Chapter 94: Chapter Ninety Four
Master Micah Giiett stared at the small, extremely distorted mirror hanging on the bulkhead in front of him. He had become so used to the distortion by this point that he discounted it easily, his razor moving across his face quickly and surely. Wiping his face with a wet cloth, Micah then stared at his face in the mirror.
Most wouldn't have even thought of it as a mirror at all because of how distorted it was, but to Micah it was the first physical item that he had any kind of attachment to beyond his own lightsaber, because it was the first thing that he had ever been able to conjure. To many people being able to do something after years of attempting it would not have seemed worth the price, but Master Giiett was a Jedi, and he had treasured the little mirror since the moment he been able to create it.
At the moment, however, he was more concerned with the few strands of hair he was holding in front of his eyes at the present. "Yes," he said aloud. "Yes, they are indeed gray. If I was the type to be vain about my appearance, this would worry me."
Four years. They had been traveling through this vast, barely hyperspace capable nebula for four years since moving out of range of the HRS array. Most of that time had been spent on the ship, which for all of its size would probably have driven many an individual insane. But each day had brought new and interesting challenges, not only to Giiett, but to everyone aboard. And not all of them had come from trying to fulfill the vision they had all come to share of what this ship could be and was becoming under their care.
Giiett knew and remembered each incident, the clarity of his memories owing nothing to his mastery of occlumency.
Five times in that time they had been forced out of hyperspace due to an emergency jump because something had shifted into their path, and five times they had repaired the ship and the hyperdrive. Three times they had been attacked in space and had to repulse the attackers. Ten times they had discovered planets who were violently isolationist, remembering the time of the Republic in the most negative manner possible.
And most importantly, three times they had come upon planets that desperately needed aid.
The first such planet, a tiny little moonlet, really, had simply destroyed its ecosystem entirely due to too much homegrown industry. It was too far gone for the Jedi to even try to bring back. Being more mechanically inclined than the others, Quinlan and Harry had taken the lead. Quinlan and Alecto knew how to build hydroponic gardens by this point, having done much the same thing for the Tyrant's Bane. They had designed and led the construction of several space-based gardens.
And, thanks to the unique abilities of their ship and Harry, Aayla, and Fay's abilities to transfigure things, the Jedi had been able to actually share enough food with the populace of the planet to let them get by for a few weeks until their own gardens were operational. While they couldn't create filling food out of nothing, they could change protein packs or energy bars into full meals, something which had astonished the populace.
The next problem had been solved almost entirely through the Force rather than through both the Force and engineering skill. They had come upon a planet in danger of a plague that was threatening to spread to the entire planet. No one knew where the plague had come from, but since the planet had been racked by several devastating, if short lived, conflicts, there was little doubt of its basic origin.
Master Fay had led the way on that mission, figuring out a way to cure the plague and then disseminate that cure to the populace before more than a tithe of the populace had died, while the others did what they could to help or to halt the spread of the plague. It had taken everything they had to halt the plague, and Master Fay had pushed herself to the point of collapse several times during their stay there. It had gotten to the point where Harry had actually drugged her into sleeping for a time, though that hadn't stopped the ageless Master for very long.
But perhaps the most dramatic moment had been the mission where Master Fay had not taken part. Because while she had taken the lead on the mission against the plague, Master Giiett had to ruefully admit that it had been Harry who had been the one to take the lead on the next.
Start Flashback:
"How is Master Fay?" Micah asked softly as Harry closed the door behind him to Master Fay's personal room on the Tyrant's Bane. They had just entered orbit over a new planet, one only two jumps away from their last port of call.
"She's tired, of course!" the younger man said sharply, before sighing and visibly centering himself in the Force. "I apologize, Master Giiett. That was both rude of me and beneath a Jedi. But she is still asleep. I can feel the Force within her slowly refilling, but she gave far too much of herself dealing with the plague for far too long. I realize we all did, but not to the extent she did," Harry said with a fond if exasperated smile on his face.
"And isn't that always the way with Fay, giving too much of herself like that," Lily quipped, coming out through the closed door behind Harry.
"Well, in any event, her yacht is ready to go. Who is going to head down? I vote me, since I still haven't caught up with the rest of you in terms of exploring new planets, after all," Alecto said in an effort to lighten the mood.
Harry was about to volunteer to stay, but Aayla felt that before he could and told him he was being silly. The new planet might well have more dangers they would need to face, and they would already be two down. So instead he simply sighed. "Well, let's go, then. I don't want to leave Master Fay alone for too long."
"She's a big woman, Harry," Lily said, ruffling her fingers through his hair. The feeling was a strange one, but Harry had long gotten used to it and felt better for it.
The planet seemed very nice, at least at first. Again it was a low-tech world, though the last three hadn't been. One in particular had had a truly massive home-grown industry, with four different planets having space stations around them, including the original one, and a very advanced asteroid mining industry. They had spent several months there learning what they could about their mining technology and buying several large, fully automated factories, which disappeared into one of the holds of the ship.
It had also been one of only four systems they'd seen so far which had more than one species living in it. They had been humans, an insectile race called Verpines, and two gas-breathing species.
As soon as they spotted their first settlement on this planet, the number of planets where they had seen multiple species living together went up by one. Here again there were humans, causing Aayla and Alecto to exchanged amused glances. "You humans," Alecto said with a faint laugh. "So prolific."
"We're survivors," Harry said, shrugging his shoulders. "Though we're not the only ones on this world."
"Indeed not," Aayla said with a smile, exchanging a nod with another Twi'lek who had just walked past them. The population of this community was evenly split between Twi'lek, humans, and what were probably the native sophonts: short, shaggy looking creatures with three legs and wide, dexterous fingers on the ends of short arms. And Harry and Aayla couldn't help but notice that there were many people who looked to be of mixed species.
"So that's what our kids will look like if we have any?" Harry thought, sending the thought to Aayla as they walked down the street having just passed a family: a Twi'lek woman and a human man with four kids. Oddly enough, all of them were carrying large packs, something that made Harry frown.
"They look nice. Certainly not malformed as far too many cross-species children are," Aayla replied, her mental tone brimming with love. She could tell Harry was interested in having kids at some point, but he had turned that decision entirely over to her, one way or another. He would never pressure her on that point, which was just another reason that she loved him.
