A Young Girl's War Between the Stars [Youjo Senki/Star Wars] 59

A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

59

Felucia. 36 BBY/964 GSC.

Upon returning to the planet and exchanging information with Capt. Kirkland, I radioed my people and got a status update. Then, I collected my speeder and made for camp. The flight back reminded of my days in the Imperial Army, and wondering if every flight would be the one where the enemy ambushed and my n. Thankfully though, it was mostly uneventful, save for a near miss with a large manta-like creature that had risen up from the trees just as I’d passed over.

I circled the camp once to take everything in and assess the damage, before landing in our motor pool. Lt. Saz t there with a quick salute as I started heading for the command building. “What was it you didn’t want to say over the radio, lieutenant?”

“A few things. First, we found piles of dirt and trenches out in the forest surrounding the camp, where it looks like they were building up earthworks to prepare for a larger assault. It’s too much dirt for the holes they dug, so the n figure that’s where most of the dirt from the tunnel went.”

I nodded. That made sense. Even if the droids sohow used the dirt from the tunnel to make bricks, it wouldn’t account for that much mass just disappearing. It had to go sowhere. So, it seed we weren’t just dealing with so amateur saboteur, but soone actually familiar with warfare. That was… unfortunate. “I see. That’s not good news. How did we miss the trenches being dug?”

“Not sure, ma’am. Best guess is they were dug between the last patrol in that area and last night.”

Well, it certainly beat my n being so incompetent they couldn’t spot enemies setting up earthworks. Unfortunately, it ant the speed at which the enemy was capable of doing so made relocating to any sort of permanent base pointless. “Continue.”

“So of the n had so ideas about preventing this from happening again. We may not even have to relocate.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What have they co up with?” I asked, as we stepped into the command building.

“Seismos.” At my frown, he elaborated. “Seismographs. They were able to source a few from so mines and the capital while you were off world and have begun setting them up around the periter and inside the compound. So of these are passive seismos, so are active and use sothing more like sonar, pinging the ground to produce a map of the local area and everything around. They can be tuned to scan just the first few feet of sub-surface, up to the top, and are sensitive enough to pick up people. Now obviously the second type will have so blind spots around those big mushroom trees, where the root system might confuse things. But between the two we should be able to pick out anyone moving around out in the jungle for a few hundred yards, at least. Enough to prevent anyone from trying to set up more trenches, or dig more tunnels.”

More to the point, the enemy already knows where we are and are likely actively tracking us. There’s no way to stealthily move the equipnt, or move the facilities at all without renting a ship to do it—and they would likely take that opportunity to strike and do more damage. So… we set up sensors, then dig in here and prepare for what’s coming. All while sending out teams to look for the pirate bases—

I blinked. “Could you retrofit one of those active sonar units to carry in a backpack?”

Lt. Saz nodded. “Yes, ma’am. What do you want to do? Have one of our troops on one of the AT-TEs carry it?”

“No. Put a scout team on a speeder and send them out to scan covertly,” I shook my head. “I want to be able to have it quickly scout ahead and scan for underground structures.”

“We can do that,” he agreed.

“Alright, then. We’ll dig in here but increase our patrols searching for the pirates. I want soone manning those seismos at all tis. And one more thing.” I sent the lieutenant an annoyed look, “I don’t know what idiot in charge of issuing equipnt left our shield out, and you can be assured that I’m going to personally hunt them down and give them a piece of my mind, but we can’t do without one. I want to avoid a repeat of last night. Have our engineers go try to source a shield from sowhere and get a base shield set up. Do whatever it takes to get one.”

“Roger that. I’ll get on it,” Lt. Saz agreed, and hurried away.

Honestly, it was a bit ridiculous. The prefab base the Mandos I’d hired had co with its own shield generator. You would think that a Republic military operation would have co with one by default. But no, apparently not. Probably at the behest of so bean counter sowhere, thinking thoughts above their station about saving a few credits by not issuing equipnt they didn’t deem necessary for a ‘training mission.’

Bean counters should stick to counting beans and keep their noses out of other areas, I groused.

