Chapter 22 – Aggressive Negotiations

Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die

Chapter 22 – Aggressive Negotiations

"Quickly," Hermione panted. "They're almost upon us."

They had been running through the forest for at least ten minutes now, quite by accident they had managed to lure several of the gundarks away from the barricade, though not enough to cause any significant relief to the besieged colony. They had run deep enough into the forest that Hermione would have to use the map she had loaded into her wrist projector to find their way back and even with her Jedi training and Chewbacca's superior fitness they were beginning to flag.

Hermione was running slightly ahead of Chewbacca and during a slightly Force assisted jump to help her clear a fallen tree she saw what the uneven terrain had planned for them next in the form of a chasm in the forest. It was several meters wide and further than could be jumped without the Force but with many vines hanging down from the surrounding trees and bridging the gap.

"Chewie," she panted. "There looks to be a chasm just over that next large root formation, grab the vines and jump when we reach it."

"Ggggrrrraaaa."

As they reached the chasm they both jumped and grabbed at the tangling vines, very awkwardly in her case as she could only use one arm. Their forward motion caused them to swing outwards over what now appeared to be quite a deep hole in the forest. The gundarks were not so lucky, the first few did not stop in time, the second group did but the last group ran straight into them and took them down after the first.

There were several seconds of echoed howling, thudding and whimpers as they bounced off the walls and plunged to their deaths while Hermione and Chewbacca swung on the heavily tangled vines.

"Thank Merlin," she sighed in relief. Iit had taken her years to adjust her exclamations to the wizarding terminology like 'thank god' to 'thank Merlin', but because she and Harry had grown up for longer with those terms they had never really adapted to those used by most of the galaxy's citizens.

Turning around she awkwardly Force Jumped back to their side of the divide, shortly followed by Chewbacca, both of whom then slumped against the side of the nearest tree to regain their breath and in Hermione's case to get some relief from the pain in her arm which had been constantly throbbing all the while they were running and was only now being given the chance to settle.

"I thought we would never be rid of them."

They both stayed there for several minutes which gave Hermione a chance to properly examining her injury; pulling her cloak and tunic off of that shoulder she could see a slight swelling and very large multicoloured bruise covering her collar bone.

"I think I've broken my clavicle," she announced, focusing for several seconds on using the Force to dull the pain as much as possible which left her with just a light throbbing when her arm was not in motion.

After doing this she pulled out some of her food rations from her belt and gave some to the wookiee who rapidly began eating as she likewise worked on hers.

"Ok..." she said around a mouthful. "I estimate that we probably ran a couple of miles during that chase, I suggest that we head for the shuttle, we might even be able to use it to frighten the gundarks off."

"Mmmnnnnnnggggrrrr."

"Good, let's get going then," she smiled pulling herself to her feet before setting off in the direction that her wrist device said the shuttle was in. They had barely gone ten meters when an odd sound stopped them. "Do you hear that?"

"Nnggguu."

"Behind here quick," she ordered, ducking behind a tree, Chewbacca following behind her before both leaned around as a group of droids came into view.

"Federation Battle Droids!" she exclaimed with a whisper. "What in Merlin's name are they doing so close to the colony?"

Chewbacca shrugged his reply.

"Corporal, are you sure there are stray gundarks around here?" asked the lead droid in his electronic voice, his colouring marked him out as the sergeant.

"That's what the scanner says sir, it showed a group of life forms running away from the Wookiee colony not towards it."

"Well find them fast; the Commander wants all the gundarks in the area to be attacking the colony."

Realisation dawned for Hermione.

"That's why all the gundarks were attacking the colony," she whispered. "The Trade Federation droids drove them in the direction of the colony, probably by destroying their nests or something and making them think it was the wookiees so that they attacked you out of revenge. They were hoping that they would overwhelm the base, drive you off the planet or make you change your mind about wanting to colonise in the first place."

"Gggaaaarrrrrr uuummmm."

"Agreed, we must stop it, but we can't do that from here, we can't hope to take on all the groups of droids driving the gundarks, they would need hundred to drive that many towards the colony. We need to get to the Trade Federation base, if we can capture the Trandoshan Commander we can force him to make the droids stand down which will prevent them sending any more gundarks towards the colony, we will have to hope that Attichitcuk can hold off the gundarks until we can summon reinforcements from either the Jedi Temple or Kashyyyk."

"Rrrrrruuuurrrrrr uuumm."

"Yes, I know I am injured but we don't have much choice do we?"

"Ggrrrraaaarr."

"Well, is there anyone else who can help you break into the Trade Federation base?" she asked sarcastically.

"Mmmrrraaaa Nnn-"

"Is there anyone else here with a ship to get you to their base?"

"Mmmrrraaaa Nn-"

"And is there in fact any other person on this planet who can help you stop these attacks, capture the base Commander and might still get out alive?"

"Mmmrrraaaa!" replied the wookiee in an angry tone, leaning over her slightly.

"Well, I guess that means you are stuck with me, besides my best friend never managed to keep me from trouble so you stand no chance."

Chewbacca just glared at her for a few seconds before nodding his reluctant agreement.

"The shuttle is the best place for me to get something to deal with this injury anyway so let's go."

As Coleman finished his early morning meditation the next day, he stretched out before walking over to the comlink in the wall. After trying to contact the Wookiee colony unsuccessfully for several minutes, he broadcast on an open channel in an attempt to reach any other communication devices at the colony; it was possible that the main transmitter at the colony was damaged and they had not had the chance to repair it, with a strong transmitter like the one this ship had though he should be able to reach his apprentices comlink or any other similar devices.

"This is Jedi Master Coleman Trebor, calling anybody at the Wookiee colony, anybody hearing this please respond."

He waited for a moment and heard nothing but heavy static back, they were being jammed again. Cursing in his mind he rapidly donned his cloak and headed for the door, but it refused to open before him, he tried it twice more before drawing his lightsaber, something was wrong.

Just as he plunged his lightsaber into the door he heard the hiss of gas start to be pumped in through the vents. Usually this would not have been an issue for the Vert Jedi Master, being from a semi aquatic species meant he could hold his breath for an extended period of time and his Jedi training allowed him to extend this by quite a while, but unfortunately he needed about thirty second to prepare his body for extended periods without air and he did not have that, so he would have to rely on his Jedi training alone.