However, as the group continued looking for local delicacies—spices and other things they could trade for—all of them became aware of a tension in the air. Aayla was the first to notice that it was everywhere rather than an isolated incident, and spoke aloud. "There is a tension here, and quite a bit of fear, I think."
"It isn't another disease or something," Harry said, having just turned the corner, his back straightening as he gestured for the others to look around with them. The courtyard beyond was probably some kind of bazaar normally, but it had been cleared entirely. In its place were around seventy to eighty of the locals, drilling with swords and spears. Further away Harry could spot other people working with slug throwers of some kind, putting in the magazines and aiming downrange.
"I think we need to figure out what is going on here," Micah said grimly. "This looks like something we might wish to get involved in."
All of them, once more covered in their Force Cloaks, moved around in singletons to cover more ground, listening in on all the conversations they could. Quickly painting a picture of what was going on, they came back together within about an hour local time.
It turned out that this settlement was a little ways away from a border to something called the endless sands, which Harry recognized as one of the features they'd noticed from orbit. Out there in the desert lived another species, which locals simply called the Horde. They were centauroids, like Wulo, at least in body shape. But there the resemblance ended. The Horde were warm blooded reptiles of some kind, who swept out of the desert every hundred years or so, smashing every nation around them and subjugating the people for a few decades before returning to their deserts.
Much like the rest of the planet, they used a very eclectic variety of weapons: slug throwers of all sorts, spears, and swords.
"Was anyone able to get a sense of the direction that this Horde is coming from?" Micah asked. He'd been preoccupied with figuring out what sparked these massive migrations and if they could possibly broker a peace between the two groups. But apparently the Horde did not believe in talking with the other species and would much rather wipe them all out then talk to them.
"I did," Quinlan said grimly. "West by southwest from here, apparently. They're not that far away either, I don't think. Have you noticed how few people are actually in this city for its size?"
Alecto spoke up then, explaining what he had seen. "The refugees are meeting up outside of town to the north with more of those furry locals, the Dheas, with these huge beasts of burden. They are slow, but I'd bet even one of those critters could tug Master Fay's yacht."
"But the others, those of fighting age, are moving in the opposite direction," Lily said, shaking her head. "I spotted several groups like those we saw training being herded in that direction by a few others. I think somewhere out there is the local army, trying to stop this Horde."
The three padawans looked at Master Giiett and Quinlan. "What do you wish us to do, master?" Alecto asked formally.
"I would like for us to go and at least observe the horde," Micah said reluctantly. He knew that all three padawans had faced combat before, of course, but there was a vast difference between raiding a pirate's enclave, fighting in space, or even fighting a group of soldiers, in comparison to facing barbarians in a full on war.
"We will not engage unless absolutely necessary. Keep your Force Cloaks up at all times," he admonished, a faint smile on his face as he did so, though, taking the sting out of being told such an obvious thing.
Several hours later found Quinlan and the three padawans all kneeling behind various bushes, covered by a Disillusion technique which mixed visually blending in with mentally keeping people from noticing you. Master Micah had gone ahead with the ship to do a flyby over the horde. He hoped to use the ship to overawe the reptilian centauroids into retreating, or at least into coming to the parley table, but Harry didn't think that was going to happen.
To get to their current position, the Jedi had gone around the local army. Harry estimated that they were around forty thousand strong. But they were the equivalent of untrained levy units. And there was a palpable aura of fear around them, according to Aayla.
"I'm over the Horde now," Micah radioed. "This isn't an attack as we understand the term. I'm seeing family units, beasts of burden carrying tents, children… This is a migration, an entire people are on the move out here for some reason. I can't see anything beyond them, so I'm going to peel off and head deeper into the deserts for a bit before returning."
After hearing that Harry and the others watched as the Horde came into sight over the horizon. They were tromping along, the first few rows, at least, in impeccable lockstep and now the Jedi could make out their equipment. The humans, Dheas, and Twi'lek favored swords; the Horde, on the other hand, favored long, heavily weighted spears which became visible as the Jedi waited for them to come closer, analyzing what they were seeing as they did. They also had large slug thrower rifles and looked immensely strong.
"Size isn't everything," Aayla said in Harry's mind. "With that size and those four legs, they have to be slow."
"Maybe. But if they can end a fight with a single stab from those spears, then they don't actually have to be very fast." And they were very fast. It had taken them barely ten minutes to cross the distance between where the Jedi had first spotted them to where they were nearly right on top of them.
All the Jedi looked at their communicators in surprise when Micah's voice came through it once more, interspersed with static. "Mayday, Mayday! …have been…storm, going down!"
"What the hell?" Harry yelped, surging to his feet, trusting in his Disillusion technique to keep him hidden. "Master Fay's yacht can take more of a pounding than a cruiser with all we've done to it over the years! No way could it be knocked down like that!"
"Regardless, it is going down, and Master Giiett didn't say they were under attack, Harry, only that he ran into a storm. Perhaps something has interfered with his systems and he is being forced to crash," Lily said.
"Mom, if you could scout out the Horde for us, the rest of us are going to go rescue Master Micah," Harry decided quickly, before any of the others, even Quinlan, could speak up, holding up his communicator which could be used to home in on the downed ship. "I'll teleport the four of us forward in large jumps to get there."
"Good luck, everyone," Lily said, before turning and zooming off towards the oncoming Horde.
"Oh, this isn't going to be pleasant at all…" Aayla moaned through their link, but she still took Harry's hands willingly as he stared forward toward the horizon.
Once the others had grabbed onto them, Harry began to teleport them forward in jumps. With all of them covered with Disillusion techniques to hide their presence, they passed directly around the forerunners of the oncoming Horde and then passed several other groups in quick succession.
All this meant was that the Jedi had nothing to concentrate on other than their own queasiness. Alecto had been teleported like this precisely once before, but Quinlan had never had this specific ability tested on him. Indeed, no one but Harry had been able to use the teleportation techniques, though there was a rumor that Dooku had been able to, and perhaps Master Fay. His face was quickly a very nasty shade of green, while Aayla grimly kept her eyes tightly shut, clenching Harry's hand so hard he began to lose feeling in the appendage.
