Continuing author Mark Wooden’s “Star Wars” fanfiction: ISB agent Kaila Ores confronts Grand Moff Tretyro about the presence of Rebels on Naboo.
Meanwhile, Jedi Nile Chinelo recounts her attempt to escape the horror of Order 66.
Want to read from the beginning? Go to Episode 1.1 here! Go to Episode 3.1 here!
Grand Moff Tretyro stood in a fury. “My agents assured me there were no remaining Rebels on this planet!”
“That was Agent Mirko, correct?” Kaila Ores asked. “Where is he? We can ask him if his assessment was accurate.”
Commander Rundsor, Tretyro’s latest head of the Imperial Security Bureau here on Naboo, chimed in from behind Kaila. “Agent Mirko was rewarded with another position upon his rooting out the Rebel infestation on Naboo.”
Kaila looked over her shoulder at Rundsor and said, “If you’re every bit as worthy of the position as Tretyro must think you are, commander, surely you can use your newfound power to find Agent Mirko.”
Rundsor’s shoulders stiffened. She parted her lips to respond, but words failed her. Queen Dalné saved her from looking too unprepared.
“If there are indeed Rebel agents on my planet,” the queen began, “perhaps you, Agent Ores, would pursue them for us? I’m sure Moff Tretyro would appreciate you cleaning his mess.”
Kaila stifled a smile as she saw Tretyro’s face flush, his teeth grinding. When he spoke, it was in an even tone that barely held back his anger.
“Commander Rundsor is better suited for the task, my queen. She has been on Naboo for over a year, whereas Agent Ores –”
“On the contrary,” the queen said. “the young agent’s ignorance will drive her to ask more questions, some an informed agent like your commander may not think to ask.”
Looking at Ores, the queen added, “And I’m sure Agent Ores’s mother would appreciate the opportunity to see her daughter.” Looking at Tretyro, she added, “Would you deny your betrothed that opportunity.”
That Tretyro and Kaila’s mother were an item even before her father’s death was the worst kept secret on Naboo. The queen using it against the grand moff was a masterstroke Kaila enjoyed.
She was impressed by this queen, a girl only in her late teens who had seemingly mastered the politics of her position.
Tretyro glared at Kaila, then slumped back in his chair like a petulant child. Waving his hand in deference to the queen, he said, “I’ll have Commander Rundsor make the necessary arrangements.”
“Excellent,” the queen said. “Then if we have no other business, I would like Agent Ores to have time to clean the mines of Odoum off her person, so she may get to her investigation. I will also look forward to your report of the conditions at the mine.”
“I will do so immediately, my queen,” Kaila said.
“Hopefully not before you see your mother,” Dalné said. “She is eager to see you, as any mother would be.”
The junior ISB agent forced herself not to smirk at the mention of her mother. She bowed before the queen. “Soon after then,” she said.
While bowed, Kaila looked to Tretyro. She didn’t need to use her ability to hear people’s thoughts to know the Grand Moff was pissed.
Eighteen years ago, Jedi Nile Chinelo was so preoccupied with her padawan Kanto’s possible fate, she almost missed the brawling attack from the remaining trooper on her side of the hangar entrance.
Luckily, she caught him approaching out of the corner of her eye. Using the Force, she leaped over the trooper. As she did, a wave of darkness came over her. It was the darker elements within the Force, reaching out to her, begging her to use it.
Its attempts to “help” distracted her.
Nile slammed hard against the durasteel wall. The impact knocked the lightsaber from her hand. It immediately turned off, its blue blade disappearing into its hilt.
The trooper scooped up a blaster from one of his fallen comrades. He swung around and aimed at the Jedi.
Nile held up her hand and drew upon the light side of the Force.
The clone trooper’s finger froze around his blaster’s trigger. Try as he might, he could not move it. He was caught in the grip of the Force.
Nile stood. With her other hand, she extended her binding power to CT-1741, the trooper drawing a bead on her padawan Kanto. He too locked in place, unable to fire.
Kanto turned to his master. “Good save, master,” he said. “But why are—”
“No time for questions!” Nile said, the strain of holding the troopers causing her brow to furrow beneath her jet black braids. “Get our lightsabers and get to the STAPs!”
The Caamasi padawan didn’t hesitate to do as commanded.
Nile tapped into the Force with her mind, lowering her hands. The troopers remained bound by the Force. The Jedi master moved to each trooper, pressing the button on each blaster that released their blaster energy packs.
“I know not why you’ve suddenly turned against us,” Nile said, “but I cannot allow you to execute your Order 66.”
The troopers shook in frustration but could not resist the Jedi’s restraining use of the Force.
Nile backed into the hangar. Once inside, Kanto pressed the button activating the blast doors that would separate them from the troopers. With the doors in place, Nile released her hold on the troopers.
Taking her lightsaber from Kanto, she ignited it and destroyed the door controls. “Now then,” she said. “We take the STAPs and head for the jungle.”
“There are still ten other troopers out there, master,” Kanto said. “What if this Order 66 affects them too?”
Nile turned off her lightsaber and headed toward the STAP vehicles. Kanto fell into step behind her.
“We have to assume it has,” she said. “We’ll hide in the forest until the other troopers enter the facility. We then sneak back to the transport and —”
A blaster bolt shot past the Jedi’s heads. The bolt was so far above them it wasn’t a threat — but it did signal that more adversaries were approaching.
The next shot may find its mark.
