SCI-FI FRIDAY

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MANDALORE

THIS is the last piece for this story. I haven’t finished writing it, and I won’t be getting to it until I’ve finished my serial THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY. If you’ve joined my Substack just for this story, then please, be patient. I WILL get to it, I just have too much on my plate at this moment. I have to do a reading for my STORIES AFTER EIGHT.

I do want to get back to this story, but there’s a lot involved here. I have it placed specifically where it is on the timeline, so it doesn’t interfere with an of the other stories out there. I’ll have to reread and research what there is out there, and then work around things. I love doing that kind of stuff though. That’s why I’m wrapped up in my serial right now.

Anyway, this is FREE, like everything I WRITE, except my serials. I don’t offer a lot in my PAID section. I offer more in my FREE section than I do in my PAID. All I give you in my PAID section, is one chapter at a time. That’s it. If you decide to go PAID, you’re doing it because you believe in me as a writer; you believe that my story is worth — get ready for it — 8¢ a day. My PAID section costs $30 for the year.

AUNJAALI…sister-in-law of Dax (Taken form a picture on PINTEREST)

CHAPTER 8 (Part 2)

OFFWORLD

“They’ve been spotted in the Northern Quadrant, Kiosa District,” Master P’oh said, rushing into a room in the Great Hall where Dax sat at a computer console searching for more information.

The Great Hall was a four-story chamber directly beyond the Temple’s Main Entrance. Built along the lines of the Great Temple of Coruscant, it was a meeting chamber made up of tiers and balconies, where pillars lined the hall and passages, and stairways led to smaller chambers. Several banks of turbolifts led into the depths of the Temple, as well as the spaceport above.

“He’s shot down three SecuroCorp speeders.”

“Where are they headed?” Dax asked.

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t be out there if he didn’t have a plan. He wouldn’t risk it. Master Setti’s sent three Jedi to intercept, but I can’t help feeling something’s wrong here.”

“Can’t we go ourselves?”

“It’s too far. We’ll never get there in time. We were lucky there were three Knights in the air.”

“So all we do is wait?”

“There’s nothing else we can do.”

“Can we monitor them?”

She smiled at him. “We should be able to. SecuroCorp has cameras on every building.”

She moved toward the computer console and Dax leaned back out of her way. He watched her fingers flying over the keyboard, and in a moment they had a live feed of the chase through the city.

“Can we talk to the pilots? I don’t want them shooting at the Droid and killing Semoline.”

“They’ve been ordered to force it down.”

“And how do they expect to do that? They’ll never get close enough.”

They watched the Droid take a long, looping turn, and just as suddenly four reverse thrusters ignited in the front and the Droid dropped down a hundred meters as it came to a complete stop. A moment later, the jets ignited and the Droid slipped in behind one of the Knights and opened fire.

Master P’oh gave a sharp intake of breath as she turned away from the screen.

“Master? Are you alright?”

“Two Knights gone in as many days,” she said softly. “So many dead.”

“There’s another ship coming in,” Dax said.

“That’s how they’re getting off-world.”

They watched as the loading ramp dropped open and the War Droid flew inside. A moment later, the ship left atmosphere, and there was a flash of light as it jumped into hyperspace.

“We have to get a fix on its last position. We can calculate where it’s going,” Master P’oh said, pushing Dax to the side again as she keyed in numbers on the keyboard.

“They’re going to Mandalore,” Dax said without a thought; Master P’oh stopped typing and looked up at him.

iv

Azanza Fisk paced the wide expanse of his room, trying not to look at the holograph image of Rev sitting in an oversized chair looking bored, and his wife Aunjaali, sitting in a smaller chair beside him. He knew they were trying to ignore him, but he could still sense them watching him. He told himself it didn’t matter what they were thinking—it didn’t matter what anyone was thinking—not anymore. Rev and his wife were going to sit in on the Jedi negotiations no matter what, Rev told him, adding that because the Board members were concerned about the events on Taris, it was in the Guild’s best interests. It was simply a matter of business, Rev had said earlier, and that was what had started him pacing.

