Tentacle Covered Chaos 19

Tentacle Covered Chaos

Chapter 19: Obstacles

<<<Poppy>>>

Hours, Master Tii questioned her for hours.

And not about important stuff like her capabilities and intentions, but actually trying to get to know her. Her favorite foods outside of her emotional meals, any hobbies she’d found, and even suggested a few that she enjoyed (who knew they had knitting in a Galaxy Far, Far Away?). What was her favorite project so far, or favorite animal? Had she considered getting any pets, or plants to help her focus on something not work-related? 

She even asked if she had a particular liking for anyone, the fact that it was Master Tii even asking that blew her mind. Every time she’d seen the master she seemed so serene and calm, so seeing her acting like a gossiping schoolgirl was jarring to put it lightly.

Though it did help her relax, or last least as much as she could anyway.

Something about just… chatting with Master Tii was oddly relaxing.

If anything, now that she was resting, she did find herself wondering if she should get a plant or something. Certainly not a pet she’d have to leave alone for days at the very least, at least with plants she could have Ashoka or Anakin visit to water them.

A bird would fit her aesthetic, such that it was, but those were also really hard to take care of. And she didn’t want to leave something around that could be killed to inflict emotional trauma on her… more of it anyway.

Besides, she’d hate to inflict her temper on other people via bird, because in the privacy of her apartment she tended to rant and use some very strong and colorful language.

… Maybe she’d get one after gutting Palpatine like a fish or bombing him into dust from orbit. Then she’d have a chance to relax for a while.

Plus teaching a bird to say ‘Fuck Off’ whenever someone used the doorbell on her door? Hilarious.

All of that to say: she was bored. And that never lead to anything good.

“Let’s see… check my emails, my text messages, see if I missed any holo-calls…” Poppy mumbled, going down the list, “... Kill a scumfuck of a black market dealer, that’s a new one on the list.”

She checked those probe droids three times for spyware too… she had to make a call.

Though she supposed it was her own fault, ‘black market dealer’ kind of conveyed that their product might have a few unwanted extras.

“Anakin, thank the force you picked up; how do you feel like stealing an entire battlefleet from under the separatist’s noses?” Even as she asked details were being sent to Corrilia, all pretext of operational security dropped.

“Where, how, and why aren’t we leaving now?”

“I found Katana Fleet, but the droids I was using to do it were compromised,” She explained, grabbing a long coat and blaster… and a vibroblade after a moment’s thought. “So we need to get to it before the genocidal fuckers do. I’ll send you the details once the call closes, but my freighter up in orbit has a docking bay that’ll fit your fighter.”

“Meet you soon.”

“Bring the big guns,” Poppy said, grinning viciously, “Full compliment of weapons. I want to take no chances. We’ll leave as soon as you get there.” Assuming Ani didn’t get there before she did anyway. “Poppy out!” The line closed with a pop and… she felt like she was walking into a trap again.

At least she had cards up her own sleeves this time, she just hoped they didn’t drop aces while all she had were jokers.

[hr][/hr]

“Knight Anakin, Padawan Ahsoka, Knight Obi-Wan?” The last name took her off guard, but she had enough space for four fighters, three wouldn’t be hard. “I wish circumstances were better for our first meeting, but I’ll have to cut this short: we’ll be in the system, one inside the Halm Sector, in an hour.

Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan nodded. “Let’s hope we won’t be too late,” Knight Obi-Wan said.

“We shouldn’t be,” Poppy replied as the hyperdrive started humming, she’d set it to start while she’d made her way towards the hangar. “I only got the confirmation there was spyware an hour ago; and that because a non-compromised droid sent an alert that a CIS vessel popped up nearby the system. Correlia is also on its way with its own battlefleet.”

“You could’ve asked me to check them out before you sent them out,” Anakin commented dryly.

Poppy shrugged, “I had others check them, clearly I should have gone with someone more competent. Hey Obi-Wan, do you know anyone like that?” Her voice was as wry as her grin.

The Knight just rolled his eyes, vaguely amused, “I know a few I suppose,” He said, “Though the one I trust most is a rather large troublemaker prone to going off on her own.” 

Anakin just gave Obi-Wan a smug little smile.

“I suppose I’ll trust your grand judgement, oh wise jedi,” Poppy said airily, “But the main reason I didn’t go with you, Anakin, is that I wanted to keep this card close to my chest. That backfired, but I’ve got others waiting in the shadows. This is but one arrow, but it’s a really nice one that I’d rather not have used against us. Better to destroy them if it looks like they’re going to get captured.”

“So, can someone enlighten the ignorant Tortuga?” Ahsoka grumped, “Master just grabbed me and dragged me along.”