Despite Harry's teleportation, however, the Horde was closer to where Master Giiett had gone down. They passed several groups of Horde troops, mostly young men and women, who looked more like youth gangs than anything else, along with several family groups moving towards it.
Stopping within sprinting distance of the downed ship, which, he idly noted, was buried nose down into the sand of the desert, Harry let go of the others, allowing them to gratefully fall forward. Jedi training allowed the trio to keep their gorges from rising, but all of them were still looking a little green around the gills after the numerous teleportations.
"Quinlan and I will deal with those," Harry said, pointing to the nearest groups of the Horde. "Aayla, you and Alecto check on Master Giiett."
"Right," Quinlan said, slowly pushing himself to his feet, one hand still on his stomach. "Illusions?"
Harry nodded, and the two of them swiftly began to work, conjuring up a large illusion of several 'more' meteors coming down from the sky. Harry created the imagery, while Quinlan began to create the sounds of their passage through the air above them and to work on the minds of the Horde members, making them more credulous for a time to ward them off the area.
It worked. The majority of the Horde groups coming towards their ship peeled off and away, shouting and trembling, holding their hands above their heads in a vain attempt to ward off the meteors. It wouldn't have worked if even one of those groups had been slow enough for the illusions to touch them, but thankfully the reptilian centaurs were as naturally credulous as they were barbaric. This still took some time, and by the time they had reached the ship, Alecto and Aayla were already inside having found Master Giiett.
"He's unconscious, Harry, master. Took a nasty hit to the head. Alecto and I can stop the bleeding, but neither of us are good enough healers to try and fix his brain if he's got a concussion, and he's not waking up," Aayla reported aloud for the benefit of Quinlan.
"Don't try then," Quinlan ordered, sighing. Master Fay was their primary healer, but she was still down from Force exhaustion, of course. And messing with the mind, be it the squishy bits or the thoughts said squishy bits contained, was tough.
"Do you think it's dangerous to move him?" Harry asked.
"No," Aayla replied before Quinlan could. "Alecto and I already had to in order to get at the cuts on his face."
"In that case, one of you come and help Quinlan and I try to figure out why the ship crashed. I'm not seeing any damage on the exterior," Harry said, his voice trailing off as he sent what he was seeing to Aayla via their link.
"Some kind of ion pulse weapon?" Aayla asked via their link.
"No," Harry said in the same manner. "The ship's shielded against that. Given the strengthening runes we inscribed on the hull it would take sustained heavy fire to break through its armor, even if you take out its energy shields. I don't know how the physical defenses from the Force enhanced plates would react to a ion cannon, but there's no way any kind of handheld weapon could force the ship to crash. And look! There's no external damage, not even from the crash."
As Harry finished speaking, Aayla exited the ship moving towards the back of it where Quinlan and Harry were making their way around it looking for why it had crashed.
After Harry repeated himself aloud, however, Quinlan shook his head with a faint chuckle. "Ah, Harry. Never try to complicate matters too much. Look." The others looked to where the older man was pointing and saw that the engines at the back of the ship were lined with dust.
"Okay?" Harry said cautiously, "What about it? It's just dust."
"Yes. Ddust, Harry," Quinlan said, now somewhat more amused. He hopped up to hold onto one of the engine cowlings to look inside. "Lots and lots of dust. Dust which can get anywhere, which can foul systems, engines, and even cause a crash."
Alecto joined them then, hopping out of the ship and moving to join them. "Duros apparently has a lot of dust storms on it, and they play merry hell with air-speeders if they aren't routinely maintained. If the ship ran into one of those…"
"Could that be the reason behind the migration?" Harry asked.
"Oh, you betcha, Harry," Alecto said with a nod and a shudder. "Dust storms will rip a person's skin off his bones almost as quick as if you had entered the atmosphere of a gas giant. And they come up suddenly with no real warning. If Master Micah didn't know what to look for even the Force wouldn't be able to help him."
Aayla had hopped up to the top of the ship by this point and was staring back the way it had come out into the desert, after making sure that none of the rest of the Horde were coming towards them. Luckily, Micah had barely turned around before he had crashed, so there were no more Horde members near them thanks to Quinlan and Harry. The other way, however, was a different story entirely.
"Um, Alecto…" Aayla said, and Harry looked up sharply at the feeling of consternation and actually a little bit of fear in their link. "Could, could you come up here?"
Alecto hopped up to join her and stared. "That would do it," he said, his tone almost dull with sudden worry.
The others joined them quickly and saw instantly what they were talking about. From one edge of the horizon to the other there was a massive cloud of swiftly moving dust over the desert, shifting this way and that as they watched.
"Right…" Harry said slowly. "Right, so this migration really does have more of a point behind it then just simple aggression."
"I wouldn't say that," Quinlan said, turning away and leading the way down off the ship, heading inside quickly while the others followed. "You felt the emotions from the Horde forerunners, correct, Aayla?"
"I did," Aayla said sadly. "A lot of aggression, bloodlust, and associated emotions out there. I imagine that the migration aspect is being fueled by these storms, but there's also a lot of true desire for conquest in the Horde."
"So we won't be able to talk them out of it… Damn it. All right, Aayla, with me," Harry ordered, quickly taking charge once more. "We'll clear the engines of the dust. Alecto, keep on high watch. Quinlan, can you clear the interior engines?"
"I'll have to open up a lot of the baffles, but yes," Quinlan replied, and with that they quickly got to work, with Alecto pulling out his blaster rifle and heading back out to take up a position on the hull. Through the use of low powered Force Pushes designed around a cleaning charm Lily had taught them, the lovers got rid of the dust in the engines quickly, while Quinlan made certain each of the engines' interior parts were still in working condition. He had to call in Harry's expertise with Reparo for a few parts, but other than that they were quickly able to get the ship back into working condition.
By the time they were finished, Lily had returned from her scouting mission. "The Horde is making camp within striking distance of where we found the native army," she reported sadly. "They've separated into four separate camps. Only one of them is dominated by family groups, and it's at the back of the diamond formation the camps are set up in. A little more sophisticated than I expected from barbarians, really, even barbarians who have slug throwers. One of them, the forwardmost camp, is for the more established groups, the ones made of older males: blooded warrior types, you could say. The other two are made of younger men, and let me tell you, the ratio of men to women in that horde is kind of scary."
