Last Chapter for Part 4....
Valens
The ship glided gently through the atmosphere out of Bonadan, he began plotting the jumps to Coruscant for the return trip to the Temple.
The more practice flying the better, the memories he had extracted from the Corellian pilot were comprehensive, but no substitute for actually flying. He needed to work on extracting procedural as well as declarative. He knew all the hyperspace lanes, the different types of ships, how to fix hyper drives, how to confuse orbital scanners on a smuggling run, yet still fumbled on occasion with his hands guiding the stick.
He had wanted to go with Cilina and the baby, but knew to do so would cause the Jedi to become suspicious.
“The future” his grandfather whispered and he nodded in agreement. That baby was the future of his people.
The Jedi had some strange rules around intimate relationships, they were hermit like, restricted in their view of the force as much as their interactions with the world. To protect them from the ‘dark side’.
“Nonsense,” Andis commented from somewhere…all around him
Yoda had been assisting in ‘guiding him to the path of the Light’, Sofa’s memories had assisted him in that. His grandfather would never have tolerated such pontificating on morality and philosophy, the aether was just the aether…a word he hadn’t spoken in a while. That saddened him.
The console beep suddenly brought him out of his reverie. Data streamed in, Emergency alert transmission on Jedi Frequency 74-25, Hydian Way near Serenno, The Sunnia.
Fear gripped him, his stomach tightened, heat poured off him in panic
Cilina…he needed to find her he had to find her…if she were dead, if her daughter…he had to keep his people alive…he needed them…or at the very least enough of them to clone….
“Find her, Kill anyone who dares threaten our people,” Andis tone was stern
“Calm you must remain, you’re friend…find out what happened to her we will” Yoda’s voice came through, only then did he realise how exposed he was, he wasn’t closed off in the aether, Yoda had sensed his emotional state.
“Master I…” he stammered as Yoda sat in the co-pilots set a firm but compassionate expression of his face.
“Understand I do, along our route this was, another attack on the Jedi returning to the archives, investigate we must.” He turned to the console “A message indicating this I will to the council send, closest ship we likely are. These attacks,” his eyes hardened, “continue must not,”
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Klatooine was an ugly world. All dust and deserts. The sun baked into his back as he lay prone looking down on the staging post to the east.
Over the last two weeks he and Yoda had found the site of the attack, the Sunnia crashed into a moon, found and interred what they could of Zuum, and using the information they recovered from the Sunnia gained a fair idea of what they were looking for.
The readouts indicated the attacking ships profile consistent with Mandolorian designs, as expected given the attack of Telos. On their way past they had received a report from the authorities there on the attack, the Mandolorians had armour with insignia belonging to known mercenary Gisar Hunik. The Jedi intelligence networks indicated he operated out of Hutt space with a staging post on Klatooine, granted to him by the Hutts who made frequent use of his mercenaries.
His macro binoculars scanned over the various ships and prefabricated buildings, he wondered how the Mandolorians fared in this heat with their armour on. There were fifteen down there, a few ships, a token force - this far into Hutt space there were no real threats and it was only a jump and refuelling point.
He could sense Yoda on the far side of the camp meditating. They would move in at night, Yoda then Valens. Valens would prepare a distraction with a few smoke grenades if he sensed any trouble whilst Yoda broke into their systems for information.
It would be much easier just to rend their memories from their mind of course, another technique the Jedi either didn’t know or failed to use. Valens was tempted, the Mandolorians were competent warriors, feared across the galaxy…if he pulled the memories from an experienced one….
“A Guardian turns from no knowledge or weapon that will serve the Aethans,” he had been hearing his Grandfathers voice more and more lately, he guessed it was to remind him to stay true to his people against the path of the Jedi…but that seemed too simplistic. But maybe he was overthinking it? He crawled back to a rocky alcove and sat to meditate on it whilst he waited for nightfall.
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He had crawled to within 300 metres of the camp, the grenades positioned at intervals to the north and south, primed to go off with a touch of the aether. He sensed Yoda moving silently through the dunes. The scanning equipment was effective but nothing that couldn’t be avoided by a Jedi Master…or a Guardian for that matter.
