Summary: The group makes their first significant raid against slavers...

Warning Chapters 29-32 were all published back to back! Make sure you don't miss one.

Chapter 32: Raid Event

It had been just over two and a half months since they'd been forced to separate. Which probably explained why no one batted an eye that Aayla was tucked into Izuku's side as they all sat around a table in the large prefab on Ossus that Master Bnar had been operating out of. The Neti Master, with the help of several dozen labor droids, had successfully managed to clear quite a bit of the old library. But, while the numerous treasures he had managed to uncover might well be important in the long run, it was the doings of the others that had really gotten the ball rolling on several of their long-term plans. It was nearly the end of the year, and in some ways all of them felt they weren't moving fast enough. Yet, the Force seemed pleased enough, and they had accomplished a lot.

Mei, in particular, was looking extremely pleased with the newest acquisitions that Aayla and Tholme had found them. One of them, a Koqus-Class passenger liner that had been refitted with some better shields and a pair of Quad Laser turrets, was present on planet. Though it was currently over at their makeshift landing facility near IES-Alpha, being scanned for possible replication. Their other acquisition, a Loronar Medium Transport, has already been thus scanned at IES Beta, their future shipyard, before the original had been sent on to New Cov. It, along with two of the HWK 290 freighters they'd already produce and a W-23 Star Hauler that their New Cov contact had acquired for them, would be the initial core of the Midnight Express's shipping.

Once, of course, they acquired enough crew for those vessels. As it was, they'd hired a skeleton of administrators, trainers and maintenance crew that were familiarizing themselves with the ships. Once they, hopefully, had their first wave of ex-slaves to put through their fresh start programs, there would be a place for them to go and ships for them to start using. At least in theory and assuming any of this actually worked the way they hoped. An older YT-1000 had been acquired by Celeste and Izuku while Mei was working on Zoh. They'd duplicated it already using IES-Zeta before they'd switched that IES over to production of trade goods.

The duo of YT-1000s they had made, plus the original, were deliberately a bit battered looking. For a good reason, as it happened. They'd been sent entirely under droid control to slowly salvage and ferry material from the Ship Graveyard to IES-Beta, where the Shipyard Complex was being constructed based on some admittedly fairly old plans Tholme had been able to acquire through his contacts. Those plans would need upgrading eventually. But it would be a serviceable enough start. All in all, they had acquired all the pieces they needed to get the gears in motion…save one little detail. A detail Izuku brought up after Mei announced her satisfaction with the new acquisitions.

"We don't have enough people. Particularly not with Celeste saying she'd going to have to leave to pursue that disaster the Force is calling her to prevent. Triply so since, for some bizarre reason, it's insisting she bring Mei along with her. Which is just weird, honestly."

Everyone nodded at that. Celeste and Mei didn't not get along, so much as they just didn't really click either. The Jedi Master respected Mei's abilities and drive but had a bit of trouble dealing with her…Mei-ness. Mei, meanwhile, had no interest in the Force and no real reason to interact with Celeste as anything but an occasional pair of extra hands for moving stuff. It had been more than a little difficult to even get Mei to agree to go with her, given that it would separate her from Izuku again. Ultimately, it had taken pointing out that the likely cause of the disaster Celeste was sensing was almost certainly something tech related need, if Mei was needed at all. Which might give her new and interesting things to pull apart. That had been enough to get her reluctant agreement. Though it was clear Mei still wasn't particularly happy with the idea.

Still, the fact that Mei and Celeste would be heading off in the Jedi Master's Shades of the Past, meant that they really only had Izuku, Aayla, and Tholme. Odd Bnar did not yet feel it was time to risk revealing his survival, and none of them had really disagreed on that point. Even if they'd intended from the start to begin small…three people was a bit too small. Not to handle the raid they were hoping to perform, given that all of them were exceptional combatants…but to handle the aftermath. Shepherding the slaves, piloting the two ships they planned to use for the operation, and so on. Thankfully, it seemed Tholme had anticipated the problem as he leaned forward and keyed the table's holoprojector. A symbol appeared when he activated it, followed quickly by a cycling rotation of personnel profiles.