“Impulsive as ever, Anny?” Obi-Wan asked with a chuckle.

“The Katana Fleet is a fleet of two hundred dreadnoughts with extremely automated hyperdrives and weapons,” Poppy explained, “It has a support fleet too, but those aren’t nearly as important as the big ships. They’re a little outdated nowadays, but two hundred capital ships is still two hundred capital ships.”

“Okay, but what are we supposed to do about it?” Ahsoka asked, “I mean Master Anakin is impressive, but I don’t think we could take over an entire fleet with two Jedi Knights, a Padawan, and a civilian.”

“We don’t need to,” Poppy replied with a grin, “The lead ship has a system to slave the entire fleet to it as it jumps; letting us take the whole fleet to another system just by taking it. Simple, no?”

“Yeah, what’s the catch?” Ahsoka asked.

“We’re… going to bring it to Correlia and we might need to fight a CIS fleet along the way?” Poppy sighed, “Hence, you guys! And Correlia’s fleet is pretty far away. And they’re officially neutral, so it’s technically a fleet of mercenaries?”

“Well, it’s better than nothing I suppose,” Ahsoka said, though she did eye her Master, “As long as someone doesn't do something impulsive. Again.”

“It could be worse,” Poppy noted, “We could run into a CIS superweapon.”

“... If you fracking jinxed us Poppy, I swear…” Ahsoka nearly growled.

“Less ‘jynx’ and more just having a really bad feeling about this,” She replied, “Because why would they let me see one of their ships if they didn’t have a trap waiting for us? I only found out the fleet was there earlier today, so the trap can’t be anything like a full fleet; certainly not inside Republic space…”

“Well, at least this trip won’t be dull, hmm Anakin?” Obi-Wan asked with a faint chuckle.

[hr][/hr]

“No Confederate ships detected,” Poppy announced over coms, “Katana Fleet in sight, taking us in.”

“Thank the Force for small mercies,” Ahsoka said quietly, “So the Katana Fleet is fully automated?”

“Just the hyperdrive,” She replied, “There’s a virus and there will be bodies, keep your mask on.”

“... Wonderful…” Ahsoka said, “You take me to the most wonderful places, Master,” Only to get an amused chuckle in response.

“Cut the idle chatter,” Poppy ordered, “I’m seeing some things on the scanners. Might be nothing, but keep your eyes peeled.”

With that, the genial commentary died down, and Poppy kept an eye on the scanners trying to figure out if it was simply debris floating through the void or something else. Still no sign of Confederates, but her own paranoia wouldn’t allow her to relax when she was so close to getting something that just may help her deal with Palpatine’s bullshit.

Or at least allow her to glass Byss down to the bedrock.

Yes, glassing that planet (preferably BDZing the whole damn thing) would set the monster's plans back by quite a pit. She could only imagine how many resources he poured into that scheme of his.

Of course the silence couldn’t last as Ahsoka spoke up over the comms, “So, we just go in and assume control, then?” Honestly Poppy wasn’t even annoyed, it was a good, if obvious, question.

“Essentially, yes.” Poppy said, “Though I doubt it’ll be that straight forward, but if it’s just my paranoia speaking and I’m wrong, I’ll be happy regardless.”

Then her screens lit up with ships, because of course they did. “Ahsoka, you aren’t allowed to complain. Enemy contact, edge of the gravity well, they’ll be in range in five minutes, fighters will be on you in two.” They hadn’t released them, but she’d read up on vulture droid’s acceleration and that was about right.

Though she made a mental note after this to look at Ahsoka and tell her, ‘It ain’t paranoia if they are out to get you!’ and act all smug about it. Stupid sexy Tortuga.

“I’m intercepting, my ship won’t last too long but I’ve got some tricks,” She announced, slamming her engine’s throttle to max, “Any objections?” Half her attention was on timing… the other half was on the engine’s temperature, which was slowly rising to uncomfortable levels.

If there were any she didn’t really notice them.

The first turbolaser shots started impacting her, overtuned, shields and shaking her ship to its skeleton. That was fine, as long as the shields held she had options. It helped that it was a very large ship with a buried command center. “Ok… ok…”

Her heart was beating hard in her chest, eyes tracking the little red dots that were her opponents. They were moving far too fast, were far too small, and too far away to see with visual range cameras. “A little closer, that’s right little flies… I’m just a vulnerable pretty little flower…”

A tentacle reached for a lever and, when the droid fighters were halfway to her position (she’d intercepted their course to her Jedi allies), pulled it. The ship rocked from internal explosions, panels ejecting from her hull violently and thoroughly; revealing just how non-standard her freighter was and just how many teeth the A-Class Bulk Freighter PSS Venus Flytrap had.