The Jedi rushed for cover behind a piece of docking machinery. More blaster fire came from their right. Nile chanced a glance and found four B2 super battle droids advancing on them.
The damned virus still hadn’t shut down the factory.
Every second they remained in the base meant the crazed clone troopers could box them in and execute them.
Nile reached beneath her brown robes and withdrew a holdout blaster. She handed it to Kanto, who looked at it as if he didn’t recognize the thing. “Take it!” Nile said. “Draw their fire from cover while I flank them.”
Kanto gingerly took the blaster in hand. “I’m not trained with this!”
“Distract them. You don’t have to hit them.” Nile ignited her lightsaber, “That’s my job.”
Using a nearby transport ship for cover, Nile moved to flank the super battle droids. Kanto extended the blaster out from behind his cover and fired off a few random shots at the droids.
Nothing hit, but it held the droids back while they returned fire on Kanto.
Unfortunately, the cover didn’t help the padawan.
A few bolts singed his arm and his side. He rolled completely behind cover. Nile heard his yell of pain but could not let her concern prevent her from positioning for her stealth attack.
Thankfully, she was in position before the droids flanked Kanto. From a higher position, the Jedi descended on the battle droids. Her lightsaber slashed through one of the droid’s torso from side to side.
As its top half fell to the ground, Nile’s blade cut through another droid’s blaster arm.
The remaining droids halted their attacks on Kanto to deal with Nile. By the time they drew a bead on her, her lightsaber had disarmed the other two droids.
Left without a means of attack, the three armless droids tried to move away from Nile. She made quick work of them.
Kanto came out from behind cover.
“Are you hurt badly?” Nile asked Kanto while extinguishing her lightsaber.
He shook his head, but his favoring his wounded arm said otherwise. Nile took him by his uninjured arm and led him toward the nearby STAPs.
Behind them, they heard a clanging sound. Nile looked back and saw the hangar door had slid open but was stuck, providing only a small crawlspace beneath it.
The Jedi master turned Kanto to her. She checked his oxygen mask, making sure it was still functional. The mask also doubled as a communicator.
Formenos’s atmosphere had no oxygen. The Jedi and their troopers had used the masks even within the facility. It was made for droids, who didn’t require oxygen, so the factory didn’t have oxygen pumping through it either.
Content with the mask, Nile grabbed her holdout blaster from her padawan and then pushed him onto one of the flying platforms. “Get going!” she said before climbing aboard one of the other STAPs.
Kanto powered up his vehicle. The hover engine lifted the vehicle off the hangar deck. Kanto steered it for the hangar exit. Nile followed suit. Blaster fire from the troopers chased after them but failed to hit their marks.
The Jedi and her padawan passed beyond the threshold of the hangar bay and into the heat of the planet’s sun.
Nile instructed Kanto to follow her as she veered to the right, traversing the red sand of the beach headed for the nearby line of the jungle.
The troopers waiting for them were to the left. Nile put the facility between them, hoping that if the troopers were watching, they wouldn’t see them in this direction.
Unfortunately, the clone troopers were too well trained.
Some of them must have broken off from the others to watch the other side of the facility.
A single blaster shot from a sniper flew from a position ahead of the Jedi and pierced Kanto’s STAP controls.
The subsequent explosion threw Kanto from the STAP. The young padawan crashed hard onto the beach, rolling several times before slamming to a stop.
The Jedi Master turned her hover platform ninety degrees so she could look back at her padawan. He was prone, battered, his robes flapping in the light breeze.
And then Kanto lurched up, gasping for breath. His oxygen mask and communicator were shattered. He was suffocating in the planet’s lack of oxygen.
Another blaster bolt fired from the jungle. It struck Nile’s STAP, reminding her that while she lamented her padawan’s fate the two were exposed to the clone troopers looking inexplicably to kill them.
Nile turned her STAP again, this time racing to her fallen companion. His normally white face had turned blue. There wasn’t much time for him.
Nile decided she would give him her mask and take him back inside to get a spare from the fallen troopers.
The sniper rendered that option moot.
Just as Nile jumped down from her STAP to Kanto’s side, a blaster bolt tore through the padawan’s chest. The Jedi fell back onto the sand, stunned by the trauma in front of her.
The sniper allowed Nile no time to dwell on her failure.
A barrage of blaster bolts pelted the sand around her. She used the Force to leap back onto her STAP and then raced toward the sniper’s position. A single bolt shot past her, but she took no further fire from the sniper.
In seconds, Nile reached the line of the jungle. Using the Force again, she leaped into the jungle, lighting her lightsaber in mid-air.
She landed and pinpointed the sniper’s position. He was alone, working to repair his sniper rifle.
The Jedi slashed the rifle in two. The trooper fell onto his back. Holding the tip of her lightsaber’s blade to the trooper’s helmeted face, Nile demanded, “What is Order 66?”
“We were told the Jedi have committed treason!” the clone said. “They are to be destroyed… by order of Emperor Palpatine!”
Nile mouthed the word “emperor” behind her mask. The trooper took advantage of her momentary confusion and drew his blaster.
The Jedi noticed too late. Even as she dove for cover, the trooper got off a shot, burning her thigh.
The trooper scrambled to his feet. He brought his gun up to fire again.
Nile returned fire first with her holdout blaster, felling the trooper.
Over her comm set, Nile heard the remaining troopers moving through the jungle to her position. If they were moving here, they wouldn’t be at their transport.
To be concluded…