I spent a few minutes checking everything and going over the morning reports, before making my way back to my quarters. Seeing that the room had been thoroughly cleaned, the holes patches, and the air conditioner was humming away and spewing out cold air, I sighed and began stripping down. Keying up on my radio, I let Lt. Saz know I was going to rack out for a while before turning in.

As I lay there starting to drift off, my mind wandered.

We can’t just be reactive. I can’t just be reactive here. Just sending out patrols would work for ordinary enemies, but not enemies who are dug in and obviously watching and listening, and who have so way of communicating that our signal operators haven’t picked up. Maybe so sort of relay system, running recorded ssages back and forth, or flying them with a probe droid? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that patrols are big, loud, slow, and predictable. The enemy can mostly get out of the way of them if they get anywhere near them. Sending a speeder out with the sonar scanner is a good start, but not good enough. I’ll go out myself, tonight, and start investigating much further than our patrols would have made it in the next few days. But before that, I need so rest.

That brought another problem. Considering the noise coming from the planet, I sat up in bed and pulled my computation orb over, resting it in my lap and focusing on the quiet ticking in the Force as its four cores slowly built on the seed of Force growing within it.

Reaching out to the Force, I concentrated, focusing hard on what I needed—a way to isolate an area from the Force, or quiet it, at least temporarily. I’d had success with similar things in the past, so I was hoping…

I felt a subtle response from the Force and found my attention turning to my orb. Reaching into it, I began burning in a new formula. Watching it take shape as I worked, I began piecing together what it would do and smiled.

Yes, that will do nicely, I nodded as I finished it up so ti later.

Activating the new formula, I sighed as a sphere expanded around the orb—a bubble of silence around , save for the quiet ticking of the computation orb. It wasn’t cutting the area off from the Force, but rather expanding the reach of the orb’s influence and absorbing everything coming in before it reached . I wasn’t cut off from the Force itself, just from random Force presences.

It wouldn’t work against a dedicated attack in the Force, or if the Force presence trying to intrude was large enough. But for cutting out the interference caused by practically every living thing on Felucia being Force sensitive and the planet itself reaching out to in my sleep, it should be like putting in a set of ear plugs.

There was also no danger of it running full ti and dulling my senses, or keeping from sensing a true threat. I had to manually turn it on and could even set a tir and conditions for it to turn off.

Sighing as peace and quiet descended, I slid under the covers and rolled over onto my stomach, burrowing into a little blanket burrito as I gave in to sleep and passed out to blessed peace and quiet.

Lt. Saz watched with a frown as I tested the sonar scanner, checking the display built into the unit, then looking over at the screen displayed in our comms/sensor room that would not just display what I was scanning, but show where it was on a map. Satisfied, I began packing it away in the backpack, confident that I could operate the unit in the field and it had more than enough battery life to last until I got back.

“I don’t like this. You shouldn’t be going out on your own.”

I sent the man an amused look. “Your objections are noted, logged, have been considered, and rejected lieutenant. I’m going radio silent. I won’t be back until morning, most likely. Continue operations as normal. I need it to look like we’re not sending out an advance night scout to hunt them down.”

“Yes, sir,” Lt. Saz acknowledged, but looked annoyed.

Turning my attention to the monitors, I pointed to where several of the passive seismos had triangulated what seed to be sothing trying to burrow into the ground. “You have bigger problems to concern yourselves with, it seems. If you can capture them alive, that would be best. Oh, and don’t destroy those droids if you can avoid it. I want them. It would be hilarious to turn them against the enemy, don’t you think?”

“I’ll get a team on it.”

“And stay off the radio. They’ve apparently got so way of listening in,” I pointed out and he nodded.

With that, I spun up an optical camo formula. “If you would head out ahead of , I’ll slip out behind you in case they’re watching.”

The lieutenant nodded and made his way outside. I followed in his wake, then took to the air. From there, I sped towards the river I had decided was likely the one the enemy had set up near, then started upstream. I flew over it past the furthest point that we had patrolled, before stopping for my first scan—an open area I had added to my list of possible sites when I realized the enemy could have just dug themselves a structure to hide in.

Hiding in a rock formation, I set the sonar up and had it ping the area. Not seeing anything of note, I moved on to the next area, and the next, and so on and so forth through the night.

Until finally, I hit paydirt.

