Not original

717 FNM (21 BBY)

Month 1

Coruscant, Mando Tower

Tanya Kryze

As I gazed dramatically out at the familiar Coruscanti skyline, I pondered over what had happened during my leave to Mandalore. Satine was not happy after I had been splashed with silver paint and nearly assaulted by a riot of New Mandalorians, who apparently were so scared about the possibility of war that they were about ready to start the war themselves on the streets.

Thankfully, I had been rescued by an unknown Mandalorian warrior. That's how I had reported it, eventually leaving Vai's part out, simply because that seemed like a messy overcomplication that throws more fuel to the already raging fire.

Satine had been furious and had deployed the Mandalorian Guard to bring order to the areas that were currently disorderly, which had resulted in street fights around several blocks where they had been protesting.

The more violent individuals of the New Mandalorians who attacked the Mandalorian Guard are in prison for aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and disturbing the peace, which is ironic for the pacifistic New Mandalorians. Thankfully, the leaders of the protest movement are distancing themselves from the rioters, so there are no further calls for violence.

Our own ideology is a useful tool in this situation. After all, if you're upset about violence being on the menu, and you commit violence, you're a hypocrite. The best they could do is to say that those who committed the violence are rogue agents from other organizations. I noticed the protest movement's leaders claim that Silver Mandalorians and Death Watch gangster kids were the ones responsible for the violence, trying to pretend my attackers were not members, driven to a mad rage over politics not going their way.

I tried not to hold a grudge, but well, they ruined a perfectly good dress, and I was getting paint out of my hair for a week. So I was understandably annoyed with the New Mandalorians who had assaulted me. At least I was able to sue the one who dumped paint on me for a thousand credits for damages to my dress, which does give me some vindictive satisfaction. Now I am reminded of that idiot that pushed me onto an oncoming train. I wonder how he's doing, after he committed murder in front of dozens of witnesses. I imagine he'll get life in prison and rot his life away, even if he did get bail, no one would hire a known murderer because he got fired.

Unfortunately, because I had been rather ticked off with the New Mandalorians, I might have allowed my own personal annoyance to interfere with another relationship. I had originally planned to speak to my brother again about the political and philosophical disagreements that we had. I wanted a chance to try and hash out a mutual understanding of our political situation with Korkie. But after the unexpected violence, we had been so busy dealing with the chaos and aftermath that I never really had a chance to speak to him before I left Sundari. I'm sure I would have an opportunity to speak to him again and try to hash this situation out, but that would have to be postponed for now. The best I could do for now is suggest a few books and scholars for him to read up on his own time.

A holocall would solve all of my problems, but with the Republic commandeering the Holocall network civilian holocalls are made unavailable to the public. Apparently the holocall network are used by the military to coordinate their military in real time. Even top ranking senators require authorization to make a holocall. With the war going on, I doubt I would get that authorization for what could be considered a personal call.

Anyway for a problem that is in my general vicinity, the Senate has always been a comedic mess, but somehow a war made it even more so. You would think that when everyone's lives are on the line, things would get simpler as everyone has the same motivation to survive.

But no, old rivalries and fights are being brought up across the galaxy instead. As a result, the Senate, instead of trying to find peaceful solutions for every little conflict, are finding ways to make it worse by settling old scores. This prolongs the conflict and everyone gets poorer as the war sucks up all of the wealth the Republic has to fuel the war economy. It is very likely that by the end of the war, the Republic would accrue so much debt that it would cause a galactic crisis.

The most recent way to make everything worse was the Ryloth Support Levy, a bill that had passed with popular support in the Senate. Thankfully, Mandalore didn't support it but the annoying effects of the bill are going to be felt regardless. Heavy taxes on any imports to sectors that are not contributing to the war effort or declaring neutrality. I flicked through my datapad, reading through Satine's and X4's analysis of that resolution.

It's a blunt intimidation tool. It's obvious that the Republic hoped to encourage systems to pick a side, either be with the CIS or the Republic, and theoretically, the assumption is that they would pick the Republic. But there would probably be some systems that are closer to the CIS that would pick the CIS instead to survive the heavy taxation, making sure there would be only two poles in the conflict.

Food prices were already starting to go up, not even the Regal Star Cafe is immune. The Kashys were significantly more expensive when I picked up more chocolate for my personal stash. I'm noticing price inflation everywhere, as even the prices of raw resources are increasing. Mandalore and everyone else seemed to be absorbing the higher prices relatively well, for now at least. Thankfully, our way out of these taxes is starting to bear fruit. Palpatine's efforts to help me create a few friendly relations with members of the more pacifist sectors, not wanting to take up arms in this war, are paying off.

There's a meeting set to take place sometime in the next few months between several major systems that wanted to form a neutrality council. It started with something like fifteen hundred worlds in total, just over one thousand of which came from the Mandalore sector proper. That was until the Ithorians had practically demanded that they be allowed to join. This refocused and expanded the entire project, now the Council of Neutral Systems is dominated by the Ithorians. Based on the news coming out of the Ottega sector, the move to join the CNS was coming from the populist elements of the Ithorian government, who believed that "friendship with the Mandalorians" are reforming us into civilized people. While that was outright insulting and patronizing, Ottega brought an incredible amount of wealth and authority to the Neutral Systems with the Ithorian domination of the Celanon Spur Hyperlane Route.

Once the Ithorians had joined, it's like the floodgates had been opened. What had started as an alliance between Taris and Mandalore had turned into a political block of fifteen thousand systems. Our combined faction is ten times the original size, a closed ecosystem of neutral worlds that could support each other in the time of war is about to be unleashed on the galaxy.

Apparently, information about early negotiations had been leaked and a representative from Concord Dawn made a rather aggressive diplomatic play in Satine's latest political get-together during the cultural festival. Concord Dawn had long been run by one of the more corrupt governments in Mandalore, only reputable in comparison to Gargon or Phindar. Satine had seen through their ploy, they wanted to export more food to have a stronger grasp over Mandalore's internal food security. So together, we had decided on a scheme to use Concord Dawn's "strong commitment" to ensure that their world would get the reform it needed. In order to meet their commitments to receive any of the benefits for the CNS, they would need to reduce their corruption significantly, adopt democratic reforms, or pay extremely heavy fines, the same as every other world that wanted to join.

Now that the Ithorians, Taris, and Mandalore are on board, the CNS represented a large enough bloc that the Republic and the CIS would have to negotiate with us as our own polity. Hopefully, it will stall their efforts to try and make systems in the CNS choose a side or join the conflict.

Coruscant, Mandalore Tower

X4

Government contracts are perhaps one of the most interesting ways to make money, especially when there is no competition to fill a certain niche for logistics. My Mistress did an astounding job in positioning the Silver Mandalorians as a faction relatively loyal to the Republic, making them a natural partner for operations across the galaxy. Particularly, for people who were worried about being invaded and needing resources to defend themselves.

There are plenty of systems that didn't want to fight but knew they might have to. Mandalore had armor, weapons, and technology, but couldn't afford to pay the tariffs to ship it through the Core to its buyer while still making a profit. It's a poverty trap; a vicious cycle that trapped many sectors, and explained how the Trade Federation had grown to exploit so many systems. The Trade Federation offered to purchase local goods and pay the export tariffs upfront. Of course, after the initial contract, the Trade Federation had no incentive to pay a market rate for the local goods. Systems dependent on the early generous contracts found themselves trapped with renewals bearing high quotas or lower rates and Trade Federation oversight. They could either suffer under the harsher deal or let their export economy collapse.

Of course, Tanya constructed the solution for the Mandalorian sector years ago through her initial upfront credit investments in ships and resources for Mandal Logistics. It's now a vast trade infrastructure that allowed Mandalore to bypass the Core's tariffs and taxes. Mandal Logistics ships rarely went Coreward, navigating across the Mid-Rim and Outer Rim, avoiding tollways and tariffed hyperlane routes. Often directly through pirate space, with outlaws learning to avoid raids on armed Mandalorian shipping.

