Chapter 8
The Singing Hutt was gaudier, fancier, and even more exquisite than what Tahiri had been told. Located about a kilometer away from the Galactic Alliance Justice Department building it was one of the most exclusive restaurants on Coruscant. The waiters were all dressed in old Alsakani finery, with a band playing classical music, from great musicians of the past twenty thousand years, paintings adorned the walls including the famous rendition of the Dha Werda Verda by ancient Republic artist Daran Saran.
Tahiri sat by herself in a table made of marble and porcelain, sipping on her Chandrilan wine, and nibbling at her sweetened bread wafers. Around her were Coruscanti celebrities, financiers and corporate CEOS, alongside their dates, wives, mistresses, and smatterings of staff, politicians whispering, and other such notables all eating, drinking, and carousing. It was strange to sit among them, Tahiri despite being a former Jedi had never interacted with galactic high society and felt like a Tusken on Kamino.
I ought not tell Lord Caedus I got in here without money, and simply used a force trick on the concierge as well as pulling rank on the manager.
Tahiri chuckled at that, her master might be mildly displeased with her use of her time and the force for her casual enjoyment, but what was being the de facto chief of state, much less a Sith apprentice worth if you couldn’t enjoy yourself a little bit?
From the kitchen, Tahiri noticed a Mon Calamari waiter walking in her direction, dressed in a suit which accentuated his fish like features, as his eyes contacted her own.
“Lieutenant Veila, your bantha steak will be ready in around ten minutes”. The Mon Calamari waiter said.
“Is there anything else I can get for you while you wait m’am?” He asked.
“Just another glass of wine please.” Tahiri said in response.
“Yes ma’am” The Mon Calamari waiter said in response and then hurried over to a table across from hers.
I’ll need to get back to the Senate building before midnight, just to check in before I go to bed.
Reaching into her side pocket, Tahiri felt for her comlink, and looked at the screen.
Five Notifications
I’ll look at it later.
Tahiri leaned back in her velvet chair and took a deep breath. Her master was going to relieve B’wautu and had taken most of the military forces on Coruscant with him, and all she had to do was keep Coruscant warm for him.
If this isn’t some test, I’ve already failed.
“Lieutenant Veila, your bantha steak is here.” The Mon Calamari waiter said.
Tahiri took a bite with her knife and fork,
exquisite, better than anything I’ve had to eat in years.
“Thank you, its very good.” Tahiri said softly.
“Your welcome, tell us if there is anything you need.”
The waiter bowed slightly in respect and hurried back to the restaurant’s kitchen. Other staff hurried between tables taking orders, delivering plates, and hearing whispered complaints from customers. The customers seemed engrossed in their own little realities, utterly divorced from the ongoing galactic war or even the terrorist attacks that had happened mere months before on Coruscant itself.
None of them seemed remotely interested in her, a GAG agent, sitting alone and eating in their presence. She had garnered a good many stares to be sure when she walked past the waiting area of the restaurant, though it wasn’t for her role in defending this world, and these beings, but merely due to her beauty and feminine charms.
She leaned back in her chair, and remembered a different time,
Anakin was training in the courtyard, a gaggle of girls standing less than three meters away, Twi’lek, human, Devaronian, and more species than she could remember, all staring at him with gaping eyes, hoping he would return the favor and look in their eyes, not look at the pack of them, but just the one.
He turned around after striking an imaginary enemy, and his eyes met hers. She felt a rush of purest joy, and her face turned as red as Yavin’s clouds. He tilted his head and smirked and she felt her heart clawing out of her chest, he’s mine, he’s mine, he’s mine.
A few moments later, the training session ended, and the gaggle of girls filtered out behind him, and Anakin walked over, “Hey Tahiri, I was hoping you’d join me in the training yard.” Anakin said with that deep soothing yet strangely solid voice.
“I’m not nearly as good of a duelist, as you I’d have just made myself a joke for your audience.” They did spar privately, but Anakin won those bouts nine times out of ten, and Tahiri was sure he was letting her win the one out of ten.
