Chapter 84: They Never Saw It Coming

Disclaimer: Star Wars and all of it's Intellectual Properties is owned by George Lucas and Walt Disney, This fictional work and all of it's original characters are however mine.

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MULTI POV CHAPTER

Davik's P.O.V. :

Well, aside from a few over-eager bantha brains from the allied crews getting singed by some wild blaster bolts, I can confidently say this raid’s been the most exhilarating op we’ve pulled off so far. Nothing like the sweet hum of blasters, the whine of droids firing in perfect sync, and the sharp crack of a sniper’s shot clearing our flank. And with how fast we evacuated the slaves? Kriff, it was almost like we planned this for months. Almost.

The raid kicked off with our slicers moving in like ghosts. No flashy moves, no karking around—just quick, efficient infiltration of the slavers’ makeshift comms relay. Some backwater array slapped together from old Hutt Empire tech and smuggled components. Nothing Jake couldn’t exploit in his sleep. One of his “unfair” gadgets—some sort of slicer companion droid patched into their network—let us isolate and shut down all outgoing comms except our encrypted channel. Timing was everything. The second the relay dropped, the slicers flicked the green light, and just like that—the whole kriffing planet lit up with us.

That was the signal.

The moment the comms went down, the ground teams surged forward, quick and quiet. Our sniper lookout, stationed up high in some forgotten comms tower with a full view of the valley, started plinking targets with surgical precision. Every time a slaver so much as scratched their head wrong, they dropped. No alarms, no chance for them to warn the others. A couple bodies hit the dirt before their brains even realized what happened.

Then came the real show.

The Sentinel droids—Force bless ‘em—pushed through like a tidal wave of durasteel and firepower. Jake might’ve designed them without the individual killing edge of his Nicks or those tanky Skews, but I swear, the way they worked together… Mandalorian commandos would’ve taken notes. These kriffing bucketheads didn’t just fire in sync, they thought in sync. Every squad linked up through Jake’s network-link system—one unit covered the left, another the right, and the third fired behind itself without turning its head, all because another droid’s sensors picked up the target.

It wasn’t clean. The battlefield never is. Some of the crews got clipped trying to show off—blasters set too high, not enough cover, or too much adrenaline. Couple got shot trying to beat the droids to a kill. That’s on them. Still, no deaths on our side. Not one. And I’ve been in enough ops to know how rare that is.

We didn’t waste time. While the Sentinels pushed through the chokepoints—blast doors, cargo lanes, and those poorly defended auction pens—we had strike teams splitting off to the holding cells. Some of the poor souls there couldn’t even stand when we found them, kept barely alive in binders or cages. But we moved fast. Stims, medkits, and fresh clothes were handed out before they were even loaded onto the freighters. Kado was already organizing a rough manifest of who’s who and where they’re from, coordinating with the medical teams back on the ships. It was tight, efficient, and damn near clockwork.

Our strategy was simple: crush the middle, control the sides, and funnel the stragglers into our kill zones. We shrank their perimeter like a tightening noose. Every shot we fired meant one less slaver. The ground was littered with scorch marks, shattered cover, and bodies by the end, but the freed slaves? They were safe. That’s what mattered.

The Sentinels soaked up most of the enemy fire, their shields flaring and popping as they advanced. A couple lost limbs, and one took a thermal detonator to the chest and still kept firing until it collapsed. That one’s getting a name. Might even slap some extra armor on it and have Jake tune it up—call it a badge of honor.

Now that the fighting’s done, Kado’s in charge of the slaves. No doubt he’s barking orders and handing out ration packs like a drill sergeant with a heart. As for me, I’ve got one last job: clean up. Make sure there’s no trace of us left behind when Gardulla or Jabba’s thugs show up sniffing for answers. That means melting down terminals, torching bodies too recognizable, scrubbing nav data, and letting the droids rig the place to look like it tore itself apart.

And before I forget—I need to talk to Jake. That network-link system of his, he needs to bury that deeper than a Sith Lord’s secrets. If that tech ever fell into the wrong hands, we'd be looking at a battlefield nightmare no one's ready for, specially if the Hutts ever get a hold of it.

Still… for now, mission accomplished. The slaves are free, the slavers are dead, and we’ve got a few ships of our own to pick clean up in orbit once the boarding crews give the all-clear.

Feels good to win.

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Jake's P.O.V. :

Up here in the cockpit of the CR90 Carrier, sunk into the captain’s chair like I’ve been doing this for years, I watched through the forward viewport as our Sentinel droids herded the last of the surrendering pirates toward the brig. A few of our allied crewmen flanked them—blasters drawn, expressions sharp, none of them willing to take chances even with the scum disarmed and defeated. Smart. Pirates are like womp rats—cornered ones’ll bite.

Docked alongside us were the captured pirate corsairs, hulls still scarred from the brief but decisive space skirmish. Those same ships were now under new management—our Fodder droids. Yeah, that name wasn’t exactly flattering, but it stuck. The station’s auto-log renamed them after one of Tarek’s offhand comments got picked up by the mainframe’s sarcasm filter. Still cracks me up. They’re utility worker droids, not fighters—originally built for maintenance, repair, and low-level labor—but I’ve modified them to crew our surplus ships. Not flashy, not fast, but with the network-link system patched into their processing cores, they’re practically a single shared mind.

And that shared mind right now, it was working for us double-time.