Using his Force powers he slowed his heart and internal body functions down as far as he could and then slowly, putting in as little effort as possible so as to not counteract his body slowing, he began to cut through the door.

He got almost the entire length of the door sliced through with plenty of not-breathing time left to do the rest when his lightsaber was ripped out of his hand as the door it was imbedded in slid open. The fast motion of the door caused the blade to cut straight into the wall.

He did not have the chance to react as a droid standing on the other side of the door shot at him, hitting him in the side.

The wound was far from fatal, but the shock of the hit caused him to take an inhalation of breath. Instantly he began to feel the effects of the gas which rapidly drove him to unconsciousness, collapsing to the floor.

"How well can you fly Chewie?" asked Hermione as she injected herself with pain killers, the on board medical equipment had confirmed her diagnosis, she had been right in thinking that her collar bone had broken but thankfully it was a clean break, a simply line across the width of the bone on the medical scan. There was nothing she could do about the injury now, without a proper medical facility it would take her several hours to begin to fix in a healing meditation and even then the bone would be fragile, but as they did not have that time she just did was she could to prevent any further damage to the bone and surrounding tissues. She also took what medication she could to reduce the pain and numb the sensitivity of the area, knowing that it was bound to get knocked and shaken during the coming mission and she could not risk binding her hand or putting it in a sling as she was bound to need to use it at least once.

"Gggggrrrruuuuggggg," the wookiee replied as the shuttle power up sequence began.

"Really? That's excellent. You can fly then. I wasn't looking forward to trying to fly like this," she said, gesturing towards her injured arm. "I'm going to prepare a probe with a message of the situation set to transmit to both the Jedi Temple and your home world, hopefully if we fly low through the atmosphere to get a little way around the moon and then launch it, it may be able to get passed the jamming signal and transmit its message before the Federation fighters are able to destroy it."

She rapidly finished the message and as after Chewbacca piloted them quite a distance around the moon launched the probe with instructions to take itself out of the atmosphere between the moon and the planet it was orbiting, before using the planet's atmosphere as a route around to the planets far side before heading for Kashyyyk, all the while transmitting a signal using both wookiee and jedi coding frequencies. Hopefully the scenic route would make it all the harder for the Trade Federation to detect and destroy it before one of the two locations received the signal.

"Right, now let's head for the Trade Federation base."

It did not take them long to reach the edge of the resource harvesting line of machines, it had expanded greatly since they were last there, it seemed as though resource collection had been stepped up, but they had no time to think on that as no sooner had they come within sensor range of the machines when a trio of droid fighters took flight and moved to engage them.

"Evasive manoeuvres!" shouted Hermione as Chewbacca pulled the ship hard around to port, letting the first barrage of fire pass harmlessly beside them. "I'll man the guns, this ship is not as manoeuvrable as those droid fighters so don't let us get hit, our shields won't hold for long."

Jumping into the gunner's position she adjusted the controls before preparing herself to try hit the fighters using one hands worth of controls.

"When you get the chance spin us around so I can get a chance to shoot back."

"Ggggrrrruuuurrrrrr!"

"I know it's difficult because we're being shot at," she replied hotly at his angered reply. "That's why I want to shoot back. These guns are front mounted and have limited arcs of fire, I can't hit them when they are behind us!"

Growling in response the wookiee pulled back on the controls, sending the ship into a large loop, which the droid fighters followed them into it which merely resulted in the faster fighters turning tighter and closing the gap between them.

"I hope you have a good idea how to get rid of these things!" she called back as an impact rocked the ship. "Shields down twenty percent."

"Hhhhuuuurrrrgggghhhh nnnrrrrruuuuuggg,"

"What? Why?"

"Rrrrrruuuuuugggggg nnnnnuuuuugggggrrrrriiii."

"Oh, I get it, line us up then."

Running to the other console she rapidly tapped in the commands to override the safety protocols.

"Ready."

"Nnnuugg!"

"Opening rear cargo bay doors," she announced, slamming her hand down on the control, before turning back to the scanner and watching as all the supplies, flotsam and jetsam went tumbling out of the back of the ship.

The first droid fighter did not react in time and smashed straight into one of the fuel canisters, detonating on impact.

Hermione did not witness the rest of the scene other than seeing the other two droids manage to dodge the instant minefield they had just created, forcing them to temporarily ignore the shuttle as Chewbacca again pulled back hard on the controls but not enough to loop them this time, just enough to use the flat belly of the shuttle as an air break, causing them to decelerate rapidly. The two remaining droid fighters went flying passed them before the wookiee levelled them out again and took off in pursuit.

Hermione did not waste any time, grabbing the fire controls she immediately took down one fighter, making a mental thank you for her Jedi reaction times, before aiming up on the second. Unfortunately the last fighter was now onto them and was evading, which caused the following turn of events to rapidly play out.

Hermione scored a hit to the fighter's engines, sending the fighter tumbling backwards through the air...Tumbling straight towards the shuttle.

"Incoming!" shouted Hermione as Chewbacca tried to pull them out of the way, but too slowly.

With a loud bang the droid fighter crashed into them, taking their port wing with it.

"Shields down, port engine and control surfaces destroyed, inertial dampeners gone!" she shouted out as the ships shook violently as Chewbacca fought with the controls. "We're going in."

Coleman awoke with a groan and went to move his hand up to touch his wounded side before realising that his hands were bound.

Looking around he could see that he was suspended from the ceiling with cuffs around his ankles holding his feet down and more around his wrists keeping his arms up, he also could feel what he guessed was a Force suppression collar around his throat. The only other occupants of the cell were a pair of battle droids who were standing guard by the door.

In a rare display of anger he growled his annoyance as he realised that he had been careless in letting himself be taken so easily. The room he was in was about three meters in circumference and about as high with him suspended dead centre in the room.

"Ahh, you are awake," came a familiar voice before a hologram of the Captain appeared before him.

"Captain, your hospitality seems to have slipped a little," he replied calmly.

"I am sorry about this Master Jedi, we did not want to have to do this, but when you tried to contact the surface we realised that we had no choice, you were bound to find out our plans after that if we did not stop you."

"May I ask what plan?" he replied, still trying to gather intelligence.