"I believe I have at least a one-time use solution. Given long-term plans, it would be unwise to get them too deeply involved, but for this initial operation I've arranged for us to call on the services of a group of Antarian Rangers. More specifically, just a pair of Rangers, along with a handful of their support personnel."

Aayla shot upright, staring at where the small holo-projector was cycling through a set of eight dossiers. From what Izuku could see, two of them were titled 'Ranger' where the rest bore descriptions of either 'Transport Pilot' or 'Medic.' There were two of the former and four of the latter.

"The Rangers! I've never actually gotten a chance to work with them! Even if Master Quinlan said…"

Aayla trailed off. The wound of her former Master's loss was only a faint pain now, but one with a fresh echo after she and Tholme had tracked down his killer and brought her to justice. In some ways, that had provided closure. In others, however, it had only brought a reminder of his loss. Tholme politely ignored the moment of sorrow and explained for the others in the room.

"The Antarian Rangers are a small paramilitary group that was founded some six hundred years ago, with the specific goal of aiding the Jedi Order. They aren't a particularly well-known group, having little to no official recognition by either the Republic or the Order. While they aren't officially recognized by the Order, they are often so recognized by individual Jedi, some of whom work with them fairly frequently."

Izuku raised an eyebrow, admittedly curious about the group.

"Would that include you? And just what sort of things do they do?"

Tholme nodded.

"It does, in fact, include me. I don't engage with them as frequently as some Jedi, a few of whom outright partner with a small group of Rangers for extended periods. But I am known to them, having called upon their services to help with intelligence gathering on a number of occasions. The two rangers in this group are, in fact, two such individuals I've worked with before. They are aware of the clandestine and unofficial nature of much of my work, and therefore can be counted on not to reveal this as a Jedi operation."

The Jedi Master let that sink in for a few moments, before pushing on to the second question Izuku had asked.

"As for what sort of things they do, that depends on if you're talking about the Rangers themselves, or their support people. There are only around a thousand actual Rangers, and those individuals are, to a man or woman, extraordinarily well-trained and capable scouts and fighters. Actual full-fledged Rangers are occasionally called on by Jedi as scouts or squad-level paramilitary backup. Commandos with extreme all-terrain training and considerable stealth skills, effectively."

Tholme gestured at the holo as it cycled back around to one of the Rangers.

"The two I work with the most are more specialized in infiltration more than anything, though they are still capable combatants. Still, in this case, they will mostly be in charge of shepherding the other members of their group. The support personnel I mentioned are actually called upon by more Jedi than the combat-oriented Rangers, as their numbers include slicers, technicians, pilots, and medics. In our particular case, their medic training is particularly useful as many of them have been explicitly trained in how to handle victims of everything from natural disasters to slavery."

Celeste leaned forward, clearly interested despite her plans not to be involved in their first raid.

"That's actually one of the few intelligent things I've heard about the military or Jedi of this era. Such an organization sounds immensely useful. It's a pity it's so small…"

Master Bnar nodded along with that.

"It does sound rather like something that might have happened in our era. Jedi frequently had non-Force-sensitive companions. Though they weren't quite so organized as you seem to be implying. I take it their current small size is another victim of the current peace?"

Tholme shook his head at that.

"No. As I said, they are only around 600 years old. Meaning they came to be as a result of the Russan Reformations. They were created by a wealthy merchant friendly to the Jedi Order, when a Jedi of his acquaintance complained to him how hard the Jedi's limits on things like ships and combat hardware got in the way of doing his work. Admittedly, they've been shrinking in scope a bit in the last few decades for lack of Jedi willing to work with them, but they were never an enormous organization to start with. We may think of recruiting some of their ex-members, or current members with little to do, as trainers down the road. They've always maintained extremely high standards of both competence and integrity."

