Chapter 31: Where does one go from a submarine?
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***
The ship flew in the silent blackness of space, further and further away.
However, being on board the ship was not so scary, because I had at least Erdva, my constant companion and friend. The day after the jump into the unknown I spent purely mechanically doing repair work on the ship and thinking over everything that had happened. No, I was not an unfeeling cynic, but I had seen enough death, for example, the "Revolt Eve Classic" races, where more than half of the participants die.
It's one thing when some rubber face dies, who went into the heat himself, and another when an innocent, seemingly innocent, visit, purely for the press, ended in the death of someone close to me.
Meditations helped, but not for long - the desire to take revenge on the ghouls who had organised it never left me.
But even so - while I was fixing the holes, I had time to think about what had happened.
It started like this: a press conference, a bunch of guests in the open air, beautiful weather, the Duchess signed her document and smiled a charming smile for the cameras. And then I smelled danger. If the danger was for me personally, the feeling would have been different, more specific. What was my first assumption? A terrorist attack, bombs under the podium or one of the guests is a suicide bomber or murderer.
Then the alarm was raised and the guests were taken away from the podium and divided into groups, having gathered probably fifty guardsmen in power armour, who protected the guests and in case there was a scout, would have responded, but the danger did not diminish! Which means that neither the guests nor their location had anything to do with the danger.
What would I have thought? Of course, that at the very least, the whole place was going to blow up. At the very least, and at the very most, it would feel like that if the whole planet was about to explode, or if a dangerous virus or something like that was about to be atomised.
My first and most logical thought was to run. Smugglers have a reflex that's hard-wired in - whether it's a terrorist attack, an attack by little green men, or a death star shot, nothing gets you in hyperspace, especially when I'm steering the ship and ignoring gravity mines.
I did the right thing - whatever the enemy was planning, it was clearly not a targeted assassination, but at least a powerful bomb blast that would have damaged the entire palace, because the danger was general, not directed at anyone in particular.
Under such circumstances, I did everything that was required - provided evacuation to a guaranteed safe place - in hyperspace, but fate decided that playing with her dangerous business. Whatever the danger was to the palace and the guests, it was also present for me - it was a fighter. A confluence of circumstances. How the planet was infiltrated by a fighter jet, how a battle-ready ship was in the skies above Keldabe on the day of the press conference, remains a mystery. But surely the terrorists are not just eating out of their bellies, they can plan an attack.
For a while I was even worried about Satine - if she was killed, my position would be shaken, and I would lose the possible help that the Duchess had so recklessly promised.
But there were no answers, only a wrecked yacht and total blindness in the navigational instruments.
Some of the damage I'd mended by force, some I couldn't, but it was mostly decorative items like rare wood panelling or lights made of some large crystal.
The right engine had been ripped out, but since the engines on my ship were nearly the most powerful in the galaxy, I could keep flying on one, and I had two of them left.
The reactor, thank the Force, wasn't damaged, though only by a miracle, as the fighter's fire hit the back of the ship.
When I finished the job, I was mentally more or less functional and went to the cockpit to the droid. I left Erdv with the instruction to look for any traces of civilisation that could be detected with the sensor-radar armament that our ship had. Unfortunately, even the boat's powerful radar equipment did not guarantee success.
I didn't have time to taste the hopelessness - I was too immersed in myself for an indefinite period of time.
Still, I managed to find traces of civilisation - a few hours after the start of the next search, Erdva gave out information - it was picking up the signal of a hyperspace beacon, and on communication frequencies that had long been reliably outdated. The clever droid found the reasons for this quickly - he received the current Coruscant date and time from the beacon. It turns out I've travelled a hell of a long way!
- Erdva, are you sure? - I asked the iron man hopefully. What difference does it make now...?
- The beacon is transmitting information. It is the twenty-two thousand three hundred and eighty-second year of the founding of the Republic.
I would have swore in three or four languages, but I didn't want to. I guess the jump with the broken hyperdrive had put me really far away. I could have thrown it to Rakata, though, and he would have been fine with it. After I cooled down, I decided to think logically about how to get back.
- Do you have any idea how it happened? - I asked the droid.
- No. None. There have been instances of travelling into the future due to time relativity, but travelling back in time has never happened. Or rather, not recorded.