"It normally is that way in barbarian cultures, especially ones which routinely see wars between various clans or tribes," Quinlan replied clinically, looking up at the Force Ghost appreciatively. "First, were any of them Force sensitives? Did they see you, I mean? And what is their aim for this invasion, or migration, whichever it is?"
"I got close to them, but while Fay was able to teach me how to use magic to translate," Lily said, using the word magic deliberately to get groans out of her listeners, "I couldn't understand a lot of what they were talking about. I heard talk about setting the balance right, teaching the outworlders and the Dheas to know their place too, but that is it. I'm afraid they're really looking for a fight here."
Harry nodded, touching the scar on his forehead as he thought. "All right, here's what we're going to do. Master Vos, I want you to return to the Tyrant's Bane with Master Giiett. Get to work on the droid starfighters; we'll want as many of them up and running as you can give us."
The Tyrant's Bane didn't have many starfighters in the first place, only sixty or so, and most of them were more parts than working units. But they had started to put some of them back in working order before this. Quinlan, as chief mechanic for the group, would know what to do to get a few of them up and running, so he agreed to go.
As he did, he paused, rather bemused that he had not even hesitated to follow Harry's orders despite the younger man being a Padawan rather than another Knight. Still, it isn't as if I have any better idea of what to do. And leadership has never been my strong point… or working well with others in any capacity, Quinlan thought with amusement.
"Shift as many of the droids to that as you need," Harry went on. "If Master Fay is awake, get her to heal Master Micah and then ask them what we should do. Until we're countermanded, though, I think the best bet would be for us to work with the locals. Against this large an army, the three of us or even the four of us would not be able to stop them without the starfighters. But if they're already targeting the allied army, we can use work with them in order to hold them back until Quinlan arrives with overwhelming firepower."
Quinlan nodded. A more advanced army would have a general staff: leaders that could be targeted, taken out, or captured in order to force the army to surrender, just like taking the king in regicide. Or, if they had more time to work with, they could start a guerrilla campaign. As it was, they were swiftly running out of time and options. "Agreed. I'll keep working on the droids until halfway through tomorrow night no matter how many of them I've been able to get online. Will you be able to hold that long?"
Harry nodded, looking at the others, who nodded just as grimly. "We'll be here. Or there, anyway."
After Quinlan had dropped them off, the three padawans made their way through the grasslands to the army camp, having disembarked well out of sight of the camp. As they approached, Harry indicated they should cancel their Disillusion techniques, and they walked up boldly to a guard on duty.
On this side of the army camp there weren't many guards, but the ones there were fearful. This was an army that knew it really didn't stand any chance: that they were just going through the motions in hopes of a miracle. "Well, just call us Misters and Mrs. Miracle," Harry sent back as Aayla relayed that to him. Her empathic ability had given her a far better and faster understanding of the emotions of the camp than Harry or Alecto could have gleaned.
Harry nodded to the guard as he walked up to them, but before the guard could say anything Harry spoke. "I am Jedi Harry, and these are Jedi Alecto and Jedi Aayla. Take us to your general."
The guards looked startled at that, but put their hands on their swords and glared at them, especially Alecto. "Is that supposed to be some kind of joke!?" they said in the native language, which all three automatically understood via the Force. "Jedi don't exist! They're just some story from the old times before the Sundering!"
"We don't have time for this, Harry," Alecto said, stepping around Harry and waving his hand in front of the guard's faces. "You will take us to your general."
"We will take you to our general," both of the guards said.
"Nice," Harry whispered as their three of them followed the two guards. He hadn't really gotten that good at the offensive mental techniques like that, Master Fay having concentrated on the softer side of such. But it was obvious that Micah had given Alecto a good grounding in them.
Eventually they were led to the general's tent, which wasn't guarded, though it was marked out by its size. It was obvious that the Army didn't fear any dissension within the ranks: they had far too much to concern themselves with with the Horde coming towards them. Inside they found four people: one human, one Twi'lek, and two of the other kind of locals, the Dheas. Three of them were listening to the fourth, one of the two Dheas who was taller than the other one with quite a bit more gray in its fur.
All four of them turned and stared at the three young newcomers, in particular Alecto after he removed his hood. "Forgive our deception for getting in to see you," Harry began before any of them could do more than gape, "but there is very little time until the Horde attacks tomorrow morning. We are Jedi and wish to help you."
The human scoffed, and the Twi'lek looked as if he was about to murder all three of them, but the two locals simply blinked, looking at one another. The general said, "We have heard of Jedi: there are legends of them from before the Sundering. But forgive us, how can you help us here? There are but three of you. Even in the legends the Jedi were mortal and could be overcome through numbers. Numbers which we are facing here.
"Unless your arrival means we can look for more help from the stars," said the human, looking at the three young beings askance.
"We are actually five. Two of our number are working on whipping up said aid at present, but it will take time. The three of us, however, will work with the army to hold off the Horde until that cavalry arrives," Harry said. "As for what we can do…" He gestured, and suddenly in his hand he was holding a sword, a heavy scimitar like the locals wore at their waists, something that could never have been hidden in his sleeve. "This is a simple sample of what we can do. Myself and Alecto here will help create a defense, while Aayla will help your logistics."
"You can conjure up bullets?" the general asked quickly. "We have more than enough gunpowder to last through a full five days of combat, but we don't have nearly as many bullets or canister rounds for our cannons."
Aayla nodded and stepped forward to stand beside Harry on the opposite side from Alecto. "I can. Give me a sample of a few of your bullet types, and I can duplicate them."
"That would be a major help. But what do you mean when you say 'create a defense?'"
Alecto smiled, showing white teeth standing out from his green skin. "Why don't you come with us and find out?"
A moment later the four officers followed the three Jedi out to the section of the camp nearest the Horde. There the locals had begun to create a series of stakes and mounded earth as defense, while also creating ditches here and there. But it was evident that the work would not be done by the time the Horde attacked, the barbarians' speed having taken the multi-species army by surprise.
Harry looked at Alecto before clasping his friend's shoulder with one hand, funneling his Force powers into his friend, giving his own energy and strength to Alecto for a time. Alecto knelt down on the ground, touching it with his hands and concentrating, then opened them and spread them out either side as if thrusting them through clay and pushing it to either side. There was a great rumble followed by shouts of exclamations and shock from the officers behind the Jedi and the army troops nearby as a ditch grew out in front of Alecto through the land.
