A Life at War: Twilight-Chapter 24: Like the roots of a tree
I awoke the next morning hungover as hell, miserable as fuck and with R4 slamming her arm against the back of my head. I groggily lift my head to see her lifting her arm to smack me again. I push myself up, but the droid changes her trajectory to hit me on the forehead instead.
“Why!? What’d I do?” I moan in a mix of confusion and annoyance.
She pulls out a datapad from her chassis and shoves it in front of my face. On top of it was the time, 0700 hours and bellow it was the time for an arranged meeting with general Koth in one and a half hours at the military complex. I stare at it in confusion, I hadn’t made that meeting.
“R4 who made that meeting?” I ask hesitantly.
She whistles in response, informing me it was her. A few more whistles and beeps tell me she has woken me with an hour to get ready and to remind me of my plans for Dao’s holoframe. I nod at that and take a shower followed by changing into a clean uniform while nursing booth a cup of caf and a glass of water alongside the bump forming on my head.
I leave with a couple minutes to spare with R4 trailing behind me. I stop by a small diner and grab a breakfast sandwich to go and eat it while marching down the main boulevard of the military complex, reading through the notes on what to discuss with General Koth. In typical R4 fashion they were extensive, scatterbrained and poorly formatted.
I remember it taking a month and a half until my old man convinced her of the benefits punctuation and another year to convince her of the usefulness behind capitalization. She still doesn’t use any damn paragraphs or font changes years later, but it was better than her start. Thankfully the droid hadn’t made it fully impossible to sort through, thanks to her leaving an impressive table of contents that jump to where I need to be in the text by tapping twice on them.
I manag to arrive a minute early at the assigned office. I finish off my sandwich and make certain I didn’t have anything on my face. I readjust my cap and manage to roughly sort the table of contents into something more sensible. The door opens and I turn about to see the face of the Jedi Master gesturing for myself to enter. I give a quick salute before following him inside.
“What can I help you with, Commodore?” The Jedi says, seating himself behind the desk.
“I have a couple points to address. My personal view of the current tactical situation, A recent I received on the infrastructure and garrisons on Munto Codru, Baros and Toong’l and a concern I have been quite recently been made aware of when it comes to your Clone Captain.” I say.
“I am willing to listen to your advice, Commodore.” The Jedi replies.
“I must first of all thank you for your decision to base your unit in the Dac system. While the local planetary defense forces are more than enough to hold off any Separatist assault at this time, it is the best location for any retrofits and gathering of forces thanks to the shipyards and extensive docks. The first ships for the garrisons have arrived, an Acclamator, the Guard Hound, has arrived at her station at Munto Codru. She has successfully stocked the established supply hub and the other orbital defense platforms and medical station have almost finished on location assembly. The mining operation in the Baros system has finished implementing the basic infrastructure and trade hub according to Rendili Stardrive, though I would double check that since it seemed a tad fast for them to set that up so rapidly. Finally the garrison at Toong’l has been established and my units returned to my squadron. The Arquitens, designation Shining Star, is currently the only ship in system, but I have been informed that a Dac produced Dreadnought class will be arriving in system by the time I return under the designation Pride of Toong’l. From what I can gather it is to be crewed on location, baring the higher officers and the prerequisite skeleton crew.”
“That sounds promising.” The Jedi says as I move to a different part of the notes.
“Yes, sir. My primary concern is the uncertainty behind the neutrality of Targonn. According to personal observations they have three Recusant light destroyers and two Munificent cruisers. Even with your ships, the 159
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Logistic Section and all local garrisons, I do not believe we could successfully defend the recently acquired territories from falling to the Dictator-Forever.” I say.
“That is concerning. Any s of Separatist fleets you are aware of?” The Jedi asks.
“I have independent s of a Separatist taskforce three cruisers and a Recusant class heavy destroyer. They were heading towards the Gordian Reach and I passed on the information to Republic Navy Intelligence after I received the , sir.” I say thanking R4 silently for dealing with Hondo’s while I was getting hammered yesterday.
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“It could be General Grievous” The Jedi Master muses.
“A possibility, sir. It could also simply be a Separatist taskforce moving to probe Bonadan or Bandomeer. We simply do not know at this point and it is up to Navy Intelligence to inform the possible targets. Finally I have been made aware that your officer, Captain Lock has not been promoted despite the regulations.”
The Jedi blinks in confusion and I press on: “I met the Captain yesterday and was informed by him he has been in command for over four months of a force more than twice the size his position allows. If it was simply a month or less the problem would have a simple fix, which would be placing an officer of higher rank in charge of the unit and returning Captain Lock to a command of his station. He has however been in this position for longer than four months, sir, and thus should have at the very least received a field promotion for service beyond requirement.”
I pass over the excerpt from the regulations from the datapad. The Jedi picks it up and reads through it before speaking: “You are correct, Commodore. I will bring it up with my colleagues on the council and figure out where such an oversight may have originated from.”
