Warlock of Yavin

[Ashin Varanin]

“You realize, though,” she said, “that the only ‘long run’ case where they wind up as competitors is when they start sharing a border. And to do that, the Mandalorians would have to lose a few more fights. Maybe quite a few more.”

Ember grimaced and sat back, folding his arms over his armored chest. “Not hard to do with Strider and Garrus gone. Not hard at all.”

“The Garons are blowhards.”

He shook his head. “Rough, brash, but good men. Loyal as dogs and twice as tenacious. I’m not pleased with whatever sent them packing. What clan was it? Tal’verda? Dem’adas? Skirata? No, it wouldn’t be Skirata. Ordo, even? Or some of the newer ones?”

“From what I hear, it was a lot more complicated than just a clan argument.”

“Well, it’s a shame regardless. Remind me to drop Strider a line. Garrus, too. We fought together on Myrkr and a couple of other places; we go back a ways. Not close, but close enough.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Alec nodded and made an actual note in the holoterminal. “Here’s to hoping they show up if the strategic situation gets desperate. If Manda’yaim gets invaded again, for example.”

“That would take more, what’s the word, audacity than we’ve seen from the Primeval so far. I mean, sure, they’ve gobbled up the old Sith worlds, bloodied the Sanctum’s nose, and carved a chunk off our border. But they have to know that every retired ori’ramikade in history would come out of the woodwork if they hit Manda’yaim. We’d get everyone from B’arin Graad to – Force, your mother might even show up to something like that.”

“I doubt it.” Alec’s mouth twisted as if she’d eaten something sour. “She’s off getting the Pale Blade from her clone boytoy, same as always.”

“That’s not entirely fair, Alec. Your mother may not be everyone’s idea of-“

“Stable?”

“-but she’s a former Mand’alor. She’d show up if she was able.”

“Sure. Right up until someone mentions the name Mia Monroe. Then she’s gone. Nobody holds a grudge like Mom.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Alec stabbed the display and pulled some new files up. “Let’s talk killing things.”

“All right. What’s this?”

“Plan for a new ship. Kind of a ship, anyway.” Alec’s voice lost some of its tension. “It’s more of a mobile spacedock, heavy frigate scale, keyed to take light freighter traffic.”

“That hull – that’s not all havod, is it?”

“The lower part’s durasteel. Something about the resonant frequencies and the engine angles – bottom line, it may be ugly but some smart people call it a solid design. Put one of these near every Gordian Reach intersection, now that we’ve got the forewarning network, and we’ll have Arceneau- and Silk-style waystations, plus the ability to get gone long before hostiles arrive.”

“What’s the payoff for the clan? Protection fees, fuel, supplies, docking fees, tariffs?”

“Any or all of the above, but low. This report here…” Another file blinked to life. “…looks like a planet-by-planet projection of trade revenue. Same kind of report that’s Silk’s bread and butter, all up and down the Mara.”

Ember squinted at the holodisplay. “That’s a lot of data on a lot of worlds.”

“Cousin Mordec put together a summary on this one. Here we go. Look: here’s the three best places for a pilot project. Not hard to jury-rig a mobile waystation, even in advance of production.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

“And we’d be selling these?” Ember asked.

“That’s what I’m thinking. Half the Mara Corridor’s waystations and small yards are pre-Gulag designs, I know that for a fact. That works in the Outer Rim, sure, but if Mordec’s team thinks we should push forward with this design, I think selling to Silk’s a good option. And if Silk shows interest, you know Arceneau will at least sniff around, even though some of their trade stations are mind-blowingly good.” Alec flipped a holopage and scrutinized it. “Turns out Cousin Mordec agrees, more or less. He’s got his heart set on the clan going galactic, and these mobile waystations were probably designed with that in mind. I’m seeing propagation analysis for the local section of the Perlemian, the Corporate Sector, the Tion part of the Mara – lots of data, yeah, but it might be useful data.”

“I’ll have to spend more time with it. Get up to speed.” Not that data had ever been his strong point, but he’d rarely found much he couldn’t wrap his head around if he sat down and turned everything else off. Quantum physics, philosophy, women, modern Jedi decision-making processes: that was about it so far as exceptions went.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

“What’s the latest word from Cousin Oren?”

Oren Beorn wasn’t a blood relation in any serious way, but then most of the clan wasn’t either. ‘Cousin’ was just the general appellation. “Still spreading the good word on Tash-Taral,” said Alec. “I’ve got transit numbers here somewhere – there we go.” A graph rose to the top of the holographic miasma: a jagged line whose mean curve rose slowly. “Some to Dathomir, some to Port Shardrock or Yavin Eight. We’re not putting them to Vjun postings just yet.”

