NOVEL NEXT Chapter 35: Local Assistance
Summary: A little bit of Pirate Hunting...
Warning! Chapters 34-36 were posted back-to-back! Make sure to catch them all!
Chapter 35: Local Assistance
Izuku hadn't actually expected to be staging another anti-slaver raid so soon. But when Master Tholme had turned up after his and Aayla's forced vacation with both information on a series of nearby pirate groups and promises of support from both the Almas Jedi and the Thaereian Navy, the opportunity had been just too good. Which is how they ended up planning exactly that.
While the pirate groups in question were primarily pirates, ones who had been preying on the region long enough for the Cularin system to appeal to the nearby Thaereian system Navy for anti-piracy patrols, the pirates were typical of the type. As in, none-to-choosey about how they made their money. While they might have a preference for straight cargo and ship thefts, they'd taken quite a few slaves as well. Though they were at least intelligent enough to have left the high-rollers visiting the Dorumaa Resort alone. Capturing rich people from Core worlds was chancy, at best, as it often meant high-level bounty hunters dispatched to retrieve said wealthy individuals. Not worth the risk for someone not explicitly into random-taking enterprises, rather than slavery.
Unfortunately, that spark of intelligence had been a bit problematic for the locals, even with Thaereian Navy support. Mostly as, regrettably, that same intelligence had gone to work in keeping away from the navy patrols, while still preying on Cularin and several other nearby systems. The Almas Jedi had been approached for help, after a raid of a local pirate base had turned up the information that there was a bigger operation a work, but that raid had produced no leads toward finding said operation. Tholme, after failing to find anything useful about potential Sith activity, had heard about the situation and offered his help. The Almas Jedi, under intense scrutiny that they tended to be, had virtually no expertise with the underworld. Tholme more than made up for that, and successfully found the location of a large pirate base in the nearby Niian system.
All of which lead to their current joint operation, with the Thaereian Navy nearby and waiting to pounce with Master Tholme, while Aayla and Izuku had used the Wandering Fate to coast near the old asteroid base the pirates were using without being detected. Aboard their ship were a half dozen Jedi from the Almas Academy…who were looking a tiny bit uneasy with the two dozen NS-13 security droids that would also be deploying with them. It would be the first time Aayla and Izuku attempted to use them, so they understood that uneasiness. However, there were a lot of pirates at this base. Strictly speaking, their goal was only to find the location of the slaves present here and infiltrate to protect them when the Thaereian's moved in for the pounce. Unfortunately, the numbers involved meant they couldn't be certain seven Jedi and one Force Sensitive that was trying not to be too obviously trained, could defend the slaves. Hence, pulling out the droids.
"Contact."
The single word from Aayla broke some of the tension. Drifting in with minimal power had kept the pirates from noticing them by sensor. But only the Force had helped them avoid the sightlines of any sentients that might have simply looked out a window of the asteroid base during the risky final approach. Aayla had guided the ship to make physical contact between their upper service airlock and the base, showing considerable skill in doing so with minimal computer and sensor support. Not to mention only the maneuvering thrusters to work with. Izuku stood and clapped her on the shoulder, even as he addressed the other Jedi.
"Alright boys and girls, that's our cue. Remember, Aayla goes first since she can manage an optical Force Cloak. You lot follow her as she scouts the way. I'll be breaking off as soon as we find a terminal with a couple of droids to guard me. Once I'm in through their security, I'll do my best to guide Aayla forward around any pirates. Any last minute questions?"
One of the Jedi, a human female, half-raised a hand.
"You're sure the astromechs can beat the security without triggering any alarms?"
Izuku nodded at her, fielding the question easily.
"Nothing in the universe is ever completely guaranteed, of course. But these astromechs were specifically created for my group's anti-slaver operations. They are fitted with some admittedly rather grey area slicing modules that can be counted on to bypass nearly any security, so long as you're doing so from the inside. Security from the inside is never as good as from the out."
That got several nods. Not that any of these Jedi were slicers. It wasn't the sort of thing that Almas Jedi were encouraged toward. But that honestly just kept them from asking better informed questions, since normally you couldn't use slicer droids like this. Not without the quantum-entangled data feed between them and Izuku's gear. These Jedi didn't know that, which was all to the good. And they were all competent Jedi Knights.
