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KYBER-PUNK 22BBY Ch.22
🕑 Added 2025-09-17 01:01:57 +0000 UTC[A Month of War]
— Atom —
A gorgeous Twi’lek starlet turned her back on her lover, “You know nothing of love!”
“I know YOU. I have YOU. You’re enough, you’re all I need, all I’ve ever needed! Don’t block me out, Miyana!” Her male co-star pleaded and pleaded.
Miyana scoffed, “Oh, spare me, Saren! You truly expect me to believe that after I caught you lekku-in-lekku with my secret clone-sister, who we all thought was lost in that terrible hyperspace accident?!”
“Please, my love, I didn’t know! I was away on that year-long lost exploration of the Unknown Regions when you met and lost her so quickly, so tragically! Please remember the love letters I sent by mass hypercomm! To me, she was the mirror image of the woman I love! Forgive my ignorance, love, I simply saw you and I was weak…” Saren explained with heavy-handed exposition.
“It’s not enough!” Miyana insisted. “You love her, I know it!”
“Only as I love you!” Saren fired back.
“If you truly love me, you’ll-!” Miyana wavered, desperate. “You’ll kill her for me, won’t you?”
Saren reared back as if struck, “Gasp! What-?!”
“My long-lost clone-sister has returned to take everything from me, everything I hold dear!” Miyana ranted. “She’s even teamed up with my rival-turned-best-friend-turned-Sith! If you don’t kill them for me, I’ll have nothing left in short order…”
“Oh, my love…” Saren sighed and wept, leaning his forehead against Miyana’s. “I love you too much to ever kill any version of you…”
“Then, you’re useless to me,” Miyana sniffed imperiously. “I just hope the neural scrambler that Zabrak witch gave me will make you more agreeable. I’m sorry, Saren, my love…”
Saren recoiled, but it was too late, “Wha-! Noooooooo~…!”
Miyana slipped a crown of technology over his head, resting it on her lover’s lekku. Fat, painful tears fell from her eyes. Saren didn’t even try to stop her from switching the very obvious switch on the crown and robbing him of his free will (for some reason…). The surprisingly well-made prop lit up in a theatrical lightshow.
And watching the holo-drama, I rolled my eyes.
Slop. I was stuck watching slop. Well, ignoring it as best I could. It was some Twi’lek soap opera that had already run for a dozen seasons and would inevitably run for a dozen more. Sasha had insisted, claiming I needed a break from it all, from a month at full tilt. A chance to turn my brain off. This was certainly that… Too much of that, for my tastes…
Still, she forced me to stay in my seat by pushing me onto the couch and plopping herself down in my lap. Silver lining: at least it was comfortable to have my input reclining and purring against my chest.
It dulled my frustration, but I still felt that we had much, much more important things to be doing. Sasha wouldn’t hear a word of it, though, arguing that slop breaks were just as important for long-term mental health as actually getting shit done…
I knew a losing battle when I saw one. I could just stand up and dump Sasha off me… but then, she’d pout and give me those pleading and concerned neon eyes… Giving in was inevitable when she got like that. Especially for a hill I wasn’t at all prepared to die on.
Ultimately, she was just trying to look after my well-being and make sure I didn’t burn myself out. The consideration was unnecessary… but appreciated, I suppose… There were worse things in my life than a concerned cyberkitty gf.
That’s how I found myself taking a break from the complete conquest of Nar Shaddaa, our war to excise the cancerous, tumorous Hutts from the moon. Vaguely, I’d been expecting something like this. Conquering a moon like Nar Shaddaa wasn’t the work of a day. It’d dragged on and on, and going all-out, all the time, was a recipe for disaster. I had [Delegation I]. Best to actually use it.
What I wasn’t expecting, however, were the ones who joined us when Sasha slapped whateverthefuck this slop was onto the holo. Maine and Dorio were somewhat expected, needing to rest their old bones. V had seemingly been put in a similar timeout to me by Smasher’s head, of all people. I think he was jealous, what with his current decapitated state impeding his ability to do the gratuitous violence he lived for.
Quinlan, Aayla, and Fay had joined us of their own volition, though, almost rushing to do so as soon as they heard the opening theme. I wouldn’t have imagined Jedi being such actual fans of this slop without seeing it for myself. And it wasn’t just Aayla wanting to watch Twi’lek media. She was fully invested in all the overly dramatic twists and turns of the holo-drama. Quinlan and Fay were, too.
“No, Miyana!” Aayla gasped. “Don’t use the love of your life as a weapon against your villainous clone-sister and rival-turned-best-friend-turned-Sith! You just reunited after his year-long voyage into the unknown! Think of the children he doesn’t know about and you forgot about due to amnesia!”
“Oh, how horrible, how tragic~…” Fay swooned.
Quinlan nodded, “‘Stars of Our Stars’ is always intense.”
V and I shared a pair of disbelieving glances with each other. I guess all of the Force enlightenment in the galaxy couldn’t account for good taste. Maybe it was a sort of ‘living vicariously’ thing for the Jedi, but there had to be better options out there than… this slop.
Seeing our shared glances, Sasha giggled at me and V, “Don’t be so dismissive. You two need this just as much as they do.”
“Debatable,” I grumbled.
“Nah, straight bantha-shit,” V deadpanned. “We could be doing good and proper violence right about now, not watching this convoluted-ass plotline.”
“SUFFER, V-BRAT,” Smasher growled. “IT’S WHAT YOU CUNTS DESERVE FOR NOT GETTING ME A NEW FRAME TO JOIN THE FUN IN.”
“It’s not that convoluted,” Fay defended the holo-drama with a pout. “I’d even say it’s true to life in many ways. In these lives of ours, you can never know what will come next.”