"Well I suppose you are no threat any more, I might as well tell you. Right now on the planet's surface there seems to have been an unfortunate spate of gundark attacks, a few have hit our base but the majority have regrettably targeted the wookiee colony instead."

"You're using the gundarks to hopefully drive them off the planet or kill them all, and by having some bodies scattered around your base it does not look like you were responsible as they attacked you too, but why now? Why not before we arrived?"

"Because you were to be our witness, if the wookiees leave then you and your padawan were here to witness that we had no part in it and the same if they were all killed."

"And with no wookiees there to challenge you right to the resource you would claim the whole moon and by the time the Senate would be able to resolve any motion to stop you, you would already have harvested vast quantities of the planet so as to make it not worth settling on."

"Very good Master Jedi, but there is also another reason why we attacked now, do you want to deduce that as well?"

Coleman paused for a few seconds the think before replying.

"You could not locate the wookiee colony; they had kept their transponder signal turned off until after we arrived. When they started broadcasting for the negotiations you were able to locate the source then somehow direct the gundarks into attack."

"Correct again Master Jedi, regrettably though as you have uncovered our little deception we will have to terminate you as well. I think probably the best way would be to take you down to the base with a few droids and then rip the droids apart and let the gundarks kill you, that way it will be assumed that you went to the aid of your padawan but you and the guards we sent with you to assist were overwhelmed and killed. Quite neat don't you think?"

"Not bad," he conceded. "But you do realise that I won't make it easy for the gundarks to kill me."

"That won't be a problem, we will use the same gas we used to knock you out and then leave you to their tender mercies. Any better?"

"A bit," he nodded.

"I'm afraid I can't stay and chat, I'll speak to you again before you go, farewell."

With that the hologram disappeared and Coleman quite calmly, now that he had had a chance to think of the best way to escape, put his plan into motion.

"You two droids, you're supposed to keep me restrained right?"

"Right," replied one.

"Quiet, don't talk to the prisoner," added the second.

"Oops, sorry," replied the first.

"Oh I don't want to get you into trouble but I think you may get into trouble anyway."

The droids looked at each other for a second.

"Why?" asked the first slowly.

"Well because this collar is faulty, I think the lock is broken, I should be able to take it off in a few minutes."

The droids looked at each other again.

"Eerr, maybe we should check that,"

"We were told not to move unless the prisoner tried to escape."

"If the collar comes off he will be able to escape."

"He's right," interrupted Coleman. "I could take you both down in less than a second if I was loose."

"See."

"Maybe we should check the collar?"

"Better you check it now than wait to see if I escape," he replied innocently. "Come on, just come over here and try and open it, if it doesn't open I was obviously wrong."

"Ok, you check him, I'll cover you."

"Roger, roger."

Coleman inwardly smiled as the droid walked over and took a hold of the collar. As soon as it was open a centimetre it stopped working.

"Hey, this collars not AAAAAHHHH""

He never got the chance to say any more as both droids were thrown back hard against the bulkhead, hard enough for something inside them to break and for them not to get back up again.

"All too easy," he smiled, before turning his Force powers to the locks and attempting to unlock them.

Ouch, was the first thing that came to mind as Hermione started to come around. Her head was throbbing and most of her body was aching as she remembered what had happened causing her to sit up quickly, her hand going to her lightsaber.

A hand caught hers and she panicked briefly before she felt that the fur on the hand and she realised who it was. As her vision returned fully she looked up to see Chewbacca leaning over her in what she hoped was concern, wookiee expressions were not the easiest to read.

"Hi Chewie, I take it we didn't die in the crash?" she asked rhetorically with a hint of sarcasm.

"Nnnggggggrrrr."

Sitting up slowly with the wookiees assistance she felt a wave of pain and nausea flood over her, causing her to bring her good hand up to her head.

"Oh, that hurts," she groaned, before realising where they were.

Instead of the insides of the shuttle she could see clear sky, turning left and right she noticed that they were in the end of a two meter deep trench of earth which looked like it had been excavated by the droids earth movers. There was no grass and no trees anywhere in sight which gave her the impression that they had crashed behind the Federation's lines.

"Why aren't we in the shuttle?" she asked.

"Rrruuummmmm gggguuurrrrnn, dddrrrrruuuuuggggrrrrrr aaaaaaayy."

"Good point, the shuttle must be crawling with droids by now," she acknowledged before moving to stand which involved flexing her broken clavicle which hurt a lot more than it should considering she had taken pain killers.

Gritting her teeth, she again moved her robe and tunic out of the way to show her skin. Unlike the last time she had done this when the shape was normal but slightly swollen with the large bruise, this time when she very gently traced her finger along the ridge made by the bone, using her Force abilities to numb the pain while she examined her injury, she noticed that the two broken ends of the bone did not meet in the middle and instead the clean break had turned into a nasty unclean one as the two broken edges instead of being aligned were now digging into the surrounding tissue.

She mentally swore under her breath, the force of the impact must have been enough to separate the bone. It was too risky for her to try to do a mission with her an unclean break like this, the broken ends of the bone were likely to cause internal bleeding if she did not do something to fix the bone. She spent a good few minutes thinking if the course of action she was considering taking was a good one before coming to the conclusion that it definitely wasn't but she really did not have any other choice if she actually wanted to be of any use to Chewbacca at all. A few years ago she would not even have considered doing something like this.

"Can you find me something I can bite into please," she asked, laying herself back down, knowing what she was about to attempt would be very painful. Chewbacca located a suitable sized broken branch left over from when the droids had felled the area. "Thank you. Right Chewie, I am about to try to partially fix my shoulder but I am going to need your help. What I am about to do would usually be done while I am unconscious but we don't have that luxury. I am going to use me wand, don't ask as it will take too long to explain right now, to try to put the bones in my shoulder back into shape. What I need you to be do is be ready to put that branch in my mouth when my arm drops back down and then to immediately hold both my arms down as its going to be painful and I must not touch my shoulder while the bone is being put back as I might cause more damage."

Chewbacca nodded his understanding, taking hold of her injured arm gently but firmly with one arm and preparing to place the branch in her mouth with the other.