Izuku most certainly took note of that. If his half-formed ultimate plan, which he hadn't fully admitted the details of to Tholme, was going to work...a group with military background like that might just been an important piece of the puzzle. For now, though, it was time to get back to planning. He reached out to stop the holo-display from cycling and began going through the dossiers one by one.

"Alright. The use of the medics is obvious. But the pilots, do we want to assign them both to the Koqus-Class? Or should we keep one aboard the Wandering Fate, so that all three of us are free for infiltration and combat…"

The planning began in earnest at his question, with the group slowly winnowing through their possible targets and how to go about their very first operation…

... ...

Izuku dropped down onto the roof of the half-buried complex. Getting here unseen had required his ability to fly via telekinesis, which was apparently something that Jedi weren't really capable of. He wasn't quite sure why that was, though even for him it was pretty draining and he rarely used it for more than a minute or two at a time. Well, normally that was the case, at least. Here, with the gravity of the small planet they were on only sixty percent of Earth's, he'd found it relatively easy to sustain the three minutes he'd needed to cross the distance while staying in the facility's sensor blind spot. Now that he was here, he looked for the external maintenance plug in for the antenna array the slaver base used and quickly jacked his newly-rebuilt bracer into it.

He was no slicer, but he didn't need to be. Mei had brought the other end of the Quantum Datalink his gear used with her, and its other end was on the Wandering Fate. Since she'd also rebuilt a more armor-like variant of his old hero costume, it was merely a matter of connecting a physical datalink and letting it transmit. Despite it being halfway around the planet, the Quantum link meant the slicer-module-equipped astromech droids aboard had a real-time, high bandwidth link straight to the system…and these slavers weren't expecting trouble. The astromechs cut through the minimal, outdated security in seconds, giving them all direct access to the entire security system. They couldn't give it commands from here, the slavers weren't that sloppy. But they could certainly access all the camera feeds and security sensors...

With a few quick, sub-vocal commands, he accessed the base blueprints. Then the cameras. Using his untraceable link back to the ship, he bounced a signal to Aayla and Tholme, who were waiting roughly a kilometer out. All three of them had crossed the distance on speeder bikes. Then Izuku had separated had left his bike with the others to fly himself through a small gap in the base security, landing in his current position on the roof. A speeder would have been detected trying to use the gap. Izuku's relatively small body and minimal metallic profile had not been.

"Looks like we guessed mostly right. Slaves are all underground, in the North and West wings. I count around 50, plus a few in the base working under guard. Those will be the real issue. Along with the chip controls."

Aayla's reply was immediate.

"Chip controls shouldn't be an issue. The security room is on the top floor, East wing. As far as they could get it from the slaves. You can easily get in and take out the two guards there. Deactivate the exterior sensors and the chips both, then work as a pincer while Master Tholme and I come in from the West."

Izuku frowned.

"That's going to make it awfully easy for some of the slavers to use the handful of slaves that are working as hostages."

Tholme spoke up next, with an answer to that.

"My Force Cloak is much better than Aayla's. I'll go in first and situate myself near the working slaves. All of them are in the same area, cleaning out the bunks and freshers it looks like. I can secure them before Aayla takes out the guards on the main slave pens."

Izuku's face smoothed as he nodded to no one.

"Alright. That should work. There are only…I count fourteen slavers. I'll remove the two in the Security Room. Then, once you've dealt with the pair that are watching over the working slaves, I'll lock the doors to a master key I'm forwarding to you. That will isolate most of the slavers and let us take them systematically. No need to get fancy with this few of them."