Those shouts continued to rise in volume as a mound of rocks, dirt, and mud rose up towards the camp like a wave. Then it began to harden, solidifying until it was a tall, very thick wall about two stories tall with a series of steps on the interior side. Both the wall and the ditch only covered only about eighty yards or so, but it was a very defensible position.
Ignoring the shouts of shock and awe from the camp, Harry and Alecto turned to the general. "That is what we meant," Alecto said simply. "It'll take us a while, but we can put up a wall like that around the entire camp."
Throughout the night, that was what the Jedi did. Harry and Alecto created a wall around the entire camp, huge and wide, going all the way around just in case the Horde surrounded them. "Do you think it'll be enough?" Harry asked as they finished the job at around three or four in the morning local time.
Thanks to their Jedi training neither of them were tired in body, though the amount of Force power they had to use had made them somewhat weary in mind, even Harry. Still, they would both recover somewhat given time. Recovery and control, the ability to use just enough Force to get a job done, had been the main thrust of Master Fay's training for Harry for several years now, so he no longer simply brute forced his techniques any longer. Sometimes, however, brute force, or rather, Force, was still called for.
"We seriously need to find someone who is as good at manipulating water as Mak and I are at manipulating earth, Harry," Alecto said mock grumpily, pushing his friend's shoulder playfully. Despite the upcoming battle, both of them were somewhat upbeat about it. After all, they only had to last until Master Quinlan arrived with the cavalry.
As they reentered the camp they saw the work going on. All three species were already moving up onto the wall, hauling up several of their small cannons and a few crew served machine guns. Lily had taken one look at them and said that they looked like something from World War II, and the cannons next to them looked like they were from the American Civil War.
"Yeah, a moat would be nice," Harry said, sighing. "I suppose I could do that, but Aayla needs help on creating more bullets."
Alecto shook his head. "Leave Aayla to that, Harry. Go check in with the general," he almost ordered. "I'll help out the locals in creating further defenses."
Harry's lips twitched, but he nodded, considering that that made good sense. And it turned out that the general did indeed have an idea of what to do with Harry's powers. They asked him if he could transfigure or conjure larger, more complex items then bullets, and when he answered in the affirmative with a caveat, they brought him to several cracked and malformed cannons which had failed their firing tests, asking him to turn them into workable pieces. After looking at a working cannon, Harry could do that, using a Reparo technique to repair what damage he could, then strengthening them.
He was also asked to transfigure bits of coal and other metal into canister rounds, lots and lots of canister rounds. The image of what they would do to the invading army made him shiver. But he knew intellectually that there was no real difference between what a canister round could do when fired to some of the things he had done in the past with Bombarda or Reducto techniques.
He and Aayla worked alongside one another for a time, silent to the rest of the world, while talking to one another quietly about the upcoming battle and what they would have to do. Giving what they were already doing, there was little left that Harry would be keeping secret, and if there was any time to go all out, this was it.
They were also listening in on the locals and asking questions to learn about the planet. It turned out that while the Sundering, as they had called it, cut off this planet from the rest of the universe like all the others in the sector, it had really hurt this planet. There were no gas giants in this system, so there was no local source for the gas needed to power most of the modern Republic technology, from blasters to engines. There was also a massive war between a few of the nations on the planet directly after the Sundering, which had further shattered the planet's infrastructure. From that point the tech had simply collapsed until they reached a level that the planet could sustain on its own. It had been like high end physicists trying to figure out how to work a lathe and smithy. It took a while, and a lot had been lost very quickly.
As dawn broke, Lily came back from both checking out the enemy army, and Quinlan's progress. "He's got five of them ready at this point, and seven more that he should have finished within the next few hours. The droids have been a decent help, but we're running into bottlenecks on parts, as usual," she reported.
"And Master Giiett and Master Fay?" Alecto asked.
"Master Fay is still asleep, and Quinlan says she still isn't really ready to wake up. She really exhausted herself fighting that plague," Lily said fondly, shaking her head. "As for Micah, he was up and moving around. The two of them were talking as I left, but he didn't have any other orders for you other than to trust your judgment."
"Damn," Harry said mildly, nodding at his mother while ignoring the looks of the locals as Harry seemingly carried on a conversation with thin air. "I'd sort of been hoping for him to come up with some kind of brilliant scheme to get us and these people out of this without a pitched battle, but I suppose that even the Force has some limitations."
She sighed, looking around at the army. "I suppose some things never change. The nature of the universe, and you being too damn noble for your own bloody good, Harry Potter!" Lily said with a wan chuckle.
"I like to think I come by it naturally," Harry said, smiling up at her impishly.
"You do that." Lily said then went on more seriously. "I'll head out again to look at the army out there, see if they have any specific plans we need to know about more than roar and charge. I also want to make certain that I know who all the leaders are."
Harry nodded, becoming serious in turn. "When you get back, go straight to Alecto to tell him how to recognize them. He's far and away the best shot of all of us." Harry looked over to where Alecto was still working on his own with the earth, creating large towers here and there within the camp. Some of them would be turned into cannon towers, while others were for the general and his officers to have a view of the battlefield.
Lily nodded again and kissed his forehead on his scar before moving off.
"They moved the earth with a wave of their hands, walk unseen unless they want to be, and speak to spirits and conjure things out of thin air. Truly, the Jedi are wizards indeed," one of the locals whispered nearby.
Harry and Aayla exchanged a look at that, then went back to work, while inside their heads their mental avatars collapsed to their knees in laughter.
As they had expected, the Horde moved forward quickly once dawn broke, clans and sections of clans moving forward till just out of cannon range, hooting and hollering, their drums and whistles blaring as they began to pump up the blood of their warriors for the battle to come. Harry, Aayla, and Alecto stood on the ramparts, staring out at the Horde as it slowly coalesced.
"Do you think they'll honor parlay?" Harry asked as he stared out over the incoming Horde. They were moving slowly for their species now, resting up for the final charge once they got within range.
"Maybe if only to taunt us," Aayla said with a shrug. "But that shouldn't matter. We're trying to buy time, remember?"
