Wild Space

Sparrow waited a few minutes and when no one else volunteered he said “I will.”

Obviously Sabine had been waiting for this because she immediately shot back, “You can’t, you’re the house ruler.”

“I sincerely hope you’re kidding.” He said, deadly serious.

“No, and there are good reasons, before you get all huffy.”

“Sparrow, think it through,” said Jith.

“Jith, with all due respect how about you all think it through, we literally have a direct copy of your mind sitting right there,” pointing at Akira, “Someone for the love of all that is holy please explain to me why she is not in charge instead of a 17 year old?”

“Because she doesn’t want to be, I never wanted to be in charge.” Said Akira. “I would have always another who was more qualified for the role take over so I could just be the armorer. That is the role Talwin, Caleb, and I have been training you for for years.”

“Wait, what?”

“You never noticed all the extra, personal training we gave you? You have been showing leadership and integrity since you came out of swaddling.”

He dropped into a chair in shock, looking back on his entire childhood with different eyes.

“All right, while Sparrow processes lets talk about what is going on. For those of you who don’t know Sparrow has been using me to get into contact with Bo, first to warn her and those near her about the clones and then to contact her about taking this battlecruiser off his hands.”

“Wait,” said Kitten, “Why are we not keeping this thing, it’s super cool.”

“Because it’s a giant bullseye painted on anyone out here who has it. This thing could pose a legitimate threat to a star destroyer, there’s no way the remnants aren’t coming after it.” Said CJ as Caleb and Jith nodded.

“That was almost word for word what Sparrow told me. I passed that along as well and she asked me a bunch of questions about him and what I have seen and heard him doing out here.”

“It was the Legion thing that really caught her interest though. It was pure genius. A way to hide mandalorians in plain sight, so to speak. One of the big problems we have is that we are so easily recognizable. If we can set you up out here as a completely separate group, it gives us options later.”

“Competing group Sabine. We need to be in competition for jobs, for recruits, you know, rivals.” Said Sparrow.

“I see. So we get Bo and Jith to put the word out that they want info on this new group.”

“Yep, make it obvious right off the bat that we are at odds. The sizes of the two groups should give people a good reason why we aren’t going full at each other, but, maybe down the road we set up a few rough and tumbles just to keep folks thinking.”

“Sounds like a pretty good plan, Bo is on her way with a prize crew to pick up the ship. I let her know that you admired the Gauntlets so you never know.”

“Unfortunately even if she does bring me one I wouldn’t be able to use it, I think we need to carefully disassociate ourselves with anything obviously mandalorian for a while, both to set up our deception, and to provide some cover for the culvert. Sooner or later the extra folks will be leaving and I’d hate to see them endangered.”

“Fair enough.”

“While we are on the subject,” Akira mused, “I think this armor we are wearing should become legion standard wear, at least until we can get a forge set up and make our own.”

“I was thinking that too, CJ said, if we are to pose as a military force than uniformity will aid in the deception.”

“We can stick with the two options, at least. I think the fact they are from the same company is uniformity enough. We also need to decide on how to make it look more personalized. Good thing there’s an artist in the room.” Sparrow grinned at Sabine.

Cell and Rook had been having a quiet, whispered conversation for a few minutes. Cell finally decided to share.
”I think we need to put it to a vote before my clan, but I can see the advantage in the hidden house approach. Not only can we shield people within it and hide our numbers, if we keep a sufficient fleet on hand we can be a surprise force to defend our people if the worst should happen.”

“Don’t forget the best part Cell, if we do our jobs right and no one is the wiser, than we are the logical group to approach for an attack on a group of mandalorians.” Tao gave an evil grin.

“That’s true!” Rook laughed, “and very clever.”

“For right now we need to concentrate on taking out these cloners. Something about this is causing my trouble bump to itch. I am also hoping this attack will finally net us the lab we need to get a handle on this genetic issue.”

Miley spoke up. “I know what needs done, I just need the lab and the time. Once the immediate danger is gone we can look into more moderate and safe ways to do genetic repairs and upgrades.”

“We clones could use a better aging fix, the one we have access to works, but doesn’t reverse damage. Also we can’t give it to the children so they still age at double speed. If there is some ways you can help us introduce some variations in appearance that would be really helpful too.”

Miley made a couple of notes. “Would you still want all male births or would a mix be better?”

“A mix would be amazing if it could be done.”

“I will certainly look into that as soon as I can.”

“The scout we sent to probe the target system should be returning at any time now, we should get up to the bridge and get ready.”

“Thanks everyone. Hopefully this next bit goes more smoothly than our standard.” Sparrow shot out as he headed to the door behind Chess.

As they headed for the bridge they passed many of Chess’s clone troops but also a daunting number of droids. After a few hallways of this the clone commented. “These synth friends of yours are truly amazing, had you considered allowing some of them to head off with any of us other groups?”

Sparrow found the question so shocking he stopped dead in the middle of the passageway. After a second his brain caught up and he started to walk again.

“The honest answer to your question would be no.” He said slowly, “but that is because they are sentient beings and I don’t have the right to tell them what to do, where to go, or how to get there.”

“Oh! I thought the synths answered to Omni and he answered to you.”

“Not really, actually Omni hangs more with Kitten, I mostly get stuck with Deux.” He heard Deux give him a raspberry in his head.

“Ahh, so we can try to recruit then?”