There were quick acknowledgements from both of his companions, who started working their way around the perimeter on foot, closing to the edge of where they now knew the security ended. Izuku waited patiently for them to get in position, then jabbed his lightsaber into the roof and spun in a quick circle. He might still lack in combat ability with the blade so far, but as a tool he was quite comfortable with using it. Better yet, on the thin durasteel of the habitat module, he was through in barely two seconds, dropping down and freezing both surprised-looking guards in place with his telekinesis. He only had to hold them for another two seconds as he shot them in sequence with the stun setting of the blaster in his off hand. They slumped in his telekinetic hold and he quickly shifted them to the side of the room. Both were human, so they'd be out for hours, but he quickly applied zip-tie cuffs to them anyway. God bless Mei for reproducing zip ties. Seriously, they were just too useful.

Another application of his bracer's datalink, this time to the security console, and the astromech slicers easily disabled every slave chip linked to the system. The ships would still need to be removed later, but for now they at least couldn't be used against the slaves. An few seconds later, the sensors facing Aayla and Tholme were down as well and Izuku keyed his comm again.

"Sensors down. Chips disabled. Awaiting your signal for lockdown."

The instant he'd started speaking, he'd felt Aayla move. He didn't have the same ability to track Tholme. The man had already disappeared into a Force Cloak, which was good enough that Izuku doubted the sensors would even have detected him in the first place. But that's why they'd arranged a signal. Izuku would know when Aayla was in position, so the only signal required would be a quick double-click when Master Tholme was in position. Izuku possessed himself of all the patience he could, carefully monitoring the remaining twelve slavers' locations as he waited.

Five minutes later, the signal came, and Izuku triggered the lockdown. The instant he did, he saw both Aayla and Tholme drop out of their Force Cloaks on the security cameras. Tholme quickly stunned the two guards, a concession he'd made more to prevent traumatizing the slaves than for any care that the scum of the galaxy lived to face trial. Aayla had done the same on her end. Though there in the pens, four guards had been present and one actually managed to get a shot off. It didn't come remotely close to hitting her, as she'd felt it coming. But it was the best the slavers had managed so far. With eight of fourteen of them now out of commission, he somehow didn't think they were going to do a lot better. Though, the remaining six were alert now, having noticed the lockdown. Four of them were stuck in compartments. as for the other two…

Izuku grinned as he unlocked the security room door and floated for a few seconds above it, letting the two slavers dash in. They had just enough time to register their two unconscious companions, before he stunned them from behind. One of them was a Trandoshan and shrugged off the first stun blast, but not the three that followed it. Izuku grimaced and secured that one with more than just zip-ties. He only had two sets of heavy stun-cuffs on him, but the Trandoshan was probably strong and tough enough to break the ties. Telekinetically lifting all four of the stunned sentients, he quickly moved them to a storage room nearby and locked it just in case. No point in leaving them in the Security Room and courting a problem if one of them woke up early.

"Two more down. There should only be four left."

"Two. I moved the slaves down to the hangar bay and eliminated the ones here."

Izuku nodded at Tholme's response. That was a logical move, even if they hadn't discussed it.

"Go ahead and call in the cavalry. The remaining two are near me, I'll take care of them."

The older man acknowledged his response, even as Izuku moved to do just that. These last two would be prepared, but it was unlikely to help them much. He might not yet be confident in his ability to deflect blasters with a lightsaber yet…but as he ripped a convenient loose panel from the wall to use as a shield, he smirked at how little that was likely to matter. Then he frowned at his smirk, before the frown in turn shifted to a sad smile. Miruko really had been a terrible influence on him. In all the best ways.

Forcing the smirk back on his face and adopting a swagger that would have done her proud, he popped the compartment door's lock and sent his panel-shield in to absorb the initial blaster fire as it slid open…

... ...

The aftermath of their first successful raid on a slaver hideout had taken longer than the actual operation. At least if you discounted the initial scouting. The slaves were a mix of Humans, Adarians, five Wookies, and a single male Togruta. Izuku had needed a mental whisper from Aayla to identify the Adarians, but was proud that he'd recognized the others all on his own. Though, to be fair, he only recognized the Togrutian because of a certain memorable memory that Aayla had teased him with. Still, for someone who'd been in this galaxy for under a year, he figured he was doing okay on the 'recognizing alien species' front.

