Chapter Thirty-Seven

Taylor had told HK-47 to meet her back at the Atlas once he was done having his fun. Which meant that when Asajj came back down from her meeting with the Gotal Assembly’s leadership, she had to mime to Asajj that they should head over to her ship.

On the way back, she questioned Asajj about what the sith had learned from the politicians.

It was difficult to piece everything together, but according to Asajj the Gotal Assembly for Separation denied all involvement with the Roshu Sune. Then they admitted that the Jedi were asking the same sorts of questions over on Antar IV.

“You don’t like Jedi?” Taylor asked. The woman’s tone didn’t make a secret of her dislike of the organisation.

“The Jedi are weak. They act like they are the masters of this galaxy, but they refuse to seize the power that is already in their grasp. They pretend to be just and fair, but every action they take promotes their own agenda.”

Taylor nodded along as she listened. She couldn’t understand a few words, but she was making sense of things. The Jedi reminded her a little of the heroes back on Earth Bet. Well-meaning, perhaps, but overly focused on certain parts of their jobs to the detriment of their own efficiency. “Are they strong?” Taylor asked.

“A Sith will always be stronger than a Jedi,” Asajj said. “They spend too much time trying to be unemotional, and they use the Force like a crutch, not like the weapon it is.”

“We probably won’t be fighting them, though,” Taylor said. “So it doesn’t matter how strong or weak they are in a fight. We need to win against them in a political fight.”

Asajj grunted. “Maybe. There’s supposed to be a whole Jedi team searching for the Roshu Sune on Antar IV. If we meet them, it will turn into a fight.”

Taylor frowned as she continued to walk. Eventually they made it onto a public hovertrain and Taylor took a seat in one of the emptier compartments. She had to move some gotal out of the way with her powers, but she made sure they were close to an exit in case they weren’t comfortable with her powers. “We see how the Jedi react once our plans start to make trouble with their plans,” Taylor continued.

If the Jedi were a group known through the entire galaxy, then they might be challenging to fight. She imagined that when they moved to a place to solve a problem, they did so with a decent task force around them.

She got off the train at the station nearest to the spaceport, noted the gotal police officers walking straight towards her, and sent a few bugs into their eyes before walking past. It seemed as though her power had caused some issues after all. She dismissed them for the moment. A local police force was a non-threat for now, not when she had bigger things to worry about.

“I think we’re going to fly to Antar IV,” Taylor told Asajj as they moved though the station and towards the spaceport. “As soon as HK-47 comes back.”

“And where are we going now? I’ve been following you blindly for half the day already.”

Taylor imagined Asajj was growing impatient. “To my ship.” She smiled at Asajj. The woman was... prickly. Very prickly, and Taylor had the impression that she had a mean streak to her than she hadn’t seen yet. So she wasn’t so sure about Asajj’s opinion on these Jedi. Her only other source of information on them was HK-47 and she took what he said with a grain of salt.

On arriving at the dock where the Atlas was parked, Taylor walked towards her ship, noting that one of her crew had set out some of the B1 droids to patrol around the ship’s exterior.

Smart. Which meant that it was probably Skarsk Nek’s doing. The Trandoshan was the most security-minded of her crew. Unfortunately, it was Xarly who met them next to the lowered ramp of the ship.

Taylor walked a bit faster, slipping him into her control range even as he was checking Asajj out and his mouth was opened to insert his foot into it.

She turned his head to look at her. “Go prepare for launch,” she said. “We going to Antar IV when HK-47 is back.” She made him salute smartly, spin on his heel, and walk back into the ship.

“Is your crew immune to your control?” Asajj asked. Or something similar. Taylor wasn’t sure if she’d translated ‘immune’ correctly.

“No,” Taylor said. “They’re just... used to it.”

She invited Asajj onto the Atlas and immediately headed towards their main holoprojector. Skarsk Nek was already in the room, cleaning a rifle in one corner. He eyed Asajj and the sabers at her hip for a while, but didn’t comment. Qarry and Xarly, meanwhile, were preparing the ship, only occasionally slipping into her range on the deck below.