Drawing her wand Hermione first cast a silencing charm on herself to make sure she did not alert any nearby droids before aiming it at her shoulder and preparing to cast the spell she had learned for realigning bones. Taking several deep breaths she spoke before forcing her wand arm to the ground as fast as she could as the spell took effect.

The pain was instantaneous and she tried to bring her arm back up to cradle her shoulder but Chewbacca had followed her instructions to the letter, pinning her wand arm to the ground while she arched in pain and screamed silently around the branch that now had deep teeth marks in it.

She looked up at the wookiee who watched in fascination and horror as her shoulder seemed to move slightly away from the rest of her body before the bone seemed to realign itself under the skin and her shoulder returned to its original position.

It took a slow fifteen seconds for all the above to occur before a panting, shaking and sweat covered Hermione spat out the branch and calmly nodded for him to release her.

Cancelling the silencing spell on herself she cast a couple of diagnostic spells on her shoulder, confirming that her bones were back to being a clean break, though a more painful one now because of the stress caused to the surrounding tissue, the Force and pain killers could only do so much.

"I don't want to have to do that again anytime soon," she sighed in relief, before getting to her feet with Chewbacca's assistance. "Right, so we no longer have a ship, anything on the ship is now in the hands of the droids and they are bound to be looking for us. We also cannot get back to the colony because of the line of droid defences at the tree felling line and we are many many miles from the Trade Federations base. Any ideas?"

"Rruuuuuugggggnnnnn uuummmmm gggrrrrrruuu."

"You may well be able to hot wire a droid fighter but first we would have to catch one without being noticed by the other droids and in order to use it to get it back to the base we would have to hang onto the outside all the way there as they have no cockpit which would not be exactly easy for me at the moment. They would probably also realise as soon as it was out of position that something was wrong and seeing the two of us hanging onto it would not go unnoticed."

"Dddddrrruuuuunnnn aaarrrrrrhhhh."

"Same problem with a transport or an earth mover as with the fighter, they would know if it was not doing what it was supposed to be doing...But..."

The wookiee waited a couple of seconds before urging her to continue.

"We could get aboard one of the full transport barges. We would not need to hijack it because they would be heading back to the base anyway. What do you think?"

"Rrruunnnn rrrruuunn rrrrrrnnnngg."

"Then we have a plan," she smiled. "Let's go."

Coleman slipped out of the room after disabling the droids on the other side of the door; annoyingly his lightsaber was not kept with him so he had to arm himself with a pair of blasters from the droids after he threw them around for a bit.

After mentally expressing his disgust at using such an uncivilised weapon he headed out. He might not have a lightsaber but with a pair of blasters and his Force powers he could handle pretty much anything he was likely to encounter on the ship.

Thankfully his injury was very minor and had partly healed well during his time as a captive, he probably would not even need bacta to completely heal.

He spent a good twenty minutes trying to find his way around the ship, he was glad he had had the foresight to study their layout before this mission began but still the maze like passages of the vast ship were not easy to navigate when you were trying to remain incognito. He encountered several more droids but each time they were only in groups of twos or threes so he was easily able to deal with them before the alarm was raised. He hid their bodies in the vents that ran alongside the corridors and then continued on until he came across an auxiliary control room.

"Look, Jedi!" shouted one of the droids before he shot it, but he was not quick enough with the rest as one of the other dozen in the room sounded the alarm which started blaring out of the speakers as red lights started flashing.

"Looks like my escape is no longer a secret," he said to himself before going over to one of the consoles and beginning to search. He located the exact location of the Trade Federation base and that of the wookiee colony, he would likely need them both. He also managed to locate the room that held his lightsaber, but to his confusion it was Captain Dofine's quarters, but that did not make sense. If it was in his cabin that must mean the Captain was aboard the ship, why then did he transmit in to the talks rather than attending in person? Coleman had assumed that he was down on the planet with the trandoshan.

The answered occurred to him a second later; the Captain had said he was not taking the risk of being in the room with a Jedi, but he had never expressly said that he was not on the ship, he just gave the impression of it...Very clever.

Noting where his quarters where he made his way out of the room and headed towards them, if he could capture the Captain he could get the Trade Federation forces on the surface to stand down and hopefully end the continued gundark attacks on the wookiee colony.

As he rounded one corner he came face to face with a troop of twelve droids.

"Look, Jedi!"

"Hold it right there," commanded another.

"Sorry," he replied calmly before raising his hands, picking them off the floor.

"Uh-oh," one said panicked, before he threw them all from one side of the corridor to the other three times. By the time they landed every single one of them was at least missing one limb or their head.

"They really don't build you guys very well do they?" he asked the unresponsive droids, before continuing on passed their dismembered bodies. "You'd think for the amount of money the Trade Federation makes they could afford to build you to a higher standard."

Because of the Trade Federation patrols and the awkward terrain it took Hermione and Chewbacca about an hour to move to a viable location where they could board a barge. They realised that they could not board them at the loading point as there were too many droids around loading the hover barges, they would have to sneak aboard them once they had started back to the base.

They found a location a little way from the Trade Federation's forward positions where the hover barges had to navigate through a small series of hills that would have been too costly for them to level where the slow moving constant flow of barges, each of which were a couple of hundred meters apart, were out of sight from each other for a few seconds, that was their chance to get on board.

"You ready?"

"Grrrruuu."

"Good," Hermione nodded, looking out from behind an outcropping of rocks as the next barge rounded the corner. She could of course have used Force Speed to get there much faster but that would not have helped as Chewbacca still needed to cover the distance. "We have only got from when the barge passes us so that the droids driving it cannot see us to the time that the next one rounds that corner to get to the barge so we must not waist a second. Ready...Now!"

They both ran as fast as they could towards the slow moving barge, it seemed to take an extraordinary long amount of time for them to reach it before they both sighed in relief as they ducked underneath the craft which was only moving at a walking pace.

"Thank goodness these things are slow," sighed Hermione, walking in time with the barge while she breathed in relief before noticing Chewbacca's discomfort, unlike Hermione who was only slightly too tall to fit under the barge without crouching, Chewbacca's additional height meant he was bending over so far he was almost bent double whilst having to walk fairly quickly.

