans—not as detailed as we’d like, but it should at least give us an idea of what we’re going into.”
Master Dooku hummed, considering for a moment. “There are free traders, outside of the Trade Federation. We have contacts within their ranks. I’ll get you the contact information you would need to reach out to them.”
“You suspect they’re involved?” I asked, and he nodded once.
“The possibility is there. And if they aren’t, it’s still better that we don’t draw their attention and let them know we’re aware of their plans.”
“Avoiding them would just as surely tip them off. Any break of pattern in our dealing with them,” I pointed out.
“Yes. That is why we’re conducting business as usual for the moment. But in instances like this, there is always a risk of espionage, information leakage, and retaliation. I would rather keep you away from them than put you directly within their grasp, in case they’ve learned what we know and that you were the one who brought it to our attention.”
That made sense. There didn’t even need to be a traitor among the Jedi for the information to get out. Poor IT security or simply overhearing someone say the wrong thing at the wrong time could account for it. With that in mind, I made a mental note to be extra mindful of my surroundings when I went out to work on this project once we got back. Perhaps I should request some backup? It couldn’t hurt.
Soon enough, we were out of Dathomir’s atmosphere and into hyperspace. I made my way to my cabin and got to work, busying myself with my latest self-improvement project since I couldn’t work on the Serenno problem until we arrived. Today’s book? Intelligent Systems: Droid Construction, Maintenance, Repair, and Modification.
I had spent my free time on Dathomir training my mind by learning programming and slicing when I wasn’t training my body. Six hours a night every night and I had completed all of the classes available in the Technical University of Coruscant’s online self-study course—one of many such institutions that had deals with the Jedi order to offer courses and certifications free or at a steeply reduced rate.
Of course, just having a certification did not mean I was ready to start trying my hand at slicing into anything more complicated than my tablet or the ship’s non-essential computers. Nothing I would trust my life with. I was still studying, learning, and developing my skills. There was also a list of equipment I’d need to buy once I got back. There was only so much I could do with my tablet and by repurposing some extra wires and parts from the ship, after all.
One day, I aimed to have the skills and equipment necessary to get in and out of any secure facility I needed to breach, pass through whatever security was present, and do whatever it was I was there to do—all without leaving a trace of my presence behind, until it was far too late to do anything about it. But I felt like I was nowhere near that goal yet.
In that proposed scenario, it would be a droid carrier or factory I’d be infiltrating, likely with the intent of either destroying it or subverting their forces to our cause. I felt like my goals there were entirely practical and reasonable, considering we were perhaps a decade out from a war where our enemy had foolishly decided to make up the bulk of their army with automated forces subject to hacking, reprogramming, and turning against their masters. If I could end even one battle without a shot fired or a life lost, I’d consider it time well spent.
Which was why I was now moving on from pure programming to working with droids. I knew the models the enemy were manufacturing. I had been studying the forums discussing the issues around their software and digging through pirated copies of the base programming the things ran on to get an idea of what I would need to do, and in doing so I’d realized that a lot of it was very droid specific—especially the logic/emotion engines running even the basic B1-series battle droids. I wasn’t sure why anyone would want to equip a droid meant for combat with emotions, but if it could be exploited, I wanted to know how.
“You’re making a face.”
I nodded, pulling my mental shields in tighter and reinforcing them against the noise of Coruscant. That wasn’t the source of my discomfort, however. No, it was twofold.
Firstly, there was a smell. The planet reeked. Coming back to it after being on Dathomir for so long, with nothing but fresh air and none of the industrial pollutants, exhaust, and other odors just made Coruscant’s noxious funk just made it that much worse. It stood out in a bad way. Like walking into a platoon’s shared latrine the morning after bratwurst and sauerkraut night.
The other part was the dark side of the Force. Dathomir had had more, given that it was a wild planet with both light and dark in a natural balance, but here… Coruscant wasn’t a wild planet. It was entirely tamed eons ago. It wasn’t the presence of the dark that was a problem, it was the relative lack of light to balance it, and it seemed like it just… fed on itself and grew. A planet full of trillions of people, many of whom were being actively exploited, most of them miserable—it was a malignant soup that strangled most of the light here.
And worst of all? The moment we got close to the Jedi temple, I realized that it was sitting on what might as well be a geyser of the stuff, where the dark side was even more concentrated. Maybe it was the training on Dathomir making me highly aware of them but the closer we got, the less I liked it, as it felt like stepping through a veil that interfered with my Force senses.
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Before I could think too much on it, we were greeted by a pair of familiar faces in the form of master Dyas and Obi, the latter hanging back a bit and letting master Dyas go first. He nodded in greeting to master Dooku and sent me a brief smile. “You just got in and I know you’d prefer to take some time to settle back in, but I’m afraid duty calls. The Council wants to meet about Serenno, then we have a meeting with some of the senators we’ll need to sway before you speak to the rest. The senator from Naboo expressed his interest in the matter, in particular.”
“I see,” Dooku murmured. “I can’t say I’ve met them. Who is it?”
“Sheev Palpatine. He’s about twenty years your junior,” Dyas grinned, his tone teasing.
Master Dooku didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he took off his pack and offered it to me. “Tanya, would you be so kind as to return this to my quarters?”
“Of course,” I agreed, taking the bag.
“We will speak later, then. Let me know if you need help,” he nodded and gestured towards master Dyas as the two walked away. “Have the Council suggested what it is they’re hoping to achieve with the intervention on Serenno?”
“Well…”
I stopped paying attention as I was suddenly pulled into a hug and my face pulled into a small pair of breasts. “Welcome back,” Obi greeted, squeezing tightly.
I let go of the bag with one hand to return the hug. “Thank you.”
Letting go quickly, she stepped back and visibly looked me over, before a teasing look came over her face. She tilted her head, bringing one hand up to partially cover her lips, but her tone told me she was barely holding in her laughter. “What are you wearing?!”