Chapter 101: Surprises and Staging
Summary: Shaken world views...
Chapter 101: Surprises and Staging
-Sovereign of Tythe – 115 Days into the Hutt Crusade-
“Shaak! I’m happy you came back! After the reports you sent along, I had wondered if you’d get sucked into the investigations back in Republic space.”
Aayla’s enthusiastic welcome was nice…but Shaak was a little bit preoccupied by staring at the happily waving Sith that was standing behind her with Izuku. She knew not every Jedi would have recognized a Sith Pureblood, but she had done her research after being read in on the whole ‘the Sith are back’ thing a few years back. It was only the fact that there wasn’t a hint of Dark Side coming from the woman, and Izuku and Aayla both seemed comfortable with her, that kept Shaak’s hand from drifting instinctively to her lightsaber. Her Padawan, clearly recognizing her shock but just as clearly not having a clue what was causing it, looked on in confusion. Aayla herself blinked at the lack of response to her greeting, then looked behind her and a look of understanding spread on her face.
“Right! You’ve missed a few things. That’s Zavra Sh’i! Late of the Sith Empire, circa several thousand years ago. Not a Dark Sider, though! In fact, oddly enough, she was sort of an ambassador to the Jedi during a very strange period of galactic history that’s apparently been mostly forgotten.”
Shaak Ti blinked, more confused than before. Which must have shown in her expression as Aayla’s lips twitched in a half-successful attempt to suppress a laugh. She stepped up and threw an arm around Shaak’s shoulder, steering her towards the others.
“Come on, Shaak. We’ll catch you up on both the weird bits, and what’s been going on in the Crusade. We were alerted to your coming, so our private quarters here on the Sovereign already has a nice nerf steak meal waiting!”
Okay, she was still very confused, but Aayla had Shaak convinced to put off that confusion with the mention of steak…
… … …
“So, that really brings us back to the most recent action at Tsyk. So far as we can tell, the Death Watch brought nearly everything they had, and absolutely none of them escaped. With Pre Vizsla dead along with the bulk of the Death Watch, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to reform anytime soon. Bit hard to kill an idea, so some form of militant Mandalorians will pop back up eventually, but we shouldn’t see more than very scattered numbers of them for now. Better yet, we did succeed in capturing one of the Dor’bulla-class ships, so we’ll be able to get a good look at how the Hutts are trying to counter our tactics.”
Shaak Ti nodded, though Izuku could see she was still a bit…distracted. Mostly by the story they’d told about the abandoned space station and finding Zavra. The fact that Zavra herself had cheerfully answered all sort of questions about the odd time period she was from and how the Sith and Republic had ended up working together, had seemingly done a number on Shaak’s focus.
Understandable, really, and Izuku had mostly shifted to military matters she would care less about to fill the silence while she thought. The fact Padmé and Sabé were interested in those matters helped, though Shaak had been nearly as surprised by their presence as Zavra’s. Though admittedly in a very different way. It was Sabé who spoke up next, carefully probing with a tone of voice that made it clear she’d back off if the matter was too sensitive.
“With the Death Watch gone, where will your taskforce be heading next? I know we stopped here over Nal Hutta to fully transfer your flag to the Sovereign of Tythe and take on enough crew to bring the ship up to full complement, but you’ve not said where we’re going next…”
Izuku hesitated for a moment, then shrugged.
“I suppose it honestly doesn’t matter if I tell you, given that we’ll be setting out in less than twelve hours and our target isn’t exactly subtle. With the forces here in Nal Hutta having slowly expanded their sphere of control to all of the minor systems nearby, it’s time for us to take Toydaria. We’ve offered them diplomatic options repeatedly and been rebuffed. We’ll be moving on the system shortly, then pushing on farther to Tol Amn. That system is already mostly ours, due to revolution, but we’ve held off on formally securing it since Toydaria was still between our controlled space and them.”
Sabé looked a little surprised at that, as did Padmé. The latter was who spoke first.
“You don’t want to focus on taking Bootana Hutta? I’d have thought, if you did that, then most of the remaining systems would fold. Toydaria clearly still believes the Hutts will come out on top and is refusing to be ‘disloyal’ for fear of reprisals.”
Izuku shrugged, understanding her perspective, but it was Aayla who responded.
