The Fog of War/Part 16

"Yes, it sounded that way to me, too," Slejux agreed.

He could feel his colleagues' tension at Tirien's observation in the Force, smell the faint scent markers of stress and anxiety, perceive the infinitesimal vibrations that indicated their small fidgets. If he wanted he might have channeled the Force to map the room more completely, but it was rarely worth the effort; the cilia on his hands and face printed out a thorough scan of the room and his five fellow Jedi.

More than once Narasi, like so many other Jedi endowed with eyes, had asked him if he wished he could see, but he found his replies inevitably became like describing the Force to a being without it. Humanoids were ever confining their conception of reality to their own perceptions.

"Turning the Milagroans against us?" Master Kadych mused. "Very clever. Too clever for Vaszas, I would've thought.  This has Gasald written all over it."

"I'm not sure how much of a push from Gasald they'll need, Master," Darakhan said flatly. "I'm surprised the Chuns haven't skipped offworld already, and you're not exactly making us many friends."

"He's right, Master," Tirien added. "They're strained thin, and they already don't think of us as part of their group. They need to stay focused or they'll crack, but if that focus gets directed at us, we all lose."

"Well, it's certainly a novel experience to have you two agree on something," Master Kadych answered dryly. His movements brushed the air, whispering to Slejux's cilia and revealing he had crossed his arms. "This war is with the dark side. The Anzati we could hunt inconspicuously, but we can't afford to give them the upper hand by careless action."

"Our war is with the dark side," Mali said. "And yeah, in the grand scheme Milagro's one move on a dejarik board the galaxy wide, but these people don't see it that way. These are their homes, their families, their lives."

"All of which they will lose if Gasald prevails here."

"They know that," Slejux said. "But therein lies the danger. Tirien's right, they don't trust us, and pushed too far, they might betray us for a chance to save their loved ones, empty as Vaszas's promise might be.  We need to either act, or leave Milagro."

The air shifted as several of the others drew deep breaths. Slejux could sense Mali and Tirien forming opinions on that proposition, and knew the two were no longer united in their views.

"Is the Second Chance even capable of flight?" Master Kadych asked.

"We got it moved to about a hundred kilometers out," Narasi said. Tirien had helped her heal her nose enough that she no longer sounded congested, but the faint scents of plastic, cotton, and adhesive told Slejux she still had a bandage across her face. "There was a scout squad flying, we couldn't risk any more. The engines are fine, but we haven't patched the shields yet."

"And its armor?"

"Without shields she'll take one, maybe two fighter hits on the aft," Tirien said. "One shot from a capital ship and we're gone."

"Are we seriously considering leaving these people to deal with this?" Mali demanded.

"Rather than stay and wait for them to sell us out to Vaszas and Vandak?" Tirien countered.

"If we leave now the Jedi Order stands for nothing," Mali said. "Nothing at all. We're just one more faction trying to control the galaxy."

"Mali, I want to save them too," Tirien said. "I do. But we disgrace the Order if our staying causes these people to die, too—if by fighting we do even more harm."

Slejux was well familiar now with the feeling of tension rising, and to cut it off he asked, "Can any of us conceive of a plan which, if we execute it and reveal our presence, does more good than harm?"

When no one spoke for a moment, Slejux rose from the repulsorsled on which he was sitting and settled cross-legged onto the floor. He held out his hands, letting the silent invitation smooth over the nascent quarrel. After a moment Tirien sat as well, taking his right hand; Narasi sat on Tirien's other side. Mali took Slejux's left hand, and Aldayr Narasi's right; Slejux was disheartened to see the break between the two Corellian Jedi, though neither Aldayr nor Narasi shied away from the other's touch, and that was something. Master Kadych completed the circle.

Slejux reached into the Force for inspiration, trying to get a glimpse of possible futures, and sensed his comrades doing the same. Slejux's mental cilia imagined the caustic smell of ozone and his mind shouldered the weight of the darkness, alternately ice cold and scalding to the touch. Triumph and tragedy, victory and defeat…

"There's only one way we make this work," Tirien said…seconds later? Hours? Meditation made time difficult. "We do what we came here to do."

Slejux sensed he was not alone in feeling surprised. "Meaning…?"

"We've gotten bogged down, off track," the Pantoran continued. "Fighting incidental battles, trying to lead a resistance that isn't ours to lead, burning off the loose threads one at a time while the whole garment's unraveling. The only way we can really make a difference here is doing what Mali wanted to do from the beginning—kill the Sith."

"Tirien Kal-Di endorses an assassination mission?" Master Kadych asked. "We're in dire straits indeed."

"It all rests on Vaszas just now," Tirien insisted, in a tone of sufficient certainty that Slejux wondered what the Force had shown him. "Gasald and Karzded are orchestrating this, I'm sure, but they're not downside; Vaszas is the face of the conquest. Kill him and we expose the Sith as weak and embolden the resistance, and Karzded will have to endanger himself by taking command in person.  And if the Anzati are with Vaszas, that means Vandak is too.  We wipe them both off the board."

"And if Gasald elects to punish rather than subdue?" Slejux asked. "She could shell Milagro to slag from orbit."

"But she won't," Mali said. "If she just wanted a planet on the way to Corellia she could've hit the Gamor system with half the fuss and probably a quarter of the resistance. She wants the industrial capabilities here."

"And if she depopulates the planet, she'll have to bring in slaves from elsewhere in the Empire to run the factories," Tirien said. "That'll take months."

"And the Council of Five won't look kindly on her requisitioning a planetary population's worth of slaves," Master Kadych added, and now there was interest in his tone. "Fear has made the Sith more powerful than they are. If Vaszas and Vandak fall, Milagro may hold out for months, even years.  If they live, I give it a few weeks, tops."

"I get the sense these people would rather die fighting than live under Darth Vaszas anyway," Aldayr noted.

Slejux couldn't help sensing for tension between Mali and Aldayr, but both seemed focused. Instead he asked, "Are we agreed, then?"

No one objected, and after a moment Mali got to his feet and the others followed. The movement of air and faint electromagnetic currents outlined one room after another, and his cilia identified Jossi Feld's scent as the man met them halfway.

"Masters Jedi," he said in a conflicted tone.

"Jossi, I seem to remember you saying something about a diversionary attack," Mali said, and Slejux could hear the confident Corellian smile in his tone. "I think we've got just the thing."