- And understandably, who in their right mind would tell...
- Perhaps, - the droid did not stay in debt, - the negative field charge on the circuits responsible for the non-relativistic flow of time inside the hyperdrive field had an effect.
Well, well, well... the complications were getting bigger and bigger.
- How much autonomy do we have?
- Three months, Captain. Then we'll run out of water and food.
- This is awesome! - I couldn't help myself. The credits that I had were not yet issued, and therefore could not be used. That is, I had no money that would get me out of any trouble. I had a ship, a droid, a lightsaber, a couple of blasters and a speeder in the hold, and of course, the Force. At least not with a bare arse, I hadn't come from the lowest of the low, from slavery, to grieve over my own situation! I had a ship, although the backup hyperdrive was first class, now, in this time it was a relic, as far as I knew, second class was a rarity now, let alone first class, I had a droid that could do a lot more than its iron counterparts, after all, I had weapons and freedom of movement! What else do you need for a happy life?
For a happy life, I needed to go back to my own time. I had to go back to my time and show those assholes who killed Ali that I was no Jedi, and if I was, I was no saint!
- Erdva, what's our location?
- Half a light year from Mandalore.
- Mandalore be damned. We need to figure out the hyperdrive and how to get back to our time," I thought out loud. - And who can help us with that?
- Unselfishly? The Sith. And the Jedi.
- Exactly! We're going to Coruscant. - I said, "plot a route.
- What about the Sith?
- Is your cooling not working? What Sith? They look like lunatics to me, not that they would seriously investigate, let alone help. And if they do, they'll kill us and take everything we have, including you. There's a chance I can at least get the Jedi interested in information. And I'm sure they have the tech, so we can ask for help.
- In that case, I'll begin preparations for the jump," the droid replied humbly.
The journey was standard, one might even say lazy, during which I audited everything I had and made a rough plan of conversation with the local Jedi superiors. At the very least, they should be interested in the fact that I came from another time.
It's not clear yet, though, because historical records show that there is a centuries-old cold war with the Sith, and they would probably consider me a spy or an agent of the Sith. However, if I show them my tech, the question should be put to rest. Not because it proves that the tech is from the future, but because even if the Sith have such tech as stable first class hyperdrives, a bunch of equipment inside a ship, or a superdroid, it would be utterly idiotic to put the samples in the hands of the Jedi, even if for the purpose of sending an agent. Even a large scale sabotage with a good chance of ultimate victory, isn't worth something like that. It would just be stupid, so I figured that would be enough.
The ship came out of hyperspace five days later. But right after that there were exemplary inspections - right after the exit I was escorted by a couple of ships similar in size to corvettes and questioned in detail about the purpose of arrival. They didn't send an inspection party, but only because my ship was unarmed and clearly damaged. Thanks to that I managed to get ahead of the freighters and other ships and enter the atmosphere of the planet above the Jedi temple. The descent was slow and long, as the absence of one engine spoilt the aerodynamics, and it was impossible to simply steer - the speed was increasing.
It wasn't the first time I'd seen Coruscant, but like the last time I'd seen it, it was impressive - a city-planet drenched in a sea of lights, with monotonous architecture and skyscrapers sticking out above the grey mass of buildings. The picture was a little different from what I'd seen when I'd been on the Coruscant of my time - there wasn't the large Federation apartment complex we'd lived in during our visit.
I recognised the Jedi Temple immediately - a large square building, like a cut pyramid, or rather a ziggurat, with four towers at the corners, which reminded me of the famous Taj Mahal tomb. While on earth, I once visited this attraction. The concept was similar, but the execution was fundamentally different.
Sitting in the pilot's seat, I looked down through the video sensors, as everything below was extremely tiny from up high.
Galactic City was getting closer and closer - while I thought about what I would tell the Jedi. And what did I even know about this era? The knowledge I knew was extremely sketchy - like watching a YouTube clip about a new game, or a description of some games or even a cartoon.
True, the difference between this information and what was in reality, I also noticed. First of all, in that the only source that hasn't been disproven so far is the films. By the way, that's the biggest source for me. And what do I know from films about the world?