The Humans, Wookies, and single Togrutian had all been about what they'd expected. Spacers, captured along with their freighters, when they'd crossed through this section of the Outer Rim. The Adarians had been a bit more of a surprise, the slaver group having apparently gotten ambitious and hit a small mining startup. Sadly, they'd killed anyone not taken, so the Adarians were arguably in a worse spot than the spacers. There was also a suspicious and blood-boiling lack of females among the Humans, with a few quick questions having proven that the obvious conclusion was in fact, true. The females had been 'worth more' and thus culled out for more immediate sale. There was nothing they could really do about that, even with the records they'd pulled from the slavers' computers. At least not for now. The last shipment of 'culled' individuals had gone out weeks ago and had likely already been dispersed by whatever auction house they'd been run through.

Pushing through the helplessness he'd felt at that knowledge hadn't been easy, but Aayla had firmly reminded him that this was only the beginning. She'd equally firmly forced him to look on the positive side. They had freed 61 slaves in total. A small number, a drop in the bucket on the galactic scale, but a place to start. They'd also eliminated fourteen slavers, whom the Atarian Rangers were going to be dropping off at a nearby world that took a dim view of slavery. In truth, those were most likely dead men. But they'd at least get something resembling due process before being executed. Which was enough to assuage the part of Izuku that was still a Hero under any pragmatism he'd been forced to adopt.

As for the slaves themselves, they'd all fit handily onto the recently-named Freedom's Wings. The Koqus-class passenger liner had been acquired specifically for its ability to transport a decent number of people in reasonable comfort, without needing a large crew. The number of slaves was pushing its officially intended capacity slightly, particularly with the medics they'd brought along. Still, that intended capacity was for travel in relative luxury, so it was frankly plenty of room for evacuating slaves. As for where to take them…the presence of five Wookies had made that an easy choice. Kashyyyk was a bit farther afield than other choices, but it was one of several planets that was friendly to freed slaves. The relatively isolationist planet wasn't a place they could funnel too many through without irritating the locals. But a relatively small number, particularly accompanied by five of their own, wouldn't bother the Wookies any. Particularly not when they would be providing a few thousand credits to every ex-slave to get help them home, if they still had homes to return to…

... ...

Izuku took a deep breath as he looked at the two dozen slaves that had remained with them after the drop off at Kashyyk. He wasn't exactly comfortable as a public speaker…but he was literally the only non-Jedi they had available, and this wasn't supposed to be a Jedi operation.

"Hello everyone. I'm sure most of you have caught my name at some point by now. But, in case you haven't, I'm Izuku Midoriya. Unlike the Jedi that helped free you, I am a businessman as much as a I am a champion for freedom. I, as I'm sure you've been told if you're still here, do not believe these need to be mutually exclusive things. I provided my ships and personal assistance in the raid to free you…and my newest business venture is intended to provide something beyond just cutting you lose with nothing but your restored freedom."

Izuku paused, sweeping over all of them with a gesture.

"Like millions, more likely billions, before you…you lost everything when you were captured and taken as a slave. Giving you back your freedom does not fix that. A major gap in the systems that exist is that, once freed, a former slave often has nowhere to go back to. It is in light of this that I, in conjunction with a few partners, have conceived of a new type of business. One that is intended to help people like yourselves rebuild their lives. As you should already know, the first of those businesses is a Transport company called Midnight Express Limited, recently set up on the world of New Cov."

He wasn't telling them anything new, just putting his personal face to what they'd already read in the pamphlets they'd been given. Indeed, he'd already talked to some of the people here to answer questions one-on-one.

"The goal of the company isn't just to make a profit, but to do so in a way that makes the galaxy a better place. All of you are here because you either already have skills, or are interested in training to get skills, that will be of use to Midnight Express. Let me be absolutely clear, however. You are not under any obligation to complete the training, or even to work for Midnight Express. Our contracts on offer are only for those who choose to sign them after going through an initial training period. Our pay rates are intentionally set at five percent above normal for the positions you'll be taking. Just to make it absolutely clear that this is not an attempt to exploit you."

