Chapter 54: Putting the Pieces in Place

Summary: Things start to snowball just a little...or perhaps a lot?

*Warning* Chapters 52-55 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you catch them all!

Chapter 54: Putting the Pieces in Place

-Late 27 BBY – Orbit of Tythe-

It had been months since the first meeting of the now officially named Liberty Council. An utterly overblown name, for the time being, but one that also wouldn't be shared about until it had more relevance. For the moment, the average member of their faction only knew that still tiny Council as High Command, which was functionally more what it was for the time being at any rate. Far more widely known was the name given to the faction as a whole, the League of Free Stars. The Free Star Federation had nearly won out, and there was still some grumbling over that.

Given that the most common use of the federation name was the Trade Federation though, there had been quite a bit of argument against it. Likewise, while many had wanted to call it the Free Republics, Galactic Freedom League, or any number of other variations of that theme, most of the names had issues. Either they wound up sounding more like a terrorist movement, which they most certainly didn't want, or they would potentially piss off the wrong people. The Free Republics, for example, would both be a thumb in the eye of the Galactic Republic by implying it wasn't free, while also being technically inaccurate for the system of government existing on their only currently-controlled world.

For that matter, their plans being what they were, they didn't expect to be able to form up democracy so easily on other worlds. Not because they didn't want to, but because the structures simply weren't in place to support something like that. A good example being the chaos that the Jedi Order was still dealing with in the Karazak System. The League of Free Stars, be it ever so slightly pretentious at the moment, was the best compromise name they could come up with for the time being, though the name might well change in the future.

Now, Izuku stood not in a conference room, but overlooking the largest spacedock in the Tythe system. The orbital shipyards had grown at an amazing pace over the last two years, Mei's own designs for improved yards being supplemented by Mobile Shipyards purchased from Dac and Rendili. Even those mobile yards underwent major overhauls to add some of the massive automation improvements Mei had insisted on, but their skeletons had helped expand the yard even faster than the thousands of Hatsume-class droid construction drone-ships were already managing.

Aayla was with him again, having recently returned from running a decoy mission of sorts to keep up her half-fiction about searching out Force related sites. She'd visited an abandoned Jedi temple on Iktotch that had turned up nothing, then had slightly better luck at Kabus-Dabeh. There she'd found an old Sith temple, which she'd forwarded information on to the Jedi Order, but which showed no signs of having been active even as recently as the Sith Wars. Still, it was more than enough data to keep the Jedi satisfied with her running off hither and yon, without too many questions. Meanwhile, Izuku and the new Council had put the time to good use in getting more of their proverbial ducks in a row.

The latest of which was visible just out the window.

"She's damn impressive, Tervo. Her shakedown went well?

Shil Tervo was looking proud as they all looked out over the fruits of his team's efforts. It wasn't technically the first ship he'd produced. He had decided early on that he needed to get his team some seasoning and test some of Mei's new ideas. For that, he'd chosen to update the old Hammerhead-Class Cruiser design that had been in their databases. That ship, even updated, was only a frigate by modern standards. But it was a good frigate, particularly with some of Mei's new ideas implemented. It was already under full production at multiple yards, with Tervo's team having moved on to the ship he'd originally been commissioned for. The first of which was now hanging below them in dock, being worked over.

"Better than expected! There were issues, of course. She's an entirely new Capital ship design. Even with the budget you gave us and Miss Hatsume's many time-saving ideas, there are always issues with any new ship this complicated. I have to admit though, that the first full shakedown with the Volition-class went far more smoothly than I'd imagined. As irritating as she can be to deal with, Hatsume really was right about how much we apparently cripple ourselves by not using AI for iterative design."

Izuku suppressed a laugh at the fond irritation in Tervo's voice. The man had wildly conflicting opinions of Mei. He utterly loathed how chaotic she was, while at the same time utterly delighting in the half-random stream of near mad-science level innovations she regularly turned out. Many of which were incorporated into the 850-meter heavy cruiser floating in the dock they were overlooking. A ship which very noticeably didn't resemble any known major design anywhere in service. A completely original creation, which showed quite a bit of more of Mei's unique design flair than any of their other ships.

There was none of triangle shape of modern Kuat designed ships, nor the rotund bulk preferred by Rendili. No organic lines like the Mon Calamari, or incredibly stupid looking designs like those of the Trade Federation. Instead, the basic concept that Mei had originally hashed out had been kept. It had the lethal looking swept wings of a hawk or falcon in flight, mixed with the look of a hilted dagger. All of it touched with a very Cyberpunk aesthetic that had to have been a deliberate choice on Mei's part. Painted black, with all of its lights a blazing neon-cobalt blue, the ship made absolutely no pretense of being anything other than a warship.