“Your too harsh on yourself Tahiri, and you know I would never let you be looked down on in public, especially in front of our peers.”
He put his arm around her shoulder as they walked out of the Jedi temple. Placing a firm kiss on her cheek, Tahiri held him as hard as she could. Despite the Vong…their future, their lives together, had barely begun…
The steak was half eaten, and many guests were leaving, Tahiri noticed a human man with a twi’lek woman walking arm in arm. They were both ornately dressed, with his hand hovering over her rear, and her fingers tracing along his back, as she slowly nibbled at his ear.
Tahiri looked at the table again, and saw the waiter had put the bill near her wine glass. Tahiri looked at her reflection in the plate.
I only have my master.
The manager of The Singing Hutt alongside the waiter as she began to stand up, the alcohol making her stumble a little.
“Ms. Veila, was your meal satisfactory?”
The manager asked. A Togruta woman who from what Tahiri could tell was in her later fifties.
“It was good, I just didn’t have as large an appetite as I thought I would be coming in.” Tahiri responded.
“You don’t need me to pay for this.” Tahiri said, accessing the power of the force over the manager and the waiter at her side.
In unison, the Togruta and Mon Calamari responded, “We don’t need you to pay for this.” They nodded in obedience. Neither being strong willed enough to even flicker with resistance when the force was applied to their minds.
Stumbling a little, Tahiri pulled down her uniform and wiped off little flakes of food spilled. Slightly nodding to the manager and waiter, she hurriedly walked out of the building. Her speeder was parked on the side of the building, hovering above the artificial ground.
I guess I better check my comlink.
Sliding into her speeder, Tahiri pulled out her comlink and looked at it again.
14 New Notifications
Clicking on the screen,
Lieutenant Veila, we have a crisis situation in Camp 0123
We need assistance now, major riot in progress!
Major GAG teams have been dispatched; the prisoners are armed!
Keeping media offsite, risk of spread high
Tahiri turned the comlink off and slammed a fist into the console.
Dammit. Probably rowdy Corellians who managed to overpower a few guards and the desk jockeys at HQ are overreacting, I’ll head over there just to make sure its all settled. There’s no way could have started a full-scale uprising, at worst, at worst this probably a scattered riot. Worst thing would be letting the tabloids and “citizen” journalists get wind of this and blow it out of proportion. Then, then there would be a problem.
Tahiri turned on her speeder, and drove quickly, swerving past the vehicles in the Coruscanti sky lanes, passing passengers out for the night, advertisement blimps, and larger transports moving past the sleek craft that zoomed across Coruscant.
Moving her fingers to her lightsaber, she reflexively gripped the hilt and pressed her fingers to the blade ignition button.
If I’m lucky, this will all have blown over by the time I get to the office.
The Galactic Alliance Justice Department was now in sight, and Tahiri accelerated. Moving in a diagonal arc towards the open space at the front of the building, with the Galactic Alliance Guard headquarters not far away.
Tahiri jumped out of the speeder, and rushed inside, moving so fast the environment began to blur around her. Sprinting to her office, she found the surrounding room populated by security droids and men and women looking at a viewscreen.
“What’s going on here?” Tahiri asked loudly.
Turning to face her at attention, the gaggle of soldiers and civilian staff looked askance.
“Lieutenant Veila, there’s an ongoing a prison riot in Camps 0123, 0124, and 0126.” The man was a corporal in the guard, and he looked fresh, probably pulled out of the regular military.
“How did this happen?”
Jacen is going to be very angry, when he learns I was partying on the town when this happened, best he doesn’t know.
“We aren’t sure, we believe there were external agitators amongst the inmates.”
“Who?” “Jedi?”
If Jedi infiltrators had triggered an uprising, if they had gotten on Coruscant in large numbers, the amount of damage they could do. They’d be able to coordinate the internees, provide arms and direction and engage security forces and they’d be able to win.
“Intelligence agents on the ground don’t know, which is why we’re trying to get a handle on it via droid scanners and on-site operations.” The GAG corporal responded.
