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"Meanwhile, we will require food and a ship large enough to rotate a group of starfighter pilots through to rest after their journey to the rally point. We could also use any actual aid you can lend us from your starfighter force and the lift capacity to transport your people home. Are your starfighters hyperspace capable?" Dooku asked.
Padme nodded, but before she could speak Lily broke in, causing all the Jedi to look up to where she hovered beside her son. "Actually, there is one aspect of this operation none of us have talked about yet."
Across from Lily, Padme looked confused for a moment before sighing and doing the same. "This whole not seeing you can get rather old with repetition, Mistress Lily."
"Sorry, dear," Lily said, having seen Padme's expression, which Harry dutifully relayed, causing Padme to roll her eyes, indicating with one hand that they should just get on with things. Lily did so, looking around at the Jedi. "Does this Republic fleet have a ground force as well?"
For a moment the Jedi fell silent, then all of them, even Dooku, groaned. Dooku's hand came up to smack his forehead. "How could we have missed that!? Of course! We Jedi might be assault troops, but we can't be everywhere, and we certainly are not built to hold large swaths of area."
"You will also need a large medical corps ready to follow up whatever breach you make to see to the slaves you find, if nothing else," Lily went. "Back on Tatooine most of the slaves had those obedience chips installed, the ones that would explode if they did anything their master didn't like or traveled too far from him. Won't we want to remove those as quickly as possible?"
"That makes far too much sense for us to ignore," Quinlan muttered ruefully while Harry relayed what Lily had said. "However, doing so while in a combat environment would be impossible."
"I agree on that point, but I think we can actually help there. I have several thousand doctors who are rated for that kind of surgery worldwide, and you said you would need lift capacity to transport the slaves back home?" Padme asked with a faint smile. "I just happen to have four Lucrehulk super-mammoth cargo ships in my possession. One of those should do nicely, don't you think? We might not be able to fight with the ship, we don't have enough trained crew, but getting it to where you want will be simple enough."
"As for a landing force, I think I know where we can go get one of those," Dooku said, stroking the end of his well-manicured beard thoughtfully for a moment. "Even better, I know that at least on their end there won't be any leak…"
The other Jedi looked at him quizzically, and Dooku smiled faintly. "Let me keep it a secret until they actually arrive, please. But for now, could I make use of your Holonet, Padme?"
"Of course. I'll show you to a room where you can connect to it. Master Obi-Wan, I believe you've already collected the data you'll need for the…group meditation or whatever it is you call it. You could also use your room for that meditation."
Obi-Wan nodded and led the way out the door, with Master Fay and Quinlan following him.
OOOOOOO
Despite most Jedi having been taught to reach out to the Force in the same manner, a lot of Jedi developed small, minute differences in the way they interacted with the Force. Master Fay was no exception, though she was a more extreme sort of exception to that rule than most. Her method of asking the Force for guidance was very, very different.
Most Jedi searched the Force for the answers they were looking for, which was somewhat harder than her method, though you didn't run into as many issues with interpreting the information that came your way. Master Fay, however, sent her consciousness out into the Force, like a fisherman using a fishing line. The answer, the fish in this analogy, would come to her. Whereas with most Jedi, they were the fish trying to hunt for a single bit of information sailing past them in the Force.
The Veil was making both methods far harder. Every month that went past Fay could feel the darkness swirling, slowly shutting down even her ability to see the future. She could still look into the future a few months ahead, but everything beyond that was a black morass. Yet there were even hints even now that the darkness could be turned back. She clung to them at times when she was trying to see the future.
But right now Fay wasn't interested in the future. She was interested in the present, and discerning a specific bit, or rather specific bits, of information. This called for a slight change in Fay's methodology. Rather than simply sending her thoughts out like a fishing line, she tried to control where the fishing line went. Fay's normally open mind shut down to all but that particular bit of information.
Slowly Fay found the information she was looking for. Her hands, which had been perched over a clipboard in her lap, began to move of their own volition. She wrote down the information, a series of plotted headings that the flotilla had taken after the initial jump, and then Fay found information about the destination, as much as she could find.
The location of their target was a system with brown dwarf star. Fay could see it clearly in her mind, the image coming closer as her mind journeyed into the star system. It should have been lifeless, but quixotically the system contained a few scattered planetoids. They were tiny things by most standards, but they were there.
As Fay's perception came closer to one of them under the control of the Force rather than herself, she saw several major bio-domes erected on its surface. Above them was a star fortress, a large space station built to defend the installation below. In the distance she could see the glimmering of starships moving around the planet, their forms unseen for now, but there were a lot of them.
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