Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage

For a few minutes, we took our time inspecting the armor. It was in fantastic condition. The seal of whatever type of storage container we had found it in had obviously held, as even the cloth was just about as perfect as you could expect. Even the normal wear and tear that a suit of armor would undergo was light, leading me to think the armor wasn't worn very often or had at least been repaired or patched close to the time it had been abandoned.

"I can never wear this," Ahsoka said after a minute or so. "This is worth… hells, I don't even know if I could put a number on this."

"Oh, absolutely not," I agreed. "Judging from everything else we have found, this place was ancient even before the time of Revan. Even if it was normal armor from some random soldier, it would be worth a decent-sized starship, at least."

"I… why did they lead me to it, then?"

"Well… just because you won't be able to wear it, doesn't mean it won't be useful," I pointed out. "Pola can do some scans and use its design to base your armor on. His current design is just a trimmed-down version of our armor. Plus… considering how it's stored… maybe it belonged to someone important? Or maybe it was some sort of prized possession. Hell, maybe it's a family heirloom. Was it like the Force or a specific presence?"

Ahsoka looked at me and rolled her eyes, slowly beginning to pull the armor out of its storage, carefully wrapping the robes around the armor plates so there was no scratching.

"I will never get used to how you talk about the Force," She said, shaking her head. "It's like you have the knowledge of a master but the dismissive indifference of a nonbeliever."

"What can I say? I like to be special," I responded.

"...It was a presence of some kind. Old, reaching from the Force," She eventually responded. "I… get the feeling you might be right about it being someone's heirloom."

"Well, we can give it a look over for any signs of its origins, then put it on display wherever you and your fellow not-Jedi end up settling down," I suggested. "In a nice sealed case to keep it safe."

"That… sounds like a good idea," Ahsoka agreed.

Once we had everything safely wrapped up, we made our way slowly out of the ruined building and back to the roof. The going was tough, as we frequently had to split up, with me climbing upwards, letting Ahsoka use the Force to float the wrapped-up armor up to me before she could climb up after me. Eventually, though, we made it to the speeders and loaded the precious cargo into my speeder storage container, before racing away back to the Chariot.

After showing off what we found, we packed it up in Ahsoka's room since it was obviously not going to be sold with the rest.

By the time we were done loading everything up, the sun was starting to set over the island. It would have been a rather incredible sunset to watch, with the sun descending over the ocean. The only problem was that the beach was littered with the charred remains of over a half dozen ocean dwellers. The droids had done a damn good job keeping any of them from getting into the ruined city, but god damn was it a mess.

When we were finally done, the Padawans were brought back to the rest of their people. They were already setting up some of the portable living spaces we had brought with us, all of them eager to sleep in climate-controlled beds, rather than the muggy, hot bedrolls they currently used. Seeing them work to beat the dark, we spent a few hours assisting them, getting three of the structures set up in record time. Watching the younger kids experience an air-conditioned room for the first time was rather entertaining and probably worth the time we put in.

We shared a simple meal with the Jedi survivors before blasting back off into space on the Chariot. Our destination was back home at Omega station, so that Nal could reach out to Grakkus' intermediaries and set up a meeting. Technically, we could have done so from onboard the Chariot, but I wanted to offload a lot of the Jedi artifacts and discuss what exactly the meeting would look like. Our goal was to pretend that we were uncovering more artifacts over time, but our strategy for doing so was not set in stone.

We landed back in one of our several large hangar bays, a swarm of labor droids beginning to offload what we had collected. While Julus and Vaz watched over them, Nal, Tatnia, Ahsoka, and I peeled off to one of our meeting rooms. There, we came up with an appropriate message to send to the intermediary, along with an image of proof that we had a genuine ancient Jedi artifact. For our first contact, we settled on a statue of a person carved from white stone, embellished with precious metals along certain lines and points of emphasis. The statue was about the size of my head, and according to all the scans we could put it through, was just a simple statue. Before we sent our message, Tatnia brought up something that was bothering her.

"What if they try to screw us over?" Tatnia asked with a frown. "Don't forget, we are doing business with a greedy, violent Hutt here. If he thinks he can save money by killing us and taking what he wants, he will absolutely try."

"You really think a couple of Hutt underlings are going to be able to beat us?" I asked with a scoff. "They could try and overwhelm us with ships, but they can't risk blowing us up. After all, they would lose all the artifacts, as well as the chance to find more."

"First off, they can overwhelm us with ion cannons, something someone associated with pirates will have access to," Tatnia pointed out. "And while I agree we should be able to handle most of what Grakkus is likely to throw at us...."

"Beating him is not the point," Ahsoka said, Tatnia nodding in agreement. "We aren't attempting to successfully sell things or survive dealing with a Hutt. We are here to get access to the vault, and pissing him off is not how we do it."

I frowned, crossing my arms as I contemplated the issue. It was a strange problem to have, trying to find a way to convince a Hutt not to betray us, not because we cared about being betrayed, but because we didn't want to be forced to defend ourselves and alienate the Hutt. Tatnia leaned forward after a long pause, her eyes narrowing as she thought of something.

"What… what if we aren't the ones who are finding the artifacts?" She suggested, chewing her lip as she worked her way through her idea. "What if we were the hired hands for a separate client?"

"What would that do?"

"If we pretended to just be hired mercenaries, then we can pretend to be ignorant about where the stuff is coming from," She explained, gaining confidence in her solution. "Betraying us does nothing except piss off the real source. They can't do that because it would mean losing access to all the artifacts."

"Would also mean the potential to pretend to be upset at the price tag," Nal added, catching on to Tatnia's plan. "Annoyed that we are being paid so little when our clients' payday is much larger."

"The perfect target to attempt and seduce into striking a deal," Ahsoka finished.