He fell into the aether to sense events. Yoda’s star moved swiftly, waves of light extended to nearby guards making them drowsy, or turning their attention to more pleasing thoughts than concentrating on watching a black desert scape. Only five were even awake at this hour, all fairly dull, except one inside a prefab building who seemed a little too alert.
As Yoda movement stalled outside a comms room the alert one started to move outside, Valens could just make him out, he seemed to be stretching and having a brief walk around the prefab. An old fable came to mind, “Nothing escapes the masters eye,” He focused in the aether at the alert one, saw the lines that connected him to the others, the way it all joined together…shatter point the Jedi text books had called it, apparently it was a rare ability
“Ignorance” his grandfather sneered
The thread he walked took him perilously close to where Yoda was working, but his attention was on one of the other guard, his head tilted as he approached, the threads grew larger, stronger…and shattered. Anyone else might’ve just thought this was a lazy guard, but not this Mandolorian, he had a suspicious, jaded aura, a true veteran…
The Veteran punched the sleeper, Yoda noticed and tried to hurry, the lock must’ve opened but it was counterproductive. The thread linking Yoda to the other ruptured open as the hissing of the door caught the Veterans attention.
The Veteran tilted his head and started talking into his helmet comm link. Valens pulled the grenades and leapt into action. He sped across the sands the aether speeding his leaps, and shielding his sound over the small fence and on to the top of the prefab where the most sleeping Mandolorians were, he surged aetheric disruption into the sleepers minds and moved toward
Sirens and lights exploded across the camp, Weapons clacked and the guard formed up around the Veteran, Yoda was heading toward a group of newly awakened Mando’s. Valens leapt forward.
As he flipped over the main body of Mandolorians he unleashed a blast of aetheric energy down onto their heads, they crumpled and flattened, except for the Veteran who rolled back into a fighting stance as Valens landed. It would be easier, not easy, to slay him with his sabre, but Valens needed more. The Mando drew a short vibro knife and came at him, Vales dodged left, then right, ducked waiting for his chance he threw odd punches here and there.
He sensed confusion in the Mandolorians aura that he was fighting unarmed. It faded quickly with his next strike. He could see the lines in the helmet, the thin patterned cracks that ranged through the arrangement of the atoms, and in their centre a point, that point he struck with an aether charged punch. The helmet cracked apart like an egg.
Before the dumbfounded Mandolorian could strike back Valens grabbed his head and burst into his mind, and as he would pull a lightsabre to his hand, so he pulled the memories to his own mind.
Decades of fighting, under alien skies and in the empty voids, interspersed with fractured relationships with women on Mandalore and prostitutes on a dozen worlds. Friends and acquaintances came and went, hopes and dreams unfulfilled, lessons learnt in bloody failure followed by the thrills of a strategy well executed.
It all flooded in. He sensed movement behind him as the other Mandolorians recovered, but dismissively flicked them through the air with the aether, bones cracked as they slammed against walls and posts, broken but not dead.
The Veteran collapsed his eyes blank.
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The interrogation was swift, it was interesting to see just how powerful a Jedi Master could be,
“Attacks on Jedi who ordered,”
“The Quarren…” came the groggy response of the second in command, the Veteran was still unconscious, took a blow to the head Valens had told Yoda.
“Location of this Quarren,” Yoda was a true master at force persuasion, Valens took careful notes, his own techniques were more poised to playing emotions than the Jedi’s dulling of higher functions, a combination of the two approaches would be very potent.
“Nar Shadda, same old mansion…”
“The intent of these raids,”
“Some antiques or something, the vixen and the witch always wanted the antiques,”
Antiques, the archives project…this Quarren was stealing them…Valens wondered….
“How did you find out the Jedi course plans,” he asked mirroring Yoda’s technique,
“Didn’t just got told by the witch,”
“More about this witch and vixen tell me?” Yoda went on,
“Witch is a psycho, one arm, fights like a Jedi, tattoos, the vixen has a claw, kills Jedi like they were nothing…real weird, like she’s not really there though,”
Yoda’s eyes narrowed in thought.
They left the Mandolorians to attend to their wounded but disabled their communications and ships, Valens had appropriated a few items off of the Mandolorians, a beskar combat knife, disruptor blaster, a few hacking and infiltration tools, and the best set of armour there.
The Veterans memories were already paying dividends.