Another dozen Jedi were with the Navy, using a pair of Koqus-Class passenger liners provided by 'Izuku's people' as lift capacity for the ex-slaves. Most of those Jedi specialized in either piloting or healing. Two skills that were main areas of focus the students at Almas were encouraged to study. Those Jedi would fill the role of helping the ex-slaves. Hopefully, those ships would be enough lift capacity. They were lucky that even a second of the Koqus-class liners had been turned out by the IES-Beta Shipyard already. Given that these pirates weren't primarily slavers, it should be enough.
When no more questions came before Aayla slipped past him and headed for the airlock, Izuku nodded.
"Game time, everyone. Remember, despite being a Padawan, listen to Aayla. She's been specifically trained for infiltration work by Master Tholme. Whereas none of you lot are. Got it?"
The Jedi all nodded agreeably. Honestly, they seemed less stuffy than he imagined. Was that just him projecting onto the majority of Jedi based on his imagination? Or were Almas Jedi more down-to-earth than the main order? Whichever the case was, it meant they seemingly had no issue with Aayla taking point. So Izuku wouldn't question it too closely…
... ...
Thankfully, for all that the pirate base had a lot of pirates, few of them had been in the section they penetrated the outer shell of the base at. Aayla had quietly disabled a few with point-blank stun blasts from under her Force Cloak, stashing the unconscious and bound bodies in various ways. Izuku, meanwhile, had managed to break off fairly early on when they found an active access point. He hated that he wouldn't be there to back Aayla up…but they were still trying to keep the extent of his training with the Force from being general knowledge. Besides, he was still quite capable of being useful as he fed tactical information to the Jedi insertion team. Both directly to Aayla via their bond, and in brief burst transmissions to the other Jedi.
He was also, of course, the one that found their target first. The 'slave pens' here were cruder than the ones the proper slavers they'd targeted had used. This entire base had started life as a mining operation before being abandoned, and the pirates had essentially just turned one of the half-completed tunnels into a crude prison. The conditions were terrible, making Izuku's teeth grind as he witnessed them. But he kept his cool, more or less, by the expedient of focusing on the fact they were here to get those people out.
"You're almost there. But there's no way you'll get the guards without making a racket. I'd advise just tossing a stun grenade at their little guard post. It'll trigger the alarms, I can't cut them from here since it's a separate jury-rigged system. But you'll be in control of the choke point and I can keep them from trying to vent the atmosphere on you."
He felt Aayla nod over their bond. She sent him a feeling to wait and he was pretty sure she moved closer to the other Jedi. Presumably updating them on the plan. He wasn't good enough at sensing to track anyone but her when she was now halfway around the perimeter of the base, but he could feel a cluster of brighter spots in the Force where the other Jedi presumably were. And he thought she got closer to them. He should really probably try to work on that sort of sensing at some point. His thoughts on that idea were broken off as his comm went live on their encrypted channel. No longer in burst transmission mode as the team began to abandoned stealth.
"Alright, Izuku. Please signal the Naval Assault and do what you can to wreck their internal security. We'll be hitting in guards in thirty seconds."
Izuku nodded and immediately sent the signal back to the Wandering Fate. It, in turn, shot a tight-beam laser off to a beacon they'd left behind. That beacon, well away from the station, more openly broadcast the attack command. He'd been updating a data packet on everything they knew as he went, so that part was pretty much fire and forget. Shifting focus, Izuku began triggering a series of nasty surprises. Even as he spotted Aayla's stun grenade sailing into the guard post by the holding area, he turned on every piece of networked equipment at once and maxed their power out.
The results were everything he'd hoped for.
Pirates, being pirates, hadn't exactly restored the station to the best condition. They'd patched together the bare minimum…and they paid for it now as Izuku's bit of sabotage overloaded the spit-and-duct-tapped together power systems. A half dozen consoles all over the populated portions of the base suddenly exploded, lights went out over half of the base, and the sensors meant to warn them of approaching ships crashed. He also lost a good chunk of the cameras, which was annoying, but an acceptable price to pay to know the pirates would be caught flat-footed as the Navy moved in. He watched them scrambling and cursing on his remaining camera feeds, then made the situation worse by manually flipping all of the alarms.
