Tentacle Covered Chaos 20

Tentacle Covered Chaos

Chapter 20: Cooldown

<<<Poppy>>>

“Holy shit, this… was more successful than I imagined!” Though if she got away with the entire fleet it would’ve been better, but Poppy wasn’t foolish enough to complain about it.

Chances were good the Force or Murphy’s Law would take offence and decide to correct her in a decidedly unpleasant manner. But still, she allowed herself to feel giddy for the first time that didn’t involve sex! It was a single step, but it was a step towards eventually destroying Palpintine’s schemes!

Not the monster himself though, Poppy wasn’t foolish enough to even dream that he was a simple problem to address. Not with the heights of paranoia he’d driven her too, or how much she’s conspired against him.

Still, she had other business to attend to that didn’t involve squealing over a new battlefleet… like Obi-Wan inspecting one of her questionably legal modifications to an already highly illegal space ship. Though she regretted nothing.

“I thought I recognized the ship after its panels were blown off…” The man started, “But I don’t think that pirate had these?” He asked, gesturing to an over complicated looking machine inside one of the loading bays.

“Yeah… I didn’t exactly have a crew after I, you know, killed them all…” She said with a cough, “Pirates don’t do, uh, poison filtering very well. So the fighter craft he’d stolen were useless. So I sold them and got magnetic catapults. They launch proton torpedoes on a ballistic arc and they only fully turn on when they get close to the designated target, pre-programmed into them on launch of course, where they correct their course and hit the opposing ship.” She was very proud of that idea, though it had… drawbacks. “It perfectly mimics a cloaked torpedo launcher in a busy fight, but if it’s one on one… not so much. And only having light and medium turbo-lasers on this piece of junk means I can’t fight peer opponents without them.” 

“Rather impressive,” Obi-Wan admitted, “Illegal, but impressive.”

“Well, when you figure out a way to scare the CIS away without resorting to illegal actions, do let me know,” She replied with a smirk, “But thanks.”

“That wasn’t a complaint.” Obi-Wan said, “I’m genuinely impressed by your thinking. It's so unconventional most would never realize it.”

“I have different experiences than most,” She replied with a nod, “I’d have painted the torpedoes with a radar absorbent… paint, but I don’t know the formula. Still, I’m going to be turning this ship in for the bounty and replace it with one of those lovely dreadnaughts of the Katana Fleet,” She said, shrugging as she looked out into space, the ships glinting in the dim light of the nearest stars. “I have an idea that will let it punch above its weight class for a volley or two.”

She’d also be stealing from an… ok scifi from a guy that didn’t know how density worked. Weberfoam was funny, a lighter than air spaceship that was over a kilometer long… the shields they had would have been nice, but oh well.

“Well, ask Anny to help otherwise she’ll pout and be insufferable.” Obi-Wan quipped, getting a laugh from Ashoka and a snicker from Poppy.

Anakin just crossed her arms and huffed.

“Sure, sure; I’ll need her help for the programming anyway,” She replied with a grin, “I might have needed to do some… rather weird stuff to get these launchers working properly and I’m surprised they didn’t just explode repeatedly during the test fires. But that’s not important right now, what is important is that we got most of the fleet back,” She said, arms going wide as she posed dramatically, “And I am going to break their spines, over and over again until they get the message.”

“... And that message is?” Obi-Wan asked, eyebrow raised.

“Don’t fuck with me,” She growled.

“That’s a message right there,” Anakin said with a nod, “I think you might get it across even.”

“Mmm, when this fleet is fully fixed I’m going for their throats,” Poppy said, arms dropping, “I’m going to their major shipyards, one after another, and turning them into dust. I will need the Republic’s help, I will need the Jedi’s help.”

“You don’t seem too pleased about that,” Anakin comments, curious more than anything else.

“Would you?” She replied, “Imagine you had to use people you don’t trust, or are already in a precarious position that you don’t want to hurt, for things that are vital. For things that are risky.”

“Why don’t you trust the Jedi?” Ashoka asked.

“Oh no, you fit the second group,” Poppy clarified, “You are in a precarious position in the galaxy. Tell me, how much do you know of galactic history? About how many wars the Jedi have waged with the Sith? How many times the Jedi have lost against the Sith?” Ahsoka grimaced. “Two to three times, depending on what you count as ‘losing’. Of those, two were from a Jedi turning dark and one was when the Sith wielding a galactic army. Both conditions are currently fulfilled."

Ashoka opened her mouth, only to close it in thought before huffing, “I hate it when you have a point…” She grumbled.

Anakin just snorted, “You’ll get used to it, Snips.” She said,

“Hmm, has something happened?” She wondered, she couldn’t remember if Anakin was jaded with the Jedi council at this point in time or not.

Though she supposed it didn’t matter, really all she needed to do was prevent her from Falling. If she left the order entirely, well she’d try her best to convince Space Jesus to join her.

“Still, not the worst position the jedi have ever been in,” She noted, “That was when the sith had more or less taken over Coruscant as a whole, well before Ruusan that.”

“Oh, she has absolutely no idea…” She didn’t know if Order 66 was due to a chip, indoctrination, or straight up programming but no, the Jedi really had no idea how potentially fucked they were if her plans went to shit.

“Encouraging…” Ahsoka snarked, “I’m going to get something to eat, anyone want company that isn’t depressing?”

“... I could use some actually,” Poppy admitted with a smile, “... multiple kinds of food, but I can deal with that later.~” She couldn’t stop herself from winking at the orange skinned cutie either.

Ashoka just blushed, “Uh… sure…” She said awkwardly.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Snips.” Anakin sassed with a smirk.

Obi-Wan just rolled his eyes and sighed.

<<<General Greivous>>>

“The Katana Fleet?” The General muttered as he reviewed his latest orders.

While it was outdated compared to modern fleets, the Katana Fleet represented a significant force multiplier. Which would increase it if it was taken to a shipyard and refitted with modern weapons and the latest systems. The fact that Trench let the fleet escape him while only damaging it spoke poorly of him.

Truly, he felt his talents were better suited to hunting Jedi and expanding his collection, but orders were orders even if he didn’t like them. He also owed the Count much for saving his life and revealing the ones behind his suffering.

“Show me the Correllian order of battle,” He ordered a nearby droid, which followed the command robotically. The only good thing about droids, he mused, was that they at least did that.

It was a significant fleet, to be sure, but as a neutral system he could easily park his own fleet nearby their shipyards for ‘maintenance’ before blasting everything into pieces to remind them what neutrality actually meant.

He looked at the map for a few more moments before nodding, “Bring the fleet to a stop here.” He said, indicating on the map, “For routine maintenance, as far as the Correllians know.”

“Roger, Roger,” The droid replied, moving the ship into position for a hyper-jump. The rest of the fleet would take longer to get into position, he took pride in ensuring that his flagship was always prepared for battle… the other ships were not able to say the same.

So he wasn’t surprised when he was informed that the fleet would be ready in twelve hours at a minimum.

But no matter, even should they not arrive before the Republic and the Jedi sent to protect the fleet… The Malevolence was capable enough to disable all of them, even if revealing that capability would remove it as a surprise tactic.

Now all that was left for him was to wait for the rest of his fleet to join him.

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