I was near a change in elevation, where the river beca a waterfall on par with the largest on Earth, when I picked up a large open chamber ahead of … and several ships hidden away inside it. It was so cliche that for a mont I almost didn’t believe what I was seeing—that anyone would be stupid enough to think that wasn’t the first thing soone would check the mont they saw a big waterfall like this. Then I rembered that this world didn’t have the sort of decades worth of video gas and dia that had programd audiences and players to look behind every waterfall expecting so hidden cache of treasure, or a secret hideout.

I adjusted the machine’s settings and pinged again, getting a clearer picture. Built into the cliff produced by the change in elevation was an entire facility, full of people, equipnt, ships, and who knew what else—the resolution wasn’t good enough to tell. What I could tell was that they seed unaware of , at least for the mont.

I marked the location on my map and considered my next move.

On the one hand, I could go in now and clear them out myself. However, this would defeat the purpose of the training exercise and likely invalidate it. Not that I cared at this point. We were beyond the point of this being an exercise or a test. They were a threat that needed to be eliminated. The biggest problem with that was the size of the facility, the number of people, and the fact that I couldn’t rely on my Force or empathic senses to track them down. So of them were bound to get away, and I wanted to leave no survivors here. We needed a clean sweep, or they would just try this again.

On the other hand, I could go back to base, collect the n, and storm the place. The n could set a periter and watch the place with sonar to make sure no one escaped, while I took a group inside and cleaned house. The only difficulty was in moving the n quickly enough, and not drawing attention while we did it. We were miles and miles up river, much further than I’d thought the enemy would be—likely due to the presence of a down-river ferry that would make the trip down much faster.

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Thinking on it, I wasn’t properly equipped for a solo fight against this many people without my senses. No armor but my chest piece. I knew for a fact now that our standard issue rifles weren’t up to the task of handling the sort of abuse I put my personal rifle through using formulas. I’d have to rely too much on shields and superior mobility through three dinsional space…

I ntally scoffed. It was nothing I hadn’t done before.

Tanya von Degurechaff would have dove in there without a second thought and laughed as she gleefully slaughtered the enemy, ignoring any injuries with the help of a painkiller and magical the. That’s assuming she didn’t just use a bombardnt formula to collapse the entire cave system on them. Bunkers were for busting, after all. She would have accused of cowardice for not following her in.

I liked to think that I had matured so since that ti. That I had learned to rely more on the n under . That I had learned how to take a step back and consider options outside of simply hamring the enemy down like a nail, because that was what my superiors wanted. I was no longer a blunt instrunt and had an entire tool box at my disposal.

Well, there’s no reason I can’t do a little sabotage and distract the enemy before we make our assault. And a little turnabout is fair play, after all!

Making sure my optical camo formula was running, I put away the equipnt and flew straight through the waterfall, using a shield to keep the water off. Looking around at the improvised dock, I quickly found the enemy’s fuel depot. Looking things over, I raised an eyebrow when I realized they were using rhydonium.

You couldn’t pay to use this crap! I shuddered, quickly casting an NBC formula to protect myself from any fus. Not only was it toxic to humans and capable of lting one’s skin off, the fus were addictive and high inducing. There were actually people who used it in place of drugs, huffing space gasoline to get their rocks off!

Scouting out the rest of the dock area, I humd as I considered my options.

I could cause a fuel leak. It’ll all catch with exposure to air soon after. The fus and smoke should drive the enemy out to keep from suffocating or being exposed to rhydonium. But that would cause issues for us later when we try to assault the base.

Unfortunately, this crap is so volatile that there’s almost no chance that it won’t go up when we attack. So, it would be better if it burned off now and the base was cleared out when we arrived, just to keep it from being used against us or posing an environntal threat.

Spotting an aging air purification and circulation system set off in the corner, ant to draw in fresh air and pump it deeper into the base, I made my way over and made sure I wasn’t being observed before popping the panel for the filter off. Removing the filter, I closed it back up and tossed the filter behind it—that way the thing would suck smoke and spread it faster, aning nowhere in the base would be safe.