“Indeed,” Aayla smirked. “Isn’t Atom a long-lost clone himself, just like Miyana’s villainous sister~?”
“… I don’t see how that’s relevant,” I scowled.
Maine just chuckled, “Nah, she’s got you there, choom. Real fragging life can be just as convoluted at times, especially when you’re livin’ on the Edge.”
My scowl lingered at that well-made point. It really could, even if I didn’t want to acknowledge the riposte aloud. I mean, a discarded clone from the gutters of Night City, Nar Shaddaa rising to challenge and even push back the Hutt Cartels…? Even holo producers wouldn’t be that daring when it came to their ‘dramas.
There was a difference, though. Real was real, drama was drama. At the very least, my production values were better than this slop. I pointedly ignored how Sasha had taken to broadcasting some of our daily lives and victories in the war for her gonk-a-ganda, starting with my mayoral campaign and continuing on since then.
She claimed it was good for the people to see their new mayor in action, to see me. I couldn’t refuse her, not when I was pretty sure it had helped. My approval ratings were through the roof, high even for Night City, and public sentiment was firmly behind us and our efforts.
Obviously, she was pushing our war for Nar Shaddaa, our war against the Hutts, hard. Within Night City, gonks ate it up. They loved that shit. A mayor who walked what he talked and carried out the violence of our culture with his own hands wasn’t quite novel, but it was certainly still appreciated. We hadn’t been lacking for recruits or general support since I won that elected crown.
But even past Night City’s Limits, Sasha’s gonk-a-ganda had seen good success. The people of Nar Shaddaa saw a counter-narrative for the first time in most of their lives. It was firmly anti-Hutt, pro-oppressed, and entirely revolutionary.
Off Nar Shaddaa, the gonk-a-ganda was slower to spread. But it still did, by word of mouth or smuggled transmission or even through private Arasaka channels. The galaxy at large was watching the heart of Hutt Space. Waiting, holding their breath to see what happened next-…
“Oh my!” Fay gasped. “Are they allowed to show so much tasteful intimacy and artistic nudity on the holo?”
“It’s a Twi’lek production,” Dorio laughed. “This is honestly tame by their standards. Hells, full pen’ is honestly tame.”
Aayla frowned, “Unfortunately, you’re not wrong.”
My eye twitched as my attention was called back to the holo where Miyana was now having her mind-controlled lover serve between her legs as she plotted her villainous clone-sister and rival-turned-best-friend-turned-Sith’s downfall. I hated knowing even that much about this slop’s plotline, but at least there was some spice to it, too…
With Sasha wiggling pleasantly and teasingly in my lap (likely getting ideas from the scenes on the holo), I forced my thoughts back to the war effort. Public opinion was just another front against the Hutts.
We aimed to put everything the Hutts could claim to the torch. Their slaving chains, their economic dominance, the Hutt supremacist views at the core of their institutional power; all of it needed to shatter as we pushed them off the Smuggler’s Moon. A large part of that push was making the very air of Nar Shaddaa hostile to Hutt presence. That was still an uphill battle, but Sasha wasn’t taking it easy.
Being given an alternative and being shown real results, whole districts of Nar Shaddaa outside Night City were stirring more and more. Most just kept their heads down. I couldn’t blame them for that. Some supported us as they could without bringing the Hutt hammer down on themselves. That was still resistance, still appreciated and acknowledged and nothing to scoff at.
Others, though… Others rose up, just like us. They fought back against all they’d ever known, in hopes of a brighter future. Or if they couldn’t do that, they waited for us to reach them so they could eagerly join the war.
Just as the Gonk Cartel was seeing a steady flood of support from Night City — our ‘core’ territories — our closest allies were also seeing floods of the same. Namely, a good portion of the rest of Nar Shaddaa’s population flooded into the newly formed ‘Freest Legion’.
Shattering the ever-present institution of slavery on Nar Shaddaa had always been one of my main focuses. Now, those freed slaves had somewhere to go — a productive, righteous, and raging outlet against all they’d endured. It wasn’t mandated. Wasn’t even my idea, really. But I certainly didn’t try to stop that movement.
One of the slaves I’d freed — a young man named Podry — didn’t want the fight to end with just his freedom. He aimed to bring that same freedom to everyone else he could, to the rest of Mighty Leia’s enslaved siblings.
He’d been an arena slave. Fighting was all he knew. I could appreciate that. Relate, even. So if they wanted to fight, I’d gladly fight beside his Freest Legion, and if they needed anything at all, I’d gladly supply it.
Gonk Cartel and our allies alike, the Hutts couldn’t keep us contained, no matter how hard they tried. We were a boulder rolling with momentum, now. Slaves — brought to Nar Shaddaa from near and far — were building up Podry’s Freest Legion until it was almost a proper organization of its own, not merely pure fighters. Other ‘cities’ of Nar Shaddaa were being integrated as we pushed farther out. And Night City was straight-up patriotic in its enthusiasm for the Gonk Cartel.
The calls even went out into the stars. Wayward Nomads returned to join up with their fellows, and Linth was pulling strings to call in the more above-board pirates, smugglers, and spacers he knew. Our fleet might’ve been a long way from matching the Hutts vessel for vessel, but we were more driven, more united, and more than capable of holding our own so far.
On the ground, we had Night City gonks, gangers, and edgerunners, Gank hunting packs, some choice mercs that Coyate vouched for, the Freest Legion, and Ara-fucking-saka on our side. That last alliance had grown strong.
After pushing out Militech, Arasaka was ruling Night City’s corpo scene even more firmly than they already had. They liked that. Saburo liked that. And since our Gonk Cartel made it possible, they liked us, too.