Armorer's Consortium, Vesti Engineering, Mandal Hypernautics, and many other Mandalorian firms are taking advantage of Mandal Logistics connections to export their equipment to fulfill the now sky-high demand, as evidenced by the growing waitlists for ships, weapons and armor. Unfortunately we do not have the supply to meet those demands which is why I am trying to source local products for all that demand, to maximize our profit for the benefit of the whole sector, as My Mistress had instructed.

Ryloth Badlands

Fenn Rau

"Damn it, where's the Navy?" I cursed into the radio as another wave of droid fighters rushed into our line of fire, trying to prevent us from performing our 7th strafing run of the day.

And just like the six before, the trade was barely worth it. The droid fighters were destroyed, but a few more of my fighters went down, which is a bad trade for me. Even with better kill statistics for our side, we couldn't replenish our losses while they could, especially when the Navy is not sending down their fighters to help us.

I could understand that they are busy fighting for orbital control up above. But right now, if we don't get reinforcements, we won't be able to continue our raids on the clankers. For an army that's currently marching, my forces are the only force on the planet actually fighting. There's not going to be much left of the Ryloth Resistance at this rate.

Skull Squadron, the unit under my command, is made up of about half a dozen former Mandalorian Royal Guards who wanted a little bit of actual action. The rest are clones on loan from the Republic who needed training on how to fight in their fighters. There seems to be a big issue with actually producing trained pilots, as we are given infantrymen who had never been in a cockpit before to fly our Z-95s. It's disheartening to watch the war chew through these rookies, a seemingly endless pyre created by soulless droids. The least I could do for them is to spend their lives wisely by doing what was necessary for the mission. After all, the people here on Ryloth did not ask for this invasion. No, the Separatist did. They engineered this conspiracy for years before their declaration of independence, promoting corrupt political officials at the top levels of government, in order to maintain control of this planet and any resources it would produce.

The only thorn in their side keeping them from full control of this planet is a Quick Reaction Force of clones under General Ima-Gun Di, a Jedi who had been in the area or maybe was deployed here, I wasn't sure which nor do I care. Today, I'm currently flying in operation under Clone Captain Keeli, a man I'd had the pleasure of meeting twice since the start of this conflict. I had come to have a good opinion of him, as he seemed to not only well and truly believe in the defense of Ryloth, but was willing to give everything he had to defend its independence.

Captain Keeli's unit is cut off, trying to defend the rear guard of the official Ryloth resistance forces under Cham Syndulla. From what I had seen of his operations, he's a man who apparently had been working on liberating his planet from Separatist control for a long time now, and somehow acquired a large stockpile of armor and weapons from Mandalore. Where those had come from, I had no idea, though I had a very good suspicion. No confirmation yet, though.

Either way, most of the Ryloth Resistance had moved out, though a few of them are still hanging back. The remaining defenders are with the Clone Troopers on the ground, holding the only ground route into the Badlands. An area that Twi'lek people could survive in and regroup, while they waited for the Republic to get enough forces here to reclaim their planet for them.

They were resolute, determined to spend their lives defending the pass. The first few raids, there had been a full company mounting a defense. After the next couple raids, they were cut down to half strength, and by the last one, there were only the bare minimum amount of men necessary to hold that pass.

My honor dictated that I would not do any less than them and leave them without air cover. As long as they fought, I would resupply as many materials and equipment as I could to buy them time.

"Sir, we're getting an order from the fleet." the voice of my second in command, Vunk Ipar, said.

I clicked a switch on my board, saying, "What is it?" I pulled the yoke of the fighter to avoid anti-aircraft emplacement the droids set up. The bolts flew by, barely even being a threat, but even with how unlikely it is to get hit by their equipment, there's still a chance I would get hit. Always better be safe than sorry.

"Three Mandal Logistics transport ships are inbound to our area."

I blinked before saying, "Are you kidding me? Why is the Republic asking us to babysit a couple of freighters now? We got better things to do right now."

"The Republic says two of the ships are full of aid supplies for the resistance."

Alright, now that makes a bit more sense. If the fleet is getting ready to bug out, better to slip whatever supplies in as fast as possible while they have the way open. That's probably what's going on. Why else would they clear those ships to risk coming down into an active war zone?

Sighing deeply, I shook my head, then asked, "What about the third ship?"

"It's requesting cover to the pass that General Ima-Gun Di is fighting over."

I blinked, before breaking out in a grin, thinking aloud, "Well, either they're crazy or something interesting will happen over there. Alright, Skull Squadron, we're going to give him these transport ships the help they want. They need to get over into the Badlands. Half of you stick with the two going forward. The other half, we're going to come around and try and give that third ship the cover it needs for whatever the hell it's pulling, 'cause I want to see what they have planned."

There were several shots of confirmation before I engaged the engines of the Fang fighter. My flight computer was already displaying routes of the transport ships on the HUD, predicting their re-entry course through the atmosphere. Glancing ahead, I spotted droid fighters on an intercept with them. Putting a little bit extra in the engine, I tried to cut the angle and distance between me and those coming transports as fast as possible, thankfully, I didn't need to.

As the three ships came into visual range, fighters of the enemy droids started to approach them and were obliterated by the third ship's guns.

"I recognize that vessel. It's the one that Silver rode in on Geonosis, or at least the same make and model. The Crusader, I think they were called." I spoke into the mic. Either way, her guns were tuned for anti-droid fighter work, they were making mincemeat of the incoming fighters.

My wing of fighters maneuvered in to cover them as the three ships flew in over the enemy's formation, aiming for the Resistance fighters at the pass.

The other two were not Crusaders. I recognize them well enough; they're Kiltirin class Dungeon ships repurposed for cargo transporting. All of them have the Mandal Logistics logo painted all over them, a silver stripe apparently having been added to their symbol.

I wondered why they were coming in so low for a moment. Their bay hatch doors opened under all three transport vehicles. It looked like a bunch of red barrels started falling out from underneath Kiltirin ships, while the Crusader seemed to be dropping bombs.

"What the hell are they doing?!" one of the clones called out in alarm, although he quickly shut up after the first barrel hit the ground next to a tank, exploding in a flash of light and fire that knocked down an entire formations of droids. While the bombs seemed to steer itself to land on top of the droid tanks. About a couple dozen red barrels dropped from each of the Kiltirins while the Crusader dropped a dozen bombs on top of the Armored column. This decimates the incoming enemy wave in a carpet of explosions as they head for the pass whilst giving a few minutes of time for the men on the ground.

The two Kiltirins moved on over the mountain range and kept going. Half my fighters went with them, protecting them as they went. My remaining fighters turned around and fired at the enemy line, suppressing them even more than the fire.

As I watched from where I sat, the third transport vessel, the Crusader, came to hover over the pass, and about thirty or forty mercenaries by the looks of it; jet-packed down into the lines, followed by another group of what appeared to be some sort of medical staff.

Before I could really consider the matter, I recognized the voice of General Ima-Gun Di carrying over the radio, "Captain Rau, please escort this nice transport vessel back to orbit. She will be carrying the wounded from this operation, what's left of them."

"Acknowledged," I replied into the mic, before asking, "What about you and the rest of your men? Think the fleet is bugging out, sir."

"Yes, I do believe they will be, but my men, as well as these Mandalorian mercenaries, have agreed to stay behind. We bought time for Syndulla's forces to get to safety, but they still need help in the coming battles, and since we're already here, we'll be staying behind to help."

"Acknowledged. Wish we could do the same. Fighters are thirsty beasts. I wish you luck, General. I'll try and do one or two more runs to cover you before the fleet fully bugs out."

"Thank you, Captain. May the Force be with you."

"May the Manda be with you and the boys down there." Turning from the radio comms, I spoke to the Skull Squadron, saying, "Let's drop everything we have on these droids. Make sure that the boys down there have plenty of time to make it through the valley before the next wave."

