Chapter 89: Geonosis
Summary: Alarming discoveries...
Warning! Chapters 88-92 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!
Chapter 89: Geonosis
Shaak felt her lips twitch, only half-heartedly suppressing a grin as she watched her Padawan exit their ship in her new armor. That armor was, at least at first glance, virtually identical to what they had used for the 'prank' on poor Senator Amidala. The 'bunny ears' and purely decorative fluffy tail had, at least, been replaced. The functions of the ears were now contained in a small sensor suite that rested between Asajj's shoulder blades, along with the sensors themselves that were distributed around the armor. Additionally, the amusing young inventor that had made the armor in the first place had gleefully added some additional functionality. One of which Asajj put to use now as the armor shimmered for a brief moment, shifting colors to a camouflage pattern that would help her Padawan virtually disappear against the desolate red-and-brown wasteland of Geonosis's surface.
It was, she had to admit, a useful ability. Useful enough, in fact, that she'd let herself be talked into taking a holosheath device that could do something similar with projections over her own outfit. It had meant leaving her normal elaborate robes behind just this once, in exchange for a much tighter style that the device could work with, though they were at least a style of robes rather than armor. She had to admit she'd almost been talked into taking a similar armor set. It had been shockingly comfortable despite the 'titillating' nature of the design. Not to mention that its capabilities had been almost disturbingly impressive even when it was only a prank. Let alone the refined set that Asajj was now wearing.
In truth, Shaak had only resisted the temptation due to the discovery her official Jedi status been quietly reinstated by the Order.
She understood why Master Windu, possibly with Grandmaster Yoda's assistance, had done so. Snippets of news had reached her before they'd left on this mission, revealing that the Jedi Order had unexpectedly gone on the offensive against numerous previously untouchable groups within the Republic. The 'why' had taken her only a short while, and a few exchanges with Jedi who hadn't been in the Tisht system, to decipher. Apparently, the Veil of the Darkside had waivered for a short period during the height of their assault, causing a large number of Jedi to receive flashes of insight the likes of which hadn't happened in decades.
She wasn't entirely sure she liked what it said about the Order as a whole. At least those who hadn't 'taken vacations' to join the Hutt Crusade. That it had required direct visions of from the Force to get the Order moving so decisively was a bit…off putting, to her own sensibilities. Yet they were moving now, and that movement had apparently calmed the building divisions within the Order. Enough so that the Master of the Order felt it possible to start subtly building bridges between those that had left and those that had stayed behind, without too much fear of backlash.
Whatever the reasoning, the result of that status reinstatement was that she felt the need to present the Order's more usual appearance, rather than exploring the admittedly intriguing armor. At least for now. Though, given the heavy combat she might eventually see with the Crusade, she had allowed the energetic inventor to take all the measurements needed for a custom set. Just in case. The fact that not doing so had felt a little like it would be kicking a charhound puppy, might also have something to do with it.
Shaking her head ruefully at that memory of momentary weakness, she pushed such thoughts aside and triggered her own camo system as she stepped off the ship ramp and it closed up behind her. Impressively, with the ramp now closed, she could only barely make out a distortion in the air. Though the feedback from her montrals was still telling her it was there. The brand new Toru II stealth ship, freshly named the Ephemeral Dream by her Padawan, was an incredibly impressive vessel. Asajj, amusingly, had insisted all the spacers said it was bad luck to fly on an unnamed ship. Its skeleton crew had cheerfully agreed and let the Padawan name it, saying she had a point.
Shaak herself was less superstitious, but could admit it was a decently clever name for the stealthy vessel. More important than its new name, however, was the fact that it had gotten them down to the surface seemingly entirely undetected. Not a small thing, given how many sensors and weapons platforms the recon ship had detected actively sweeping the system, the planet's orbitals, and even the planet's in-atmosphere airspace. Something that had only added to the oddities that were starting to stack up for her, beyond the fact that the Force was now nudging her in a way she recognized better than Izuku had. It had been doing so since the moment Ephemeral Dream dropped into the outer system and started creeping in, making her far more certain there was something important wanting to be found here.