Now, the trick was surviving and getting away with their prize.

<<<Admiral Trench>>>

“What in the galaxy…” One of his imbecilic soldiers muttered, though a snap of his fingers had the idiot dragged away.

Not that he could disagree with the imbecile’s comment, just when you thought the Galaxy couldn’t surprise you anymore it threw another at you. Watching the ‘freighter,’ according to the sensors, quite literally bare its fangs was something Trench hadn’t expected in the slightest.

Nor the fact that said freighter was as effective as it was against the vulture droids.

“Those panels are magnetic mines!” One of his officers yelled, “Pull those droids out!” Not that they had a chance to, the detonations cleared swaths of the useful things. But they had thousands more, so losing a few hundred wasn’t going to be a problem.

“That pilot is either fearless or simply mad…” Personally the Admiral could respect such audacity, clearly the pilot wasn’t Republic-trained.

Mercenary perhaps? Maybe a former smuggler.

The countless anti-fighter weapons were clearly heavily automated, which would have been a problem for the Flytrap if he were using human pilots. But he wasn’t, so the Vultures were swiped out of the air with impunity. Plenty got through, but he recognized the fighters the damn thing had carried with it; Jedi weren’t going to die that easily.

“Bring us in range and target its engines,” He ordered, “The shields there are fluctuating more than elsewhere. It’s big, but the Invincible is bigger and more heavily armed. If we can’t capture the Katana Fleet, blow them to pieces… starting with the one that Jedi is flying towards.”

He could almost smell their desperation, their fear… and it was good.

“Sir! New signals are approaching!” An officer called from his station, “Looks like a large fleet!”

Trench kept the grimace from his face with long practice. “Expected, but sooner than I’d have liked. They must have been nearby already, any designations?”

“Multiple Gozanti-class cruisers, twenty MPO-1400 Purgill-class star cruisers, and sixteen Venator-Class cruisers! One of those must be the flagship, but telling which one is impossible.” Came the fast reply, “We outnumber them, and outmass them severely, but we can’t leave them alone; not with the Flytrap on the other side of us. Half of our escorts are busy with them!”

Trench closed his eyes, desperately wishing he could kill something or sigh, but it wouldn’t do for him to do so, “Stuck between a rock and a rancor…” While not the most fitting metaphor it wasn’t entirely wrong either.

The fact they were so close to the Katana Fleet was akin to salt on the wound.

“Torpedoes! Cloaked torpedoes on the way from the Flytrap!” Another officer cried out as one of his escorts went up in flames and explosions. “Damage to the dorsal cannons and fires in halls 7, 8, and 12!”

Trench allowed a faint hiss under his breath to escape, “Recall the droids! We’re withdrawing!” He commanded, though he wasn’t looking forward to explaining his reasoning to Command.

“They hit us as we readied our tracking torpedoes,” He growled, “How did they know… we must have a spy of some kind, stick to standard laser and ion weapons!”

Even as he spoke, the Invincible’s shields stopped another dozen torpedoes, which the sensors revealed were dropping out of the damn thing’s cargo bays. Considering the ship could hold several thousand tons of cargo… he didn’t want to be anywhere near it if it died, even if he could get close to it.

“Belay that order, have the droids start attacking the Katana Fleet!” He roared, “We leave without them.” If he couldn’t have his prize, neither would this new prey.

Another of his escorts died from the near invisible torpedoes, too slow to follow his orders. Good riddance to them.

The dreadnaughts began lighting up in droves, their cold drives and shields ensuring they wouldn’t last long against even fighter assaults… but then space shifted in that peculiar way it does when a hyper-drive is being used and they vanished.

“Damn,” Trench grunted, “How many dreadnaughts were destroyed?”

“Twenty hulls,” Came the reply, “We may have damaged more beyond repair, but…”

Trench just hummed, perhaps that would assuage Command when he made his report. 

Twenty kills out of two hundred. Maybe twice that number crippled, and twice again needing heavy repairs… 

“Yes,” Trench decided, “While not a complete success, it’s still a success indeed.” And, truly, the number of shipyards that could repair a large fleet like that were fairly limited.

“We’ll have to pay a visit to Corellia in a ‘diplomatic’ sense,” He announced, “Jump to one of our hidden bases, I have someone I need to contact.”

And maybe Grevious would deal with the commander of the Flytrap for him? That would be nice, he’d hate for the Invincible's weakness to get spread around…

The weaponized cargoship transported out after picking up her parasite craft and the Corelian ‘mercenaries’ translated out soon after.

Moments later, so too was he safe in hyperspace; already planning his next moves against the Republic and the Jedi parasites it had allied with.

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