"Hang on for just a second Chewie, I'll make us an entrance," she stated drawing her lightsaber and plunging it awkwardly upwards into the base of the barge. It took her less than three seconds to cut through the thin hull in an elliptical shape before she carefully levitated the cut out section out of the hole without letting it drop to the floor, knowing that she could not let it remain on the track else the droids in the following barge might realise something was wrong.

Letting Chewbacca climb in she carefully manoeuvred herself so that she was standing with her head through the hole before Force Jumping upwards before levitating the cut out through after her before dropping it to the floor.

"Good, that wasn't too bad," she breathed before examining the compartment they were in. It was a large space, it seemed as though the cargo area of the barge was just one big open compartment as around them they could see containers full of wood chippings, others full of water, still more filled with minerals and ores and even some containing live animals. They had entered alongside a tightly bound pile of felled trees that had been cut into smaller segments, one had been so close to where they entered that the bottommost log had a segment missing where her lightsaber had passed through it when she had been cutting through.

Moving away from the entrance hole they checked the rest of the barge to make sure there were no droids or security systems, which thankfully there were not, before settling down to wait. After Hermione healed some of the obvious injuries that the wookiee had received during the crash she settled down and entered a Healing Meditations to repair as much damage to her shoulder as she could before they reached the base, whether it be a couple of hours or a couple of days away.

"I really do not like these wheel droids," groaned Coleman as he dodged those firing upon him. He could handle the standard B1 droids easily, but the droidekas were another matter, they had this annoying strategy of two of them rolling up to him as he was running, deploying and opening fire, but while this was happening two more would wheel closer and then deploy while the others caught up so he always had two firing on him at any one moment of his flight. If he had his lightsaber it would have been much easier as he could have blocked their fire while redirecting it back in order to destroy them but without the ability to protect himself from incoming fire from the four droids with four lasers each he was struggling just to evade them let alone manage to return fire accurately. He was very fortunate that these droids did not seem to be equipped with shield generators which he had heard was an optional extra on this model of droid.

Ducking around a corner he came face to face with a large unit of about a dozen B1 battle droids."

"Jedi!" one exclaimed, before he jumped over the top of them, their eyes following him as he went, he turned in mid air and shot away several of the back row of droids just as two of the droidekas rolled around the corner and smashed straight into the unit, knocking them all to the floor.

He wasted no time in taking out the two sideways droidekas and concluded by shooting as many of the rest of the unit as he could in the time before he heard the telltale sound of the other two destroyers rolling towards him.

Using the Force he lifted the combined mess of destroyed droids in front of him and as the pair rounded the corner slammed them into them, knocking them backwards onto their sides allowing him to easily dispatch them.

Smiling to himself he continued on his way.

He managed to avoid several more patrols before arriving at the quarters which were marked out as the Captains. Using the blaster to destroy the lock he then Force pushed the doors open, he was not expecting what he saw.

On the floor gagged and bound hand and foot was Captain Dofine.

"Well I was not expecting to see that when I walked in here," he said out loud.

"Mmmmmhhhh MMMMmmmmhhhh," spoke the Captain through his cloth gag.

"Hang on," Coleman said, walking over and untying the knot allowing the neimoidian to speak.

"I'm going to kill him," the Captain said in anger.

"Who?" asked Coleman, sitting back and deliberately not undoing the rest of the restraints until he knew what was going on.

"My second in command," he stated, in between stretching his mouth after the strange feeling of having a cloth tied through it for however long he was like that. "Shortly after the last round of talks he came in here and stunned me, when I awoke I was bound and he announced his intention to take over the ship. He's made a deal with the trandoshan commander on the surface to destroy the wookiee base somehow. When the wookiees, you, me and your apprentice gone he was going to report back to the Viceroy that I had died during a terrible accident and that with the wookiees destroyed somehow that was untraceable to the Trade Federation they could collect many more resources while the issue was being re-debated in the Senate, he would turn a tidy profit and get a permanent promotion to captain as he has been a commander for a long time now. Aren't you going to untie me?"

"I'm still not sure I can trust you, the last I saw of you was a holoimage of you telling me your plan for wiping out the wookiee base while I was in restraints."

"Do you really think I would be so stupid as to tell a Jedi my plans?" asked the Captain looking slightly offended. "Any fool knows that you tell no one your plans until they have succeeded or else they might try to interfere, even more so with a Jedi as it's nearly impossible to imprison you against your will. Look your lightsaber is over there on that table, use it to cut these restraints."

"How did your number two appear as you then?"

"This ship is vast and its computer core is very advanced and spans several decks in order to be powerful enough to easily control thousands of droids all performing separate tasks, all the ships systems and the complexities of hyperspace navigation, it would not be hard for the computer to superimpose an image of my head over his image. Now if you don't mind?"

Coleman thought for a moment before summoning his lightsaber to him and cutting the Captain's bonds, there was something off about this turn of events, he just was not sure what it was.

"Thank you," he replied, getting to his feet, stretching and picking up the blasters that Coleman had been using. "Now we must retake my ship."

"First we must disable the jamming signal which is preventing communication, we also must find out what is happening down on the planet and we must get a message to the Jedi Temple, they can send reinforcements if necessary and in case we fail it will insure others know what has happened."

"We can do all that and retake the ship from the bridge," commented the Captain after a moment's thought. "Depending on how clever my number two has been will probably dictate how hard this is going to be."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, if he's clever he will have deleted my access and command codes so that neither the ship or the droids will recognises me as being the captain. If he is less intelligent he will either have done nothing at all and will just be hoping that I would not escape or he will have just told the computer that I am dead in which case command of the ship and of the droids will temporarily transfer to him until a new captain is appointed. If the first it will be difficult as we will have to fight continually until we can disable all the droids on the ship and take control of the bridge back, if the second I just need to show myself and I will be back in command and if the third we will need to fight until we can get to a command console with a bio-scanner so I can convince the computer that I am not in fact dead before I can resume control, but regardless of whatever choice we go for I still think the bridge is the best place to head for."

"Let us proceed then," nodded Coleman. "After you."

Hermione was awakened about twelve hours later when their barge came to a shaking halt.

"Are we there yet?" she asked, rousing herself out of the meditation she had been in.

"Ggggrrrruuuuunnnn," replied Chewbacca, leaning back inside from where he had had his head hanging out of their entrance hole to see what was ahead of them.