Harry nodded before conjuring a white flag. With that done he hopped down, moving forward as the Horde began to come into sight.
He cast a technique on his throat and shouted, his voice coming out in a bellow, the Jedi technique automatically translating his words in the minds of his listeners. "Parlay! I call for parlay!"
For a moment it looked as if the Horde was going to disregard that despite the Force assisted bellow. But then one larger than average Horde member, his scales noticeably thicker and also grayer than the others, started to roar out instructions for them to back away, and he moved forward with about fourteen others of similar stature, stabbing their spears into the ground and crossing their arms as they stared first at Harry, then at the tall wall behind him. "Why should we deal with you, spacefarer?"
"You know I come from the stars?"
"We have legends of spacefarers, you humani, coming from the stars with the nice soft tenties!" said one of the others, spitting to the side while one of the others leered at Aayla. "You came and you took the planet, but that was then! The star ways are closed to you now. The gods have given us the chance to regain our lands, to return to the cycle that was. We will not be stopped!"
"The people behind me have just as much right to their lives as you do," Harry said, channeling his inner Master Fay. "What have they done to you for you to feel such enmity? Would not trading for what you need be easier? Would not getting what you want without loss of life be easier?"
"We are not like them! We are the trueborn!" one of the reptilian centaurs shouted, looking affronted at the very idea of trading for what they needed. "We were here long before the star people came and befriended the Dheasia! They were created by the great Earth Father to serve us, but you star people broke the cycle. We will set it right!"
"If you continue to pursue this, myself and my friends will have to stand up against you," Harry said grimly, knowing the dialogue was going to end soon. "If you have knowledge of those who come from the stars, perhaps you have heard of Jedi. We are far stronger than we appear."
There was another moment of silence at that, but then raucous laughter broke out. "Jedi! Jedi! We have heard of Jedi, but you are few! We are many! What can you do against us? We are an army! We are the Horde! This parlay is over!"
Harry growled, but then reached deep within himself as he felt Aayla's wordless reassurance. "Do it, Harry. We're ready."
With that Harry began to glow, Force Light pouring out from him, causing the Horde leaders to shy away, even to retreat as he knelt, bringing one of his hands down onto the ground. "You want to know what kind of army?! This is my army!"
For years since Master Fay had first taken him as her apprentice, Harry had studied, experimented, and trained with transfiguration, conjuration, and Force Light most of all. This had allowed him to master the concept of Force Constructs to a degree that no one, no Jedi, Sith, wizard, witch, or Jed'ai, had ever come close to matching. And now he called on that ability to the greatest degree he ever had before.
All around Harry there appeared Jedi Masters, Knights, and the padawans of Clan Saa, their features so lifelike that Aayla and Alecto let out a gasp from behind Harry. These real-life constructs were interspersed with large, armored Knights astride chargers, armed with lances like those of the Horde.
Harry wavered slightly on his feet for a moment, but since most of these constructs were made of the Force, conjuring them into being did not take as much out of him as it would have if he had used straight up conjuration. And, like the Patronus charm Lily had taught him about as a starting point to this technique, the Force Constructs had some limited ability to act on their own as the animals, or, in this case, people, they were constructed to look like.
"Now," Harry roared, his voice magnified to such a level as to almost be a physical weapon. "You can bloody well come ahead, and we'll gladly be cutting your Horde to ribbons. Or you can retreat like intelligent beings, and we can talk about you inhabiting some of this land peaceably. There is more than enough land to go around from what I can see.
"Really?" Aayla drawled, shaking her head from where she stood on the wall.
"Moving straight to threats after proving you were not negotiating from a position of weakness is a legitimate tactic for discussion," Harry shot back defensively.
Whatever Aayla might have replied was held back as the Horde behind their leaders roared and charged, the first rows firing their large slug throwers as they came. The Leaders too roared, many of them grabbing at their weapons and attacking Harry or the nearest Force Constructs. Others, the older, more experienced looking leaders, fell back, but Alecto took them under fire from his position on the wall. Single shots rang out, bolts of plasma taking three of the five retreating clan leaders in their backs or sides.
Harry activated his lightsaber quickly, bringing it up with a snap hiss to slice through the lance of one reptilian centaur before leaping clear back to the wall. "Defend this camp!" he shouted to his Constructs, sending the words out to them with a brief Force Pulse to accompany it.
The Horde charged forward, the entire army. The main camp's worth of troops, which alone outnumbered the allied army four to one, raced straight towards the wall and Harry's Force Constructs. They covered the intervening ground frightfully quickly, running into the hail of fire from the locals. Their armor and their armored hides seemed to halt a lot of the local bullets, but they still died in droves to the fire from the wall and the cannons.
Harry landed on the wall and watched as the first row of charging barbarians ran into the same problem their braver leaders had already discovered: the Force constructs were just that, creations of the Force, with no real substance to them. The warriors of the Horde could not hurt them any more than they could discern the Force in the first place.
The reverse, however, was not true, as two of those leaders had already found, bisected by the blades of the conjured Jedi who simply held their positions, cutting down any Horde member that came near them. The armored Knights, in contrast, had spurred forward on their chargers, slamming into the Horde's own charge such that they burst through in segments, running some of the Horde under their hooves while spitting or smashing others aside.
It wasn't enough. The Force Constructs and the defenses in place to face in this direction had a good chance of stopping this aspect of the assault. But elsewhere this was not the case. The two groups made up of younger, un-blooded, or clan-less warriors had skirted around the main charge, eager to encircle the allied army, though Harry doubted they had any idea of finding a weakness. No, they were simply wishing to come to grips with the defenders.
Cannons fired continually all around the camp, and the machine guns, rifles, and, above all, canister laden cannon wreaked a truly bloody slaughter, but the Horde didn't break. They didn't even seem to notice, dying in droves in the ditches until their bodies filled them end to end. There were over a hundred thousand warriors in both those wings, and they simply absorbed the losses and raced on.
Once they were close enough to the walls, they hurled makeshift grenades forward in places. Some they sent at the wall itself, intent on blasting through. As centaur-like creatures, they couldn't climb, but this wasn't the first wall defense they had come into contact with. What at first seemed like single grenades were actually long strings of grenades, the power of which blew chunks out of the wall. Any wall made of solid stone would have been shattered, but the wall Alecto had made was mostly made of earth and better absorbed this assault for a time.