Arasaka stocks were up something fierce, especially as news from Nar Shaddaa trickled out to the wider galaxy. The chance to openly clash with one of their major corpo competitors (Militech), profit from the war, and even potentially take from the Hutts was also greatly valued by Saburo. And of course, that was without mentioning his very real moral justifications for declaring against the Hutts. So there was no real danger of the Emperor of Arasaka backing out of such a mutually beneficial relationship now.
After only a month of cooperation between Arasaka and our Gonks, it was already all but set in stone. And I couldn’t deny the effects of their support on our war effort. Logistically, for the most part.
We had enough manpower and money to our names, but Arasaka’s production? Their interstellar supply lines? Their connections? Those were valuable and already making a difference. Without them, I doubt we would’ve seen the full extent of the success we had-…
“I don’t like this course of action for young Miyana. I’d much prefer to see her fall back on outside assistance, say her other clone-sister, the pirate queen one? A burden like hers should not be borne alone,” Quinlan commented with all the grace of a personally invested moral critic. “But I suppose we’ll just have to see how it turns out for her.”
“I don’t think she’s thinking straight. Is she being mind-controlled, too?” V agreed and asked.
Were those flickers of actual interest I was hearing…? Oh, Force, it was spreading… Pointedly, I continued to ignore the slop as best I could.
“I didn’t even think of that, but with her rival-turned-best-friend-turned-Sith, that is possible, isn’t it~?” Sasha said.
She smirked as she did, partially turning to look back at me. Practically prodding me with a stick to see me react. Trying to get me invested, too. That was too far. And I couldn’t even punish her properly right now. I settled for a tickling jab into her side and a glare, but she didn’t seem all that chastised.
She giggled. I glared for a moment longer before turning my focus inward again, determined not to let the slop win…
Strategically, our goal was to push every last Hutt off Nar Shaddaa. We needed them extinct as far as the surface and perception of the Smuggler’s Moon was concerned. So long as one Hutt remained, they’d maintain some claim, some foothold here. And that just couldn’t be allowed…
That overarching goal made the current stage of our war a somewhat unique one. There was no traditional frontline, no No Man’s Land, no pure jostling for territory. Instead, our hit list of Hutts was the real frontline. It was a war of targets, not territory won inch by inch.
Sure, we did take and hold territory, but it was all in service of, or a result of, that Hutt Hit List. The best part was that the Hutts were still fighting with the traditional idea of war in their minds. They’d muster some monumental, ‘war-winning’ push past our ‘lines’. We’d let them. Then, while they celebrated, we struck at the Hutt generals as they led their legions of slaves and mercs and battle droids.
Every dead Hutt was a victory for us that heavily outweighed the temporary loss of ‘territory’. And when they didn’t come to us, we went to them. There, it helped to have the public sentiment on our side. More often than not, hiding Hutts were given away by all of the ‘lesser species’ they so easily dismissed.
Even on Nar Shaddaa, at the heart of their space, Hutts were outnumbered 1000-10,000-100,000 to 1. They weren’t a populous species in the best of times, an absurd minority that instead ruled through slavery, obscene wealth, and force of history. And now, we were rapidly chipping their already low numbers down to nothing.
We were slaughtering slugs in the thousands, likely the most loss of Hutt life that their empire had seen in millennia. They didn’t know how to react, and ended up flailing helplessly more than they hit back.
Like that, we were taking back Nar Shaddaa. Not just for Night City, but for every other majority population on the moon. And while we pressed them from the ground — freeing slaves, inspiring fighters from all stripes, and killing Hutts — our fleets did their best to choke the Hutts out from the stars.
Ecumenopolises were a special kind of ‘too much’. They were each a study of obscene excess incarnate. It wasn’t commonly acknowledged (likely due to Coruscant’s sheer weight of influence over everything in the galaxy…), but there were almost no ways a city-planet with a population in the trillions could sustainably exist.
Coruscant, of course, was the twisted pinnacle of that phenomenon. The ecumenopolis of ecumenopolises. The beginning and end of all things in the Republic. It was an ever-hungry maw that devoured all that the galaxy produced. It was insatiable, and it cared not what fed it. Impossible, except through the spoils and exploitation of an entire galaxy.
In a very real way, the Republic itself existed solely to serve and sustain Coruscant. The ultimate pyramid scheme, on a galactic scale. Truly, that many resources were needed by the planet everyone considered the center of the galaxy, and truly? It still wasn’t enough.
And Nar Shaddaa? It was the Coruscant of Hutt Space. All of Hutt Space, all of its slavery and exploitation and production, served Nar Shaddaa (and Nal Hutta through it). Even when the scale of Nar Shaddaa compared to Coruscant was best described in scientific notation, the Hutts’ natural greed did its best to make Nar Shaddaa’s needed supply match the unstoppable demands of the galactic capital.
Naturally, that was a fulcrum point for us to strike and seize for ourselves. The remaining Hutts on Nar Shaddaa still wanted their usual demands met — be they trade, luxuries, slaves, or war goods?
Well, shame. We were yoinking as much of that shit as we reasonably could, and better distributing it to the actual majority of the Smuggler’s Moon. Hutts starved and languished without luxury in their hidden palaces and safe rooms, and for once, the people of Nar Shaddaa were getting what they so desperately needed-…
“Go, Miyana!” Aayla cheered at the holo. “I’m rooting for you, even with your terrible recent choices driven by amnesia and fear and the need to prove yourself to your president mother!”
“President mother?” Fay asked with the slightest of frowns. “I think I missed that arc.”