There is a republic. The Republic hasn't fought a war in a long time, the reality is that there have been wars, but the last one ended over five hundred years ago. There have been no wars involving more than two sectors since the founding of the Republic. The only exceptions are the wars with the Sith, which ended a thousand years before I was born. But the sectors the Sith reclaimed, they just as actively drained back. Judging by official data, the internal structure of their society was authoritarian, without any rigid hierarchy, and therefore the teamwork was much worse than that of the Jedi. I thought it was worse. Here two Sith, even if they could win only by uniting in the face of danger, could easily quarrel and kill each other in a fever, leaving the opposing Jedi to clap their eyes and think "is that it?".
Studying their society helped me understand the current state of the Sith - even if there was not one, but two groups, it would result in them feuding, competing, and eventually becoming easy targets. Leaking information about each other to the Jedi and whatnot. And with one unified teacher-student group, they can have no fear of competition. And disclosure.
The next major difference from Alter Canon, as I called the cartoons and games, was the political system. It was much more realistic, without any true democracy or love for your neighbour. The laws of the jungle ruled the galaxy - whoever was strongest was right. Bonzes only agreed not to shoot each other, that would not be a total collapse, and act by economic methods. Looking through the prism of three courses of "state management" what happened, I began to understand what happened much better.
At first I was surprised, if not more so, frightened, by the Senate's vendetta against the Neimodians, but now everything fell into place. The Trade Federation was the local analogue of the Jews. No, not the children of Israel, but the Jews, as described by anti-Semites, and forgive me if I'm rude, but I can use the offensive word "zhid" here. The incident on Naboo was not the first, and not even the tenth - the planet Belkadan, because of bribery of the government, lost almost all the trees, especially valuable in the galaxy; the planet Melida-Daan, shortly before my birth, as a result of the civil war, was forced to sign an extremely unfavourable contract, because the Federation blocked all attempts to trade with third-party suppliers. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of such planets that the greedy Neimodians were milking, not to mention usurping some trade routes or making obviously favourable contracts for themselves, taking advantage of the planets' plight. The Senate was a federation, where everyone was an individual wolf in a pack on the one hand, but on the other, the wolves could band together to gnaw on a bigger wolf. The Senate protected them anyway, as no one forbade economic aggression that didn't break the law, there was only a separate taboo on the use of force. If it wasn't for Palpatine leading the occupation of the planet, Nuth Gunray would have just sued, and characteristically, he probably would have won! That's the Neimodian style. But what happened was what happened. The public, I mean the Senate, was already warmed up by Palpatine, prepared for public appearances, in such a way that the Chancellor's indecision would become his coffin lid. If this had been about, say, Satine Kriz versus the Techno-Union, no one would have been so worried, but it was a case of the Neimodians, who were, to put it mildly, disliked. To put it mildly, by then the Senate was expecting the Chancellor to act decisively, the outer ring systems were counting on the fact that the Republic had some value and could protect them, justify the taxes they paid.
To some extent, up to now everything was going according to plan - Sith provokes the discussion, Chancellor hesitates, Queen Naboo is constantly interrupted by the Senator from the Trade Federation, not letting her say a word, and the Senate, or rather most of it, i.e. representatives of small systems and races, see that a small system is attacked, but the Republic can do nothing, it is powerless to stop the bloodshed. And then a Sith pops up under the noise and accuses Valorum of indecision. The representatives of the central worlds and the corporate sector, of which there are exactly two hundred and fifty-seven senators, will probably remain silent, but the other two and a half thousand senators will raise a howl about "wotum-wotum-wotum-wotum". They pay the republic for order, and they get a lump of butter.
But then I intervene, and the Chancellor, seeing that the public expects him to act decisively, proposes to disband the Trade Federation. A pack of wolves agreed to pounce on one particularly large but harmful one and devour him. That's what happens in politics. The Queen was not even allowed to say a word, because senators get the right to vote as soon as the Chancellor finishes his speech, and it is physically impossible to interrupt him - while he is speaking, all the senatorial pods stand still and the speakerphone is switched off. It's already a copy of the state duma or the US senate.