"Well, Padawan, I believe it's time we do our part of this little mission. We have a fair way to travel to reach the Baktoid Armor factory, which I feel is our best starting place for any investigation. Trying to infiltrate the actual Hives on the planet, without a great deal more information, would be foolhardy at best. The Baktoid factory is, at least, meant mostly for outsiders. The fact it is a member in good standing of the Trade Federation only makes it more likely to be the cause of the unease here."
Asajj snorted at that.
"That seems like an understatement, Master, considering what Izuku and Aayla discovered they were building at the Nimban shipyards."
Shaak nodded, even as she began moving, setting a brisk pace but keeping to cover as best as possible as she responded.
"True. I admit my thoughts have been going in similar directions. After all, if they were building battleships there, what else might they be building? Baktoid builds droids here on Geonosis, so it might well be the source of the B1s that were being provided for those ships."
The pair fell silent as they picked up speed. They had a lot of hostile terrain to cover before reaching their target, and it might only be the first stop of many. Best to focus their energy on the task at hand, rather than waste it on idle speculation…
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It had taken three days for Shaak Ti and her Padawan to cover the distance between their landing site and the Baktoid factory complex. To most it might have seemed like an overly cautious approach to have landed so far away. They, however, had possessed the advantage of relatively up-to-date details on Geonosis, gathered by the League while looking for recruits to their cause. That information had outlined both the known political structure of the planet's inhabitants and, more importantly, the nature of how they lived. Specifically, in sprawling underground Hives that could cover city-sized areas or larger.
One such Hive, currently the 'Ruling Hive' of the planet no less, was situated near enough to the Baktoid Factory complex to nearly encircle it. Indeed, much of the factory complex extended down, below the surface, and into the Hive itself. Presumably for ease of access by the local workers. Thankfully, the factory also extended above ground and outside the known perimeter of the Hive as well.
The known perimeter.
They didn't exactly have explicit details, outsiders not being particularly welcome on the planet. Only the fact that the Stalgasin Hive also hosted the Petranaki Arena nearby, a location where even off-worlders could visit to participate in the local's bloodthirsty gladiatorial games, meant that a rough map of the Hive was available. It was enough of a map that, combined with careful use of the Force, they had managed to find their way into the factory complex undetected. It had only been possible with considerable care, effort, and the use of their camouflage systems. Though, ironically, it got much easier once they were actively inside the facility.
According to what little information they had, the surface facilities were mostly for off-worlders like the Trade Federation representatives, the locals not liking the metal confines overly much. That meant that it was only relatively lax Baktoid Security forces, rather than swarms of locals, who they needed to avoid. Something that was laughably easy compared to the seemingly random movements of the Genosians all over the surface. Said Genosians having an annoying habit of randomly popping out of caves or fissures to fly about for reasons not understood by the Jedi, or returning 'home' to hard-to-detect tunnels.
Now, having breached a secure server room of the factory, neither of them liked what they were seeing.
"Master, this…the sheer scale here…"
Shaak Ti grimaced. They'd immediately confirmed that the factory here was producing battle droids for the Trade Federation. What they hadn't expected was to discover that there were dozens of other factories under the surface of the planet doing the same thing. Nor, as Shaak opened a secure project file with judicious use of the Force to 'guess' the password, was that the only issue.
"Not just the scale, look here. Model B-2 Super Battledroids. Designed as a heavier weapons platform to work in conjunction with the B-1s. B-1s are stupid, flimsy, and only dangerous in mass numbers. But these things? They might be far short of the droids used by the League, but they would tear their way through most regular troops that didn't have the League's makeup and technology."
Asajj pursed her lips as she looked over the specs Shaak had pulled up, nose scrunching as she tried to imagine the specs in action.
"Tougher, for sure. Plus a fire rate that would be hard even for Jedi to deal with in numbers. Looks like they aren't in full production yet and cost quite a bit more, though."
Shaak nodded, but pulled up another file, this one showing a new factory being built.