“Thank you sir. That was all on my end.” I say in turn.
“Than I thank you for your continued service. Have you changed your plans for departure?”
“I have not. I will be leaving in a couple days, sir. I should be available once I reach Bothawui after that. If you have any questions I am willing to answer them to the best of my ability.” I answer.
“Thank you, Commodore. You are dismissed.”
I stand, salute the Jedi High General and depart, R4 trailing behind after snatching the datapad from the desk. We depart from the military complex and I head out for some kind of fatty lunch.
The last days of my stay on Coruscant pass by without much fanfare. It turns out I had missed a celebratory dinner with Tenant due to my bender and I had to apologize profusely and give a white lie about going on my bender to celebrate instead of the overly formal setting. Add in a few platitudes and reminding him of my dislike for overly formal ceremonies and he accepted my apology and insisted I join him for a meal the next time we were in the same area. I had agreed and gotten to packing.
I successfully boarded the convoy to Bothawui and enjoyed the relatively calm transit. Apparently the convoy had doubled in size due to an upcoming military operation somewhere near Christophsis. It wasn’t in my intelligence s and my supply requirements wouldn’t be hindered, so I simply ignored any quiet chatter about Geonosis. It wasn’t my business and I didn’t wish to break operational security.
When I arrived in Bothawui I was relieved to find the 159
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awaiting my arrival. A short and sweet ceremony and I was given temporary command of the Avarice as we transit through Hutt space. Again the travel was calm with us being shadowed by Hutt warships. I was mildly concerned by this, but it made sense the Hutts would want to ensure we didn’t conduct anything suspicious while in their territory.
It was at Klatooine where we were joined by the majority of the 347
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with the Little Revenge and the corvettes of the 159
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joining us on escort duty. I transferred command back to the Avarice and had myself transferred over to my ship. A quick ceremony of returning command and I was back on my ship. The return to Dac was also quite peaceful. I diverted the convoy slightly via Baros to see that Rendili stardrive had indeed already set up the basic mining infrastructure necessary to begin operations.
When we finally reached Dac the frigates and corvette of the 347
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stood at the ready at the hyperspace exit point. My squadron was fully assembled again and I let myself fully relax.
A couple days later Luis and I were sitting in my quarters. I had opened up the Corellian whiskey and I was refilling our glasses. I had called him here after some long thinking on what General Solomahal had said. I had given Luis the rough information the General had provided and he had taken it a bit better than I had.
“What can we even do?” He asks.
“According to the General, nothing much.” I answer.
“We may be in deep shit at this point, Thraken.”
“You can say that again. I am currently thinking of staying the course. We can’t do anything at this point. Hells we don’t even know who we’re up against. Palpatine could be a puppet for all we know. We definitely can’t trust Isard if what the General says is true.” I say.
“Damn straight. We need that separate comms channel.” he mutters.
“I’m already working on that. An old friend of mine will show up here soon with the required equipment. I originally ordered it for something else, but it can be used for booth.” I say.
"That smuggler of yours?" He asks.
"Yeah, it's Elix." I answer as a lull in the conversation hits.
“Who the kark can we reach out to?” Luis asks to himself.
“Our Fondorian contacts won’t work. I have a couple political acquaintances on Dac I plan on courting more. Maybe we can gather some support that way. The local Senator isn’t a member of the Loyalist Committee either.” I answer in turn.
“I don’t think many of our Academy friends would be willing to join this little conspiracy.” Luis says.
“We shouldn’t trust the Jedi either. For all we know they want to snatch up the power after the war.” I hypothesize.
“They did jump at the opportunity for military command, didn’t they.” Luis prompts.
“It could also be Isard or a different associate of his with the eye on the Chancellor’s seat. Maybe they think they can control Palpatine and use his emergency powers for their benefit or seize the position themselves.” I give as a different foundation.
“We definitely need more allies. Do you think we could get someone from Separatist side to work with us?”
“I wouldn’t risk it. We’re already from a Separatist world, it would simply look like treason instead of upholding the values of the Republic.” I counter.
“We’ll definitely need more military hardware. Not to mention we keep circling back to the lack of manpower.” Luis says.
“We could make the local area seem less stable in our s. It may lead to more oversight, but we can spin it to a simple lack of resources and manpower. It could even lead to actual reinforcements.” I say.
“I don’t think we should risk something like that. It could open an inquiry and I don’t think we can risk something like that.” Luis prods.
“We should keep this silent then. Limit any expansion to those we fully trust in this. Hopefully it won’t be necessary.”
“But you were never one to not be prepared for the worst.” Luis finishes.
“I suppose. I just don’t want to be caught with my pants down at this point.”
“So as you said, we’ll stay the course and wait for more information.”
“It seems that way.” I say. We both finish our drinks in silence. I hated not being able to do anything about this and from what I can tell Luis feels the same.
Luis ends up putting it succinctly: "Maker damn it all."
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Chapter 24: Like the roots of a tree
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