“Oh, yes,” Quinlan was quick to flatly explain. “It was revealed that Miyana’s mother, Mita, is the president of their world and has dangerous enemies in the galactic senate who aim to see her removed. It’s the arc that sets the seeds of Miyana’s eventual amnesia and forgetting of her life and children.
“That was enemy action, just like the terrible sickness that nearly claimed Mita herself, only for her to survive and go into hiding with the help of the Jedi Knight who abandoned the Code to be with her. Their romance was entirely unfounded for the real Order, of course — mostly based on popular superstitions and assumptions — but it was still touching, in a way.”
Fay sighed, “Their family has been through so much, and with her current course, I believe it will continue to go through much from Miyana’s perspective. I just hope she avoids falling to the same depths of depravity that her father and his cult did.”
My eye twitched. I. Ignored. The. Slop…
Arasaka helped on the supply and demand front, too. Corpo hands were heavy, and their reach was long. We were much more wary and careful about challenging the Hutts on a purely economic battlefield, though.
Even for Arasaka, that was just about suicide. There, our corpo allies focused their efforts from the outside in, using their Mid-Rim and Core World assets to put pressure on Hutt lines of profit in those areas. But as determined as we were to see their Cartels crumble completely, it wasn’t easy to break through economic dominance millennia in the making.
When it came to information warfare and slicing, though, Night City was unmatched. The worst netrunner in Night City was leagues ahead of the average slicer in the rest of the galaxy. Night City thrived on the slicing Edge, and we had no shortage of volunteers who wanted to contribute in any way they could.
Netrunning was a major front in our war. Hidden Hutt bank accounts acted like finish lines in so many netrunning races. Credits came in the billions. Paydata came in the exabyte. The leaks came so often that Kiwi had a whole hypernet server dedicated to hosting a site that the whole galaxy could access. Every comm sent and received was sliced by a hundred thousand netrunners working in cooperation and competition.
Lucy, Sasha, and Kiwi were mostly responsible for that front. When leading netrunners, actual working experience was essential. It took a special kind of sentient to become a netrunner. They could be difficult at the best of times. But that trio knew the game; they knew Night City netrunners, knew how they thought and operated and competed. So it was relatively easy to wrangle and direct them in the most productive manner for our purposes.
The result was absolute information superiority. And its effectiveness couldn’t be understated. Any move the Hutts tried to make on Nar Shaddaa, in our war, we knew about beforehand. Every shipment of resupply or reinforcement only existed at our whim. And while the entire galaxy knew how awful the Hutts were, they were now seeing it in detail, never before seen, through our constant leaks of paydata.
I’d seen the reactions from off-world in hypernet comments and posts, and even from official sources like news networks and some more radical senators.
Outrage:
‘How could it be so bad?! How could no one realize?!’
‘I read the leaks. They carved a world’s population in half with one of their slave raids. And the Republic turns a blind eye…?’
‘No one should suffer like this, Outer Rim, Mid, or Core! We are one galaxy, one Republic! The Hutts have spat in the face of that for too long!’
Support:
‘I’ll help however I can. Where can I donate?’
‘As a senator of the Outer Rim, these reports hit close to home. My constituents have suffered Hutt influence. As have I. There is evidence in the leaks of their lobbying and resistance to my initial campaign. They failed to suppress me then, and now, I’m in a unique position to strike back. I swear to rally my peers in the Senate if it is the last thing I do. Even if I’m silenced, it will only be the beginning.’
And even a Galaxy Far, Far Away couldn’t escape the memes:
‘Fuck a Hutt? It’s always been Fuck a Hutt. [Greedosmile]’
‘[Picture of a Mandolorian warrior suiting up with an truly absurd amount of weapons] : Me When…’
‘Pius Dea Vult!’
‘Senate: tells us there’s nothing to worry about, everything is normal, look at [insert meaningless, manufactured distraction here]! Me: Wizard story, where are the Hutt Files, though?’
Sure, much of the talk on the hypernet came from out-of-touch and distant Core Worlders. But that was still an important gonk-a-ganda battlefield.
The Core Worlds were where debate and the opinions of the majority actually mattered. Where the social order of democracy still had teeth, not disrupted and made practically untenable by the ever-present reality of violence in the Outer Rim.
Pretty ideals like those tended to break down when a blaster was shoved in your face. But when one wasn’t? That surge of public outrage and calls for support could make a very real difference for our efforts when it came to the Senate and other Core World movers and shakers.
But even with all of that, it often felt like we weren’t making any progress outside Nar Shaddaa. The Hutt Cartels were a truly massive, obscenely sprawling, interstellar institution entrenched for millennia. They’d lasted the test of time in the galaxy for a reason.
In many ways, they were too big to fail. Not in any ‘propped up’ sense of the phrase, but in the fact that they were too intertwined in galactic culture. They were an unavoidable, unassailable reality, and changing that perception was the work of a lifetime.
… My lifetime, I guess, because I wasn’t about to give up on what seemed to be an impossible cause. The Hutts might’ve been set into the very foundations of the galaxy as everyone knew it, but they could lose. They could bleed. For all they represented — so corrupt, so depraved, so tyrannical that they looped back around to some twisted form of ‘stability’ — I would see them bled dry.
Our position in the heart of Hutt Space allowed us to make that first cut count, a killing blow from the start. Anywhere else, our efforts would’ve been ignored as acceptable losses to the lumbering beast of an empire. But on Nar Shaddaa, at the core of their economic dominance, orbiting their claimed homeworld…? The Hutts couldn’t ignore us. And they were suffering for it.