“We were awaiting orders from you as de facto chief of state and head of the guard in Lord Caedus’s absence.”
The men and women stood waiting, silently in appraisement and evaluation. Their expressions varied, and their posture formal, with no hint of displeasure.
I don’t sense anger or disappointment, hopefully none of them hold my dinner trip against me. I hope they don’t. I have tortured and assassinated, and found hidden bases, surely, I can lead these men and women against some unruly insurrectionists?
“Alright I’m going to go Camp 0123, and see if I can find the infiltrators, my comlink is open, and I will be expecting situation reports every half hour.” Tahiri said as she loosened her back and twitched her toes in her boots.
“Is that understood?”
The staff frantically bellowed, “Yes Mam!” in response.
“Alright then, I’ll need you, you, and you”. Tahiri said pointing at the Corporal, a woman with a private’s pip, and a sergeant who stood at attention.
Nodding the three GAG personnel moved to her back as she left the room.
“We’ll take one of the Lambda shuttles”
Tahiri said and her little squad nodded without a word.
I need this, I need to prove I’m worthy of his respect.
Tahiri took the controls of the shuttle, as she turned on the frequency.
Maybe its already put down and I’ll just supervise clean up of the embers and re arrested inmates.
The channel frequency was buzzy, and the static unbearable to listen to. Adjusting the signal, a little, as Tahiri piloted the craft over the Coruscanti skyline, she heard a beeping noise.
“We need more men, the prisoners have overtaken the armory, the guards are barricaded in the commander’s office
.”
“Commander, this is Lieutenant Veila status update!”
The buzzing hummed,
“The prisoners have broken out of their cells and overtaken the armory and the maintenance checkpoints, some of our boys are held up in the lavoratory.”
“What’s your ETA?”
“I’ll be on top of you in thirty seconds, hold on!”
Looking out from the cockpit of the shuttle, the internment facility was an isolated area, nearly 10 blocks long and wide, in solid duracrete, painted black, with walls around five meters thick and guard towers every 6 meters. Access from the ground was blocked. All built to defend the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances.
Tahiri brought the craft into a hovering state, about a story above the command center.
“Landing now, be ready to jump down from the roof”.
Her squad nodded, as she moved the shuttle in a vertical dissent.
What was that, oh Sith spit!
“Jump!”
The squad leaped out of the shuttle as Tahiri felt the impact of the blast, the shuttle veering as she tried to steer it to the ground.
Beneath the window, she could see her squad on the roof, struggling to crawl downward, as the shuttle veered and jolted as it descended downward.
“Lieutenant Veila going down!”
I doubt anyone is in the area, other guard forces must be scattered on Coruscant.
Holding onto the controls, Tahiri breathed in, as she created a force shield around herself, just enough to prevent the exploding engine from destroying her body entirely as the shuttle’s tattered remains slammed into the ground.
There wasn’t much blaster fire, the skies looked clear, the occasional buzz and yelling in the distance.
Standing up from the shuttle, it was broken into at least five pieces, her force shield had preserved the cockpit for a future museum, the rest of the ship was scattered across the pavement.
The armory didn’t have shoulder fired rockets did it?
Tahiri sprinted from the wreckage and saw her first enemy combatant. A Corellian man with a blaster pistol, dressed in rags with an identification number on what remained of his clothing. The man fired a shot at her, and she dodged the blaster bolt, as she sprinted in his direction.
Pulling out her lightsaber, Tahiri slid her knees close to the ground, her head level with the man’s waist, and ignited the blade, her hair unclipped from the sheer force and swaying on the man’s side, which she cut end to end.
The man was cut in half, his torso and head laying next to his legs and mid-section, as Tahiri sprinted further, across the open ground of the camp.
Near her position, Tahiri could hear voices screaming.
“Keep on blasting, we’ll dig underneath em if we have too!”
“We ought to blow it up, building and gaggers and all!”
Their trying to destroy the camp HQ, probably with improvised explosives.