After all the representatives of the outskirts of the galaxy started whistling and demanding the destruction of the local "Jews", neither Neimodian, nor even the representatives of the central worlds, could do anything anymore - the genie was out of the bottle. The public, which Palpatine had been assuring for years that Valorum was incapable of decisive action and cared only about the central worlds, received a direct, and most importantly, visible refutation.
The main thing followed later. Having tried to overpower the Trade Federation, the Chancellor suddenly, one might say abruptly! finds that he can't do anything. That is, if one system goes to war against another, there's nothing he can do! No power to stop the injustice by diplomatic means, no army to break up the brawlers. So it's understood that if, say, Mandalore wants to take over a neighbouring sector, there's nothing anyone can do to stop it!
This caused the Chancellor's ratings to skyrocket as he set out to strengthen the Republic, primarily because the majority of the galaxy saw a change for the better. I myself have felt how much harder it has become to smuggle contraband since the new corvettes and inspection systems came into service with the justice system. The Central Worlds could have resisted, as they didn't benefit from the strengthening of the outer and even the middle rings, but they didn't - either Valorum has his own "trick of the mind", or he really convinced such mastodons as the Muuns, Corellians, Alderaans, Kuat, and others that his course was useful to them. And the usefulness was considerable - the peripheries paid money, and with that money the Republic was armed. Loans were taken from the Muuns, Corellians and Kuat received orders for ships and weapons, the staff of justice was increased, and accordingly their "pocket troops" appeared. Albeit pocket troops, but troops. That is, the central worlds enriched themselves by pulling resources from the outskirts. The lobbies of Corellians, Kuat and banking clans were enough to keep the others silent....
On the one hand, it could prevent devastating clone wars, because the Chancellor realised not then, but right now, how close he was to having individual systems secede from the Republic. On the other hand, the outcome could be unpredictable, primarily because the changes could prolong the agony of the Republic or, conversely, change the government and political course instantly.
Uncertainty frightened me - I would have been happy to live like an ordinary citizen, but it was not fate. Fate gave me Power, knowledge of the future and partially - personal advantages over what I was in "that" version of events. If I become a commoner, I won't forgive myself, it will be the greatest missed opportunity and the most unrealised potential in the galaxy....
The ship has descended enough for me to see the Temple through the windscreen.
- Erdva, take me to the Jedi Temple," I ordered, and the ship began to pick up speed towards the temple while descending at the same time. Five minutes later I had to report that I was going to the temple, alone, no explosives, and so on. The air defence was following me all the way, ready to shoot me down at any moment, but they didn't need to shoot, the sight of a ship in trouble with a torn engine was enough to make the shooters relax.
The droid took the ship into the hangar, I just got out and went to the ramp. I made a plan to talk to the local brass - hopefully I'd get some help.
* Jedi Temple, council chamber *
The council didn't meet very often. This time two of the masters were present in the form of holograms. In the central chair sat a man of pleasant appearance, but quite old, grey-haired but still athletic. Suddenly, a secretary entered the hall and, bowing to the council, who looked away from him, said:
- Magister, a man has arrived. Claims to have a conversation with you personally.
- Who is this man? - raised a grey eyebrow the head of the order. - Why to me? Did you check?
- Yes, we have! A young man who came on a ship unknown to us, sat down in the hangar, and asked for an audience with you. The secretary handed the head of the Order a lightsaber. The Head of the Order accepted the sword, and immediately examined it with the force.
Anakin Skywalker's calculations were one hundred per cent justified - the head of the Order was unable to penetrate the protective sheath of countless neuranium filaments. The strength of this sword was not felt at all - as if he was holding an empty space in his hands. The change in the Jedi Master's face drew the attention of the entire council. However, none of the masters dared to interrupt the tense silence of the first among equals.
Abandoning his attempts to look into the sword, the Master of the Order took the interesting artefact into his robe pocket and addressed the council:
- The sword is not readable at all. It's as if it doesn't even exist.
A brief discussion arose, which quickly died down, and the Master, showing his authority, dismissed everyone to their business. As the visitor had expected, the creation of his power would interest the Master enough for him to make direct contact, and there it would be possible to tell about his delicate situation and about the prospects of help. Not for free, of course, but Anakin was willing to make a deal and do a little work for the Jedi with his force forging to pay for the help, especially since he wouldn't have to hide, and he would be safe from the Sith.
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