While Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker departed from Tatooine to continue their search for Captain Burda of the Judicial Forces—the slave who had been purchased by the mysterious "Skywalker"—Max Vizsla also set out from Bespin once again, beginning his journey to Rattatak in search of Master and apprentice: Ky Narec and Asajj Ventress.
Hum—hum-hum—hum—
Inside the training chamber aboard the Golden Dragon battlecarrier, Max and Christopher Wren were practicing Form IV, Ataru, under the instruction of Master Yoda—or rather, under the recorded training holovid preserved within a Jedi holocron.
And where had that Jedi holocron come from?
Naturally, from the wreck of the Jedi training vessel Chu'unthor, which had crashed on Dathomir.
The devout are always prone to superstition. That was true in other worlds, and it was true in this galaxy as well.
After the Great Scourge of Malachor, the Jedi Order declared Malachor forbidden ground and barred all Jedi from setting foot there. In much the same way, after the Chu'unthor crashed on Dathomir, the Nightsisters and other dark side witch clans came to regard it as a source of light-side contamination and strictly forbade any witch from approaching the wreck.
So when Max asked Mother Talzin whether he might explore the Chu'unthor, she refused to provide a guide—but also took the initiative to ask whether he could remove that source of contamination from Dathomir entirely.
Max had no objection.
He had no need of a guide, either. The fleet had already completed a full surface scan of Dathomir.
Having readily agreed to help Talzin cleanse Dathomir of that light-side blight, Max immediately ordered the Golden Dragon battlecarrier to descend into the atmosphere and hover directly above the crash site while salvage operations began.
From July 9 to July 13 of Year 6 in the Galactic Standard Calendar, after five days of nonstop labor—so exhausting that even Max and Christopher Wren, working with the aid of the Force, were left completely drained—the Mandalorians had cut the Chu'unthor into more than ten thousand sections of varying size based on its compartment layout and loaded every one of them into the cargo holds of the Golden Dragon.
A damaged Jedi library. Five Jedi holocrons—three damaged, two intact. Six double-bladed temple guard sabers. Thirty-seven ornate standard lightsabers. And tens of thousands of tons of teaching materials and other supplies.
This time, Max had struck an extraordinary windfall—the second greatest haul since his arrival in this galaxy. Only the seizure of Cloud City ranked above it. It was worth even more than extorting one billion Galactic Republic credits from Lom Pyke.
Form IV, Ataru, was an aggressive lightsaber style built around using the Force to drive the body into high-speed motion. Its movements were broad, forceful, and ferocious. Of the seven lightsaber forms, it was the one best suited to Mandalorians, because it had much in common with the close-quarters fighting methods Mandalorians used in conjunction with jetpacks.
After quickly reviewing the training recordings for all seven lightsaber forms, Max recommended that Christopher Wren specialize in Form IV alongside him.
Christopher Wren found the idea entirely sensible.
What the forthright captain of the Mandalorian assault team did not realize, however, was that Max's enthusiasm for Ataru stemmed in large part from a desire to create friction between Aayla Secura and the Jedi Order.
Aayla Secura, the Flower of the Jedi, was herself a master of Form IV. If Max and Christopher Wren both became proficient in Ataru, it would be very easy for the Jedi Order to assume Aayla had been teaching them in secret.
And that was not even the full extent of Max's scheming—though Max himself did not think of it as scheming in the slightest.
Without telling Aayla, and after consulting Senator Orn Free Taa, he had arranged for every relative Aayla had on Ryloth—including distant kin so remote they hardly counted—to be placed either into the Ryloth civil service or into cushy positions in New Mandalorian, Bespin, or Corellian enterprises operating on Ryloth.
The moment anyone reported it and the Jedi Order began looking into it, Aayla Secura would inevitably fall under suspicion.
And Max was almost certain that, once the matter came to light, Chancellor Palpatine would do everything in his power to turn a small misunderstanding into a very large one.
Misunderstand her. Misunderstand her thoroughly. Push the Flower of the Jedi toward me, Max thought.
On August 27, Year 6 of the Galactic Standard Calendar, the Bespin special task fleet, with the Golden Dragon battlecarrier as flagship, emerged from hyperspace near Rattatak.
After marking Asajj Ventress's exact location on the tactical display, Max put away the shadow-magick pendant Mother Talzin had given him and began issuing orders.
"Order Marine Regiments 202 and 303 to land on the surface of Rattatak and encircle the target settlement."
"Yes, Chief."
"Order the P-38BM starfighters of the Gale Wing and the Westwind Wing to make a low pass over the settlement trailing colored smoke, then circle the town."
"Yes, Chief."
"Chris, bring the Mandalorian assault team and come into the settlement with me."
"Yes, Chief."
...
"Thornflower—they're Mandalorians."
Using motion-enhanced vision sharpened by the Force, Jedi Knight Ky Narec looked up at the sky and recognized the familiar insignia painted on the wings of the unfamiliar starfighters at once.
"Mandalorians?" Asajj Ventress asked. "Are they your friends, Master?"
At that, Ky Narec shook his head.
"I fear not. Relations between the Mandalorians, the Galactic Republic, and the Jedi Order can hardly be called friendly."
"Then they're enemies? I'll gather the militia and prepare for battle!"
"No!" Ky Narec seized his eager apprentice by the arm. "Do not provoke them. Not under any circumstances."
"Huh?" Asajj looked utterly confused. "Haven't you always taught us that when trouble comes, we must not sit and wait for it?"
"You do not understand Mandalorians." Ky Narec's expression was grave. "With their combat power, even if the militia in this town were ten or twenty times larger, it would make no difference. We must avoid pointless loss of life."
"But we can't just surrender! We can't just sit and wait to die!"
"I said nothing about waiting to die." Ky Narec's gaze hardened with resolve. "Since they have not attacked, they must still intend to resolve this through negotiation. I will go and speak with their leader. If this can be settled peacefully, so much the better. If the Mandalorians insist on fighting, then I will do my best to strike at the head—capture their leader and force the matter that way."
"Asajj." Ky Narec reached out and rubbed his apprentice's cheek. "If I fail, you are to lead the people of the settlement in surrender immediately."
"Master!"
"Padawan, that is an order." Ky Narec rose to his feet and turned away, unwilling to meet Asajj Ventress's eyes. "You must live. You must endure humiliation if need be. You must preserve as many sparks of the cause as you can. Do you understand?"
Bang!
The office door slammed open.
"Master! Little Master! A group in armor has entered the settlement. They're asking for the two of you by name—they say they've come to negotiate."
PS: In Legends, the remains of the Jedi training vessel Chu'unthor lay buried and undisturbed on Dathomir until 12 ABY, when the Imperial remnant under General Vit discovered it and stripped it clean.
PPS: Unlike the minimalist style common in the late Galactic Republic, Jedi lightsabers from the Republic's high era were grand and ornate in design, and many of them featured crossguard structures.
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