“Sure, but try to leave me one to help get us to our destination please. And try to get Deux first.” He said with a smile.

Duex just made indignant noises.

By the time they reached the bridge the take from the scout was already being uploaded to the system. When Sparrow got a look at the cloners vessel he just let out a deep sigh.

“You know,” he drawled, “way back when we were escaping the imperial lab Deux told me i had terrible luck. How do I keep finding antique battle ships?”

“There’s actually some good news,” said Ahsoka. “That’s not a battleship, it’s a droid command ship.”

“So more computer doodads and less guns, that is a win for us.” Sparrow sarcastically commented. “Who has the plan?”

Everyone looked at him.

“Seriously? OK, how about we go in and ion cannon the snot out of that thing, which should disable the defenses and the droids, and then we send a bunch of our small ships over and make pain on the bad guys?”

“Brilliantly said Commander.” Chess replied, somehow without an audible trace of sarcasm.

“That will really work?”

“Well, they did stop using them in the war, mostly for exactly that reason. I actually thought they had all been decommisioned.”

“And we don’t want to pull a Skywalker,” commented one of the clones, “the number of life signs on that thing could be scary.”

“A Skywalker?”

“When he was 9 years old Anakin Skywalker singlehandedly destroyed a CIS droid command ship by skidding a naboo starfighter into the hanger bay and firing a missile into the deeper part of the ship.”

“There is one complication.” Said Chess as the view rotated and showed yet another of the pirate corvairs docked to the massive ship.

“Do any of us actually like pirates? I mean, enough to take a tactical risk to save them?”

After a few seconds of silence Sparrow said, “Then we time the attack for right when that thing starts leaving and then we hit it with some of our many, many guns.”

“Many, many, Aye Aye Sir.” Chess commented with a laugh.

“Does an ion cannon affect the synths?” Toa asked.

“No, not any more than a human.” Was the answer Deux gave that Sparrow relayed.

“Then, if we can discover how, we can dock one of the pirate corsairs we have there and get an advance team in to scout and to do damage assessment.”

“Me, you, CJ if he wants, three synth volunteers, any others?”

“I’ll go.” Ahsoka said, “I’ve certainly spent enough time in one of those things.”

“There’s no need, this time it isn’t actually your fight.”

“It’s everyones fight, I’m in.” She insisted.

“Count me in too.” Sabine forcefully stated. “I haven’t blown anything up in a really long time.”

“Well, just remember we do hope to salvage a lab from that thing.”

“I’ll stick to targeted destruction then.”

Chess said, “I have a couple of ARC troopers who just love this stuff.”

“Alright, but let them know, and everyone else please keep in mind, if any of the three of us start bleeding, back away quickly, do not render aid under any circumstances.” Everyone nodded soberly.

“Now, lets set this up. While the synths transfer over and ransack the computers lets gather up all the prisoners and place them on the decoy, if anyone has to get trapped on that thing I can’t think of better candidates.”

It did take a bit to rearrange the personnel and gather the data on how to contact the cloners for a delivery. It turned out that the pirates served as the go-betweens. Some sort of deal had been worked out between the pirate leaders and the cloners. They still dealt with the same faces when they commed though.

Omni did the voice and face thing again and set up another delivery to the ship. It seemed much more relaxed this time, which Sparrow marked down to the number of times the cloners had dealt with these particular pirates.

Sparrow took Deux, as expected, Domi tagged along with Tao, and CJ did volunteer and brought Trey. They gathered in the hanger preparing to transfer over. Sparrow finalized the plan with Chess. They decided it would be less risk to begin the ion cannon attack virtually as soon as the ship docked, because that would distract the cloners from catching on.

Once everyone was in their places they jumped for the cloner ship. The plan was for the Centurion to follow as soon as they signaled the docked pirate ship had detached. It was only about a minute in hyperspace. Sparrow took a few deep, calming breaths and waited to drop back in.

They came into the system fairly fast, and closer to the target than Sparrow really felt confident with. This thing was big.

Deux now worked the comms, carrying on a conversation with both the cloners and the other pirate ship. He found out they’d be undocking in just a minute or two.

He heard the cloners comment on the size of the load this time and was reassured that he had made the right call in risking the pirates.

Sure enough, as they calmly approached the other pirate ship detached and the signal went out to the Centurion. Sparrow started counting down in his head.

They docked without issue and Sparrow and Tao went to open the upper hatch. They exchanged a final glance and nodded to each other before they opened it up, the count in Sparrows head ran out just as he cleared the hatch and saw a man in white supercommando armor staring at him and getting ready to react to the intrusion.

“Deux, I hate to ask but we need a read on that guy, I think he’s the link to Bo.”

He felt the symbiote slide out of his skull and down his sleeve, exiting into his hand. Just as the alarms started blaring he whipped the symbiote at the guys helmet.

He looked at the rest of the workers and guards in the bay then and got a sinking feeling in his stomach. Everyone there was in heavy armor and looked intimidating. The place was packed with some kind of battle droids.

He started moving towards the nearest group when he heard a horrified Domi. “Those aren’t droids.”

“What do you mean they aren’t droids?” He asked as he watched the way the armored figures moved in synchronation. “They sure move like them.”

“Sparrow, this is bad. These creatures are the prisoners the pirates have been selling. The bastards are turning them into the control systems for the droids.”

Sparrow thought back to the skull cap things on the cloners they had talked to and he got it. He didn’t like it one damn tiny bit, but he got it.