He found it ironic that his son was dictating terms to him, but it was something he told himself he’d take care of when he left Taris.

This has nothing to do with them.

He wished it were true, but a nagging doubt in the back of his mind told him Rev would use this moment to make his move against him. The fact that his own sister was being used as a bargaining chip made little difference to either Rev, or his wife,  and that was the part that bothered him. It was exactly what he would do if he were in Rev’s place. He would have contacted the other partners and told them his father was in no condition to make decisions, and he would’ve been right, Fisk thought.

I am in no condition to run things. The only thing that matters to me now is Semoline. If I lose everything to gain her back, it will have been worth it to me.

It wasn’t a matter of ‘doesn’t he see that?’ Azanza knew very well that his son understood what was at stake. The difference was that he was willing to accept the loss of his sister for the sake of the business.

He looked at his son and wondered how Rev would react if his children were threatened.

There was a knock at the door and Azanza was grateful for the distraction. He opened it manually, pushing the button on the console beside the door without even asking who it was.

What if it’s him?

He’d spent most of his life guarding himself against possible threats, and now when it mattered most, it didn’t seem important to him. He’d fought pirates in his youth, banded against smugglers, had even faced down the Hutt cartel, and won. His dealings with the Sith went back years, and all the while he found himself becoming more reclusive because of the enemies he’d accrued—or were they business partners?

“Father,” Dax said, stepping past him and into the room.

Azanza looked at Master P’oh and nodded coolly, not liking the Twi’lek. She’d spoken to him at length yesterday—she’d spoken to everyone—and when she left, he had the sinking feeling he’d been unable to convince her of his innocence in the affair.  She hadn’t come right out and told him she thought he was lying, but it was there, in the way she spoke to him.

He didn’t completely hide the truth from her; she didn’t need to know everything, so he wasn’t exactly forthcoming.

That’s how you conduct business, and if this is anything, it’s a business deal.

There was a third man with them, and Master P’oh introduced him as Jedi Grand Master Setti.

“My son and his wife will be sitting in on this if you don’t mind,” Fitt said, looking at Grand Master Setti.

“A family affair. How quaint,” Master P’oh remarked.

“They will be representing the Guild in this, as the Board feels I’m too close to the matter.”

“That’s not what we discussed earlier,” Rev said quickly.

“And what does the Star Merchant’s Guild have to do with any of this?” Master P’oh asked.

“It’s a matter of protocol if you will,” Rev said softly, looking at her as if he was gauging an enemy across the boardroom. “The Archangel crash landed on the surface of an ecumenopolis we’ve had dealings with for a number of years. There were a great many losses and compensation will naturally be paid. While not insensitive to the issue, we simply hope to—not oversee the investigation—but see it through to its logical conclusion.”

“And what sort of conclusion would that be?” Master P’oh asked.

“That the ship was under attack by a Sith extremist who was acting alone for reasons unknown to anyone at the time.”

“But we don’t know that,” Dax said, speaking up for the first time.

“Is that because the Guild has no desire to pay compensation for losses sustained at the crash site?”

“You make it sound so…crass,” Rev said with a smile.

“Evasion has long been the habit of certain galactic enterprises,” Master P’oh said with an icy tone.

“I don’t know if I like the inferences you seem to be making,” Rev said calmly.

“Inferences? They’re not inferences. I’m merely pointing out simple facts.”

“Unsubstantiated facts are not facts, Master Jedi,” Aunjaali said, speaking for the first time. Her tone was cool and aloof, as she reached a hand out to her husband as though she were trying to rein him in check.

“We’re not here for this, Master,” Dax said, looking at Master P’oh. “We need to know what it is this Sith is after,” he added quickly, and Azanza felt a surge of pride that Dax should simply blunder into the conversation by stating the obvious. There was no mistaking what was important to him.