A thousand Hutts dead. Ten times that number fled like the cowardly oppressors they were. Billions of stolen credits to fund our efforts. So many liberated slave rings and broken operations that we’d lost count, even as we freed every last one of them all the same. A dozen other districts of the Smuggler’s Moon, rising up in arms to join our call to war. A dark and dangerous turn of public sentiment against the Hutts.
Our victories were many and consequential. Nar Shaddaa was almost ours. It only needed a few more good pushes. I’d give it a week. And that was only because the last few Hutts on the moon weren’t hiding so much as they were fortifying their positions in ways that needed more direct assaults to crack-…
“JUST GIVE THE BITCHES BLASTERS AND LET THEM SETTLE IT THEMSELVES,” Smasher growled at the holo as the convoluted slop plotline dragged on and on with plenty of drama to be had. “MY MONEY’S ON THE CLONE-SISTER. BITCH SEEMS RUTHLESS ENOUGH. NOW, THAT WOULD BE ENTERTAINMENT.”
Him, too…? No, I refused to believe that Adam Fucking Smasher — decapited head and biopod or not — was showing even the littlest bit of interest in the slop. It had to be memetically infectious or something, and that thought just made me more determined to ignore it until I could make my escape…
While our victory against the Hutts on Nar Shaddaa was all but ensured, the past month hadn’t been without… complications, most specifically when it came to the Force and her representatives on both sides. I’d been made to host… visitors. Unexpected ones, but far from impossible ones. It hadn’t been they themselves who raised my eyebrows, but what they came to me with.
As it turned out, there were other powerful Force users on Nar Shaddaa. And they weren’t bothering to hide themselves. No, like our Jedi friends, they came openly and hoping to strike up a deal or two. Predictably, that first meeting wasn’t a wholly friendly one, and I quickly found myself caught between Jedi and Sith, with only me being aware of the latter. It was… interesting, to say the least.
IIIII
It happened during one of the Gonk Cartel’s regularly scheduled war councils. They’d become a daily occurrence — a necessity for coordinating an organization and operation on a constantly contested, constantly growing scale like ours, to say nothing of the strategic and tactical choices that needed to be made at every turn — so that session didn’t start out particularly noteworthy.
It was mostly updates from all of the different fronts, and Shank the Gank alternating between a jealous pout and enthusiastic encouragement for the war council’s newest member, Podry of the Freest Legion. I couldn’t tell if he was happy for more comrades-in-arms — more ‘pack members for The Hunt!’ — or outraged that he and his packs now had competition when it came to hunting slavers specifically. I doubt Shank himself knew, either.
I wouldn’t say I was bored with the meeting. Work was still being done, progress was still being made, even if we had to ‘suffer’ our jealously pouting head hunting hound. It was ever-so-slightly annoying, but nothing to raise a real fuss about.
Podry and his Freest Legion were still in their earliest days. War supplies and training needed to be properly secured for them. Sstala and her bureaucratic talents were on top of that, though (still proving herself as the only competent component of the cartel that wretch Zorba had built). And De’vi was firmly supporting her fellow freed slaves. Thankfully, most of that necessary grunt work wasn’t disrupted by the interruption that occurred and derailed the council.
The war room was secure in our Watson Megabuilding HQ. It couldn’t rival Arasaka Tower just yet, but it was getting closer by the day.
The credits and jobs flowed freely to enhance security, communication, recruitment, training, and logistics in the new and rapidly expanding heart of the Gonk Cartel. With our war and my election as mayor, the megabuilding was quickly becoming central to Night City as a whole, not just to us Core Gonks.
That’s all to say that sneaking into our war room should’ve been… difficult, if not impossible. Our interrupting visitors managed the feat, though. Easily. It was a subtle and dangerous flex of power, but honestly, I was expecting a more blatant flex from Sith (even if they weren’t openly operating as such).
One moment, Shank was pouting, Sstala was running the show, Podry was stiff with awkward determination, De’vi was kindly encouraging him, V was poking Smasher’s head, the Jedi were meditating in the corner, and I was watching over it all, making sure everything continued to run smoothly. The rest of the war council — Linth, Panam, Suunri, Coyate, Maine, Dorio, Kiwi, David, Gloria, Lucy, Becca, and Sasha — had already left to focus on their tasks and keep our war a’waging.
The next, Fay alone stiffened to attention. That was the only warning we got. She was the only one of us to notice the interruption before it actually revealed itself. And the reason for that was clear as a pair of unknowns casually sat themselves at the war room’s round table.
One was a young woman — bald but beautiful with deathly pale skin — who moved with all the grace of a predatory cat. Her presence in the Force mimicked that slinking, stalking, subtly savage nature. Open danger darkened her eyes, but the way they flicked over everyone at the table betrayed her wariness. She was confident in herself, but not to the point of suicide. Still, she wouldn’t back down from a fight if it came. That look in her eyes was an invitation. A dare.
The other was visibly the more dangerous of the two. An older human man who carried himself with the utmost nobility. In that nobility, a threat lurked. A subtle one, and all the more deadly for it.
His eyes didn’t flitter about like his younger companion’s did. He didn’t need to weigh his potential opponents. He was utterly secure in his very existence, and that gaze rested on only two people in the war room: me and Fay.
His presence in the Force was powerful, but nuanced, too. A heavy weight resting and wrapped in silk. Nothing outright gave away the Darkness that I knew had to be lurking there somewhere. He was outwardly gray, at most, but not pitch-black and certainly not mindlessly Fallen.
Was his nature as a Sith even known at this point in the timeline…? My memories of it felt like a lifetime ago, foggy and mostly unsure. This galaxy wasn’t just a story to me anymore. It was real. It was my life. And as it became more and more so, as I focused solely on my own corner of reality… those memories had faded somewhere along the line.