Then, I made my way around to the various ships—a combination of small freighters and cobbled together junkyard fighters. I was normally all for claiming and salvaging ships, but these were garbage—and they would serve better as a distraction for the enemy, than trying to claim them myself. Finding the fuel tanks on each, I used a mage blade to poke holes in them and make sure they were leaking, before making my way back to the fuel depot. Two holes went into the big tank—one at the bottom and an air hole at the top so it would leak faster. Then, I took to the air and flew out, straight back towards our base.

I was close enough to hear the thump when the movent of air set off the rhydonium, and a glance back showed flas behind the waterfall and smoke pouring out of the mouth of the cave. A mont later, there were multiple secondary explosions as what I assud were the individual starships began going up.

Yes, definitely glad we didn’t assault the base with that there.

Accelerating, I climbed to ten thousand and poured on the speed on my way back. The sooner we could get moving, the better. They wouldn’t be expecting us this soon after the ‘accident’ with their fuel because they knew where we were and that we would most likely not be running night patrols.

I spotted the camp miles off—a bright spot in the dark. The light of bio-luminescent mushrooms was broken by the familiar orange of dancing flas—sothing that absolutely should not be in my camp. A detection formula picked up the form of a group of two scrap fighters circling around from the other side of the camp. They opened fire as they passed over, orange bolts bright in the dark as they hit the camp again, the sound of their firing and the explosions of their impacts in the camp carrying on the wind. My eye twitched and I flipped over as they blew past .

Dumping power into my flight formula, I quickly caught up. Landing with a quiet thump on what passed for the nose of the first fighter, I allowed my optical camo formula to drop. The pilot looked up, radiating incredulity as he stared at , standing on his ship. I leveled my rifle at the cockpit and his eyes went wide. He made to roll, but a Force empowered burst from the rifle punched through the unshielded cockpit, blasting out chunks of his head and upper body—and destroyed another rifle, the cheap, mass produced electronics inside likely just as burnt out as the last one had been.

Leaping off the fighter as it spiraled down into the forest below, I caught up with the second one as I tossed the rifle aside. I didn’t bother landing on it as he looked out the cockpit canopy and spotted , then imdiately began evasive action. My lightsaber flew off my belt into my hand as I kept up, closing the distance between us.

White-silver lit the night and I thumbed the switch to lengthen the blade out to its full extension, at the sa ti I hit the second one to change it from blade to whip. I rolled—three quick aileron rolls around my center axis. The whip spooled out, catching the front section of the fighter, the midsection, and the rear. The pilot was still alive, panicking as the ship fell apart around him. At least he was, until I flicked the whip around one last ti and sent it through the center of the forr fighter that had beco a debris field.

Shutting off the saber, I turned and flew hard for the base. Stopping above it, I took in the damage.

The n were scrambling to help the wounded and put out fires. Most of the prefab structures were damaged or on fire. It looked like the barracks, the main command structure, and my quarters had been targeted specifically, the first two of which accounted for most of the dead and wounded as n who had been bunked down for the night or officers on duty. The damage to the barracks and command building were especially bad and looked to my experienced eye like the results of a bombing run.

I turned my eyes to our armor and supplies. Two of our four LAAT/is were completely destroyed, with only one intact. All of our A-A5s and T1-Bs were blasted to shreds. The AT-PTs, speeders, and AT-TEs were fine—though not for lack of trying on the enemy’s part on the latter, as they were all covered in scoring from blasters that had simply not penetrated their armor. The new fuel depot was on fire, and it looked like they had specifically targeted the supply room containing our rations.

This is a fucking ss, I shook my head.

Dropping to the ground, I began helping as I could. Heading to the collapsed barracks, I used the Force to lift the collapsed and burning structure off of people and haul out who I could—those that were still alive, if unconscious from smoke inhalation. Then, I moved them to our dical building, where the dics were already working on triage.

Rolling up my sleeves, I directed them away from the worst and got to work. It had been so ti since I’d had to use the Force to heal, but I quickly got back into the groove. And when I ran out of juice and needed a break, I found the planet itself—the environnt that had been causing so many problems right from the start—reaching out to help.

Looking around the interior of the communications building, I t the eyes of the two platoon leaders who had made it through the night, along with the seconds of those who had either passed or been injured too grievously to show—either in the initial enemy action, or the fire after. Lt. Saz had lost an arm and a leg, and suffered burns over a quarter of his body by the ti I got to them, so my second in command was out of commission.