"If we leak that this is a big deal, a large find that has a lot of artifacts, Grakkus is going to want to be involved with that." I pointed out. "But he can't kill us until he has access to our 'client,' which forces him to deal with us. Not bad Tatnia, I think that is our best bet."

We quickly went over the message and reworded it, emphasizing that we are mercenaries working for a separate, unnamed client. Tatnia guessed that it would take a while for them to get back to us, but instead, the response was almost instantaneous.

"They are eager to communicate with us," Nal explained as he opened the message. "Most likely recognizes the nature and value of the artifact."

"That's a good sign, right?" I asked, looking at my companions. "We want them to be eager to do business."

"Yes, but it also means a lot more attention is going to be on us,' Tatnia pointed out. "Some attention is good, but a lot of attention can lead to complications."

"Speaking of attention being on us, we need to discuss our options for our identities," Ahsoka pointed out. "While we aren't exactly celebrities, they will certainly do their research once they meet us, and we are still not friends with the Hutts."

"I kind of assumed we would do the whole Mandalorian thing and just stay in our armor," I volunteered.

"What about the ships?" Tatnia pointed out. "They are connected directly to us by now."

"Don't believe that Grakkus will care," Nal said, shaking his head. "He is not directly connected to Jabba, and slaves are not his major source of income. Our past action unlikely to negatively affect his income."

"Are we willing to risk it?" I asked.

"Not much of a risk. We have genuine ancient Jedi artifacts," Nal responded. "If his obsession is how you described, he would not care enough to risk his access."

We continued to discuss our options before finally deciding to risk it. The Talos Chariot was a pretty robust ship, especially for its size. We were confident that we could at least escape most situations and fight our way free of anything else. Unfortunately, that confidence was erased when we learned about where the intermediary was stationed.

"Dammit. I was really hoping to never have to go to Tatooine," I said, letting out a groan.

"I will admit, I am not looking forward to returning to it either," Ahsoka said with a frown. "The last time I was on Tatooine was not my proudest moment."

"What happened?" I asked curiously.

"I fell into a Separatist trap, one set by Count Dooku," She explained, shaking her head. "I was young and eager to prove myself."

"It's bigger than just having to go to that hell hole," Tatnia cut in. "Jabba runs that planet, you know, the guy who still has a bounty on some of us? The Hutt who will absolutely attack us on sight?"

"Well… we will just have to make the first trip in the Starcaller, with the Chariot and the Loyal Hound in the wings for support," I suggested. "That will get us to the surface of the planet and keep our ride from being singled out. We are more than capable of defending ourselves on the ground."

We continued to talk about the upcoming mission, which is now a trip to the Hutt-owned world for a while longer. While all of us wanted to get to the mission as soon as possible, now we were waiting for the return of the Starcaller before we could continue with the next step.

For the remainder of the day, as well as the following morning, we were basically just killing time. That morning, Ahsoka and I did some light sparring to loosen up. After we warmed it up, it was clear that the once-Jedi Padawan was showing a marked improvement. She was convinced it was that her Kyber crystals were connected to her through the Force, and I had no reason to doubt her conclusion.

"Can you feel the difference?" I asked as we separated from a series of strikes that happened to come out in my favor. "Cause I can certainly feel the difference in the way you fight."

"Everything feels smoother, more instinctive," She admitted, looking down at one of her sabers. "I can't believe how much easier it is to connect with them. It's like every swing is more stable, more in line with what I intend."

"Not to rub salt in the wound, but how did you not notice up until now? You said your first saber was more connected to you, right?"

"Well… after I left, a lot was going on. I felt… lost, distant, like everything was a struggle," She explained, letting out a long breath. "Hard to notice something like that when the galaxy around you is spiraling uncontrollably. Maybe I'm just making excuses… Or maybe I was just having trouble reaching out to the Force because it reminded me of what I walked away from."

I nodded in understanding, letting my conjured armor and sword fall away as I patted her on the shoulder.

"I don't think anyone could blame you for that, Ahsoka," I said, trying to comfort her. "Everything was going sideways, fast. There wasn't a lot of time for anything, never mind something subtle like that."

She nodded, though her mind seemed to be lingering on distant thoughts. I gave her shoulder one more squeeze before stepping away and grabbing my stuff.

"The Starcaller should get here in a couple of hours, and we leave not long after that," I reminded her, the Togruta nodding at my words. "Take some time for yourself, and I'll see you then."

The next few hours were spent going over our checklist of weapons, armor, and gear. We offloaded some of the equipment off of the Chariot, specifically the speeders and the Arrow, all of which would just barely fit inside the smaller ship's cargo hold.

Not long after everything was ready, the Starcaller returned. The upgraded freighter had just been on a supply run, so labor droids, guided by the quartermaster, had to quickly offload everything before we could move everything we needed back inside. Since we would not be using the smuggling compartments, we also loaded a few extra commando droids into them, just in case. Ahsoka was going to be staying with the ship while we visited the intermediary, since anyone knowledgeable with Jedi stood a decent chance of identifying her. The droids would be her reinforcements in case something happened.

Beyond that, the loading process was over pretty quickly. The Jedi statue was loaded up and stored in a protective crate, while everyone else picked their bedrooms as they boarded the ship. It was a bit tighter than any of us were used to, since not only was the starship smaller than the Chariot, but the cargo bay was stuffed to the absolute brim with our speeders.

Once everyone was on board, Ahsoka and Tatnia took control of the ship, with Ahsoka in the pilot's chair and Tatnia taking the co-pilot position. Only ten minutes after we finished the loading process, the pair piloted the small ship out of the hangar, heading out to open space. Not long after that, we made the jump to lightspeed, heading for Tatooine.