I still remembered… a Chosen One with a great and terrible destiny? A coming war that would tear the galaxy in two? Another big bad Sith, hidden in front of everyone’s eyes? A climactic betrayal that shook the entire galaxy?
I only remembered so much about Dooku because he was physically (and Forcefully) in front of me, jogging those fading memories back into some minor clarity. But the majority of the actual specifics were… muddled, replaced by real memories of a real life I was now really leading here.
Were those fading memories even accurate? Were they worth acting on? Or were they constantly in flux, both the same and different from that already vague out-of-context knowledge through some Schrodinger’s META of ‘canon’ and ‘AU’ and changes I ‘already had’ and ‘might still’ make?
Too existential, I gave an internal scoff. And it didn’t matter, not really. What mattered was the reality I actually lived and actually acted upon, not unstable memories and fear of changing too much. Simple as.
The intruding pair didn’t introduce themselves immediately. The reaction from our side was immediately tense, though. Shank snapped to attention, standing from his seat to stare stiffly like a pointing dog. V sat back in her seat, the casual movement masking her complete readiness to do violence at the drop of a credstick. Podry just blinked (we’d have to work on his readiness), and the noncombatants in Sstala and De’vi tensed but carefully made no sudden moves.
The Jedi, however, reacted the most. In an instant, unlit lightsaber hilts were in Quinlan and Aayla’s hands. With Fay’s brief moments of prior warning, I felt her ‘rest hands’ upon the Force, prepared to take more extreme actions if necessary.
In a twitch almost invisible to the normal naked eye, the younger of our intruders had her own unlit lightsaber hilts in her hands. They rested menacingly on the table. The older man stopped her from going farther with barely a glance and a brushing motion I felt in the Force.
That tension lingered for a long moment with all the weight of a Night City standoff. But for all of the pair’s potential for danger, I couldn’t sense any actual intentions to enact it from them.
Slowly, I asked with one eyebrow suspiciously raised, “So… Business or pleasure?”
The man in front of me didn’t shrug. He was too noble of bearing for that, “Business, mostly. Nar Shaddaa is not a place I would ever visit for pleasure, especially not during these… interesting times. Of course, that business comes in many forms. Political, personal, and even spiritual, in a way.”
Shaking his head, he continued, “Before I get ahead of myself, I am Yan Dooku, Count of Serenno and former Jedi of the Order. My apprentice is Asajj Ventress. Interests have coincided to call us here. Now that we are, I believed it to be for the best that we open a dialogue with you and yours, Atom. Your reputation greatly precedes you, and considering the company you keep, I see that my intuition was correct.”
“My company is perfectly respectable,” I grunted. “Sure, Smasher’s a grumpy, cyberpsycho bastard-…”
“BACK AT YOU, MEAT-CLONE,” Smasher rumbled.
“And V is a bratty little violence monster in the making-…”
“Aww, you’re so sweeehehe…” V pretended to coo and just ended up cackling.
“But my Gonks have proven themselves over and over again,” I firmly defended. “Podry will soon enough, too. They’re good, and none of your fuckin’ business…”
Dooku raised an unamused eyebrow, “I was referring to your unsanctioned Jedi allies.”
“Unsanctioned…? How could you know-?” Aayla warily began.
“Please, Knight Aayla,” Dooku didn’t actually scoff, but his tone still got the message across. “I know the Council. I know the Order. As they now are — unduly influenced, ineffective, and only interested in upholding the status quo — they would never sanction this.
“No, they would sooner jump through whatever corrupt hoops the Senate lays for them than be a part of tangible change in the galaxy. You may not be operating rogue, I’ll grant, but you and your former master are certainly not on any official mission from them…”
For a moment, Aayla seemed caught between retorting and agreeing with Dooku. Quinlan soothed her with a gentle hand in the Force.
“You’re correct,” He said. “We’re not on an official mission from the Council. We were called to Nar Shaddaa by the Will of the Force, and we answered.”
“As you should. Qui-Gon would be proud to see his friend doing something in this accursed age of crippling ineffectiveness,” Dooku nodded briefly and a touch somberly, then asked. “Have you reported back to the Council at all yet?”
Quinlan’s silence at that question was telling, and Aayla’s slight shift in posture was even more so.
“Good,” Dooku spared them a small, meaningful smile. “There is some hope for you, then. Individuals like you are the reason I forced myself to stay with the Order for as long as I did. As an organization, it may be grossly ineffective, but some of us still strove to make a difference in the galaxy. The Order and I have parted ways, but I would still count us comrades in that regard.”
“Do you regret that decision?” Fay asked gently.
Dooku turned his focus entirely to her and even gave a shallow bow of respect, “Master Fay. It is an honor. I do not. The Order was limiting me, strangling me. I wouldn’t say it was an easy decision… but I truly felt that it was necessary for my path in the Force. The galaxy is now open to me, and I have not wasted my new freedom.”
“Open for you to fan the flames of separation and secession?” Fay’s tone was pressing and inquisitive, but not necessarily judgmental.
Dooku frowned slightly, “I don’t expect us to agree on the necessity of the actions I have taken-…”
“No, I do, in many places,” Fay politely and frankly interrupted him. “I know better than anyone how flawed the Republic is as a system, especially in the Rim and Frontier. I can acknowledge that drastic change is needed. I even applaud your daring to start anew.”
“At the same time,” She sadly shook her head. “I know the unfortunate allies you’ve been made to court in your effort, Count Dooku. And I know the only way all of this can end for the galaxy. I don’t mourn the change you long to bring about; I mourn the war, the violence, the suffering that will inevitably come with it. I mourn the loss of peace, even as it lies in every future I’ve forseen.”