I took a mont to take a sip from my thermos before asking, “What happened?”

“Two fighters ca in low and fast, at treetop level. They knew we had a sensors up, so they stayed under it until the last minute. By the ti they showed up on the screen and our sensor operator on duty sounded the alarm, they already had bombs away. They stuck the barracks and command center first, then circled around to strafe the base with blaster fire. They made three, maybe four passes before they left. We’re not entirely sure what happened to them after that. We think soone got a missile off, but no one’s taken credit for it. Either way, sothing fast got both of them.”

“That would be ,” I clarified, and the n all shared a look. Even with the noise of Felucia in the background, their surprise and incredulity were loud and clear at this range. “Casualty report?”

At that, the lieutenant winced. “It’s bad.” Pulling over a datapad, he began reading off of it. “Sixty-three dead, most of those in the initial explosion in the barracks. Everyone on the east side was killed instantly.”

I nodded, having registered that last night, but I’d been too busy pulling out the the living to count. Still, out of the hundred and sixty n spread across four platoons, just under forty percent had been taken out in a single strike. Dead, just like that.

“Thirty-two are currently undergoing dical treatnt for burns and other injuries. Another twenty-five suffered from smoke inhalation, but they’ve been released from the d bay.”

“They’re fit enough to operate equipnt?” I asked, and he nodded. That was good. We still had just over the minimum size for a company to work with. “Damage assessnt?”

“Not great, LT,” another said, before reading off his own tablet. He confird what I had seen last night, then went on to list a bunch of equipnt I hadn’t considered—such as rifles and power packs that had been lost, which cut down on the number of people we had available to fight simply for lack of weapons. The food situation was worse than I’d thought and we were completely out. Our water filtration system had been destroyed as well. The housing was gone and the d-bay was too small, so at the mont we were using the ss building to house the wounded.

“We’ve got maybe a day worth of water in the tank, if that,” the man finished up.

I take it back. This isn’t a ss, this is a disaster.

I nodded. “Gather everyone who can walk and still fight in the training area in ten minutes. Dismissed.”

I let them leave and close the door behind them before sighing and draining the rest of my tea. I considered what to do next before coming to a decision. Standing, I made my way out to the training field. Not long after, everyone who was still mobile had gathered and stood at parade rest.

Looking the troops over, I saw they were haggard, tired, and most of them looked defeated. Only a few had that spark I needed for what ca next. Taking a breath, I spoke, projecting my voice over the crowd.

“I’ll keep this short. I’m sending the AT-TEs to the capital with our injured, and a team to make sure they’re safe. From there, you will charter a flight out on a private freighter, assuming you can find one. As so of you know, communication outside the system has been cut off. As soon as you’re capable, send word back to HQ and let them know what happened. Let make this clear: anyone who wants to go may do so, and I will do my best to ensure that it does not reflect poorly on your permanent record. If I have to, I’ll speak with our dics and make sure the records of what actually transpired are lost. You can take this as a dical leave and continue your career afterwards without sha. No one will bla you.”

I paced down the line, eting the gazes of the n and finding many of them looked relieved. I would lose many just to the chance to go ho. That was fine. If they were willing to give up now, I didn’t want them here for what ca next. “We have seventy rifles. Thirty of those will go with you, to ensure that no one in the city causes problems. For the rest, I need forty volunteers willing to follow into the jungle, through hostile territory, in order to go finish the job and eliminate the enemy. They’re out of fuel and their base is uninhabitable for the ti being, unless they want rhydonium poisoning. They’re hurt and on the back foot, but they won’t be for long. If we don’t go within the hour, we might as well sign over Felucia to them.”

Stopping in the center of the formation, I continued. “I won’t lie to you. If you co with , I can’t guarantee that you’ll make it back. If you have family back ho, people you care about who will miss you, do not sign up for this mission. It is not worth throwing your lives away over.”