“Okay,” Taylor said. She had had some time to think on the way over, and that meant she had the beginnings of a plan. The Roshu Sune had to go.

They were a destabilising influence and she didn’t think she could realistically curb their behaviour in a way that would help. Fortunately, the Gotal government was probably on her side there.

Turning to Asajj, she met the young woman’s eyes and nodded. “You will contact Dooku. Tell him that we need to tell the government here that we are... fixing their problem.”

“I don’t know if he has that much influence here,” Asajj said, her arms crossing.

Taylor shrugged. “Tell him anyway. Either we fix the problem, or the jedi do. Does he want the jedi to fix it?”

Asajj grimaced. “No. I suspect he’d rather not.”

“Good,” Taylor said. “In that case, once we have the... green light, we find the terrorists and destroy them. Then we make sure the people know that it was us who took out the threat. Maybe we...” she paused, realising she didn’t know the word for ‘film’, then she gestured to Tattletale. “We have droids look, to show people that we are the good ones.”

Asajj nodded slowly. “The weak masses will believe anything.”

“They believe it more when it’s true,” Taylor said. “I think Dooku wants people to know that we are better than the Republic. So let’s be better.”

A clunking sounded across the room, and a familiar form came to shadow the entrance.

“HK-47,” Taylor said. “Why are you covered in blood?”

“Speculation: It isn’t mine, therefore some fleshy organic sac of meat must have leaked it over my frame. Rectification: I will endeavour to wash this filth off of myself. I cannot imagine the olfactory assault is pleasant, master.”

Asajj sidestepped away from HK-47.

“Did you discover anything while accidentally getting covered in blood?” Taylor asked.

“Reply: Oh yes. I have successfully integrated several members of the terroristic Roshu Sune and have discovered the location of one of their largest cells on Antar IV.”

Taylor nodded. “How organised are they? What kind of resistance are we looking at here? Do they have any specific goals?”

HK-47 moved closer to the holoprojector and touched its pad for a moment. Soon enough, there was a new projection above it. A city, presumably on Antar IV. “Summary: The Roshu Sune are not nearly as organised as initially presumed, master, and their primary cell resides here, in the political district of the capital on Antar IV. Their leadership mostly resides near and within their base of operations as well. A tactical mistake.”

“And their goals?”

“Observation: They seem to wish the expedited arrival of separation from the Republic by means of sowing chaos and destruction on their own homeworld. I fail to see the logic, but it does track with the behaviour of less intelligent fleshbags.”

Taylor considered it. From the image she was getting... It felt almost like the Roshu Sune were a bunch of teenagers lashing out. They’d seen how the Republic was, decided that it was unjust, and then decided that the peaceful and political nature of the Gotal Assembly for Separation weren’t enough.

She’d seen and read of similar events in the past.

Hotheaded idiots, basically.

“We... are going to have to be very careful with all of this,” Taylor said. She didn’t want to be the spark that set off the keg here.

“Suggestion: I would advise that we act rapidly, master. There are Jedi on-route to Antar IV already. They are likely to run right into the Roshu Sune.”

And, of course, the world wasn’t going to give her the time to be meticulous about anything.

Taylor pinched the bridge of her nose and went over the situation again.

Dooku wanted her to fix things in this system, obviously in a way that made the Separatist movement look good. The Gotal Assembly was a political faction gaining favour in the system and they sided with the Separatists against the Republic Loyalists.

The Roshu Sune were an offshoot of belligerent teenagers who thought that violence would get them what they wanted faster.

The Republic had sent their heroes, the Jedi, to oversee and fix the issue.

The Jedi would likely pin the issue on the Separatists as a whole.

That was... unacceptable. But Taylor didn’t have time, or the ability to stop them.

So...

“I know what we have to do,” Taylor said as she opened her eyes. For a moment there, it had felt almost... meditative, to look at all her issues so simple. “We’re going to work with the Jedi and help them. Asajj, get me in touch with the Jedi coming here, we’re going to meet them when they arrive, and offer to help.”

There, that would fix everything.

***