"Good," she nodded, getting back to her feet. She cautiously tested her arm and discovered that it was still very much broken and still very painful though the tissue around it had almost completely healed and although when she checked her skin the discolouration was still there, the swelling had almost completely gone. She would need a couple of days of healing and some bacta to completely heal the wound but it was much better than it was earlier even though she still could barely use her arm.

Walking over to the hole she followed Chewbacca as he dropped through and made their way under the now stationary barge. Crouching down Hermione could see that they were in the base in an loading area for the various cargos on board the many barges. She could see many others lined up on either side of theirs and many droids unloading the contents and moving it to larger storage areas for processing and in some cases being put straight onto transports for shipping off world. Behind them she was able to see a large complex of structures all built around what appeared to be a Lucrehulk-class Core Ship, they were built in such a way that the ship was unable to take off as numerous building were built into its sides so that the ship became an extension of the buildings. That must be the command centre for the ground operation, they would have to pass through the outer buildings to get to the ship.

"We need to get in there," she explained. "We need to do it as quickly as possible, when they get to our barge and notice the hole in the floor they will realise something is wrong. Even Trade Federation droids can't be so stupid as to not realise that that would mean something was wrong."

"Hhhhunnn," he agreed, before the pair started slinking their way under the barges until they were as close to the core ship as they could get while remaining under the row of parked transports. There was still a huge gap between the end of the barges and the nearest building, at least four hundred meters, they would not be able to cross that without gaining attention.

"This could be a problem," Hermione sighed, creasing her brow in an attempt to think of a solution. Where was Harry with his invisibility cloak when she needed it. The main problem was going to be that the droids would all have been programmed to recognise wookiees as enemies so as soon as Chewbacca was seen he would be fired upon. Hermione might have a slightly better chance but that was assuming that humans were not classified as enemy combatants as well. "Ok, I have a slight plan, and I emphasis the word slight as its probably not going to work, but may buy us a few dozen meters if we are lucky."

Chewbacca gestured for her to continue.

"Well the only advantages we have are that these droids are not very smart and they are not expecting us to be inside their base so my plan is that if I take your bow-"

"Arrrrrhhhhhh!"

"Calm down, I'm going to give it back. Then we start walking as if you were my prisoner and that I am taking you to the ship."

"Rrrrruuuuggggg nnnnnnuuuummmmrrrr rrrrgggg!" growled Chewbacca gesturing in annoyance.

"Yes it may not be the best plan, but it's the best I've got."

"Ggggggrrrrrrruuuuuuuhhh!" he growled again moving closer and trying to look more imposing while bent over because of the low height of the barges.

Hermione just glared back at him.

"You know that old saying about never letting a wookiee lose a game. Well whoever started that saying had obviously never lost a game to an annoyed Jedi Padawan or a witch and I happen to be both," she replied, lowering her eyebrows into a fierce glare that would have made Harry wince. "Now do you want to continue this staring contest or continue this mission before the gundarks overrun the colony?"

Her research about wookiees paid off now; she knew she would not be able to talk him around quickly enough, instead she had to stand up to him until he backed down and accepted her plan, by adding that mention of the time constraints she even politely gave him a reason for accepting her more risky plan without making him think he had backed down too much.

This led to a good minute long staring contest in which Hermione let loose a little of her magic, something that she had learned from watching what happened on the rare occasions when Harry or some of the older Jedi became angry and lost their temper and their Force presence began more pronounced. If worked quite well at making her smaller frame look a little more imposing next to the large wookiee.

Eventually Chewbacca let out an annoyed huff and agreed to the plan, much to Hermione's relief, she was beginning to wonder if they were actually going to come to blows, she was pretty sure that Jedi were not supposed to start fights with those they were supposed to be helping, especially when the fight was so one sided, she would have won easily.

"Errr, Sergeant?" asked a droid, lookout over the side of the watch tower that overlooked the barge unloading area.

"Yes Corporal?" replied another.

"There's a wookiee prisoner being led across the loading area by a human."

"A human? There are no humans on the base."

"Errr, well she's there sir. What should we do?"

"Let me see," demanded the Sergeant, grabbing the binoculars. "That's not a humanoid you idiot, that's a Jedi. Sound the alarm, open fire, open fire."

As the first shots started landing around them Chewbacca took off at full speed, hearing the footfalls of the plucky young padawan behind him. Flexing his powerful arms the wookiee opened the cuffs that Hermione had somehow made out of a torn section of her robe with that stick of hers.

The wookiee had to reluctantly agree that the humans idea had worked, they were over half way to the central complex of buildings before they had been fired upon and the few shots that were getting close to them were being deflected by the young jedi with her lightsaber.

More fire started to converge on them as the other sentry towers opened up on them, firing on them from both sides, some shots landing inches away from them.

Just as he went to tell the young girl to hurry she jumped forward so that she was running directly in front of him. Before he had the chance to ask what she chucked him his bow back before she awkwardly and with a gasp of pain drew that stick of hers out of her sleeve with her wounded arm, then holding it in a backwards grip said some words he was not familiar with before a shield of some kind appeared on their left. The blaster fire started deflecting off of it as soon as it was raised, protecting them from the incoming fire. From what Chewbacca remembered from what the old Jedi Watchmen appointed to their sector had told him once, those were some quite advanced jedi skills she was now demonstrating.

"I don't know what that stick of yours is," he commented in Wookieespeak, "But it's very useful."

"Thank you," she replied in Basic, sometimes Chewbacca hated the fact that his species were cursed with oddly formed vocal cords that meant they could not speak in the same language as the rest of the galaxy, it could be quite the hindrance.

As they approached the building she put her laser sword away and made a gesture with her hand that opened the doors. Sometimes those Jedi magics could be quite useful.

She dived through and turned so that she could close the doors just as soon as he entered, before passing her blade through the control panel to make it harder to open.

"Well, we're in," she smiled, breathing deeply.

"We must get to the command centre and stop the attacks as soon as possible or else the colony will be overrun."

"Let's go," she smiled setting off down the corridor.

They kept running for several minutes, encountering few droids as they went and not a single trandoshan.

