Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 221

Ahsoka was the first to speak as we settled into our planning session. We had discussed killing Jabba the Hutt before, the two of us, back when she was still stuck in the old Jedi way of non-interference and stagnation. Now, her questions were a bit more reasonable. 

"Are we sure we should kill Jabba now?" She asked with a frown. "I recognize that he is a monster who propagates horrible criminal practices and that doing nothing is almost as bad as doing nothing… But should we not prepare first? Tatooine is the heart of a large criminal ecosystem. When it collapses, a lot of innocent people will get caught in the way."

"How would we prepare?" I asked, wondering what she was thinking. 

"Well… what if we installed a sort of puppet leader?" She suggested. "We could direct the ecosystem to less horrible practices while also preventing it from collapsing on top of civilians." 

I leaned back in my chair, contemplating the idea. It was perhaps a bit naive to think that an entire criminal enterprise could be directed to suddenly stop all the horrible things it was doing, but she was at least thinking in the right direction. I considered the effects for a moment before frowning and shaking my head.

"In order for that to work, our puppet would have to inspire fear on the same scale as Jabba, and that's not something we could do with a puppet, at least not at the moment. Besides, I don't want to be connected to a criminal Empire like that…" I admitted, shaking my head slightly. "...there still might be a way to help, though. If we stepped in and started recruiting people in the chaos, freeing slaves, and helping them get off the planet, we could at least partially stabilize a few cities. It would only be temporary, and we would have to spend some resources, but it would allow us to help shelter the civilians and get some new recruits." 

"Won't the Empire come down on us?" Julus asked with a frown. "I've seen what you said to Vader, Boss. I don't understand half of what you said to him, but I have a feeling he isn't letting it go any time soon."

"Vader would sooner donate a fleet of Star Destroyers to the Rebellion than ever step foot on Tatooine again," I said, shaking my head. "It's not impossible, so we will have to set up strict evacuation protocols and keep a close eye on fleet movement, but I don't think the Emperor cares enough to hunt us down, especially if I'm not there personally. Besides, all of that takes time, and we can pull out before it becomes too much of a threat."

"Okay, I get the feeling this operation just got a lot bigger," Tatnia said with a frown. "We better get some more people here."

We paused the meeting for an hour to let everyone else gather, before re-explaining the potential idea. After some discussion, we arrived at a new game plan. 

First, my team would be dropped off from the Chariot, far outside the sensor range of the planet's scanners. We would then make the rest of the trip on the Brick, whose sensor profile was tiny due to its small size and extreme modifications. The Brick would land in the desert far outside Jabba's palace, drop us off, and leave, heading back to deep space to be picked up. 

Once planetside, we would make our way to the palace while covered in robes and other layers to disguise our armor. Our first target would be any communication equipment around the outside of the palace before we would move in and slowly wipe out Jabba's mercenaries. The goal was to take Jabba alive at first so we could get as much out of him as possible before executing him for his many, many crimes. 

Once the Hutt was dead, we would activate a beacon to signal four small freighters, all of which were recently purchased and not connected to the Skyforge in the slightest. The freighters, who would already be landed on the surface, would travel to the palace, where we would fill them with loot and anything worth stealing. When we were done looting, we would climb onto the freighters and prepare to leave. Depending on how well we did sneaking around, at this point the entire planet is in chaos, or no one knows Jabba is dead. If it's the latter, we broad spectrum broadcast his execution, plunging his mercenary forces into chaos. Our four freighters would then attempt to use that chaos to escape.

If that proves impossible, the 3rd and 2nd Group would arrive to help "keep the peace" while also aiding in the freighter's escape. If the freighters manage to escape without their help. The 3rd and 2nd Groups would wait a much more believable span of time before arriving to assist. With the help of a chunk of our droid army, delivered by a few C-9979, we would pacify any city that is struggling, freeing slaves and allocating further Hutt resources to affected civilians. 