There were a dozen confirmations from the fighters flying above. A smile took over my face. This is a good fight to be a part of.

Coruscant, Mandalore Tower

X4

Of course, I had to pay certain protection money to one particular pirate of annoyance, but having Hondo on my payroll could be a useful asset in the future, especially if I needed to get something past a place that is too heavily defended. If he ever grew too big a threat, I am reasonably confident I could forge enough intel to trick the Republic into attacking the pirate base by spoofing it as a CIS black site.

Thankfully, Gargon is already a bit of a smuggler's paradise. This means there are plenty of smugglers willing to work for Mandal Logistics by shipping armor from Armorer's Consortium and weapons from Vesti Engineering all across the border region that are currently being invaded by the droid armies of the CIS is turning into a very lucrative endeavor, as expected of my Mistress's incredible planning to have the necessary network to take advantage of the war.

I had briefly considered possibly doing business with both sides of the conflict. After all, the profits from supplying weapons to both sides would be quite substantial for future endeavors. But considering most of my holdings are on the Republic side of the border, I figured it would be better to only support the Republic side. Also, I still held a grudge for my Mistress's sake about the last assassination attempt on Geonosis.

Null

Spar

Null was once a nice place. Apparently, the whole system was owned by Count Dooku, but the Republic had seized it in the early days of the conflict. They wanted to turn it into some sort of depot for their gear, since Taris seemed to be leaning towards joining the Mandalore sector with their own little neutrality agreement.

I wish Taris stuck with the Republic, so I could have an excuse to raid it. I know that those greedy bastards at the Senate would probably find some excuse to invade Taris sooner or later. They would not tolerate anyone to be free of their rule. I know that for a fact from what I had seen.

But that's a story for another time. Holding on to the overhead railing of the Razor Crest gunship. It was one of many I had been able to purchase thanks to my contacts on Gargon and Concord Dawn. I looked out over one of my green armored Mandalorians as we made our way to the last depot on our list.

Granted, I'm sure we already outnumber them as we have a large stockpile of Battle Legionnaires. Bought and paid for from the Red Mandalorians who're joining the CIS, whatever their name was.

The robots are fast, well armored that it takes multiple hits to put down, and extremely deadly. They seemed to be a bit of a learning machine, much better than the droids most of the CIS are using. I'll be honest, the B1's are just garbage, but I'm grateful to have them around as blaster fodder for the more expensive legionnaires and my even more expensive men.

I had roughly two thousand actual Mandalorians under my command, though that number is still growing. Mostly they had to babysit and look over the droids and make sure they didn't get too kill-happy. One of the problems I had with the droids is that they're a little too effective. But is that really a problem when they're that useful?

On one hand, I'm fighting this war because I hate what the Republic is doing to my brothers and I believe that Mandalore must be free. On the other hand, am I not doing harm to my brothers with this army? That's who I'm fighting most of the time, clones. But I am able to mostly put that away. They are clones, but they're not me. They haven't realized the games the Jedi played with us. The clones would have run away already if they realized they are just slaves to the Jedi, or have fought back. They hadn't, so I am more than willing to keep fighting them, at least when they are fully able to fight.

I heard some of these stories from some droid commanders. Some armies apparently had given up taking prisoners, causing massacres for no good reason other than to be massacres. Well, maybe this is one weakness among the CIS that I would not allow among my own men. We are professionals and professionals have standards that we would not sink below and that's that.

Looking out of a window, I saw a fleet of fighter craft, some droid fighters, but some of my own fighters, hot off the production lines of Gargon. I'm sure Gargon's latest tyrant isn't a fan of what I am doing with their ships. From what I understood, White Silver, the biggest influence on that planet, thought that the Republic is going to win the fight just because they have more stuff and people. She's wrong, I know she is. But her words have weight, so Gargon is trying to deny my men the ability to purchase vehicles from Mandal Hypernautics.

Unfortunately for them, I'm a bit sharper than the average clone and acquired the materials and ships through third-parties. Concord Dawn had secured a substantial amount as well. Their governor, Purton Jendri, shared our values and had sympathy for the Separatist cause, but he had explained that his prior Mandalorian commitments prevented him from outright declaring for the CIS.

As for Gargon, I made contacts with some particularly disgruntled local clans and families with a long and storied heritage upon visiting. My newfound allies were not enthusiastic at the latest oppressive measures being rolled out by the new regime, ending their time-honored family businesses and traditions. They were appalled at the government's subsequent mass-arrests masquerading as anti-corruption efforts, which unfairly punished many of their fellow clansmen. So I found them more than interested, eager to assist me and supply the fighters I wanted for the right price.

Today was proof that all that scrimping, saving, and hiding had worked out. This assault on Null had destroyed the half-completed Republic base here. I wish I could take the whole victory to myself, but unfortunately, the bounty hunting guild had sent Crimson Nova Jedi hunters to help in this operation. From what I understood, they had killed a couple of Jedi so far. Good for them; Jedi slaveholder scum.

Unfortunately, one of the assassins, bounty hunters, or whatever you want to call them had apparently run into some problems and had called in the Mandalorian Protectors or what I prefer to call them, Mando Cabure, to finish them off.

Letting out a deep breath, I looked out the window and saw the current battle we were coming up to, coming up real quick. It looked like some Jedi is fighting off two assassins with a lightsaber, with a few clones behind her firing off at them. The assassins are doing a damn good job of keeping her pinned.

She seemed young and tiny from this distance, and that got confirmed as I got closer. I could tell she's not a full Jedi Knight and is likely just a youngling.

She isn't smart enough to know what she's doing; a stun bolt from one of these assassins actually hit her. She stood up for a moment, probably using the force to keep her standing, but after a couple more stun bolts even she went down.

Sighing, I jumped from the ship as we came into a hover above, dropping down next to one of the assassins. Some of my own men in their Mandalorian armor were doing the same, with a few legionnaires dropping as well and starting to secure the area.

"Good hunting, Mando." one of the assassins said, coming up and giving a cocky salute as he spoke.

"Sorry to call you out on this, but the clones are a bit of a problem. We just got the bitch down, but every time we try to get close, they come out of their hidey-holes and shoot at us. They really want to protect her for some reason."

'Of course they want to protect her. They're idiots protecting their slaveholder.' My mind supplied, but I shook my head, saying, "Soldiers do what soldiers do."

I moved towards them and raised a hand off my gun as I spoke.

"Brothers, lay down your arms. There's no reason for more to die today."

I hoped my voice would be familiar enough for them to stop. There, that's right, aim at me. I could see one or two of them in the shadows, leveling their guns up the trees overhead, keeping me from getting a good look at what they were wearing and what units they were part of. I wouldn't say I knew every unit in the Clone army. I had been free for a few years; there's always the possibility of a few more units having been created after the ad hoc situation that developed after Geonosis.

A shot went over my shoulder. Someone yelled back to us, "We're not surrendering, not to mass-murdering war criminals like you! You'll just kill us!"

"War criminal? My good Brothers, I'm not a war criminal. I simply want freedom for my homeland and for a place for all slaves of the Republic to go when this war is over."

"Why are you attacking a medical outpost, then?" one of the Clones called out, which got me to pause in shock.

"What?" I asked, pausing in confusion.

I looked to my left, seeing that one of our assassins is moving towards the downed green-skinned Jedi. The Jedi struggled, she's trying, and failing, to stand back up to confront them. I drew my blaster and fired a shot in front of the assassin, stopping him from doing whatever he was planning to do.

"Better start talking real quick." I growled, looking towards the assassin. He considered me silently, frowning.

"What? What do you want me to explain? It's a clone hospital, so what? They're just tools of the Republic, biodroids." One of the other assassins explained, voice harsh.

I didn't want to hear anymore, and thankfully, I didn't have to as my loyal second, Fenn Shysa, clan leader of Fenn, came up behind the first assassin and crushed his neck with the crush gauntlet on his arm. The other assassin looked on in shock, drawing his blaster, but a couple of legionnaires put him down.