There were so quiet murmurs at that, but I let it slide. “As for the plan, it’s simple. I scouted the enemy base last night and sabotaged their fuel depot. They’ve been forced out into the open, from their little nest. While we’re preparing to move the wounded, I need the engineers to scavenge what they can from our destroyed equipnt. The cannons on the trucks should still work. I want them mounted on the remaining LAATs and whatever armor we can find intact welded onto the bottom. We’ll take the LAATs and head over, deploy into the jungle surrounding the base in squads and sweep through, killing everything that moves. The LAATs will provide close air support as needed.”

“Ma’am,” one of the troops spoke up and I turned to see a female ensign, one of those assigned to comms, looking conflicted.

“Yes, ensign?”

She hesitated, looking around seemingly for support, before biting her lip and continuing. “We all saw what you did…”

“Yes?”

“Are,” she hesitated again, before spitting it out. “Are you a Jedi?”

“I am,” I confird with a nod. Pulling one of my lightsabers from my belt, I flicked it on and let them see the blade for a mont, before turning it off and putting it back on my belt. “What of it?”

“Well, everything I’ve heard about them… All the stories, you know? Couldn’t you have, I don’t know,” she looked away, breaking eye contact. “Couldn’t you have done sothing to prevent all of this?”

I looked around at the other troops. To my annoyance, once the words were voiced, the sentint began to quickly spread—along with quiet, muttered agreents as it looked like several were on the verge of mutiny. They were angry, hurt, and looking for soone to bla.

Soft. They’re too soft. Faced with a little hardship, they’ve decided to turn on the first convenient target. As a Jedi, that sets apart from the rank and file. Lt. Tanya reel is not a valid target for their anger, because I did everything I could. But Jedi Tanya reel? She’s fair ga. I wonder, when the war cos, how long will it be before they bla the Jedi for not seeing it coming and doing sothing about it?

“And what should I have done, ensign?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

The woman opened her mouth, then frowned. After a mont, she said, “I don’t know. So Jedi thing with the Force or whatever?”

“‘So Jedi thing,’” I nodded, smiling as I put on my most understanding HR voice. For so reason, a thrill of fear ran through the gathered group. “Are you a Jedi, ensign?”

“Well, no, but—”

“And have you had any training with the Force?” I spoke over her.

The woman looked frustrated, starting to turn red as she realized I was turning the situation around on her. “No, ma’am. But you’re—”

“Shh,” I shushed her, miming closing her mouth with my fingers at the sa ti I used the Force to shut her mouth. Her eyes went wide as she reached up to her mouth. Finding the hold impossible to undo, she began to panic. Those around her stepped away but didn’t go far as unease ran through their ranks. “This may surprise so of you, but the truth is, we’re not so group of all-seeing, all-knowing warrior monks. It takes ti to master the use of the Force—years and years of ti. And in case it sohow slipped your notice, I am the youngest here. Feel free to ask our dics, but I assure you, I am not so immortal Grand Master Jedi from the High Republic era who has descended from the mountain after eons in contemplative ditation to share my wisdom with the mortals. I am just a girl. Yes, I can do so things you can’t.”

Letting go of the ensign, I unhooked my lightsaber from my belt and lifted it into the air with telekinesis, before lifting myself off the ground to hover at eye level with them. “But just because I can do those things doesn’t an I’m infallible. Or that I know everything. It doesn’t an I can be everywhere at once. And on this planet in particular, it’s actually more of a hindrance than not, as the planet itself has actively rejected my presence here from minute one—completely overwhelming my ability to sense anything in the Force. To put this in perspective, your sense of hearing helps you avoid danger. Now imagine if, instead of the occasional sound of blaster fire in the distance warning you of danger, everything around you was blaring an alarm at full volu, drowning out your ability to hear anything else. That is what it’s like here for .”

I dropped to the ground and put my lightsaber away again. “If you don’t trust , that’s fine. As I said, you are all free to go. But those pirates,” I pointed in the direction of the cliffs in the distance, “killed my n. Your comrades. Maid and crippled many of them for life. If you’re willing to just walk away, to let what they’ve done, let the suffering and deaths of your brothers and sisters go unpunished, then I don’t want you here. You don’t have what it takes to finish the job and you’ll only slow down. Fuck off back to Corulag and I’ll write your recomndation for promotion myself when I get back. I’m going whether you’re with or not.”

I turned away, heading for the motor pool. “You have your orders. Dismissed.”