Chapter 30 - Interlude 4 (1/2)

Briefing Room, Assault Ship Leveler, High Orbit over Coruscant

I entered the room and sealed it behind me. I looked around at a sea of the same faces looking straight. There was a whole company of clones standing at attention, waiting me to act.

I give them a sharp nod. They'll do.

I went to the small dais at the left side of the room and spoke: ”Stand at ease men.”

I met the eyes of the newly promoted Captain Trek. He returned my look and I could clearly see his unflinching determination.

I used the Force to sweep the room for any active or passive listening devices just in case. I found none, but just in case I surrounded us in a dampening field which would ensure our privacy.

”You've all volunteered for a special ȧssignment. As of this moment, you are officially part of ninety first Reserve company. As far as anyone outside this room is concerned, your unit's only purpose is to provide replacements for casualties suffered by the forces under my command. Do you understand?”

”Yes, sir!” they spoke as one.

”You will undertake a special training regiment, which amongst other things will prepare you to face Force Adepts and not only survive such an encounter, but win!” I stated.

During the last war I was part of, we, the Sith, trained ordinary people to become competent Jedi hunters amongst other things. These men in front of me were going to become a nucleus for such a force.

While right now I didn't plan to fight the Jedi, I wanted to have troops able to go against them and win without overwhelming numeral superiority. Just in case. Besides, having my own black ops outfit could be useful for a lot of things.

These men were special. I had not only removed the programing placed upon them by Sidious' cronies on Kamino, but had used the Force to subtly probe their minds. That's how I had chosen who to recruit. I could be sure that these men would be molded into weapons who would obey only me when their training was complete. And that was without screwing with their minds with the Force.

The downside of this method was that there was a tiny pool of future recruits, unless I wanted to mess with their heads to such an extent that they would be little more than slaves.

In few months I would have the first black operations unit under my exclusive control.

=RK=

Lower levels, Coruscant

Officially, I was inspecting some of the equipment that my forces were expected to use as a break from the monotone work needed to turn my army and fleet from a fiction written on a data pad into reality. Which was slow going, boring work as I knew it would be.

In reality, I had discarded my recognizable armor for a dark, hooded robe and was going to a meeting into Coruscant's not so pleasant underbelly. After dealing with the pirates who had captured Dooku, I finally had some credits to burn, and I could start to build my power base outside the GAR. I was well aware that in the future I would need to do some distasteful things outside the official channels.

”I'm here to see Vonx. Lorek sent me.” I told him.

He studied me for a moment, sniffed in my direction before nodding.

”Back room. Don't make any trouble or I'll use your spine to clean up my teeth.” he grunted and grinned at me.

He had a lot of teeth. Big one's too. I could easily believe that he can use someone's spine to clean them.

It wasn't my problem. I just shrugged and entered the cantina.

Inside, I was greeted by a semi-dark expanse. The deep shadows did a great job of hiding everyone's faces.

I briefly scanned the room and walked in once I felt that I wasn't in any more danger than the average visitor of this ”fine” establishment. Then I immediately regretted not bringing my helmet.

The damn place stank worse than a week old battlefield, where no one bothered to retrieve the corpses.

Perhaps it was because I was human. There was only one of my species inside and all others were aliens, a few of whom from species I wasn't familiar with.

Thankfully, the back room had working ventilation and there the stench was mostly gone.

I found myself across a plain desk, behind which was sitting a Rodian. His huge eyes were fixed on a data pad.

In the four corners of the room were standing guards. A quartet of huge Trandosians armed with blaster carbines.

”Sergeant Lorek sent you. Or so you claim...” whispered the Rodian.

”I'm his new business partner.” I answered nonchalantly. ”I need to procure few ships and a lot of equipment. You came highly recommended.”