Shaking my head, I saw a few clones come out of the shadows, some of them barely wearing armor, mostly covered in bandages, looking around confused at what had just happened.

Nodding my head to the clones, I explained, "Unlike your slave owners, I have principles. Attacking the wounded is not on the menu."

Shaking my head, I moved over to the downed Jedi. She had given up trying to stand at my words, collapsing on the ground in relief. I kicked her lightsaber away before nudging her over with my boot, making sure that she was not bleeding out somewhere.

She seemed somewhat out of it and probably didn't understand what was going on, so I thought it's the best time to ask her a few questions. "You were defending the Clones. You put your life at risk to do so. Why?"

Her face is tattooed with a striking pattern that's only visible from this angle, and I wondered why I noticed it. She shook her head, before saying, "They're people under my care. I would not abandon them, even though they told me to run."

I nodded my head and pulled my own helmet off, so she could see my face. Hers lit up with a spark of recognition and confusion blazing across her own face.

"Good. Then you're one of the good ones. You'll get to live." I took a step away from the Jedi, sighing as I looked out at the clones coming out of the shadows, their guns still tightly gripped and pointing towards the ground, rather than at rest, ready to respond in case I made a mistake here.

Ignoring the tension in the air, I turned to Shysa and asked, "What's the situation in this area? Can we hold it?"

He shook his head. "Negative. Most recent reports indicate that the Republic is massing for a counter-attack. We probably could hold this area for an hour, but not much longer. We don't have the troops to watch over these Clones."

I nodded, looking at my brothers, before saying, "Alright, gentlemen, here's your choice. You can stay here, wait for the enemy to take this area back, and hope they put you somewhere safer than this location, or you can realize that you're nothing but slaves to the Republic and the Jedi. They're going to use you up and spit you out when there's nothing left for you to give and join me. Those are your choices. You've got about twenty minutes to make up your mind."

"They're not slaves." the Jedi, said incoherently from where she's lying on the ground. "They're soldiers of the Republic, people willing to fight for the good of the Galaxy."

I sighed as I looked down at her, that's the worst part of this war, perfectly good people could be fooled into committing evil acts by clever propaganda. "When you realize that your fellow Jedi are using humans as literal droids to fight their war, look up the Mandalorian Protectors. Maybe you would like to switch out the Force for the Manda, miss?"

She looked up at me, angry, before finally giving her name. "Barriss Offee, and they're not slaves." She insisted.

Taking a knee, I offered my hands, saying, "I'm Spar Fett, former slave to the long necks. Next time you're around Kamino, ask them what they do with the failed clones. Maybe you'll realize you're not fighting for the good guys on this one, kid."

She looked confused, and a bit disturbed; I expected she didn't believe me, but I knew I had planted seeds of doubt. It's all over her face, and the clones around her are looking away too. They know what happens to clones that don't meet the standard. I've given her enough tools and enough info for her to figure it out for herself. I could sense it; she really is one of the good ones. She'd do the right thing and get out of the war. Standing back up, I looked at the crowd, none of my brothers had stepped forward to take my offer, to switch to the Mandalorian side. Most of them looked like they'd rather open fire on me, but are afraid of hitting their Jedi slavemaster in the crossfire.

"We're rolling out. Last chance." I offered, trying to be generous. When none answered, I turned and boarded one of the Razor Crests that had landed in the area. It's not surprising that none of them joined. One sickeningly reliable part of the Republic slave program is that they put enough restraints on the clones that they would gladly march to their own death.

Coruscant, Mandalore Tower

X4

Thus, I worked as hard as I could to get Mandal Logistics moving weapons and armor as far as I could get them, as well as increasing the number of transport vessels to take them there. But selling infantry grade equipment is a reliable yet small fraction of my Mistress's profits. While it is only mildly profitable, demand for arms and armor are high and there are plenty of customers, which does add up. However, the most profitable jobs are actually government contracts. And those, well, those are rather interesting because governments have the money to afford to purchase our ships.

Several local sector commanders and planetary defense fleets have approached Mandal Hypernautics about buying some of our Crusader-class corvette as screener ships. The droids produced a lot of fighter craft, and it would be in their favor to have something that could counter said fighter craft. Since Kuat Drive Yards and Sienar Fleet Systems are busy supplying ships for the Republic Navy and Hoersch-Kessel supplying the Separatists, Mandal Hypernautics are one of the few independent shipbuilding companies in the galaxy that local defense forces can turn to for new ships. So, we had a lot of contracts coming in, both from the governments of the Republic and private parties who wanted to defend property in their systems. Corellian Engineering and MandalMotors are also benefiting from this surge of demand.

Currently, I have orders for forty-five of them, which is more than what Mandal Hypernautics can produce in their own shipyards at a reasonable timeframe. So, I had to sublease the contracts to other shipyards to try and get more produced in time. I'd also taken advantage of a recent spending bill that had been passed to propose the construction of a shipyard just over the border from Gargon space. The location is not inside the Mandalorian sector, so it would not be subject to restrictions from the Republic that the rest of the sector faced, theoretically. It's a bit of a legal gray area, but with how slow the courts are, we could operate for decades before a case might be decided.

Transport between Gargon and this space-based shipyard would only be a two-hour jump from hyperspace. While it's theoretically possible for workers to come and go from Gargon, I do plan to build permanent dwellings on the entire station to reduce the need for transiting from Gargon. It would be better to have a Mandalorian workforce who lived on the station, as that would reduce inefficiencies like the 2-hour transit time the workers would do between their dwellings and the new station as well as reduce the risk of the station's discovery by having it be self sufficient. It was not intuitive to me at the time as my data banks recoiled at the additional costs such dwellings require, but my Mistress had explained that capital investments are a necessary price to pay for a greater stratagem of long-term control and a larger sphere of influence.

The potential income from this operation is quite lucrative, and the profits from an advanced Mandalorian dockyard would allow us to increase operations and our tempo quite a bit.

Some of the plans for the space station that is going to be constructed just over the border included material and room for two capital ship sized dockyards, as well as a dozen smaller shipyards.

And those capital shipyards would be quite important in the future, as Mandal Logistics still had the right and capacity to produce the Sundari-class freighter. If we could produce a couple of those, that would make logistics of operations much more effective. Bigger ships meant more things could be moved around for a lower price. Yes, it wouldn't be as good as some of the blockade runners that are needed near the border. But in areas that are theoretically defended, it would be a more efficient alternative, especially since the Republic has a bit of a logistics problem. They needed logistics ships as much as they needed fighting ships, and I am doing the best I could to purchase as many old dungeon ships floating around as possible.

Thankfully, the Mandalorian Patrol had quite a large stockpile of Kiltirin-class ships that they had scavenged from across the sector over the thousand years they had been active and were in need of funds. They had quite enough funds that I'd actually taken to hiring the Mandalorian Patrol as a bit of an escort fleet for some of the transport ships that were a bit on the slow side, as well as crews from them.

Bringing them into the Silver Mandalorians' influence, as far as I could tell, is good for the sector. It's the same as when they were brought into the influence of the New Mandalorians under Duchess Satine. Keeping them out of the hands of other potential rivals, such as the Workers' Council that Tanya railed against so much, and Death Watch, which was apparently reasserting its existence, is important.

Those rivals are a bit of a problem that I am worried about. The Communists, as Mistress called them, are a potential new flashpoint that no one had really taken seriously until the events on Tatooine. And now that she'd met their leader, Liliya, Mistress was even more certain that she didn't like them.

Mistress cited several examples of failed states, which I had yet to find in my records. It is quite amazing that my Mistress has knowledge far beyond anything I could find online or in any records here on Coruscant, and almost had an encyclopedic level of information regarding the times things had gone wrong under this particular variation of a government. I had found a few examples of what I think are communists while searching governments throughout the galaxy, but none of them were ever mentioned by Mistress. Though I didn't know it, her examples did seem to line up with these failed states. I had a list of questions about these inconsistencies and other mysteries, but I am afraid and unsure what to do with them... maybe when Mistress Tanya is feeling uninhibited or passionate I will dig up more information about them.