It bristled with guns, many of which were not the standard turbolasers and quad-cannons of typical warships. Nor were the wings only for show, each of them flaring out as a way to protect two hangars carried as part of those heavily-armored wings. The relatively stocky width of the ship made its 850-meter length misleading. Its actual displacement allowed it more than enough space for four squadrons of fighters, plus shuttles and landing craft. Added to the fact that Mei and Tervo had given zero fucks about the armament restrictions on Republic capital ships, and the ship would have to be considered superior to any battlecruiser ever built. All while its frankly ridiculous armor, shield and engine systems made it incredibly tough and far faster than any other known ship of its class.

It's dangerous lethality, and the fact that they would have dozens of them under construction the instant the design team was happy with their corrections, made a cold smile spread across Izuku's face. The galaxy was in for a very rude shock in the not-so-distant future. Particularly with the other operations that were being planned to kick off the start of the ambitious campaign that had been Izuku's goal from the start. He wondered, sometimes, if Master Tholme had truly realized just how far Izuku was willing to escalate, back when he'd pointed out that others had tried and failed at using this method to make a difference before.

The pieces were all in place now. All he needed was a little time…

... ...

"Alright. That's the last piece. All that's left now is to let the shipyard assemble itself."

Izuku nodded, leaning back and arching a bit in his seat with a yawn. Since they were moving towards their end game now, it had been decided to reposition IES-Beta. Previously located on a scrap world, making precision parts they could ship off and sell for basically pure profit, it had been decided that function was no longer needed. The truth was that their various business operations were now so sprawling and lucrative that the amount of material they could make this way was a relatively minor contributor. That was particularly true with the increasing industry of the Tythe System having been overhauled by Mei to produce nearly the same quality, almost as cheaply, from raw materials gathered by a mining iteration of her Hatsume-class automated construction ships. The Tythe system had multiple other stellar bodies, along with a nearly untapped asteroid field, to tap. Plus, making the goods legitimately only made them easier to sell.

Instead of using the IES to essentially print wealth, they'd decided they wanted a second IES-based Shipyard. The IES-Zeta yard had grown massively since they first built it, the IES itself having been provided enough power and material to grow substantially, all while building a shipyard of truly stupendous size around it. The IES-Zeta yard was now capable of producing two dozen frigates, three of the new Volition-class cruisers, and one of their 1,200 meter evacuation vessels per month. All while keeping up with all the needs for smaller ships like corvettes and carriers.

By transitioning IES-Beta into a second shipyard, they were planning to free Zeta up from making the smaller warships, and eventually stop it from having to make the liners and other support vessels as well. Doing so would easily double, possibly even triple, the warships they could get out of it. Even if, right now, they were honestly having more trouble crewing those ships than anything. Though there, years-old preparations were beginning to turn out officers, pilots, gunners, and other critical staff in mass numbers. All while new variations of Mei's combat droid designs were also produced as crew. Those had mostly been outsourced to some unhappy techs that had been working for other droid design firms. Which hadn't exactly been hard to find.

The galaxy's current droids were mostly a horrible joke compared to the likes of what had once been possible. The chance to work on serious droids again had lured in quite a bit of talent, and the result were naval droids based on Mei's original designs that could and would easily fill most low-rank positions aboard their growing fleet. They were not going whole hog and deleting as many organic crew as possible, nor were they relying on networked bots without a lot of individual processing power like the Trade Federation and Techno Unions used.

Instead, they were producing genuinely high-quality bots produced in mass by both IES-Alpha and a few more normal assembly facilities on Tythe. With the IES producing the processing cores that would have been prohibitive to make otherwise, then adding them to bodies made by other facilities. They then took the finished bots and put them under the command of trained officers. The same hybrid approach that they'd adopted for their fighter wings, applied to larger ships in different ways. It still reduced organic crew needs to barely a quarter of what would normally be required for most Capital Ships of similar sizes. Which, in turn, freed up more internal space for better shields and bigger guns.

Frankly, given Izuku had foreseen the need for lots of trained people and put the necessary programs in place years ago, it said a lot that they were still barely keeping up with the needs of the rapidly expanding Navy. Mostly, it said that they'd had even more success than they'd imagined on the construction side. Which was probably a good thing, given what they were planning…

"Well then, since we have to stick around for a bit at least to make sure it all deploys properly…why don't we have a little fun?"

Aayla's voice was seductive as she flowed up out of her seat. Already not wearing much, since this trip had just been the two of them in order to keep a lid on the new shipyard location, the small bits of cloth she was wearing were soon on their way to the floor. Grinning, Izuku chased after her as she exited the cockpit with a deliberate strut…

... ...