It was not until they reached the heart of the complex and started to ascend up a corkscrew shaped spiralling slope that headed up the outside of the ship towards where they hoped the bridge of the ship was that they started to encounter resistance. Every few floors a gantry would connect the ascending slope to an entrance in the side of the ship and on each floor there were several droids waiting for them. They were able to deal with all the droids up until the point not far short of their destination that a bolt hit Chewbacca in the leg.

The wound was not bad but had slowed him considerably and made him walk with a noticeable limp which Hermione guessed was much worse than he was trying to make it look.

"Ggggggrrrruuugggg nnnnnrrrrrrrraaaaaaaggggrrrr," he said suddenly after they had continued on for several levels.

"What! I can't leave you here," she exclaimed turning to him. They could hear the sounds of more battle droids ascending the tower behind them.

"Rrrruuuuuggggnnnnn ttttttrrrrrrrr."

"Yes, I know but...Alright look, you keep heading up after me as fast as you are able. I'll get to the top and try to get this to stop."

He nodded as she started leaping up from one spiral to the next, rapidly increasing her speed until she came to a stop outside what certainly looked like a command centre from the much larger and heavier door that it had, the blast doors were probably closed on the other side of it as well, that would make getting in a bit harder, the Trade Federation certainly knew how to built their doors well...but that would not stop a lightsaber.

Aiming her lightsaber at the centre of the door she awkwardly plunged it in up to the hilt before beginning to turn it, forcing it to melt more of the door.

Hearing the sounds of approaching droids she stepped away from the door, leaving her lightsaber buried to the hilt in the rapidly heating door. With as much metal as made up the multiple layers of doors her lightsaber would not move unless the metal gave out, melted or she deliberately tried to force it to cut in a line. Leaving it in the door meant she could fight whilst still cutting.

Judging by the rolling sounds the approaching droids were not B1's which meant they had to be destroyers. She was proved correct a second later when a pair of droidekas rolled towards her down the main corridor towards the bridge.

Tossing her wand into her other hand she rapidly started firing curses, starting with a modified version of the leg locker curse, it worked quite well as a metallic snapping came from the one she had aimed at as its three legs were unnaturally forced together. When it started to come to a halt it began to unroll but its snapped legs didn't to function so it ended up flat on its front on the ground, damaging the barrels of its blasters in the process and leaving it sparking in defeat. The other droid managed to fully deploy but Hermione's rapidly raised shield stopped its fire.

Thinking on her feet she began to edge her way around the droid so that it had to move to the area immediately in front of the doors. Awkwardly passing her wand over to her injured hand, dodging a few shots as her shield temporarily failed during the transfer, she then re-raised her shield before reaching out with the Force and her good hand, picking the droid off the ground and throwing it at high speed down the spiral slope she had ascended so that it flew down the gap between the spirals hearing it clattering against the side of several floors as it fell.

"I hate those things," she mumbled under her breath before turning her attention back to the door.

As it turned out the Captains second in command was not as stupid as they had hoped and had indeed told the droids on board that the Captain was dead as they had realised to their misfortune the first time they ran into a patrol.

"Look, Jedi!"

"Droids stand down, authorisation Dofine, Lushros, Captain, code zeta nine nine green zeta," called the Captain as soon as he saw them.

"Redundant authorisation code, Captain Lushros Dofine is no longer functioning. Hands up!"

"Nice try," Coleman replied, before raising his sabre as the fire came at them.

It soon became evident to Coleman that Dofine did not have any great skill with a blaster as he had a less than fifty percent hit rate on the droids who usually obliged them by standing perfectly still to fire, meaning that Coleman was responsible for taking out most of the droids. He also noticed that the droids seem to target him much more than the Dofine which was unusual, he would have thought that the second in command would have programmed the droids to recognise the Captain's image as the main target, after all, all he could do would be to cut a few of them to pieces, on the other hand if Dofine got to a bio-scanner he could retake the ship instantly.

He was brought out of his musings when a blaster bolt passed through one of the loose folds of his robe, leaving a pair of circular burn marks.

He rapidly sent a couple of bolts back at the attacking droids, hitting them at their weaker neck joint, separating their heads from their bodies.

"Nicely done," complemented Dofine, as he moved passed him and went to the door of the bridge and attempted to use his command code to get in the door, as he did so they could hear the blast doors shut on the other side.

"Looks like he was smart enough to lock me out of the computer too, we will have to find another way in."

"That won't be necessary," Coleman replied with a slight smile before plunging his lightsaber blade into the door at its weakest point where the upper and low halves met and began to slowly twist the blade, melting the door around it.

"Hmm," nodded the Captain. "Remind me to get stronger blast doors fitted to this ship, if you can melt the door that fast its almost pointless having them."

"While you are at it could you get the intelligence programming in your B1's upgraded, I have heard the words 'Look, Jedi' so many times since I broke free that it is testing even my usually calm resolve."

"I think I'd better if they are this ineffective at stopping just two people from roaming freely throughout the ship."

As he finished speaking a large section of red hot metal broke away to reveal a gap through to the second layer of the door and judging from the sounds coming from the door similar sheets of superheated metal were falling away from the other side. Coleman hoped he would not have to do this for long as it would seriously drain the power of his lightsaber.

After no more than a minute of melting a loud clank was heard from inside the door.

"The locks have failed, you should be able to force them now."

Nodding Coleman stood back and using the Force opened each layer of the door to reveal the wide expanse of the bridge.

The pair walked in to the utterly confused looks of the neimoidians and droids, who thankfully as they were functioning as crew rather than security were not armed, inside.

Pointing his lightsaber Coleman walked straight towards the man who had just climbed out of the Captain's seat, intent to arrest him.

"Captain," exclaimed the officer. "Thank goodness you are alright, last we heard you were-"

He was cut off as a blaster bolt sailed past Coleman and impacted the centre of the neimoidian's forehead.

Spinning around, Coleman looked straight at the Captain who was holding the offending weapon.

"Why did you do that?" he demanded. "He should have been arrested."

"He was an enemy commander and a traitor, he also still had control of all the droids, now he is dead he cannot now order them to attack us," explained the Captain, walking up to the fallen officer and looking down at his body. "That's what you get when you betray me you piece of filth."

After sending one last glare at the body he walked around to the nearest console and placed his hand on a pad and began typing. The rest of the crew whether biological or machine just stood, not knowing what to do. After a few seconds a confirmation beep was heard.