I looked over at the others as they watched the new Silver Mandalorian show, and they seem to be enjoying it. I did have many productive discussions between myself and the show's producer on how exactly they were going to produce the show.

There had been talks of doing an origin story for the Silver Mandalorian, but telling the origin of such a character right off the bat seemed unlikely to be a successful starting move. There is always a chance that the people who would follow the series had not seen the movie, and so they needed to be introduced to who the Silver Mandalorian is as a character.

Thus, the best way to show who the Silver Mandalorian is, at least for the first few episodes, is to show her at work. So that's exactly what they are doing: the young actress, Taylor Palatine, who played the Silver Mandalorian on-screen, is being involved in a bust of some of the more illegal operations on Gargon. Of course, it has a little bit of creative writing added in, but it's deemed necessary to keep the show interesting to a wider audience. Granted the show is mostly fictional as the Silver Mandalorian in the show is bringing down many criminal organizations wholesale and scaring a few of the others straight. In reality, things are quite different, but this isn't reality; this is holovision, and holovision is required to be entertaining. So giving people the idea that my Mistress's alter-ego is a do-gooder who brought down the bad guys on her planet or scared them straight is important.

The important part is showing who the Silver Mandalorian is like, and that is being accomplished. However, by the amount of eye-rolling that Miss Vizla is making, she's not amused, though Miss Morson seemed glued to the screen in rapt attention. Hopefully, that is a sign that most people would be interested in the show.

The first three or four episodes are going to be like that first episode: Silver Mandalorian cleaning up the streets and helping to rebuild Gargon into a possible future pleasure world.

The next few episodes, where things got somewhat normal as day-to-day life set in, would actually play host to the fake backstory that had been written: a Mandalorian girl who lost her parents due to some rogue Death Watch members after the end of the Clan Wars.

As well as showing her first kill and so on.

Different actors for most of those roles, of course, but thankfully the main actress, Taylor, is willing to wear a helmet indefinitely to keep up the mystique of no one knowing her face.

One of the main reasons I am supporting the HoloNet show is to draw eyes to Gargon as a possible getaway to enjoy a weekend. It's why I allowed them to film on Mandal Hypernautics property and other subsidiaries. I am hoping the show would draw additional tourism to the planet, which would help with the overall goal of turning the planet into a respectable location inside the Mandalore sector. It would take time, but with a show like this being successful, I hope it would speed up.

Gargon, Southern City Outskirts

Khip

"Sithspit, this planet is hot." I said, fanning myself with a device I bought from one of the stores.

"Sir, it's winter, it's pretty chilly right now." one of the assistants announced in a dull tone.

I gave him an evil eye, "This planet has no good cloud cover and the atmosphere is very dry. Trust me, for my species, this is hot." My gravelly voice had worn thin over the years of yelling at idiot actors.

The assistant shrugged his shoulders before saying, "If you say so. I'm still reviewing and checking over the holoreels we've filmed so far."

I looked out over the set, wishing I could stand in the shade of the buildings. Unfortunately, we had only been able to get our hands on some abandoned buildings near the south side of town. The less-than-ideal location meant we had to film from the open plains to keep things in the shot.

Currently, Taylor is engaging in what could be best described as a gunfight. The script was rather simple: the Silver Mandalorian is cleaning up her city, eliminating slavers and roving gangs who are involved in selling aliens as slaves. Taking inspiration from a local story about some bounty hunter doing something similar around the same time. Yes, I should probably look them up and get the rights to their story, but let's be fair, you can't copyright a plot about freeing slaves.

So I rebuilt the bare essentials of the story from the ground up, and we wrote it for an episode. This fight would be episode two, I believe, trying to build up the ideals behind the character of the Silver Mandalorian. I didn't have to build up an ideal body; Taylor had been blessed with one that made me regret I'd signed her for this role.

When I originally wrote the script for the Silver Rider movie all those years ago, I had not really thought I would do anything more with White Silver. So getting someone with a good form for the romantic climax had been at the top of my priority.

Now that I had to actually use Taylor as the main actress of the Holo show, there are some regrets and diplomacy negotiations of exactly how we were going to be filming. Not to mention, with the real White Silver actually having money put into it, I had to introduce a bit more Mando propaganda, or give up this life of easy credits.

Sue me, I'd seen some of the armor the surrounding idols were wearing. It would work well as armor for the Holo.

Unfortunately, the droid working for the White Silver had installed another droid minder in my editing room. It had talked rather down about that whole subject, 'falsifying Mandalorian culture' is a rather large affront, which meant real Mandalorian armor had to be procured and fitted correctly to Taylor.

I would have probably done better to have gotten just another actress. After all, getting regular Mandalorian armor that was not fitted to Taylor herself would have been a lot easier. But the three actresses I'd contacted for possible replacements all asked about showing their faces, which was a problem since White Silver had never shown her face. We had no idea if she's a redhead, brunette, blonde, or even human. The only confirmation I had for sure was that she isn't a Twi'lek, as the photos of her during her holo speech that had come out over the years would have given that away.

However, Taylor is some sort of White Silver enthusiast or something. I wasn't really sure what exact term she went by, but the important part is that she's more than willing to keep her face hidden and had even learned some Mandalorian with an accent that was not utterly terrible, apparently. I had attempted to push for a voice acting pay grade for her to save a cred or two, but Taylor herself had caught that change in her contract and almost walked.

The upside is that she's willing to actually do the damn stunts. And she apparently spent the last four months digging up every little thing about White Silver and learning everything she could about them. She's mimicking her rather successfully from what I could see. From the way she carried herself with such confidence to the way she talked, she could pull the White Silver act off as far as I could tell. Somewhere along the line, she had actually pulled some actual Mandalorians off to the side, and learned how to fight.

When I brought her on, she had been such a horrible fighter, as in not really knowing how to properly throw a punch. My suspicion was that she probably took notes from Threir Satre. There were rumors that the relationship on the screen had continued off the screen for some time. I don't know if that's true or not. She's a very private person, but she could throw a punch now, as several actors I brought from Coruscant had quit after she went overboard in several stunts.

That had been annoying. Then, I realized I didn't have to pay out their full contract thanks to the early termination. So, I went around Gargon looking for new actors among the Mandalorians and managed to scrounge up some good-looking locals who could fill their roles. And that decision brought a bit of fluid realism to the combat that other action shows lack that makes it a unique selling point for the show. Somewhere along the line, the stunts transformed into re-enactments. Granted, they were getting paid to take the fall eventually, but they walked away with real bruises from each fight scene.

Honestly, some of the local actors are a little too into it, doing their own makeup for gang tattoos and going into detail about how various slavers and gangsters would operate and talk. One of them had even gotten mad that I was giving the wrong direction to one of the actors who was meant to be stabbed in the back during a scene and had 'corrected' me on what sound he should be making. It sounded halfway believable to me, so I left it in.

As the last Mandalorian stand-in I hired fell to the ground, having given a damn good fight, next to the other fallen Mandalorians.

"Cut!" I called as the scene ended, Taylor slipping her prop pistol into her thigh holster as the other actors started getting up, maybe at least started pulling their helmets off and moving to go get water from the refreshment area. I waved to Taylor over as I saw the robot coming forward. "Well, S4, how was that? Your Mistress at Mandal Hypernautics is going to be happy with everything they got so far?" I asked.

S4 nodded its head before saying, "She will be very pleased, though we would wish for a bit more product placement."

"Oh, and what exactly product placement would you like? This is an alleyway in a dark fight. How exactly are we going to insert propaganda of your Starfighter for sale?"

"Oh, quite easily. I'll have some idol posters you can put up in the background, as well as ships that are currently for sale on an available billboard. I'll leave the locations to your discretion, as it doesn't necessarily need to be in this scene per se."