Other grenades were thrown up among the locals, and they began to die. Others paused within rifle range to exchange fire with those on the wall, laying down covering fire for dedicated sappers.
With the main assault being bogged down by his Force Constructs, Harry looked over at his fellow padawans, who both nodded grimly. "The left, Harry," Aayla said. "The fear I can feel from the army is stronger in that direction."
"Alecto, do you want to stay here and see if you can shoot any more of their leaders?" Harry asked, already turning in the direction Aayla had indicated.
"No. Killing their leaders just seems to make them mad, darn it," Alecto muttered. He holstered his rifle in its sheath along his back and nodded to his friends. "Let's go."
"How are you feeling, Harry?" Aayla sent via their link as they ran, leaping down into the camp and straight towards the left flank.
"I'm…tired. That didn't take as much out of me as it would have years ago, thanks to Master Fay's training, but it sure as kriff wasn't easy on top of last night," Harry sent back, then paused, gesturing into the air and concentrating for a brief moment.
He didn't conjure anything physical, but instead conjured illusory flying dragons and other things, with Aayla joining in quickly to supply his illusions with more realism. The illusions soared out and began to dive bomb down onto the Horde, all around the camp. There was a lot of consternation and confusion, which was what Harry was going for.
But despite being simple illusions it still took a lot out of his remaining reserves. And Aayla wasn't faring much better after last night, since her reserves were not as large to begin with. Alecto was even worse off, despite most of the power for the wall having come from Harry.
Alecto got ahead of them since they were busy concentrating on that the illusions and was the first to see segments of the wall being blown inwards from the explosives of the Horde sappers. Through these gaps in the wall the Horde streamed in, cutting down any of the army they could and firing up onto the wall or racing up the staircases set up here and there to close with the men on the walls. Dozens of the cannons in this segment of camp went silent, and the death toll began to mount. The generals ordered reserves in to stem the gap, but before they could get there the trio of padawans were there.
Cutting through the first barbarians to have gained the wall, the Jedi leaped down into the gap. Harry thrust out his hand, a massive Force Push crashing into and flinging the barbarians in the gap backwards like toys, but the nearest group that had already broken in turned to engage them, and the Horde absorbed this impact like a wave would have, continuing to crash forward. The Jedi were quickly surrounded, facing bullets flying at them from all sides and hundreds of reptilian centaurs attacking them with their short lances, while thousands more bayed for their blood.
Even as all three of them lashed out with Force Techniques and used Force Shields to ward off the bullets, they knew they were in danger of being overwhelmed through sheer numbers and weight of bodies. And if they could not close this gap, the horde's numbers would allow them win this despite the Jedi's best efforts. Worse, the fight was so in their face that Aayla and Alecto couldn't concentrate enough of their attention towards calling up their more destructive attacks.
"Bombarda!" Harry shouted, pushing as much energy as he could into the technique, watching as the blast of explosive Force energy erupted into the mass of barbarians in front of him. It also drained him to the point that he nearly stumbled, but Aayla was there, defending him until he could regain his breath. She nearly fell in turn, however, when she miscalculated how to redirect a few of the slugs the locals were firing, but Harry got his own blade up and between them at the last minute.
"This isn't working!" Aayla shouted so both Harry and Alecto could hear. The two boys merely nodded. Even with the advantages Force Precognition and their lightsabers gave them, there was only so much the three of them could do now. They had exhausted themselves to help the local army, and were now paying for it. There was just no way a trio of padawans, no matter how good they were individually, could hold back the tide of barbarians.
No, no trio of padawans individually could… But as a team…? "Aayla!" Harry shouted via their link.
As soon as he'd had the thought Aayla had picked up on it and knew that it was probably their only salvation. "Alecto, open yourself to me!" she shouted.
The thought was a simple one: Harry and Aayla worked together on an almost instinctual level when they weren't trying. When they were trying, when they used their link to its greatest degree while in combat, they formed a team that was nigh unassailable. They'd never tried it under such circumstances as these, and they were both far more tired than they had ever been before when trying to do so, but the theory was sound.
The idea of bringing in a third person was also sound, if untried. They had brought Master Fay into their bond, Kass and Mak for practice, and even Master Giiett for a very brief moment. And adding a third to the link should theoretically make the bonded trio more effective, like a stool with three legs being stronger than one with two legs.
In theory. In reality, under stressful conditions, it was a toss-up as to whether it would work at all.
Alecto gaped at the two lovers, then out at the slowly reforming Horde, while behind them the barbarians which had already passed through the choke point clashed with the army reserves. They'd stopped the slaughter of gunners and there were no more barbarians trying to get up the inside of the wall at the defenders, but a goodly portion of the cannons had been wrecked by this time, as the Horde's use of grenades had proven devilishly effective. So none of the cannons could be used to secure the gap.
That left it up to the trio of padawans, who right now had barely any Force strength left between them. Desperate times call for desperate measures, Alecto thought grimly, before closing his eyes, lowering his defenses, and looking Aayla in the eyes.
In turn Aayla and Harry lowered their defenses. With Aayla's empathic ability guiding them they reached out and…
Suddenly Alecto was there, within their mindscape, staring down at the twin worlds, the night-side Ryloth sphere that was Harry's mental world with the rock ship of Aayla's world orbiting above it. His own mental plane was a 3D maze made of different pieces of timber, now floating in-between the other two.
At the same time, his thoughts, some of his deepest buried secrets, flashed out, shared in this place because he had been worried about sharing them a moment ago. Like in the trial of Spirit, the more you thought about it, the more it was prevalent in your mind, which meant that here, Aayla and Harry could see it.
They could see some of his anxiety when they were younger at how much Harry outshone Alecto, who had thought he would be the older, wiser student of the two. They saw his irritation at being slower than some of the other Clan students at the Temple; they saw how he was jeered at for learning lightsaber skills so slowly, for being the first to learn the Shield Charm and the last to learn any of the other techniques. They saw how his first master had derided his skills and told him to abandon them along with his emotions if he wanted to become a better Jedi.