Izuku let his serious expression shift to a grin as he waved toward Master Tholme and Aayla.

"But, then, I think you all know that the Jedi would come down on us like a falling mountain if it turned out we weren't on the up-and-up. They are entrusting you to our care to get a new life going, after all!"

There was a smattering of laughs and several nods at that. While Izuku and the rest didn't want to trade on the idea of the Jedi being involved long-term. They had all agreed it was a reasonable way to reassure the first few groups of people. Once their program really got going, it would have its own reputation to do the heavy lifting. And, honestly, the Jedi Order wouldn't really have a problem with a couple of their own supporting something like this getting started. Not until well down the road, at least. By which point it would hopefully have been dissociated from the Jedi for the most part.

"Now. This is a new program. In fact, you are the first to be given this chance. So I have no idea what questions you might have. This is your chance to ask anything and get as honest an answer as I can give. So…have at it!"

There was a long few moments of uncertain silence before one of the two Wookies who'd decided to stay growled out a question. The translation droid they'd brought along quickly converted it to Basic for everyone else.

"Are you intending to actively go after more slavers?"

Izuku nodded.

"Fair question. The answer is both yes and no. Yes, I personally have a bit of a vendetta against the practice. I also have the money to make my vendetta a serious problem for slavers everywhere." His delivery of that line was so pointed and dry it got chuckles from several in the crowd, including the Wookie that had asked the question. "Yet, also no, if you mean will Midnight Express be involved in any raids. No. Midnight Express and the companies like it are a second chance. We don't intend to put the people working in such companies at risk by throwing them against slavers."

More growls, translated again.

"And if someone wants to throw themselves against slavers?"

Izuku's grin was sharp as he answered this question. It was one they'd hoped for.

"Why, I might just know where one can go to do that too…but only after such a person has gone through a psych evaluation. The people I know, as it were, aren't interested in taking people with a death wish on a vengeance quest. The goal is to free slaves, not to die a glorious death killing slavers. Of course, such a psych evaluation just happens to be part of Midnight Express's offer of employment, at the end of its minimum orientation period!"

The Wookie chuffed an amused growl at Izuku's innocently bright delivery of that line. And from the look in his eyes, Izuku was sure their more militant operations had just gained its first recruit. For that matter, at least two of the Humans and one of the Adarians had a similar look in their eyes. It might be a small start, a tiny stone moved in the raging river of the galaxy as a whole. But the low singing of the Force around him reminded him that tiny stones could sometimes trigger avalanches…

... ... ... 

A/N 1: Confession time. I'm 100% a ship nerd. You might have figured that out by now. I'll always give preference to at least trying to make ships ones that actually exist. At least until a point is reached that they start making their own designs from scratch. That said, there often isn't a lot of detail on the various ships. The Loronar Medium Transport, Koqus Class Liner, and W-23 Star Hauler all exist. But there isn't a ton of information on any of them. 

A/N 2: Confession time the second. I've always liked the idea of the Atarian Rangers and have long been disappointed how little they show up or are used. Since I wanted to make at least SOME action happen this chapter, I thought it would be a good time to introduce a few of them as well. This won't be the last we see of them...

A/N 3: I only mention this once per release, but my stories have a Patreon page where some early access content is available. In example, I just released chapters 33-36 of Displaced Hero there, giving it just over another 17,000 more words which will remain in early access until next month. Similarly, there are at least a few Early Access chapters there for ALL of my stories, though NONE of them are ever permanently paywalled. All fanfiction content I make ends up here (or on Scribblehub) eventually, as new content for each story is released. I've recently quit a side-gig job that was draining my soul out one metaphorical papercut at a time, and I'm putting the time I was using for it toward releasing a lot more content, more quickly. If you'd like to support me continuing to be able to do so (instead of having to find another side gig to keep eating), I'd appreciate your support :-).