Naboo
Theed Royal Palace
He came to his senses with a gasp of air. His head snapped around wildly as the memories of his capture came to mind. He left the seat to run for the exit, but he found his leg bound to the table with a cuff. The room was white and pristine, not the rugged prison one would expect on Tatooine.
Where had that accursed Sorcerer sent him?
“I demand to see my senatorial representative!” he demanded. There was no doubt someone was watching him.
His struggles ceased as the door opened. A woman, one he knew very well, entered the room. Gunray felt cold, as if he were exposed to the cold vacuum of dark space.
“Nute Gunray. I have been searching for you ever since the Senate, in its corruption and mind-bogglingly slow bureaucracy, allowed you to remain free.”
“You can’t touch me,” he squeaked out. “I have been acquitted of all charges.”
Her grin would put the fear of death in a Trandoshan. “Of course I can’t touch a person that is not here.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You were captured in Nar Kaaga, nowhere near Naboo. Who would think to look for you here?” she asked, enjoying the look of realization on Gunray's face.
"But...but you believe in democracy and the rule of law.”
“I do. Since neither seems to exist in the Senate anymore, at least not as they should, why would your acquittal concern me?”
Gunray whimpered.
“Don’t worry though. We are not savages. As long as you tell me everything I want to know, you won’t receive a single scratch.”
“If I don’t?” he asked, gulping.
She slammed her palm on the table, startling Gunray. “I will do to you what that monster of a Zabrak did to my friends. You will not die before you feel the pain each one did.”
“I don’t know anything. I am a pawn in all of this," he cried out.
She leaned across the table, her glare boring a hole in his skull. “Darth Sidious and his master were the architects behind Naboo’s invasion. You will tell me who Sidious is.”
“I don’t know. He only contacted me through holocalls and the Zabrak.”
“What were you doing with Count Dooku?” she asked without losing a beat.
“Sidious wanted me to follow him. They didn’t tell me the details.”
“So you are useless," she sneered.
“Wait!” he screamed, raising his hands, taking deep breaths.
“He has great influence in the Senate. That’s how I stayed out of prison.”
Padme rolled her eyes. “Tell me more.”
“I don’t know how far his reach extends. He keeps everything to himself.”
She sat down, groaning. “Which means you had no reason to know anything important since he intended to dispose of you,” she said, realizing that Gunray was indeed a pawn. One as useful as the Trade Federation’s ships and armies.
The fool was too much of a coward to be entrusted with anything.
“Take him back to his cell. He can stay there until I know what to do with him,” she ordered. Two handmaidens walked inside, unlocking the cuff. They held him by the arms, dragging him away.
“Wait, you can’t deny me representation. It is against the rule of law.”
“You can either stay in your cell silently, or I can hand you back to the Sorcerer of Tatooine. I wonder what he will do to you for selling weapons to the Hutts," she said, an innocent smile on her face.
Nute found it hard to swallow.
Padme left the cells with a skip to her steps.
—
Tatooine
Fort Freedom
Even before he landed on the planet, he was sending the recording everywhere. This victory demanded to be shared, to be known to everyone. When Strange Tides landed on Fort Freedom, it was to a procession surrounding it.
The chants of “Sorcerer” and “Freedom” were music to his ears. He stood with the people until he was too tired to do so.
—
Strange whistled.
“Good job Anakin,” he said. Destroying a fleet of two hundred with just five people and a droid was a blow to the Hutts. One they couldn’t hope to recover from in the short term.
Anakin beamed, rubbing the back of his head.
“This deserves a celebration. Let’s fire up the grill,” Strange said.
“I was thinking, could I bring some people over?” he asked. Technically the Sanctum wasn’t exactly a place one could invite people for a celebration. Given it was only the three of them, an exception could be made.
“Who?” Strange asked.
“Corlen, Vega, Sinya, Qymaen, and Asajj.”
He shrugged. “As long as you trust them, sure.”
—
He returned five minutes later with a diverse crew of humans and aliens. His extraterrestrial encounters were few. Thanos, his minions and army of beasts, and of course, the alien members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thor and Loki were among that list as well.
Anakin’s comrades were a wildly different bunch.
The pink-skinned female with tentacles going down from her head to her back and her heart-shaped face was a nice sight. The Kaleesh Warlord, Qymaen, on the other hand, inspired dread with his skull-shaped mask. Asajj Ventress looked like a human with a skin condition.
"Greetings." Qymaen stepped ahead first, giving a slight bow.
Strange returned it. “Welcome to Sanctum Sanctorum. I am Stephen Strange.”