“That was considered as an option, but it ultimately just doesn’t make sense. Most of southern Hutt Space is now under our control, at least nominally. Something like 200 systems in total have either been captured or surrendered preemptively. Our only real security issue in properly sealing that space off now is the Oktos Route. Once that’s closed and secured with a decent fleet presence, the League won’t have much left to worry about in the Southern battlespace.”
Padmé looked like she’d bitten a sour fruit, likely at the idea they wouldn’t be giving the Toydarians another chance by eliminating the Hutts first so that they knew they were free from their Vassal commitment. Sabé seemed far more indifferent, being too pragmatic to view things in that light. The League had offered favorable terms, been rebuffed, and now Toydaria would suffer the consequences of doing so. Surprisingly, Asajj, mostly silent though the meal, spoke up to break the slightly awkward silence.
“Just how much of Hutt Space do you control now? It wasn’t anywhere near 200 systems before, was it?”
Izuku turned his attention to her and shook his head.
“No, it wasn’t. But after we fully sealed off the hyperlanes in and out of their space, a lot of systems started to submit without any real fight. Calling them properly under control is a bit of a stretch, admittedly. Most of them will need years to root out corruption and Hutt influence. But for now, they’ve acted in self-preservation to at least pretend to be good little star systems.”
He paused for a moment to consider, then spoke more slowly.
“As for the total number we control? Part of the reason we want the Oktos route is that we don’t really control the western side of the region. Entry in and out? Yes. But there are a lot of systems that we just haven’t had to the ships and manpower to secure. Once we isolate them between the Oktos and Pabol Sleheyron lanes, we can sweep most of them up without much effort, as we’ve already broken most of the systems with truly serious defenses.”
Aayla was nodding along, clearly as well versed in what they had and hadn’t secured as Izuku, picking up where he left off.
“The South and North are pretty much entirely under our control though, or soon will be. Some of Admiral Lin’s ships swept up toward Galactic North and took Kafane, Vontor and Nimia. She’s working on the knot of systems up there, while letting the ground forces fully finish dealing with Ulmatra, where the Hutts are putting in a lot of stiff resistance even after they lost the orbitals.”
Izuku had run through the numbers a bit while Aayla spoke and gave Asajj an actual answer a moment later.
“I’d say we control only about three hundred worlds firmly, but roughly a hundred more at least loosely. That number will go up by another sixty or so worlds once we properly secure the west, and a dozen more when Lin finishes working on the North. After that, though, most of the ‘easy’ victories will be gone. The Hutts managed to move a lot of ships and hardware into the East before we sealed off the hyperlanes there, and Bootana Hutta is obviously heavily defended.”
More than one person looked surprised, but it was Sabé who managed to speak first, sounding thoroughly incredulous as she did so.
“Wait, aren’t there only like 700 worlds in Hutt Space? Are you telling me that, only like four standard months from your first attack, you have control over more than half of Hutt Space?”
It was Aayla who responded this time, raising a hand to waggle it in a so-so motion.
“Yes and no. First, according to the Hutt’s more complete records, there are actually 827 inhabited worlds in Hutt Space. Possibly with a few more we don’t know about in their core still. Second, controlling a world isn’t quite the same as you’re probably picturing it. A lot of the worlds involved aren’t stupid enough to fight, but are mostly giving lip service to the people who control the trade routes. More than that will take time and the establishment of non-Hutt governments.”
Izuku nodded and picked up from that statement with one of his own.
“Also, you need to remember that a lot of the worlds in Hutt Space didn’t like the Hutts. They just didn’t exactly have another option. No one has given them any sort of choice in thousands of years, and a lot of them are grasping the first chance they’ve had at any sort of freedom since before the Republic existed. A lot of the worlds we have ‘firm’ control of were actually taken by rebellions. If admittedly ones supplied and trained by the League. But it was still locals that did most of the work. We have ‘firm’ control of those mostly as we’re offering protection from the consequences of those rebellions.”
Padmé looked even more unhappy now, and quite a bit conflicted. It was hard to argue for diplomatic options when you were talking about freeing worlds that had been living under oppressive rule for longer than your own planet had even been settled. She didn’t say a word, but everyone there, even Sabé who had no access to the Force, could sense her internal war between reality and ideals. Kindly deciding to offer a suitable distraction, Aayla grinned and asked a loaded question.