"I'm back in command," he announced turning to the rest of the bridge, before pointing with his blaster at the rest of the neimoidian officers. "I'll assume he had you lot too scared to act or you were planning to release me in the near future so I will be lenient and not have you all locked up. Now, ships status?"

Coleman tuned out the rest of the conversation, something had just happened and he was sure now that he was not seeing the whole picture, he had a feeling he had just been used but he just did not know how or why. He would need to meditate on it later, for now though he rejoined the conversation as one of the droids made an announcement.

"...and shut off that jamming signal, a-"

"Sir, we have an unidentified ship entering the system."

As soon as she was able to open the doors she let rip on the droids inside, cutting the dozen or more that were inside the vast room to pieces, knowing that they could not be persuaded or threatened into helping her.

As the last one hit the floor she looked around and realised that the trandoshan commander was not on the bridge, just droids. She worried about this briefly before realising that the trandoshan had probably set out to find Chewbacca and her personally, knowing what an aggressive race they were.

Stowing away her lightsaber she rushed over to the consoles and after identifying which was the droid control station, she started working on trying to deactivate them.

She worked away for five minutes before thumping her hand down on the desk, she could not order a shutdown of all the droids on the surface or order them to kill the gundarks attacking the colony as both required a command code that she did not have. She had only very limited access to the global commands so she had to do something that would not require a command code.

She spent a couple of minutes thinking before it came to her. Turning back to the console she rapidly typed in the command she wanted to activate just as a reptilian voice behind her called out.

"Step away from the controls."

She spun around drawing her lightsaber and deliberately slashing it through the droid control console in the process, only to be confronted with a room rapidly filling with both B1 and destroyer droids, several of whom were restraining a handcuffed Chewbacca between them. The trandoshan commander that she had spoken to at the negotiations stepped forward and held out his hand.

"Hand over your weapon and I may decide to spare the beast."

Chewbacca growled in fury.

"I think we both know your ways better than that, a trandoshan turning down the chance to kill a wookiee, what kind of hunter are you."

"Silence," he hissed at the insult, his tongue flicking briefly out of his mouth. "Your weapon now or I will kill you slowly rather than quickly."

Hermione paused for a second to think before throwing her lightsaber to the reptile.

"Good little pink skin," he taunted. "Take them a-"

The Commander stopped part way through speaking as he realised that something was wrong, having just glanced out of the windows towards the edge of the base.

"What is happening?"

"I think that would be my plan being carried out," smiled Hermione, glad that what she had attempted had actually worked.

He forced his way past her and began trying to get the console she had destroyed to function.

"What did you do?" hissed the reptile in frustration, turning and bearing down on her. "You could not have issued any military orders!"

"No I could not, but I did trick every droid and automated piece of machinery using the long range control transmitter on this ship to receive commands into thinking that they were running low on power and needed to recharge and therefore needing to return to the base. Annoyingly that really only affects those outside the base as those in the base use the short range transmitter but it should be enough to stop more gundark attacks and any more harvesting for a while."

"Rrraarr," roared the Commander turning to one of the droids. "Fix this."

"I'm afraid it can't, even if it gets to another console it was a very basic command that all droids have programmed into them, it's part of their most basic code, it overwrites any later programming and will only be 'fixed' as you phrased it when each droid has come back here and recharged."

In the background she could here Chewbacca's laughed.

"Rrraarrrr," he roared again, back handing her across the face so that she slammed hard into the windows before staggering slightly due to the force of the impact.

She briefly heard Chewbacca roar in anger as her world refocused, she had not expected to be hit.

"For this you both die now. Droids kill them both."

Every droid in the room lined up to take aim. Time seemed to slow for Hermione as she realised she had to act. Before coming on this mission she knew it was possible that she would end up in a fight with many droids and so she had consulted Master Yaddle on Force techniques to use against them and there was one that would be useful right now. She had seconds to act and she had to guarantee to hit every droid in the room but not to hurt either herself or Chewbacca, but she had never used this Force power before and did not even know if she could use it, she had tried focusing on what she would need to do on the shuttle here but had never actually tried to use the ability.

Closing her eyes and sinking into the Force she concentrated as hard as she could on what she wanted to achieve.

"Err, what is she doing?" asked one of the droids.

Hermione did not listen, she had to get this right first time or both she or Chewbacca would be dead. Reaching out with her hand she could feel the Force gathering around it and one last time mentally prayed that this would work.

"Kill them, kill them now!" came the urgent orders from the Commander, followed by the arming clicks of the droids riffles.

NOW

Throwing her hand forward and opening her eyes she watched as the bolt of what looked like purple lightning leapt from her hand towards the nearest three droids, no sooner had it hit them than it jumped to the droids nearest them and then those nearest them.

In her Force sped world Hermione saw the shocked look on the faces of both Chewbacca and of the Commander as purple electricity passed through them harmlessly while jumping between droids until every droids and several of the consoles sparked, fizzled and dropped to the floor, apparently disabled.

There was a stunned silence in the room as none of the remaining three inhabitants moved until Hermione staggered back into the wall, her vision clouding partially and her level of exhaustion from using the technique almost knocking her out whilst the trandoshan started to shout.

"How did you...How did...Why you little!" he yelled, knocking aside the wounded wookiee who attempted to put himself between the angry trandoshan and the nearly unconscious Hermione.

Hermione heard the distinct wring of an activating lightsaber before she felt the buzz of her own at her throat.

"You...you are too dangerous to be kept alive even for a moment, I will kill you right now myself, with your own weapon as my trophy...die!"

She heard the 'whump' as the lightsaber was drawn back but before it was brought back again she felt something nearby through the Force and a slight smile spread across her face as the windows smashed to the sound of many lightsabers.

She barely heard anything of what happened then, but she knew she was safe and although she could barely remain conscious she knew it was just exhaustion. The last thing she heard before her mind decided that it had had enough of the waking world was a familiar voice saying.

"Sleep now padawan, done well you have."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry this one took so long, RL got in the way and I realised when I was writing it that there was only one place I could break this very long chapter up and that was barely six pages in when Hermione & Chewbacca are about to crash and Coleman has been captured, so I decided that was too early and gave you one really big chapter instead.