I gave the robot a look, but nodded my head. I would have to figure out a place to include a few of those things, but I did speak up, saying, "Didn't the idols come much later, like a year after White Silver took over? It would be a little fast to have them show up so quickly."

The robot thought for a moment before nodding its head in agreement. "You're correct. You are the professional, so I will go with your opinion on the matter."

"Yeah, yeah. By the way, any chance we can get White Silver to actually come pay us a visit next time she's in town? I would love to have a conversation with her about the whole Geonosis thing, get her side of the story. From what I've heard, she was kind of responsible for saving the princess of Mandalore, which means I've got to look up actresses to play her."

"I will put in a message to White Silver and see if they are willing to meet with you within the next few months." S4 focused its optical receptors on me and spoke a bit slower, as if to insult my intelligence, "They are very busy, with a heavy schedule" the robot responded.

"Of course she is." I said with a shake of my head.

"Besides that, I would not want to force your actress here to partake in anything they're uninterested in. So if you wish to leave that particular portion of the history out, that's fine by White Silver."

I looked at Taylor, who shrugged and pulled off her helmet, revealing her dark hair and pale ivory skin. The contrast is made even more extreme by her dark makeup around her eyes and lips.

"I'm fine with it." she said, noticing my gaze, rechecking her lip and cheek piercings to make sure they had not been knocked askew or were bleeding from the fight she had just been in. Matter-of-factly, she started checking a few other piercings on her face and said, "I don't mind playing a role. Besides, I kind of swing that way, so it's fine by me."

"Perfect." I said, nodding my head. Before stopping and trying to look at her, "Wait, was that why you were so off during the first filming of White Silver and the Silver Rider?"

Taylor looked at me and raised an annoyed eyebrow, her red eyes communicating volumes. A glint of light came off her eyebrow piercing. "No, I'm just not good yet. No one had asked me to do that before."

"Huh… okay then." I turned to S4. "This is going to be okay with White Silver, right?"

It shrugged, "I will ask her representative and I will let you know their answer."

"Well, better let them know. The marketing wonks are telling me the whole fight on Geonosis is a popular story; it's going to make sure this thing is a big moneymaker. And if it's as many credits as I think it is, there's a bit of a stipend." I said, actually talking to Taylor by patting her shoulder. "She has been good at mimicking her so far, but something tells me if she actually got the chance to meet White Silver, Taylor will elevate her acting to a whole other level, better than you'd believe." I lied, hoping that excuse would work where the previous ones had failed. Associating the real White Silver with the project, and letting the paparazzi see this association , that was what I needed to boost the show's popularity even more.

S4 nodded instantly. "I will let her know that you are willing to provide a bonus finding fee for this meeting."

"Excellent, excellent. Now, Taylor, you're going to do one more fight just to make sure we get a good couple of holos. We can cut them up for what's necessary."

"Will do, boss." she said, slapping her helmet back onto her head.

"Wonderful."

Coruscant, Mandalore Tower

X4

I doubt I would be able to assist as much in future seasons, but it's likely that they are now already trying to incorporate some sort of Geonosis storyline. I'm not really sure how I could help with that, although there is quite a bit of information online nowadays that I might be able to forward to them.

Particularly, images of the Keldabe kiss White Silver shared with Ms. Morson that had spilled out all over the place on one forum.

One of the newer jobs in my repertoire of things I have to do is to keep an eye on HoloNet forums. Mainly to make sure that if there are any connections being drawn, none of them were being drawn between the Silver Mandalorian and my Mistress or any of her crew.

So far, that has not happened, thank goodness. The set of groups that were interested in either person tended to stay in different areas.

Theorists and Silver Mandalorian enthusiasts sprinkled the side of the forums that looked into the Silver Mandalorian, and so far, their theories ranged from a lost Mandalorian to Jango Fett's illegitimate child.

How that had even got started, I did not know. My best guess was that people had simply noticed the timing between the return of Jango Fett to Mandalore and the Silver Mandalorian showing up on Geonosis and simply thought, 'Ah, he must have sent her.'

Beyond that, there were some theories about Silver Mandalorian being a Zeltron because of the rumored relationships they had with at least two individuals so far.

Granted, the first relationship was basically based on the movie and not actual evidence presented in the field, but as long as they are confused and looking in the wrong places, that's for the best.

There is a rather interesting theory on the forum that had worked out quite a bit of the actual logistic network that Mistress Tanya did run through the identity of the Silver Mandalorian.

They had been looking at corporations that had been founded since the book had been published and noticed several of them were working closely with Mandal Hypernautics after it had been taken over by the Silver Mandalorian. It was a risk to have multiple companies quickly integrate Mandal Hypernautics into the fold after it was under new management. However, the benefits of having access to Mandal Hypernautics's industry are deemed to be worth the risk as we wouldn't have had the Crusader and Kiltirin in sufficient numbers to make as big of an impact as we are now if we didn't integrate them into the Mistress's growing economy as soon as we did.

This is a general problem, as the first corporation to be founded was after My Mistress had left Mandalore for Coruscant. If people were to put two and two together, that might well draw more eyes to a problem we'd rather not have them notice.

That being said, I am now looking into possible corporations to buy that existed before Tanya's arrival in the Mandalore sector, simply because if My Mistress owned more corporations that started to work with Mandal Hypernautics and other ones under the Silver Mandalorians' influence, it might draw some eyes away from the ones that existed because they had been founded to do the job.

I might also have been keeping an eye on some of the older corporations in the Mandalore sector. With Mandal Hypernautics under my management, I had a lot of the shipbuilding industry under my control, theoretically a third of all ships produced in the Mandalore sector.

So, if I were to somehow gain control over the shipyards of Kalevala and perhaps even MandalMotors, well, that would be in favor of Mandalore.

Yes, of course, My Mistress had spoken of the importance of, what was that term again? The free market and the ability for companies to compete. But there are hundreds of shipbuilding companies outside the Mandalore sector, so combining all three of the major Mandalorian ship companies into one would do quite wonders for profit margins, I think.

Not just because of the amount of standardization that could be done, with parts being able to be produced for each company now being on the market for each shipbuilding construction. The Grand Army of the Republic have shown the benefits of having a single supplier for all of their equipment synergize and work together very well with each other.

Unfortunately, MandalMotors is not something I could easily gain control over. The owners of the company are fairly well entrenched in their control. The only way I could theoretically push them out is to buy enough of their stock to get a majority ownership, which could be done, yet it would be ruinously expensive. I would need something to have happened to drive down the price quite a bit before I could make that purchase. Something to make it appear as if the company is on its way out…

I will put that idea away in a rainy day fund in case something like that ever happened. After all, with the war between the CIS and Republic going on, there is always a chance that they might step on someone's toes and cause issues. I knew they had managed to get themselves a governmental contract from the Republic to produce tugboats. So, it's not impossible that the Republic might do something that got them on the outs of the Mandalore sector's preferred winners of the war and caused their stock price to plummet a bit.

As for the forums that talked about my Mistress's civilian life, besides the one that still brought up the video of her fighting that one time, they are rather dull places. Plugging into them right now, I could see that the most interesting thing being talked about at the moment was a photo of My Mistress. It was, in fact, a photo of My Mistress and Mr. Ordo in their latest battle against the local gang, as I could tell because I had just seen her in that dress and outfit. But apparently, there were some who were saying that the person in that photo is not My Mistress and those that are saying that the photo is genuine are asking plenty of questions about who the man that is with her is.

Quite a few people are saying the individual looked rather boring and plain compared to the last one that she had been dating, and a few others are saying that because the person was so plain, that it must not be My Mistress.

It's a funny galaxy that people wouldn't believe it was My Mistress unless she said it herself, as that does make this a bit easier.

However, this is a situation that is worth considering. After all, thanks to Ms Vizla's latest... dalliance while she was White Silver, White Silver is likely to be considered one who goes after the fairer sex.