We would also be heavily communicating throughout this process that our presence was not going to be permanent, and that when we left again, chaos would likely return until a new leader for the criminal ecosystem arose, whoever that may be. 

It wasn't the perfect plan, and there were a few spots where, if something went wrong, our only option was to retreat, but I was confident we could make it work. 

Especially since we could always lay low and call in the Fury to cover our escape if we got desperate. Hell, if it came down to it, I would even order a skeleton crew to man the Venator and have that jump in as well. It wouldn't be able to do much other than look imposing and take potshots at distant targets, but that in and of itself could be a big deal.

Once our plan was set, we unfortunately had to wait a few days to get everything in order. Since this was no longer a simple blitz and bop type job, a bit of extra time was needed to make sure all the new steps worked smoothly. We spent a few days snapping up some emergency relief supplies to hand out as needed once Jabba was dead, and we gathered some volunteers to work on the ground with our droid forces.

While 2nd team would be our primary speartip, considering how large the droid army we planned on dispatching, we needed some more people to act as go-betweens. We also took a few days to sneak the freighters planetside, letting them disappear into the desert, waiting for our signal. After all, the more assets we had in place, waiting to go, the easier the actual job would be. 

All that meant we had some downtime, besides our own prep, which for me, meant it was time to work on my magic. In all honesty, over the past few months, I had been neglecting my magical studies. Not entirely, I was damn near a master enchanter now, with the time it took to make seriously empowered enhancement a fraction of what it was when I first started. I had also expanded my magical repertoire, completing all of the Apprentice level spells and most of the remaining Adept level, as well as learning an improved Conjure Familiar from Expert, beefing up my magical glowing tiger considerably. I also learned Rout, a fear spell that worked on more potent targets and was an AOE. 

I also spent a lot of time working up my efficiency and potency for each branch of magic, greatly improving my magical power for the spells I already knew, as well as decreasing their cost significantly.

The focus of this slight break was Unlock, a magic lockpicking spell. It was Expert level, from the Illusion branch, and I had put it off for a while because I had no idea if it would work with the high-tech doors I usually dealt with. I was pretty sure that in the base game, the spell was a custom thing you unlocked, and it was called something else, but to be honest, I couldn't remember. Either way, the reason I was learning it now was because while I wasn't sure if it would work with security doors and electronic locks, the temple that Jabba had taken over as his palace was ancient. I was much more willing to bet the spell would work there than it would anywhere else. 

Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to learn more magic than just one spell, especially as we started our trip journey to the Tatoo System, our destination far away from our final target planet, at the end of the day, I was rapidly running out of interesting things to learn. Thankfully, while a bit on the boring side, this lack of new topics wasn't all bad. While struggling to keep myself occupied, my lack of new interesting things to learn pushed me to start experimenting with the spells I did have, with the goal of creating my own spells down the line. 

Already, I had worked out how to crank the power on a few shock spells. Yes, it ended up almost doubling the spell's mana cost, but sometimes you needed a bit extra oomph, even at a greater cost.

When we finally arrived at the Tatooine system, we all piled into the Brick. Between my crew and Corvak's team, there were eighteen of us stuffed inside, making it a very tight fit. Our armor and camouflage only made it worse, so that even with the modifications done to the ship to make more room, we were still crammed in like sardines. We also had a commandos droid tucked into the back corner, ready to take over the role of pilot from Nal once we disembarked.

Worse still, the trip from our drop-off point and the planet was expansive, and we were forced to travel at sublight speeds, both because the Brick had no hyperdrive, and because a jump would light up any sensor board pointed in our vague direction. We took it slow, spending almost eleven hours inside the ship's small passenger area, switching seats and keeping ourselves busy as best we could. 

Personally, I was just glad our armor filtered our air because I couldn't imagine we would all smell good after that, even with the ship's air filters running.