Celeste rolled her eyes as her 'apprentice' layered more and more ridiculous fantasies of what the guards had been up to in the poor bastards minds. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact they were Hutt enforcers, she might have felt bad about some of the more creative excuses. Allaya Djo was, after all, quite talented at mixing illusion and mind arts to make someone really believe what they'd been up to. It was an admittedly useful talent for a Shadow, though she'd been wary of helping the girl develop it at first. Too much chance for abuse.

Thankfully, Djo had mellowed quite a bit over the last couple of years. Exposure therapy to the real galaxy had rid the Dathomiri woman of a lot of the more…unpleasant…bits of her own society. Something thankfully helped along by the fact her particular clan had been highly progressive by most standards of her world in the first place.

As it was, Celeste was simply grateful she'd ended up with an 'apprentice' that was quite capable in helping her do her work. She'd found a few trails of Sith, though all of them too cold to follow far. Now, however, she had willingly set aside her self-appointed task of hunting the modern Sith down. For the moment, at least. She'd get back to that task soon. The sheer scale of what Sage Midoriya and Knight Secura were up to made spending a bit of time helping with their goals and worthwhile endeavor. Particularly since the Force seemed to practically sing when she went about her current task.

Specifically, the task of locating where, exactly, the Hutt's squirreled away all their mothballed fleets…

... ...

Master Fay stared into the distance at seemingly nothing. Minutes ticked by, time mostly a mute concept to her in the moment, as she communed with her Patron. Few Jedi ever realized that there were quite a few more Force Entities running around out there that their archives told them about. The Five Priestesses, The Ones, a few dark semi-conscious entities that used to be ancient Sith, and quite a few more besides. Fay had met several in her centuries of wandering. But it was the Daughter who she had ended up connecting with. Something which had, completely without her knowing it would happen, elongated her life quite a bit.

She didn't regret it.

While other Jedi might have felt constrained by the intermingling of their nature with the Light to the point that violence became outright difficult, it had been a good fit for Fay. Fay had not been inclined toward violence even before becoming the Daughter's Champion, said entity's only means of interacting with the world outside the Ones self-created prison. She had learned no more of the blade than absolutely required of her by the Order of her day. She had, in fact, considered the lightsaber a horrible and unfit weapon for the Jedi. An uncivilized weapon, from a more barbaric and wild age. Suited only for harming others, when a Jedi had so many better tools to disable a foe without needing to lop arms off! Even a blaster, so long as it had a stun setting, was a preferable option. One that even a child could use. But no, plasma blades without a good non-lethal option were somehow the best choice for an order of peacekeepers. An irritating contradiction that had seen her throw her saber away moments after being made a Knight. She had used it as a can opener, for a little while, just for her own amusement. But had eventually decided even that was impractical.

It was an attitude that admittedly found her very disoriented by the eagerness of the Force for her to aid young Izuku and Aayla. Not in their initial healing, of course. Though unusual to be called to specific people rather than whole planets, she had been more than happy to help them through their issues. Her confusion had come from how strongly the Force reacted to the Displaced Hero that was Izuku. His morals were quite palatable to her, in many ways. The home he described one she'd have liked to see. Yet, the Force's eagerness to push the young man towards violence had been disconcerting. Even given where that violence was aimed.

Yet…even communion with the Daughter, difficult but possible for her after so many centuries of service, had sent her feelings of acceptance. That, despite everything, this new path was a lesser darkness, even if it would be dark still. Fay didn't understand. But, in truth, she was long past her youth when understanding had been something she required. She would take it on faith and continue to smooth away issues that the young man and his lover were unaware of. She doubted they would ever realize that, for inexplicable reasons, the Force and her Patron had pulled her hither and yon across the galaxy, helping hide and amplify the actions they were taking. It was very odd, something that had never happened before. But she would obey the call as she always did. This time…

"A world of deep, sucking mud, with a core of metal. And somewhat to the Galactic North of Hutt Space, instead of South of it where they have been operating. How very odd. Not too far from Ossus, I think. Perhaps I'll have a chance to stop in and have another chat with Master Bnar when whatever needs doing is done?"

Fay shook her head, even as she stood to check her yacht's extensive maps. Far more extensive maps than virtually anyone else had. Even the Order itself, most likely, given how often she'd ended up in strange places by strange means over the centuries. She would find this world from her most recent visions, she was sure. Though…

"I wonder why in the galaxy the Force thinks I need a business suit? Most peculiar…"

... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: I'm wasn't happy with their faction name or the name of the Council. There's a reason I specifically left myself with an out of sorts, where it mentions the names might be changed even in-universe. A few Patrons have suggested better options since then, but I'll wait a while before they change in-universe, to make it seem more like a natural progression. If I recall correctly, that happened with the CIS, with them having been originally called something else first?