I issued a general order to the twenty public relations droids I kept on staff to monitor these sorts of things. Instructing them to use several accounts to leak information that the man in question was the same one who was with My Mistress in her fight against the local gangs months ago, so that people would connect the dots.

That would do a wonderful job of cementing in people's minds that My Mistress is definitely dating him, and once that happened, it would be one more barrier to believing that Tanya and the Silver Mandalorian were the same person.

The situation, then, is well in hand. My droids would make sure that people stayed focused on that fact. One of them is working on what is called a "slash fiction" in order to try and appease people into thinking that it is very well possible that those two are together.

I had thought about reprimanding him for how explicit it had been, but if I created a consistent image of preventing that sort of material, people would figure out that a droid is probably responsible for it. So, I let that little story leak and be done with it. I did however request that the droid in question go through a personality evaluation. It would not be the first time a droid had developed a strange curiosity about particular biological acts.

Either way, I was about to shut down my link to the HoloNet and focus on other things when I noticed a pop-up in the corner. A message from one of my development teams, looking through it, I realized that it's a complaint about the fact that there are now two rival idol groups on Gargon, which I had not been aware of before.

The first is the known one, a rival group put together by the Clan Tracyn. Vhet'shere, their lead singer, had rebranded their new group to the Inferno Crescendos. Their music is more focused on the explosions of combat and nomad movements, with plenty of percussion instruments. According to Ms. Vizla they are 'pretty good', and I am half-tempted to secretly buy a stake in them to make sure they were successful. Sharing revenue with them is fine. However, this third group is quote-unquote "Death Metal".

Setting my mind to it, I try to figure out where they had come from. I thought I was aware of all organizations that were currently attempting to put together idols, being just mine, the mafia, and no one else. Though, I did have theories that there would be a few more in the coming months. After all, it's preferable to have people focusing their minds on music and not on the war for a calmer and less agitated populace.

This new rival group seemed to have come out of nowhere and had purchased a small piece of estate on the borders of Gargon City. I do not know where they had come up with the money, I didn't see in my records. Wait, no, I do see something. The land in question had been purchased under Bo-Katan's name not too long ago.

Is Bo-Katan setting up her own rival group? Why? I thought I paid her well enough. Then again, I never did have her sign an exclusionary contract that prevented her from doing her own thing. If she wanted to get into the industry that I had helped craft, I guess that is well within her rights.

It's annoying having to compete with a rival as it is certain to cut into the Gargon Girl's market share, but oh well. Though it's strange that she has that kind of money, as I paid her well but not well enough to purchase enough land to start construction of an arena for her own idols. Does she have a wealthy sponsor that is paying her to do this, or is she using her own private funds for this endeavor? Clan Kryze is a fairly wealthy clan, so it is not out of the question that Bo-Katan have the funds to pay for it all, as I have never been given access to her accounts as there is no need to. The construction contracts also indicated that other than the arena, there will also be a hotel, although the design is from a much older style. The design is obviously inspired to be a former bunker that had been repurposed for a new use.

Much more militaristic than the design used in my own hotel or many of the hotels that had sprung up on Gargon. Perhaps it had something to do with the type of 'metal' they are using, this 'Death Metal'. I would need to have someone investigate, look into the types of shows they played, maybe get some images of this band. Hmm, strange. After a quick search, I did find the name of the band, although it was not exactly helpful in revealing their purpose. The Gargon Girls, of course, were called the Gargon Girls because they were formed in Gargon and are girls. The Inferno Crescendos are called that because they had connections to their history of manufacturing slugthrowers as well as their frequent use of pyrotechnical explosions and such for the entertainment of the audience. Their frequent use of explosives resulted in their arena having to be brought up to code three times because the building code kept changing, as they pushed the boundary every time.

This new rival group is called the Prey Wings. Their costumes are dark and seem to mirror each other, so that if they stood next to each other, it almost looks like they have wings on each side of them. They are slightly different, and their helmets bore the Jaig eyes, a common symbol for someone who had accomplished a combat landing. Are those just decorative, or are they former mercenaries like the Gargon Girls? Hard to say. All I could tell is that they preferred a darker coloration with blues on their armor, which is still fairly standard, except for the bits of fluff from their costume additions.

Hmm, strange. An unknown faction getting into the idol market for unknown purposes and with their own brand of music. I know Mistress has said that this is good for competition and helps drive innovation, but this is mysterious enough that I am worried that there might be something more going on here. I would have to talk to Bo-Katan and maybe put a few agents in the field to see if they could find out anything more about this situation. I'd rather not be taken by surprise if there is some unknown entity trying to gather money for a corporate takeover of the Silver Mandalorian's holdings.

That would not serve us well and would probably be a sign that the CIS are trying to gain influence in the Mandalore sector, which is something we needed to prevent.

Coruscant, Mandalore Tower

Tanya Kryze

I watched the latest in a long line of ongoing threats to the Republic on the Republic's HoloNet News on the viewscreen in my office. The Malevolence, a ship with a massive Ion Cannon of some sort that could disable an entire group of capital ships. This is a monster of capability and battlefield control, with possibly a droid factory on board, though the latter is more speculation than fact at this point. Onboard droid fabrication presented significant strategic challenges that the Republic had no immediate answer for. Some of the more fearful factions are saying that we need to surrender, though they are a small minority in the Senate, they do exist.

The ship is actually on the move in the general direction of the Core, and the Republic is scrambling to find some way to deal with it. How long would it take for them to strike the final blow to destroy that ship? I didn't know, but I had a feeling it would be very soon, simply because the CIS is making a rather familiar mistake to me, one that anyone who has studied history recognizes. The Malevolence is acting like the Bismarck; it's attempting to be a massive raider ship, destroying all supplies moving along major thoroughfares to the Core. But somehow, along the way, it lost all its escorts, or maybe it never had any, so it's now vulnerable. No doubt the Republic would figure this out soon enough and launch some sort of attack to stop it. In the process, they could probably gain a new ship out of the whole deal, as they were already acquiring a large number of ships.

Sighing, I shook my head, still surprised by how easily everyone went into full war mode the moment things escalated. Ships are being built at some of the major shipyards throughout the Core, and more and more clones were appearing all over the place. How many soldiers they could produce so quickly, I did not know, though I guessed ten years did give them quite a bit of stockpile. Still, it seemed odd to me that they were able to produce that number of soldiers. I had tried to poke around and learn where the money for the Clone army and its current naval capacity had come from. After all, if the Senate hadn't ordered it, someone had to have done it, yet my efforts seemed to have been halted.

A mysterious benefactor, that apparently no one seemed to have an issue with, had obviously funded the creation of this army. They had done it with the help of a Jedi, sure, but still, was no one concerned that we just had a clone army pop out of nowhere and a fleet not too long after that?

Well, to be fair, I'm sure someone is concerned, but at this moment, no one is actively conducting an official investigation with the war in full swing.

No one is considering the aftermath of the war and what they were going to do with said Clone army, either.

Whoever created this had turned the Republic into one of the largest slave-owning organizations in the galaxy, competing with the Hutts. This is eroding the moral high ground the Republic needed to get through this war and find some sort of peaceful conclusion. I'm sure once this is over, and they had to deal with deciding what to do with the clones, they would investigate who is responsible for the creation of the Clone army and try to pin all the crimes they had committed on them.

But until that inevitable conclusion of the war happened, it was unlikely that there would be any progress on finding out who is responsible for the creation of this army and navy, even though if the war had never happened, well, if the war had never happened, there would be a quite sizable private army and navy riding about that could have influenced events throughout the galaxy.

At least there are signs that the war might end soon. Through a random series of events, Padme had been involved in the capture of Nute Gunray. The man, the myth, the moron is now on his way to the Core to be dealt with, at least assuming nothing happened along the way. The CIS knew we had captured him, so it's very likely that they would do something. What exactly that something is, is still up in the air, but it would most likely be a pain in everyone's collective rear when it happened. Perhaps they would bring their Malevolence around to fire on the ship carrying him; perhaps not. Either way, a contingent of the Senatorial Guard was sent with him, which did not bode well for the situation in my mind.

