Interlude 4

Briefing Room, Assault Ship Leveler, High Orbit over Coruscant

I entered the room and sealed it behind me. I looked around at a sea of the same faces looking straight. There was a whole company of clones standing at attention, waiting me to act.

I give them a sharp nod. They'll do.

I went to the small dais at the left side of the room and spoke: "Stand at ease men."

I met the eyes of the newly promoted Captain Trek. He returned my look and I could clearly see his unflinching determination.

I used the Force to sweep the room for any active or passive listening devices just in case. I found none, but just in case I surrounded us in a dampening field which would ensure our privacy.

"You've all volunteered for a special assignment. As of this moment, you are officially part of ninety first Reserve company. As far as anyone outside this room is concerned, your unit's only purpose is to provide replacements for casualties suffered by the forces under my command. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!" they spoke as one.

"You will undertake a special training regiment, which amongst other things will prepare you to face Force Adepts and not only survive such an encounter, but win!" I stated.

During the last war I was part of, we, the Sith, trained ordinary people to become competent Jedi hunters amongst other things. These men in front of me were going to become a nucleus for such a force.

While right now I didn't plan to fight the Jedi, I wanted to have troops able to go against them and win without overwhelming numeral superiority. Just in case. Besides, having my own black ops outfit could be useful for a lot of things.

These men were special. I had not only removed the programing placed upon them by Sidious' cronies on Kamino, but had used the Force to subtly probe their minds. That's how I had chosen who to recruit. I could be sure that these men would be molded into weapons who would obey only me when their training was complete. And that was without screwing with their minds with the Force.

The downside of this method was that there was a tiny pool of future recruits, unless I wanted to mess with their heads to such an extent that they would be little more than slaves.

In few months I would have the first black operations unit under my exclusive control.

=RK=

Lower levels, Coruscant

Officially, I was inspecting some of the equipment that my forces were expected to use as a break from the monotone work needed to turn my army and fleet from a fiction written on a data pad into reality. Which was slow going, boring work as I knew it would be.

In reality, I had discarded my recognizable armor for a dark, hooded robe and was going to a meeting into Coruscant's not so pleasant underbelly. After dealing with the pirates who had captured Dooku, I finally had some credits to burn, and I could start to build my power base outside the GAR. I was well aware that in the future I would need to do some distasteful things outside the official channels.

I reached a small, nondescript, cantina. There were thousands just like it strewn all over Coruscant. I nodded at the bouncer, a bored looking Trandosian, who was standing under a non-functional holo-panel, which usually was used for advertisements.

"I'm here to see Vonx. Lorek sent me." I told him.

He studied me for a moment, sniffed in my direction before nodding.

"Back room. Don't make any trouble or I'll use your spine to clean up my teeth." he grunted and grinned at me.

He had a lot of teeth. Big one's too. I could easily believe that he can use someone's spine to clean them.

It wasn't my problem. I just shrugged and entered the cantina.

Inside, I was greeted by a semi-dark expanse. The deep shadows did a great job of hiding everyone's faces.

I briefly scanned the room and walked in once I felt that I wasn't in any more danger than the average visitor of this "fine" establishment. Then I immediately regretted not bringing my helmet.

The damn place stank worse than a week old battlefield, where no one bothered to retrieve the corpses.

Perhaps it was because I was human. There was only one of my species inside and all others were aliens, a few of whom from species I wasn't familiar with.

I ignored the looks that the patrons gave me and headed straight to the back room. There, I had the same conversation with a pair of guards, that I had with the bouncer. They scanned me for weapons, but I countered that by projecting a dampening field over my lightsaber. Not surprisingly it worked. That was a useful trick I had picked up from a Sith Assassin during my training on Korriban.

Thankfully, the back room had working ventilation and there the stench was mostly gone.

I found myself across a plain desk, behind which was sitting a Rodian. His huge eyes were fixed on a data pad.

In the four corners of the room were standing guards. A quartet of huge Trandosians armed with blaster carbines.

"Sergeant Lorek sent you. Or so you claim..." whispered the Rodian.

"I'm his new business partner." I answered nonchalantly. "I need to procure few ships and a lot of equipment. You came highly recommended."

Who would have thought that a crooked supply sergeant could be such a spring of useful information? It was too bad that when I had finished with him his brain was ready to start leaking from his ears...

"Is that so? Then where is that shifty human?"

"Dead." I deadpanned.

The guards stiffened. I could feel that they were ready to pounce on me, figuratively speaking.

"Is that so? It's such a loss." he said in a tone, which made obviously that in his opinion it was anything but. "Now, you just have to prove that you aren't some kind of law enforcement, and we can talk business."

I smirked and take hold of the Force. It swirled around me and I used it to grasp the necks of the four guard. A mental nudge in the correct directions and four almost simultaneous snaps could be heard.

The dead mercenaries grumbled to the dirty floor. I looked at the shocked Rodian. I guess that my little demonstration wasn't something that you see often, or at all, in this age.

He tried to press a panic button under his desk, and no doubt summon more guards, but I had his hands in a secure telekinetic grip.

"Vonx, I believe that this is a sufficient demonstration?" I asked, nodding to one of the cooling corpses.

He stared at me for a long moment before frantically nodding.

"Ah, yes. Obviously you are not with the security forces..." he stammered.

"Now, I believe that you'll uphold your reputation and get me what I need?" I asked cheerfully.

Sith negotiations one oh one. I was glad to see that it still worked.

"Yes... Sure!" he exclaimed.

"That's great, Vonx! Now, here is what I need. A bulk freighter, which has docks for smaller ships. At least three smaller transport ships, which can dock with said freighter. Minimum six assault shuttles, two hundred sets of medium armor. Same number of blaster rifles and pistols..."

By the time I had finished listing what I wanted to purchase, Vonx's eyes were wide for very different reason. I could feel the greed positively oozing from every pore of his green body. Nasty image that.

"You can pay, right? That will be three hundred. Minimum."

"Vonx..." I muttered, making sure that he could feel the disappointment in my voice.

He gulped and shuddered in fear. His greed had become secondary for the moment.

"I wanted to say that it will be no more than three hundred thousand in total..." he stammered.

This time he was telling me the truth.

"Splendid!"

We spent the next hour straightening up the details of our deal.

=RK=

Republic Cruiser Requiem, High Orbit over Coruscant

I was meeting with Trek in a secluded part of one of the Venator's hangars. That by itself was a normal sight. By now everyone knew that I made sure that I knew the men under my command.

"The coming ops on Naboo represents an opportunity for us." I said.

"Yes, sir. How many of us can be taken off the books?"

"At least a squad. It won't be hard to list that many as casualties. Perhaps more, if everything goes to hell. I want your men to scout the locations of the primary list. If they find one of them uninhabited, inform me and start preparing the facilities there."

"What about civilian personnel?" asked the Captain.

"It's unlikely that we'll be able to retrieve Force sensitive kids under the noses of the Jedi any time soon. However if the opportunity arises, we may have to retrieve such children and their families so they are not indoctrinated. Start screening appropriate candidates for a small new colony. We'll go from there."

"Yes, sir."