Offices and checkpoints surrounded the internment camp’s HQ, and the voices seemed to come from within them.
Crouching in the open, Tahiri moved slowly to the largest satellite office, and briskly she pulled out her comlink.
“This is Lieutenant Veila, I’ve engaged the internees. Status report planetwide?”
“Eh, roger, we have probes orbiting the area, but we’re trying to keep this as low profile as possible, official policy in the event of an internee uprising is not to attract attention by putting a spotlight on the fire.”
“Thanks, I could have sworn I read that in our field manual.”
“It was actually in our contingency planning booklet”.
Tahiri tried to suppress a laugh while crouching towards the main satellite office.
“Most of the prisoners seem to be congregated in the barrack on your left, probably to avoid aerial bombardment and prepare an ambush”.
“Thank you for the information, Tahiri out.”
“Oh, uh what was your name again?” She asked softly over the comlink?
“Jax Ryzan, I’m one of the analysts at GAG HQ”.
“Thanks, I’ll be sure to recommend you for a promotion next time evaluations roll around.”
“Tahiri out”.
The sky above her was dark, and traffic in this sector of Coruscant had been cordoned off, Tahiri could see lights orbiting above her, miles ahead.
Probably the probes.
Sneaking closer to the cube shaped building, she could hear voices.
“Tell the prisoners to attack on my signal, if we can’t blast them, we’ll storm them!”
“Yes sir!”
Their going to try and overrun the guard house, must not be able to sap underneath it or blow it up.
Tahiri moved herself into position, and with a force empowered kick, the door slammed into the floor. Rushing in, she dodged two blaster bolts headed straight in her direction, leaping and swirling in a side ways motion, and then landing on her feet, cutting down the first target in front of her, a bothan, then the other two Bothans tried to run out of the building, through the blasted door.
But before they could make the distance, they were slammed up and hit the ceiling, and then thrown into the wall, two times, three times, four times, and then onto the floor.
Drawing her lightsaber, Tahiri stepped over the spilled flimsipaste and knocked over desks and pointed it at the stunned men on the ground.
“Lay down your weapons and put your hands behind your head.”
One of the Bothans tried to force himself off the ground, for his trouble Tahiri blasted him with a round of force lightning and he was back sprawled on the floor.
The other Bothan started to chew his teeth.
Oh no you don’t.
Tahiri forced open his mouth with and she could hear his jawbone break from the power exerted, as a small colorless pill floated deftly into her hand.
Suicide capsules, they must be, they must be Bothan intelligence operatives!
Pulling out her comlink, and opening it up Tahiri spoke into it.
“Ryzan, there are Bothan operatives in the internment facilities, I’ve captured two of them.”
“Have you confirmed that?” The man on the other end asked excitedly.
“They haven’t confessed to it, but one of them tried to take a suicide capsule, that was embedded in his mouth, and they seem to have provided the prisoners with a small amount of weapons, including anti-ship rockets.”
“Orders?” Ryzan asked.
“Get the Coruscanti police and the guard alerted, I don’t care if this disturbs or alerts the media or the populace, we could have a planned uprising on her hands.”
“Confederate sleeper cells, are here, and are stirring up unrest amongst the detainees.” Tahiri spoke loudly into the comlink.
“Yeah, right on it, do you want a show of force in the internment camps, or something broader?” Ryzan asked.
“I want all police including the damned traffic police mobilized, I want any Bothan who is not already in an internment camp to be taken in for questioning, as well as any human with a Corellian accent.”
“That’s not going to be possible, Lieutenant” Ryzan responded.
“I don’t care, I want to overreact and avoid an insurrection rather than under react and let one happen while I’m running this planet.”
“The Coruscanti police have been notified and all Guard units are on notice, as well as the garrison of Imperial stormtroopers.”
“I hope…”
“What was that Ryzan?”
“I hope your wrong, I hope we haven’t had this spectacular of a failure in a single night.”
Caedus will cut me to pieces if I fail.
“For all our sakes, let’s just try and get through the night.”