“I told Master P’oh yesterday—as I sure she would have told you—he wants a page of manuscript I picked up some time back.”

“I need to know what’s on the page,” Dax said. “It might give us an idea of where to begin our search.”

Azanza shook his head. “I can’t believe Master P’oh didn’t tell you. He said he’d make the trade on Mandalore—”

“You said nothing of the sort,” she said, and looked at Grand Master Setti as if to voice a complaint. The Grand Master simply held a hand up briefly and she fell silent.

“No? I thought I did. Perhaps I assumed you read my mind.”

Fitt turned his attention back to Dax.

“I know he’s going to Mandalore; it’s what’s on the page I need to know. We can’t let him have the page if it’s what we think it is.”

“And what do you think it is?”

“I can’t tell you that because it’s—”

“It’s on a need to know basis,” Master P’oh said.

“And I don’t need to know? That’s my daughter he has, not yours—not that you’d know what it means to have a child—but it seems to me that he doesn’t want you Jedi involved in our negotiations. I tend to agree with him. I plan to give him what he wants, regardless of what you think. That’s how negotiations work.”

Dax looked at Grand Master Setti and he nodded briefly. Azanza smiled to himself. The old man may have appeared disinterested, but it was obvious he was the one in charge.

“We think it’s a page of Sith Alchemy,” Dax said.

“Maybe if it was written in Basic, I might be able to tell you what it says.”

“I’m sorry, Father, I can’t accept that.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Rev said from his seat. Dax looked at him and smiled.

“Rev.”

“Why can’t you accept that he doesn’t know what’s written on it? I’ve seen it. No one can read it. It’s faded, for one thing, and it’s ancient Sith writing from a couple of thousand years ago.”

“Why can’t I accept that?” Dax laughed. “Would you agree to buy something from a dealer who told you it was a Sith artefact, but sorry, he doesn’t know what it says? No. Only a fool would buy something under those conditions. Are you saying our father’s a fool? The selling point would be knowing what it was, and trying to be the first to translate it. You say you saw it. Where? Was it in a display case? Or did he have it on his desk surrounded by a dozen books trying to figure out what it said?”

He looked at his father again.

“How much of it were you able to translate?”

“Not much.”

“A word? Two words? A line?”

“Oh, more than that,” Azanza said with a note of pride. He looked over at Rev. “Almost half.”

“Almost half? And you didn’t think it was important enough to tell us that?” Master P’oh asked. “Maybe you should stop playing us for fools.”

He looked at her dismissively. “You didn’t ask.”

Dax looked at his father and shook his head slowly. He looked over at Rev who turned his head and stared out of the huge floor to ceiling windows.

“Why won’t you tell me? All I want to do is save my sister, and yet, you tie my hands. Why? Are you afraid the Sith might come after you? Well, I’m sorry to tell you this but they already have. Only instead of coming after you, they’ve taken my sister—your daughter. I’m going after her. And the manuscript. I would have preferred to be the one who delivered it for you, but I can see you have your own ideas about what you should do. If you don’t want the Jedi to help you, we can’t force you, but you have to understand what’s at stake.”

“What’s at stake! You don’t think I know what I stand to lose? You just don’t get it, do you? None of you does. You think the Jedi are the one true power in the galaxy. You dismiss the Sith and tell us they’re the bad guys. You seem to forget that they won the war. They destroyed the Jedi order and it’s taken you a thousand years to recover. You’ll have to excuse me if I put my trust in them, instead of you.”

“And yet,” Master Setti said, speaking up for the first time, “you believed in us enough to give us your son.”

“That was his mother’s doing—her and my father.”

“Still, you’ve lived your life in the Republic, rather than siding with the Sith Empire. You’ll trade with them, and sell their goods for them, but you don’t trust them enough to join with them. You don’t find that curious?”

“Maybe it’s time for you to leave?” Aunjaali said quietly.

“Yes. Maybe it is,” Dax said.