"Yes, but they are building a factory just for them, and retooling a couple of others to make more of them too. That implies they already have orders for large numbers of the droids, and they are far beyond anything needed for basic security. Likely, their orders are from the same people ordering the B-1s…and building Battleships."
Asajj frowned.
"The Trade Federation? But why? Who the heck are they planning to use them on? This is far too much for a few individual planets, but far too little for the entire Republic."
Shaak Ti paused, biting her lip as a thought occurred to her.
"It is if this is the only place that's building them. But what if it's not? If Geonosis is just one world of a dozen, or multiple dozens, building up such numbers?"
Asajj paused, then paled slowly as she worked through the same thought that her master just had.
"That would…it would require an actual military to stop that, and the Republic doesn't have a ground army. Individual worlds might. But not the Republic. Which means they could conquer a lot of space, possibly even entire sections of the Outer Rim, before anyone could do anything. Are they insane?"
Shaak hesitated, wanting desperately to say yes, that it wouldn't work or that they were misreading the information and jumping to conclusions. Yet, now that she was here, with so much information added to the picture, the Force was telling her something very insistently.
"I think, Padawan, that they just might be. There's been a lot of discontent in the Outer Rim, long before the Hutt Crusade started. Worse, it wasn't the Hutts that were causing the discontent. It was the Core Worlds. And…"
The Sith were out there, somewhere. The Order had known that since Naboo. She was only just now realizing that the Jedi Order hadn't taken that fact nearly seriously enough. She remembered, all too clearly now, her galactic history. The Sith generally only hid for so long, before launching wars. A lot of the time, those wars had been relatively localized or targeted at their Jedi foes. But, on several occasions throughout history, the Sith had gone quiet for centuries, only to pop up with massive fleets and invade the Republic.
They'd been quiescent for longer than usual, so much that the Jedi had foolishly believed them to be wiped out entirely. Normally, at least a few would have popped up to go on a psychotic tears across part of the Republic every century or so. Usually they didn't get far before the Jedi brought their attention to bare and put a stop to whatever psycho had gotten his hands on a Sith relic of some sort or rediscovered Korriban again and gotten their fool self possessed.
Yet, there had been time where things went quiet for longer before. The Sith had waited three hundred years between Exar Kun's war and the Great Galactic War, for example. Worse, there had been a thousand year pause between the Great Hyperspace War and the Old Sith Wars, too. Which means that the Sith were manifestly capable of waiting patiently and building up, warring only within themselves while they prepared for greater conflict.
Was that what she was seeing here? Another possible round of the same thing? That didn't feel quite right, but it felt like she had a piece of a much greater puzzle. It also meant they needed more information, though. Information that might be found here on Geonosis.
On the other hand…
"I think this just got far more important than I'd ever imagined, Padawan. Too much so for us to attempt this ourselves. Neither of us are Shadows, nor trained Jedi Investigators. I think…I think it's time you were introduced to the larger Order. At least to specific members. Perhaps to a member of the High Council not on Coruscant at the moment. After all, it was Knight Narec's wishes that you eventually become recognized as a Jedi, and being officially confirmed as my Padawan would only help with that."
The suggestion was mild enough, but the timing was very pointed, particularly as Shaak started copying everything she could to an external drive. It would only be a fraction of the data here, there was so much. But it would be enough that, with the excuse of introducing Asajj to the Order, they could hand this matter off to someone more suited to a quiet and thorough investigation. After that? Well, it might just be more important than she'd realized that someone in the galaxy had a proper fighting Force ready. Perhaps the Force had possessed more than one reason to drive Izuku Midoriya and Aayla'Secura onto the path of their not-so-little Crusade…
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A/N 1: Not going to say much here. Other than 'no,' finding out about the Droid Army being built isn't going to stop the Clone Wars. Note that Shaak has only come to a partially correct conclusion here. That this Sith are involved, yes. But she's still thinking in terms of an extra-Republic threat. Or a Rebellion at most. In a way, these discoveries are actually helping Palpatine sell the idea he's going for. Though he still wouldn't be happy, since it's also going to mean the Jedi walk into things with their eyes far more open then they would have otherwise.