He grinned as the pirate's panic and confusion increased. His grin only growing as another series of commands caused the showers and kitchen to start spewing soap and water into the hallways near them. Maybe he should learn to do this slicing thing properly rather than just rely on the droids? It was sort of entertaining…
... ...
Izuku sighed and dropped into the ship's lounge couch with a thud. Aayla smirked at him from her own spot farther up the couch, putting down the datapad she'd been working on.
"All done with the speech making?"
Izuku grumbled but nodded. He'd just wrapped up the last of the Q&A sessions from the freed slaves, before making his way back to their ship. Thankfully, he'd been able to handle it in a small local auditorium back on Cularin, given that they'd pulled nearly 140 slaves off the pirates' asteroid base. The number would have pushed the limits of their own ships, if the grateful Thaereian Navy hadn't chipped in a bit of extra lift capacity for the slaves that were entirely local and had somewhere to go back to. There had been fewer of those than expected, only about 60. But that brought them easily down to numbers that two small passenger liners could handle. Especially with the Almas Jedi more than happy to help handle the ships.
In fact, the Almas Jedi would be handling the run to New Cov for those interested in their program there, then moving the rest to a more traditional organization on Alderaan that helped refugees and ex-slaves get back on their feet. Unlike the programs Izuku and the others were putting together, those organizations generally didn't offer training or jobs. But they did offer medical care, psychological counseling, food, and a place to stay for a few months while people dealt with what had happened to them.
Honestly, as this batch of slaves had been handled much more roughly than the first they'd rescued, the fact the majority were going on to such groups was for the best. Though roughly two dozen of those rescued had been interested in the program. Hopefully, their people on New Cov had gotten far enough along with their first batch of trainees to handle the new influx. They certainly still needed more people, even just to handle their first batch of ships. But whether their trainers were up to handling more influx yet was a bit more problematic.
"We really need to find another person to do the speech making bits. I'm not really suited for it. You'd be better…if not for the whole trying to not make it look a Jedi operation thing. Maybe we can get someone from the Underground interested?"
Aayla cocked her head, then nodded.
"I'd bet we can. I'll reach out to the group on Zeltron. See if they can suggest someone that might be interested. Though you'll still likely end up being the face of the more militant recruits, once they start clearing the program in another few months."
Izuku groaned, sinking deeper into his seat and causing Aayla to laugh.
"Hey, this is what you get for deciding you can take on the entire galaxy, you know! You literally signed up for this, Mr. Hero."
Izuku huffed, mock-glaring at her, but shook it off with another sigh and straightened.
"I think we're going to need to spend a few months really focusing on the logistics side of all of this. I really want to start doing more raids. But the New Cov location is already going to struggle to handle just the recruits we've sent them so far. I think we need to let them get that whole pipeline sorted out while we focus on starting more businesses…and setting up training facilities. Like following up with Vic."
Aayla grinned…and slid him the datapad she'd been working on. Izuku blinked and picked it up. It took him a moment to sort out what he was looking at, but once he backtracked the conversation she'd been looking through and checked a couple more files, he snorted. Smiling, he tossed it back to her.
"Okay. Fine, Ms. Way-ahead-of-you. Tell me what you've worked out so far with Vic?"
Aayla grinned, even as she caught the pad smoothly with the Force.
"Well, first off, I've negotiated that in exchange for funding 20% of the academy, we can also take up to 20% of the graduates. Though we have to split the top performers with the Shipyards. That gives us a direct pipeline to some logistics people and more techs, assuming they stick with us after their 1-year clause. Since we intend to pay above market wages, though, and they get to do good for people like them…I suspect most will. There are several other details that we're still haggling over, but I think we need to collect Celeste if she's back and head for the Allanteen system."
Izuku nodded, not disagreeing, even as Aayla continued to talk him through the highlights of the discussions she'd apparently been having with Vic'votus. Assuming Celeste was available, they would soon be making a call on the Senior Manager of Allanteen VI, Shipyard 2…