Honestly, I was just glad we managed to make it to the planet without anyone starting any fights. We were all adults and professionals, but being stuck for several hours shoved in a small space, literally pressed against other people, tensions were bound to rise.

When we finally slipped into Tatooine's atmosphere, Nal carefully directed us towards the Northern Dune Sea, coming in on the far end of it, on the opposite side of Jabba's Palace. Once we found it, Nal brought us down nice and low, dropping our speed significantly as we made our way across the massive desert, stopping at about the halfway point to land.

After coming to rest between two large dunes, we all disembarked quickly, eager to stretch and spread out. I had been able to keep cramps and standing fatigue away with magic, but the trip had still taken its toll. We took a thirty-minute break so that everyone could collect themselves and recover from the ordeal.

Meanwhile, before the commando droid settled into the pilot's seat, Tatnia, Corvak, and I got a feel for our position.  Both of Tatooine's suns were just starting their downward movement as we slowly made our way to the top of our dune cover, our target far, far in the distance. From our dune perch, the palace and the mesa it rested on were nothing more than a thick line along the horizon. It would take us at least a day and a half to walk there, which would hopefully put our arrival on the following sunset.

We spent a minute confirming our location before heading back down to the cover of the dunes. Once our break time was over, we gathered everyone together.

"Alright, guys, this is gonna be a long walk, but comms are open for the first sixteen hours," I reminded them. "After that, we are going to have to go silent. Racer, use your repulsor pack sparingly, we need you to have plenty for when we arrive. Is everyone ready? Any last-minute issues?"

Once everyone confirmed they were ready to depart, I gave the BX droid in the Brick orders to leave, and the transport ship lifted off the ground and moved across the desert. Eventually, it angled up, quickly disappearing in the distance as it got higher and higher. Once it was gone from sight completely, I turned around and began walking, my crew following after, our boots digging into the sand as we slowly made our way across the massive desert. 

Very quickly, we set up a procession order. I ended up in the back, where it was much easier for me to spot people starting to lag behind and hit them with a Respite, washing away their fatigue and keeping them going. Nal and Vaz were next, walking with Racer between them. They were both our strongest members, even if Nal was on the older side, which meant they had a much easier time dragging Racer out of the dips or drifts he got stuck in. Next was Corvak, Tatnia, and Julus. Tatnia pushed forward because she refused to fall behind, and Corvak was too disciplined to fall behind, while Julus just wanted to keep up with his girlfriend. The rest of the Mandalorians were spread around, with Corvaks second in command not far behind him and a few others spread between us.

At the front was Ahsoka, walking in a near meditative state, reaching out with the Force to feel for life or danger. In just the first four hours of walking, we managed to avoid two different groups of hunting animals because she was keeping a mental watch out for us. 

Walking on the sand with heavy armor was more than exhausting, with my magic and the fact that our suits kept us at a cool sixty-five degrees the only reasons why this trek was even remotely possible. Even the glare from the twin suns worked against us, snapping against our helmet cameras, forcing its light protection to flicker on and off, making it hard to see and causing dozens of stumbles an hour.

It was also strange to see us all lined up and looking nothing like our usual selves. Each of us was covered entirely with cloaks and rags, all of them firmly attached, all colored like the sand around us. Pola and his team had worked for two days making sure that our armors were completely obfuscated and disguised as best as possible, even going as far as to create false raises and shapes along our armor with a temporary welded bit of metal, drastically changing our silhouettes. Underneath our camouflage and disguising cloaks, our armor was painted dark colors so that when we were shot at, it was harder to tell what was going on underneath.

Between the black, misshapen armor and the rags that covered them, we really cut an intimidating, almost creepy image, both groups walking through the desert, intent on our next target. I could only imagine what people would think as we tore through the palace, cutting through anyone who tried to stop us, seemingly unstoppable and unkillable.

I let out a breath and cast Respite on myself and a few others before once focusing on our distant target, steeling myself for the remainder of our journey.