The fact that the boys in blue are involved should have been a big win. After all, they are supposedly the best-trained officers and military personnel from across the galaxy. But the fact of the matter was, and had always been, is that they are now very well known to be corrupt and not to be trusted since a corrupt agency would most likely internally promote and reward misbehavior.

They could be planning to break him out at this very moment for a sizable reward, for all I know. The more I considered it, the more probable the idea became.

My dark thoughts were interrupted by a knock on my door, causing me to look up and away from my viewscreen. Engiz is standing there with a smile, not wearing the royal guard uniform but instead a rather handsome-looking suit, and he said, "Ride's here, Tanya."

I brushed my hair off my shoulders and got up from my seat, happy to be out of the realm of politics for the rest of the night. My position as a Representative didn't exactly allow me to do much yet. Oh, sure, I would be attending the gathering to set up the Neutrality Council, but everything I did is in service to the Senator, and Prince Merrik cast votes and made the final decisions. As far as I could see, he's going to be in that position for the rest of the war, so all I could do is advise him on my opinion.

So, I'm simply worrying over something I had no control over. I sighed and brushed off my dress. Taking a night off to do something else is probably for the best, allowing my mind to decompress and be able to think clearly on subjects when needed.

This is why, when Chancellor Palpatine had offered me tickets to an opera, I had not said no. The only problem, of course, is that it's a pair of tickets and I needed to bring a plus one, but that is not a bad situation. Chancellor Palpatine would be in the same building, making it probably the most secure building in the Republic. So, I didn't need a lot of guards tonight. I only needed Engiz; he's more than enough protection for such a night, and it would give me the chance for a conversation in private with the Chancellor. I wanted to see if I couldn't learn anything useful for the next series of votes coming next year. He has access to a lot more paperwork than I did, as well as having the clearest picture of what is going on in the galaxy as a whole. Plus, I wondered what the actual outlook of the war actually was.

Propaganda is on the rise, I could see that quite easily. Pretty soon, I suspected that most of the news would be so slanted towards a radical pro-Republic position that any senator who stayed too long on Coruscant would inevitably absorb some of it if they simply took the news at face value. Then they might mistakenly assume that either we are winning or we are losing, depending on who they listened to. And that's assuming that the Senate, in its glorious wisdom, didn't decide to vote for active censorship.

My opinion of the Senate is dropping precipitously. The vote to give Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers kind of showed that they generally didn't have the ability or the motivation to run the government. The Senate would rather have someone else do it, which meant they are more in favor of an authoritarian figure.

I don't know if Palpatine would exploit the situation and become that authoritarian figure. Yes, I had my issues with some of the political scheming. He had obviously done some to get his position, but power abhors a vacuum, someone had to become Chancellor. Perhaps my theories from a few years ago about a general bringing an army from the Outer Rim back to take over the government would happen. After all, a few years ago it was impossible for that scenario to happen as there was no Republic Army that could be used for such an effort. The closest figure was Tarkin with his command of the Republic Outland Regions Security Force. Of course, he had stepped down before that could become an issue. However, he's now one of the most well respected officers in the Republic's Navy. There are several Clone legions and armies spread out across the frontier, trying to fight billions of battle droids. Supported by thousands of warships. A figure like Tarkin could turn about very quickly and with few that would challenge him.

Shaking my head, I tried not to think about that as I said, "Engiz, you're looking rather well-suited tonight." With a smile, I came up next to him as he presented an arm for me to take.

Engiz smiled and said, "Got in contact with a friend of Tabi's who owns a suit shop in his home world. Got me a good price for this." he said, causing me to smile.

"Good price for a good suit. It really shows off your broad shoulders," Why am I spouting colloquialisms, I thought, trying to ignore the flush on my face as I said that. My brain could say some funny things when I am not in complete control and just running on instinct, and that is flying stupid.

Engiz's own face seemed to flush a bit before he said, "Thanks, Tanya. I'm glad you like it."

Nodding, I said, "Well, we better get going. I'm sure the show won't wait for us."

"Yes, of course," he said, leading the way down the hall into the main room where we met with guests.

On the couch were Tabi and Vai, cuddled up next to each other, as the holovision is playing reruns of The Silver Rider. On a nearby chair is Morson who's watching the show with some interest, and in a corner are Kastel and Mok who are cleaning their staves. At the kitchen counter, Skota and Captain Struc are having a chat about something. They were all busy with their own things, but they noticed us on our way out, and Vai waved, saying, "Later, Tanya. Too bad you had to get these tickets tonight; you're going to miss the new episode."

I smiled and said, "I'll catch it later; I'm sure you'll record it."

"Well, that's a given, yeah," Vai said, "but I meant the other new episode, you know, the new TV series, The Silver Mandalorian."

I stopped and turned, looking at her in confusion, "Silver Mandalorian is getting a TV show? How come I didn't hear about this until just now?"

X4, who's standing in the corner, said, "It was in a report about three months ago, Mistress. Filming started around the same time."

I blinked. I would say more, but Morson is looking up now, and I still had not revealed that tidbit of information, especially with the current series of events that Vai had unleashed by sharing a Keldabe kiss very publicly under the identity of White Silver.

For now, I simply shook my head and said, "Well, I'll have to watch that when I get back." wondering what I had missed and what was in that report.

I'm sure X4 is somehow responsible for it. I had given him permission to deal with that situation before, and I'm sure he'd come up with something rather creative, as he intended to do. But I was completely out of the loop on it and am now paying for it with my confusion.

After saying my goodbyes to the others, I stepped outside with Engiz and made our way to the elevator. Once we arrived at the parking lot, there were several vehicles to choose from. Excess money meant I needed to invest it somehow and having a small fleet of vehicles for my staff, so they could get things done, made sense. Plus, buying another fleet of vehicles had appeased the Duchess a bit about the paint incident, as I wouldn't be wandering the streets of Coruscant or Sundari on foot anymore. Also, appearing to be an individual looking for the best for the Mandalore sector while also spending a little money to have a fun time is a great way to ward off the hounds that might be sniffing around about what I did in my spare time, especially the Silver Mandalorian stuff.

For tonight, we chose a blue-colored speeder that had been purchased some time ago after we had returned from the adventure to Geonosis. It has good speed, and as Engiz got in behind the seats, I took the seat across from him.

Starting off, we began driving and heading towards the opera, and I tried not to think about just how disorganized the speedways of Coruscant are.

Flying cars is a bad idea. Flying cars on Earth is a really bad idea, so flying cars here is a really bad idea too. The number of near misses and almost accidents that happened as we tried to drive from the district we lived in to the district that housed the Opera House would probably give my life insurance agency nightmares.

It was one of the reasons I had not bothered to learn to drive in this life.

Sure, if we were on a planet that had a vehicle that's surface-bound, I could drive that by relying on memories from my past lives with no issue. But this isn't really driving, this is flying. And yes, my second life allowed me to learn to fly, but that is personal flight. I am not trained to fly a vehicle through the streets of Coruscant. Like with fashion, I felt like learning to pilot civilian craft is like growing my skills in the wrong direction. I had plenty of other things that I needed to do. And on that note, it's a similar situation when it comes to piloting space vehicles. Yes, it probably would be novel to learn it, but I had plenty of other things I needed to do, and I have plenty of people like Engiz who could do the job for me.

Oh, I'll admit that it would have been a smoother drive if I am wearing my jetpack. The Coruscanti air stunk of industrial chemicals, and Engiz fought several road-raging maniacs who nearly hit us just for driving a little bit into their lane. I was bumped into Engiz once or twice as we had to avoid these crazed maniacs before we finally arrived at the Opera.

Relieved, I started to pull myself out of my seat before Engiz said, "Here, let me help." getting out on his side of the vehicle and coming around to open the door and offer me a hand.