Dooku was struck silent by Fay’s words for him. I doubt it was a common occurrence for a man like him. But Fay’s wisdom, her understanding, her mourning and tragic acceptance, her hope for a better, more peaceful future through it all had weight, the weight of a thousand well-traveled years.
“I see…” Dooku said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “That… is partially why I’ve come here today. I have courted unfortunate allies, and I cannot blind myself to the coming storm, not when much of it is of my own making.”
“Atom,” He turned to me. “Your movement is one I would like to court, much more than the other options available to me. When the storm arrives, I will need connections in and inroads to Hutt Space. But I have enough unfortunate allies already. I don’t wish to add the Hutts to that roster. Thankfully, your Gonk Cartel now presents an alternative.”
“We can’t let that happen!” Aayla exclaimed. “We may not be on an official mission, but we’re still sworn to the Republic! You’ll find no aid to your Separatist cause here, Dooku!”
I outright snorted, “You two do realize we’re not even a part of the Republic to actually secede from it, right?”
“I-!” Aayla started, then paused as the realization set in. “Oh…”
“This is Hutt Space,” I continued. “The Republic’s as good as a dream here. Neither of you has a fraggin’ leg to stand on. You’re grasping.”
“Be that as it may,” Dooku acknowledged. “You are still fellows of the Outer Rim. My movement and my allies can do much more for you than the broken Republic ever could.”
I just stared at him, “And tie ourselves to slavers and oppressive monopolies? You want us to throw away everything we stand and fight for, just because of proximity?”
“I won’t fight for any slaver. Never again,” Podry growled to himself.
“The idea… It does have potential to go with its difficulties, Atom,” Sstala spoke up to say. “I wouldn’t be so quick to completely dismiss it, my lord.”
“Maybe,” I grunted back. “But I won’t be so quick to jump on that ship, either.”
“That is fine. Perfectly understandable,” Dooku nodded. “I still believe I can convince you that joining causes is in both of our best interests. My movement is not without flaws, I will freely admit, but it’s something new, something to utterly shift the paradigm of the galaxy. Much like everything you are doing here. I promise, even with my unfortunate allies, you would be better off as my friend than as the Republic’s newest lapdog.”
“No, just a lapdog of the Trade Federation, Techno Union, and whatever other corporations you treat with,” I snapped back, bristling in the Force at the idea. “That’s worse than just surrendering to the Republic. Catch me doing neither.”
“He’s got teeth, mmm,” Dooku’s apprentice, Asajj, purred. “Bark and bite… It’s a beautifully uncooperative thing~… We may just have our work cut out for us, here, Master.”
Mostly ignoring her, Dooku declared, “I will make you see that my necessary but unfortunate allies are not the beginning and end of my movement. At its core, it is about people. The overlooked and overrun people who have long grown tired of a corrupt and ineffective Core ruling them from afar. It is about freedom and individuality, not merely the overarching corporations that are our loudest supporters for their own gains.”
“And in the end,” He continued. “I am the one to lead. Not the Trade Federation or Techno Union or any other corporation, no matter what they might claim. I fly this ship, and I intend to fly it well. With me at the helm, and my apprentice after, your concerns will be heard. It won’t be easy, but together, we may build something truly different for this broken and pleading galaxy.”
Asajj startled for a moment, staring at her Master, “Me after…?!”
That was news to her, it seemed, but far from the only reveal in Dooku’s declaration. He was staking a claim on his movement, showing that he had no intentions of letting it become as corrupt and self-serving as all he fought against.
And if anyone had a chance of doing so, it was a Jedi with the will to actually do something, even if it meant abandoning all he knew to work toward his vision of the future. Even Aayla and Quinlan seemed to realize and consider that — the former with a bit lip and the latter with a frown. More than connections and alliances to questionable galactic powers, Dooku was his own best selling point.
“A revival of the Jedi Lords of old, then?” Fay asked with a curiously raised brow.
“In a way,” Dooku allowed. “The Force blesses us not just with power, but with responsibility as well. We have seen the result of Force users stepping back from rightful rule. It led to a thousand years of peace, yes, but also a thousand years of corruption and stagnation. I believe it is time for those with the power and responsibility to do so to step back into the fore. Atom is already acting on that philosophy here, setting an example worth following, in my eyes.”
“I’m no Jedi,” I growled. “Lord or not. I’m just a gonk who hates the Hutts — everything they are and everything they uphold. I’m just a gonk who’s had enough. I’m just the gonk who’s going to cut off their fucking tails…”
Surprisingly, Dooku just nodded, “I believe you. But what of the moment you win? What of all that comes after? Destroying the Hutts — a noble ambition by all measures — will be but the beginning and the work of many generations, regardless. Through those generations fighting the Hutts, can you stand alone?”
“Watch me. Watch us,” I said.
“I will,” Dooku replied. “In fact, that is all I ask of you right now. Give me a chance to watch, to aid, to prove my efforts here are earnest and unmalicious. A month. Maybe two. I will make the time in my busy schedule. This, I believe, will be worth it. And when the time comes again, we may return to this topic with more familiar eyes.”
“Whatever,” I grunted dismissively. “I’m not gonna throw you out while the Jedi are still here. Stick around if you want. Make yourselves useful. Do your best. Or worst. I don’t care. The Gonk Cartel isn’t about to bow down to outsiders of either stripe.”
It was a sign of the changing times, really. A sign that we were now making enough waves for outside powers to come calling. A complication, too, but one that was always in our future.