After the pirates got the message—surrender or float—they folded faster than a drunk sabacc player. The moment they powered down weapons and raised shields to signal surrender, I gave the order. Fodder units moved in, boarded, and immediately began taking over the bridge stations, engine rooms, nav systems, and weapons control. It was seamless. Kinda eerie, actually, watching these silent worker droids take control of enemy vessels without a single word exchanged.

I leaned forward, tapping a few keys on the console.
“Fodder teams, prep all captured ships for hyperspace jump,” I said into the comms. “Keep them cold until my mark. Acknowledge.”

A chorus of soft, mechanical beeps and green confirmations lit up the readout. Smooth. Almost too smooth.

Now the pirates? We weren’t keeping them. Bunch of bottom-feeders who sold their blasters for credits and weren’t even good at it. Some of our bounty hunter allies gave us the info that made this ambush possible—so it's only fair we hand the pirates over. We’ll dump them at the nearest bounty station on the Rim and let our contacts collect. Consider it a group effort.

As for the captured ships… I’ve got plans. The frigates—especially the one with that double dorsal cannon configuration—could be retrofitted into escort vessels. With a little refitting and some weapons upgrades, they’ll bolster our fleet tenfold. Not to mention the nav data they were carrying—local hyperspace routes, smuggler rendezvous points, unregistered drydocks. Treasure troves of info if you know how to dig.

Except for the slaver’s armed freighter—that one’s got a different future.

That bucket of bolts is getting stripped down, scrubbed of every last trace of slaver scum, and rebuilt into a proper freighter carrier. We’ll load it up with Fodder droids, shuttles, maybe even a Sentinel droid team or two as a failsafe. Turn it into a mobile resupply and salvage platform. Might even paint it something bright and stupid just to spite the Hutt who originally paid for it.

I switched over to the ground team frequency. “CR90 to ground team. What’s your status?”

A brief pause, and then Kado’s voice came through—calm, composed, efficient as always. “Liberated slaves are aboard the modified XS freighters. No issues. Plenty of space, no one’s packed like a crate of gizka. Davik and the cleanup teams are almost done. We’ll be joining you in orbit soon.”

I leaned back with a satisfied exhale. The modified XS freighters were a lucky break—oversized cargo holds, decent life support, and fast enough to jump without escorts. They weren’t luxury liners, but for now, they were sanctuaries.

"Copy that," I replied. "Get the last team moving and prep for jump. We’re on standby."

I muted the mic and glanced at the fleet status screen. Every captured ship now pinged green. Every Fodder droid in position. No blaring alarms, no trailing alerts. Just order.

This was what we’d been building toward. Now we are openly going to be fighting the symbols of slavery the Hutts, I wonder how the events of the first movie will play out by then?

The slavers back on the surface? Gone. Their base has been razed. The pirates who came to raid? Disarmed, captured. And now we had their ships, saved the captured people, and some breathing room.

If this is what victory feels like, I could get used to it.

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Tarek's P.O.V. :

We saved people again, mini-pilot," I say to Anakin, who’s buckled into the support chair behind the pilot and co-pilot seats. From the cockpit viewport, we watch Kado and a couple of our allies help guide the freed folks to the rendezvous point. A few need assistance—some leaning on others, some supported by our crews—but they’re walking free. That’s what matters.

We’d been one of the ships to drop in with the ground team—us, a few allied transports, and a small complement of Sentinel droids. Our droids had been the first out, clearing the LZ before the sentients disembarked. Now we were running evac—swooping in low for the pick-up.

Then Anakin pipes up, his voice soft but sharp. “Were we like that… when you found us?”

I glance back. Even at six, the kid’s got eyes that miss nothing. Sharp like a starfighter’s sensor array. I didn’t want to lie—not to him. But I wasn’t the best one to explain it either. So, I tried a Davik approach. Just give the truth, straight and clean.

“Yeah,” I say. One word. Simple.

But Anakin’s still watching me, expecting more. The silence stretches.

So I pivot. “It was Jake who kicked all this off. He's the one who got us thinking about doing more—leaving some kind of mark on the galaxy. Like a nova flaring out.”

That catches his attention. He shifts forward, eyes wide. “You mean like a Jedi? Is Jake a Jedi? Jedi can do space magic, right? I saw him move stuff without touching it! Could I be Jedi like Jake? If I trained? If I practiced? What if I tried now? Can you show me? Do you know Jedi stuff?”

The questions hit like blaster bolts, one after another. Kid’s got energy for days.

I chuckle, holding up a hand. “Whoa there, Anakin. You’ll have to ask Jake yourself. He’ll answer you better than I could. Just wait till we rendezvous.”

Thankfully, that calms him. At least for now.

I guide the Stellar Envoy down to the landing zone, dust kicking up around us. The other ships that dropped with us settle in, one by one. Soon the ex-slaves—liberated now—start boarding. Medi-droids scan for injuries. Security checks for tracking implants or anything suspicious. On our ship, Shmi’s handling the intake with her team of N5 security droids. They work fast, just like we planned, but there's a lot of people to process.

A chime pulls my attention—a holocall. I tap the console, and Kado’s face flickers in.

“All clear. Everyone’s aboard and secured. We’re good to go.”

“Copy that,” I reply, already flipping switches. “Prepping for liftoff.”

As the engines hum to life, I glance back at Anakin. “You’ll get your chance to ask Jake soon, kid. Promise.”