"Bah, he's a rock: rock for brains, rock for reflexes, rock-head for learning," jeered some of the older padawans after he couldn't learn some of the lightsaber skills or had fallen behind in math or one of the other everyday classes.
"So you're a rock. Our rock, Alecto," Harry replied, with Aayla's mental voice shouting encouragement. The two of them matched each of his bad memories from the Temple or with his master or even before that with the times when he'd helped them. When Alecto had made them laugh, helped Harry get used to life in the Order, helped Aayla deal with her own irritation at the Temple, the adventures they'd had since starting this journey… How much Alecto had helped.
Harry's mental comments that the pair of them had had a lot of unhappy memories about dealing with the Temple and certain members of the Council of First Knowledge were deemed Not Helpful. Though shouting at him did help Alecto laugh.
And just like that, Alecto's buried insecurities and anxieties disappeared, and he actually laughed. He laughed in the real world, a sound, loud and clear, thrown in the face of the horde as the three padawans moved into a triangle, holding the breach.
The Horde made no notice of the laughter and closed in, firing as they came. But the Jedi moved as one unit, a fused gestalt that would have put the greatest blade master to shame. Since they were defending a single spot rather than moving around, Aayla forwent her normal Ataru style, merging instead with Harry's Shien and Alecto's Soresu. Harry's Shien helped them against the bullets, the heavier ripostes of that style being better for redirecting the heavy slugs of their enemies, while Alecto's Soresu could adapt easily to fighting the odd lances of the horde rather than blasters or lightsabers.
Harry routinely called up Force Shields to defend them for a few moments as they rested, while Aayla and Alecto used earth or air to disrupt larger attacks. But in the main, they had to rely on lightsabers and Force Precognition.
Alone, it would not have been enough. Together, it was. The three padawans held until the roar of starfighters in atmosphere reached their ears, followed quickly by the 'Pshew' sounds of heavy blasters ripping into the Horde. They held until the Horde broke upon them, moving into the realm of local legend.
End flashback
Chuckling as he remembered the look on Fay's face when she woke up, Micah returned to the here and now. 'Can't let you out of my sight for a moment,' indeed. Well, at least with her aid we were able to broker a piece between the Horde and the allies.
Master Giiett left his room, walking the corridors of the ship for a time. He could feel his padawan working in one of Bane's cargo holds for some reason and moved in that direction. Alecto was supposed to be working with Quinlan at the moment on his lightsaber skills, since Micah had been on duty on the bridge last night and thus was allowed to sleep in that morning. And Quinlan was… Giiett paused in his steps for a moment, frowning as he sensed that the Knight was in the training area where he was supposed to be.
As he walked theBane's corridors, Master Giiett folded his hands in his robes, smiling as he entered the first of the two hydroponic gardens. The bright lights of runes above him drew his attention, and he smiled, seeing them, before staring out over the expanse of this first section, hearing the twitter of birds and the chuff of distant creatures. Out of the eight cargo holds of the Tyrant's Bane, five of them had been enlarged by this point.
One had been enlarged just enough to house the planetary shield generator and numerous 'fabbers.' That section wasn't fully online yet and wouldn't be until the ship had access to a lot more electronic parts than they had found on this voyage or had been able to take from Serenno clandestinely. They had raw material aplenty, and the fabbers they'd picked up at Harry's insistence would help in churning out more parts, but the computer systems controlling them were not ready just yet.
But the shields were now fully operational, at least. The Tyrant's Bane didn't have the starfighter punch that a typical Lucrehulk had, but defensively was a different story entirely.
This cargo hold had been turned into a jungle with transplanted plants from several different worlds competing, creating a unique bio-system. They were watched by various heavy droids, and there were dozens of different kinds of animals in here as well. Aayla had led the way in its creation, and Micah felt it was a marvel, far larger than the Temple's equivalent space. They got their spices here, on top being a prime spot for mediation on the Living Force.
He nodded to a few droids moving through the jungle, heading through it towards the real farms. This area was like the jungle, but turned over to agriculture in a far more organized fashion, dotted with farms of all sorts, including those that contained livestock on them. The livestock had come from the plague planet and were their newest addition, but Micah could already see them, an animal that looked like a sheep crossed with a bantha but without the smell, being a major source of trade in the future.
Enough farms to feed a continent for weeks, Micah thought, still feeling a sense of wonder as he stared across the expanse. And all in a single Lucrehulk class ship. Oh, a normal Lucrehulk could, of course, actually transport enough food to feed a continent in protein packs and emergency food rations. But grow fresh food and in just one of its cargo holds? It was at times like this that Master Giiett truly fundamentally realized how their perception of the Force had changed since Harry and Lily had arrived in this universe.
"Master," Alecto said, getting out from under one of the larger farm droids, a massive combine with a droid's body in lieu of actual operator. Before Giiett could say anything, the young Duros, who had aged into a fine young man over the past years, went on. "I'm sorry I'm not at practice with Master Vos, but six of the droids somehow developed a virus on that last planet that took a while to get through their firewalls, somehow sort of sticking there until they got through rather than being deleted. I've been dealing with it all this morning."
"That's not good," Giiett said mildly, reaching out to grip his padawan's shoulder lightly. "Still, I trusted you had a good reason. Was it an actual attack, or just malware?"
"Just regular malware, I think, master. The last planet really had a very sophisticated Internet system, and our droids just didn't have appropriate protections against it."
"Yes, the infamous repeating 800 numbers. I don't think I've ever seen so many advertisements for male sexual enhancement before," Micah replied drolly. "If the perpetrators had been human I might have felt rather jealous."
The two of them laughed, but then Micah squeezed his padawan's shoulder. "However, did you inform Master Vos that you would be late?"
Alecto paused, then sighed and bowed his head. "No, master."
"In that case, I think you will have to both apologize and volunteer for some extra training," Giiett said somewhat sadly before pausing. "However, I think that might have to wait for later…"
Micah had just felt a tingle of anticipation through the Force. A moment later he felt Master Fay reach out to him and the others. "I believe Master Fay might want us on the bridge," he said dryly, but Alecto had already turned in that direction staring through the walls towards the bridge. "Where are Harry and Aayla this morning?"
"It's supposed to be their day off training, master," Alecto replied, looking at his master askance.
Giiett sighed. "Yes, I did just ask a rather stupid question, didn't I?"
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