When word of Dooku’s play here got out, the field would shift once more. The Republic wouldn’t easily allow Separatists to get a foothold in Hutt Space through us, to say nothing of the actual Hutts. Increased resistance from the latter (we were already at war, anyway) was well worth the interest of the former to me. ‘Cause if the Gonk Cartel became the latest political battleground in the Separatist Crisis, we’d be the ones to profit.
Both sides would court the Gonks, and with that kind of leverage, we could pick and choose our benefits without giving away any real concession to either side. All the better for us and our actual ambitions.
I’d gladly use any weapon I could find against the only enemy that mattered. In the end, Republic or Separatist, I didn’t care. Neither held sway over us unless we gave it to them (and I wouldn’t), but both could help us destroy the Hutt Cartels.
So Dooku was more than free to stay a while, for all I cared. His presence would only invite competing envoys from the Republic. That’d be where the real fun began. Where galactic tension, otherwise meaningless to us, turned to profit.
Let both sides futilely court our allegiance in their galactic schism. I had no intentions of throwing away our independence. Really, all they’d do was give me more leverage and power to focus on the real enemy…
“WELCOME TO HUTT SPACE, FORCE-CUNTS,” Smasher rumbled. “TRY NOT TO SHIT YOURSELVES AND CRY.”
Dooku turned to him, a minor frown on his face at the Borg head’s usual vulgarity, before firing back in a way that was sure to make Smasher twitch and glitch.
“Adam Smasher. Or what is left. Thank you… for the warm… welcome. A mutual friend of ours suspected we might run into each other. Morgan Blackhand sends his regards.”
Smasher growled, somehow still making his decapitated state seem intimidating. V laughed out loud, “HA! If he had arms right about now, you’d be a smear on the table, old timer!”
“Possibly. Possibly not,” Dooku’s lips quirked into the slightest of smirks. “Either way, I would’ve repaid his ‘warm welcome’ in full.”
IIIII
Being stuck as the tug-of-war rope between Jedi and hidden Sith was a new feeling, but not a terrible one. Dooku and Asajj had stuck around for the most part, as they said they would. Now and then over the past month, they left Nar Shaddaa to deal with Separatist business. But they kept coming back to push their case and be part of history.
Aayla and Quinlan hadn’t been able to stand idly by there. They didn’t come out and say it, but I was certain that Dooku had forced their hand when it came to actually reporting back to the Jedi Council, and through them, the Republic. I expected that the bidding war I wanted would start up soon enough.
Fay, however, largely kept out of the Republic-Separatist debate. While a part of the Order, she was much more distant from it and its current ties to the Senate than the two more traditionally active Jedi. As she put it, she’d long since abandoned politics in favor of the Will of the Force. As long as it backed me and what I was doing here, so would she, first and foremost. I’d almost call her more Gonk than Jedi, now.
Fay gasped at the still-playing holo-drama, “Oh my! Miyana’s rival-turned-best-friend-turned-Sith has been doublecrossing the clone-sister this whole time and protecting Miyana’s forgotten children! What a twist!”
… Still couldn’t fix her taste for entertainment, though. I was one more comment away from outright fleeing this slop-filled room.
As if on cue, Dooku and Asajj came into the room. Dooku was as close to hurrying as his perpetual noble bearing would allow.
“I sensed vicarious emotion in the Force.”
“Stars of our Stars is on,” Quinlan told him.
An actual smile broke through Dooku’s stern mien, “Excellent. Come, my apprentice, you need to experience this perfection. It’s an important step in any… Jedi’s training…”
“Stars of our Stars-…?” Asajj cocked her head, trailing off as the holo gripped her attention. “That… is a lot of Twi’lek titty on display. And there’s a plot…? Clone-sister? Secret space babies? Okay, I’m in. Scooch.”
That was the last straw for me. It seemed I was the only Force user in the galaxy with sense, reason, and good taste. Abruptly, I stood and dumped Sasha onto the couch in my place. She pouted up at me, but I ignored her. I couldn’t bear a second more of the slop. Honestly, I was afraid that if I gave it a chance, it’d suck me in like the others.
As I was storming out, I made the mistake of merely glancing at the holo. Skimpy and sensual silk costumes, curves that wouldn’t quit, and a fair bit of surprisingly good acting and compelling drama played out there as Miyana and her rival-turned-best-friend-turned-Sith (and now turned-double-agent) suddenly found themselves working together to escape the villainous clone-sister before she could take Miyana’s forgotten children. Despite myself, I couldn’t look away. I found myself first captivated by the sexy alien girls, then sucked into the actual plot before I knew it.
By the time Miyana’s mind control of her lover was co-opted by the clone-sister and turned back on Miyana, I was once more sitting on the couch with Sasha back in my lap. She smuggly smirked at me over her shoulder, no doubt feeling the erection brought on by sexy Twi’lek girls beneath her and seeing that I was now invested, too.
… Force dammit, the Slop Side was too powerful for any one man to resist.
IIIII
We’re so frickin’ back, baby. Even if this chapter took me a little while and a fair bit of effort to get rolling. It’s mostly a catch-up and progress report after a month-long timeskip from where we left off. Hopefully, it’s an effective place for you all, dear readers, to pick back up without much trouble. I’m happy with how it turned out, and next chapter will have much more action to speak of. So as Smasher says: WELCOME (BACK) TO HUTT SPACE, FORCE-CUNTS. TRY NOT TO SHIT YOURSELVES AND CRY :]
IIIII
Bonus Pics (sauce below)
Comments
QuantumServer
Thanks for the chapter, its good to be back
CkLance
I'm having so many childhood flashbacks: DAYS OF OUR LIVES. Grandma would always watch her noon drama. 🤣