“So, what do you two think about the new bunnygirl-inspired uniforms that the Senator and her minions had settled on? Do you think they’ll rock the fashion world back on Coursant?”
Ah, yes, the instant flood of embarrassment with just a hint of both arousal and horror was likely quite a relief for poor Padmé! At least in comparison to what she’d been silently struggling with moments before…
… … …
Padmé slumped into the incredibly comfortable lounger in their new ‘VIP Guest Quarters’ aboard the Sovereign of Tythe. The ship, a true battleship in size and power by virtually any definition, had the sheer internal cubage to waste on VIP quarters, and she had to admit that the opulence of them was enough to make her a bit jealous. Not least because it wasn’t over the top. There were no ridiculous displays of wealth or power here, just stupidly well designed and ridiculously comfortable furniture and seriously advanced entertainment systems.
Even the full-dive VR immersion system that was included in the room was something she’d seen available to rent aboard Tythe Central, the only reason its presence was opulent here being that it was a private-access system. Apparently, even for the clearly advanced tech base of the League, full-dive VR systems were expensive to manufacture. Private ownership of them, rather than using them in ‘VR Cafés,’ was well into the realm of a luxury item, with even basic models running similar to the price of a decent speeder. Nor were they honestly quite as immersive as the setup they’d experienced at The Virtual Delve. VR immersion didn’t duplicate the feeling of actually using your muscles, and missed out on a lot of other minutia despite the programmers best efforts.
It was still ridiculously fun, though, she had to admit. She and Sabé had both spent a bit of time playing with the system. Sabé had thoroughly enjoyed its recreation of swoop racing, and Padmé had to admit the ‘Zero-G Amusement Park’ module was a favorite of her own. Enough so that she might have spent a little bit of time looking to see if real examples of that existed. They did, as it happened, though they were apparently rare even in the Core. Tythe, disappointingly, didn’t have one yet. Though she wouldn’t be at all surprised if it did get one eventually. The VR version was quite popular, so far as she could tell.
None of which touched on what was on her mind at the moment.
It was…unpleasant…to be reminded that even her most idealized possible view of the galaxy, one that she honestly couldn’t say she still believed in, had stopped at the edge of the Republic’s borders. Admittedly, her younger and more naïve self hadn’t really grasped that idea that the Republic wasn’t the entire galaxy yet. Which, to be fair, considering how large the Republic was, she could legitimately forgive her fourteen-year-old self for not really having factored into her worldview yet.
What she found harder to forgive even her current self for was the failure to consider the fates of those who resided outside the Republic. She still believed it was possible to fix the Republic itself. It had problems, certainly, but it had once been a shining beacon of civilization, and she had to believe it could become so again. That the efforts of many factions, from the Chancellor’s to her own, could eventually cut out enough of the rot to fix the abuses that led to things like the invasion of her homeworld.
But what about those people who’d never been part of that civilization?
Izuku’s point that some of the worlds being ‘freed’ had literally been oppressed for the entire 25,000 years since the founding of the Republic was…painful. Not least because, no matter how she turned it over in her head, she couldn’t see a way to improve life for those people without violence. The Hutts had outlasted everyone else, even the Republic itself in some ways, given that the modern version could only tenuously claim connection to the Republic that had existed prior to the New Sith Wars. The Hutts weren’t going to turn over a new leaf now, not by argued reason or even threat of economic consequences. Which meant the only way to free those people living under their oppression was through military force.
Something that she’d spent her life believing was barbaric and unnecessary.
Somehow, Padmé didn’t think she was going to sleep easily tonight. Possibly not any night for quite some time to come as she attempted to work out just how much of her worldview was actually viable, even as an ideal, and how much was a delusion where she was willfully refusing to see the galaxy as it truly was…
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A/N 1: Ah Shaak, don't worry, you're just the first of many, many Jedi to have odd reactions to Zavra...
A/N 2: Poor Padmé. Unfortunately for her, her worldview is frankly moronic and unsupportable within a reality like Star Wars. She'd fit in better in Star Trek or a Superhero world. Star Wars is pretty much a Death Universe, not even just a Death World. It can't really be fixed without judicious application of ultra violence.