“Smart.”

“Maybe not. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. We’ve played it safe so far, but I’m halfway tempted to post more of them to Vjun and see what’s under the surface. Which ones go bad and how far.”

“Seems like tempting fate to me. Ruin too many good people to root out a few bad apples. But we can revisit it later, maybe doing something more targeted.”

She took that well enough, and he didn’t sense any resentment at having her idea shot down. Alec was growing up, and not just because she’d spent so much time in the Chiloon Rift and faulty temporal shielding that she had no idea how old she was. From his reckoning, she’d been born fourteen years ago, or maybe more, but she’d lived twice that. A lot of time missed, but somewhere along the line she’d grown up, with or without him.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

“The bigger question, of course, is how we treat the Dark Side of the Force. How much leeway we give our Vahla cousins now that their numbers are growing.”

“You know I don’t like the Dark Side and I very much don’t like the religion of Vahl.”

“I know.”

“But the standard’s the same for everyone: what’ll get you in trouble is your actions, not your thoughts. Civvies start turning up with burns after barfights, we’ll have words. Apart from that…who am I to judge?”

Alec chuckled. “There’s another note from Cousin Vesta somewhere in here. Kind of a manifesto on Vahl’s continued existence and farsight capability. Recommendations for ysalamiri shielding…”

“Force, but that woman has too much time on her hands.” Ember grimaced. “It doesn’t mean she’s wrong, though. There’s a reason I keep this place hidden in the Force. Vahl’s real for sure, probably a strong spirit bound to a place, like Exar Kun was. And even if she’s not, Darth Isolda is. Between Keetael tricks and the Mirr, I can pull off some pretty good farsight when the mood strikes, but Isolda’s on another level, and I wouldn’t put it past the One Sith or the Ember of Vahl to train up some folks her style. She is to farsight what I am to arm-wrestling, let’s put it that way.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Alec snorted in disparaging amusement. “So what do you intend to do about it?”

“Other than the Fallanassi glamour around the Lost City? Not much I can do. Apart from assassinating Isolda, and that’s just not practical. Even on the off chance I got her, who knows how many other seers they’ve got. When I go for a walk-“ His term for using the Mirr, the ancient artifact that enhanced farsight. “-and take a look at One Sith territory, there’s other minds I brush up against, and not nice ones.”

“So you’re looking at them and they’re looking at us. Glad to know you’re balancing their, uh…is this SIGINT or HUMINT?”

“VAHLINT.”

“Nice.”

“All right, what’s next?”

“Well, we’ve been looking at diminishing returns from adding weather-witches to the Corusca mining crews. Think we’ve saturated it well enough at two witches per prospecting ship.”

“Any troubles with getting’em to work on ships?”

“Some, but we just rotate them back to other postings. There’s always more Shardrock folks to take their place. They’re a progressive bunch anyway. Plenty of’em grew up around ships, and even with the time they spent on Dathomir, turns out they’re acclimating well.”

That was about as expected. Ember leaned back and scratched his chin. The armor wasn’t that uncomfortable after all.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

“Let’s go back to ships for a bit.”

Alec scrolled through the holofiles. “All right. Production or deployment?”

“Give me the deployment updates first, then we’ll talk production.”

“We’re still on mixed crews: Mandos, witches, Vahla, others. All members of the clan, all keeping the resol’nare more or less. Aliit’gam for everyone, and the Rekali aliit’gam is on its way in. As for numbers…here’s the ship chart by orbital and system. Cousin Bresh marked the changes for you.”

It looked like decent coverage: Mandal Hype patrol ships filling the gaps between fleet elements, some set to defense, others on aggressive acquisition duty. Only against preferred targets, of course. As for the defense fleet elements, a mix of Rekali and Mandal Hype ships, they seemed to add up to respectable gun count and quite a bit of speed. Rapid-reaction forces, some of them impressively strong. The clan had done well for itself. “I don’t see the Coronet on here.”

“Allyson Locke’s in the wind. She checks in every now and again. We don’t count her for defensive deployment.”

“Fair enough. I…” He shook his head. “Yeah, fair enough. I’ll try and get in touch with her. I’m flat-out awful at keeping tabs on folks. Some bounty hunter, I know. Color me regretful for so much water under the bridge.”