“An honor to meet Anakin’s mentor. I am Qymaen jai Sheelal.”
“This is my mom, Shmi, and C-3PO, our droid,” he introduced. His mother gave a small wave with a quiet “hello.”
“I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. It is a delight to meet Master Anakin’s friends,” Threepio began. Knowing he would not stop, Anakin ordered him to help his mother with the food.
Ventress and the rest introduced themselves as well. If they were unnerved by the dark tears oozing out of Stephen’s wounds, they didn’t show it.
“A communal roast?” Qymaenn asked. It usually happened over open fire, but the patties and the chops Stephen was cooking over the metal grill smelled delicious.
“We call it a barbecue party. It's a great way to celebrate,” he said, flipping a patty over.
He took a deep breath, feeling his stomach gurgle. “Couldn’t agree more.”
“Where exactly do you call it a barbecue party? You don’t look like a native of Tatooine,” Asajj said. He was too pale, and the attire wasn’t what one would wear on a desert planet.
He took a deep breath. “On Earth, which is most likely in another universe.”
“Another… universe?” Ventress blinked, tilting her head.
“Oh yes. I was transported here with the Sanctum after battling a primordial life form known as Dormammu, who wanted to eat my planet,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Did you…” Qymaen hesitated. Could he ask him if his whole planet world was gone?
“Lose?” Strange raised an eyebrow. “I used a dark artifact to keep the Sanctum’s protective barriers from failing to repel him. While the building is here, those particular barriers didn’t come with me. Provided another cosmic threat didn’t destroy Earth, it should still be there,” he said.
“Force…” she muttered, lost for words.
Qymaen put his fist on his shoulder, bowing deeper than before. “A great mentor and a great warrior.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, enough about my deeds. We are here to celebrate your victory,” he said, handing a plate of bantha patties to Threepio for assembly into hamburgers.
“Honestly, it was pretty much him. The five of us could not have defeated Count Dooku,” she said. He was strong in the dark side of the Force.
“A former Jedi, right?” Strange asked. Given Anakin had almost killed him with a single spell, he didn’t believe they had anything to worry about when it came to any potential confrontation with Force sensitives.
“Indeed. His old master, Yoda, is the Grandmaster of the Jedi. I don’t know how strong he is exactly, only that he is.”
“Former or not, it was very amusing to see a Jedi fall so easily,” Qymaen said, gathering his arms behind his back.
—
They gathered around the table, ready to feast.
“Will that be all, Master Ani?” Threepio asked,
“Ani?” Ventress snorted out her water, smiling at Anakin.
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Threepio, that's all. Go charge.”
“Where did you get the goldilocks?” Corlen asked. The droid was a chatterbox. His personality must never have been deleted.
“I built him from scraps I gathered,” he said, gesturing towards his shed.
“And a talented engineer too,” Ventress said. Not everyone could bring parts together and build a droid.
“Do you remember telling me about Tony Stark and his Iron Man armors?” Anakin asked his teacher.
“Yes?”
“Do you know anything about the details?” Between his training and tinkering with the droids, he considered the idea of creating power armors for Freedom First.
“Not really. Stark’s tech was decades beyond what the governments on Earth had. He had nanobots that constructed the armor out of a palm-sized device and a virtually limitless source of energy. He also had the most advanced AI on the planet.”
Sinya swallowed the half-chewed hamburger, forcing it down with water. “Your planet sounds very interesting.” An armor of those specifications would change the battlefield forever.
“You have no idea.”
“Come now, you must tell us some stories,” Qymaen said, intrigued.
“There is Thanos the Mad Titan, Scarlet Witch, and the first time I fought Dormammu.”
“Mad Titan? Sounds interesting,” Vega said.
“Interesting is one way to look at it.”
—
“You didn’t bring anything else from your universe, did you?” Ventress asked, her food left half-eaten on her plate. One alien gathering six shiny stones to wipe out half the life in an entire universe just so the other half could prosper was beyond insanity.
“Just the Sanctum,” Strange said, waving his knife in a circle.
“Great, because your universe is a place of madness.”
“I thought the Jedi were bad,” Qymaen muttered. One snap of fingers and it was death on a scale his mind could not comprehend.
“How was a monster like him allowed to exist?” Corlen asked. Had no one attempted to even consider stopping the alien that wanted to erase half of all life?
“We didn’t have a Galactic Republic. The governments that existed either had no reason to hunt Thanos or were afraid,” he said. Strange was only aware that Thanos waited for Odin’s death to act.
“Ky Narec, the Jedi who trained me, told me the stories of the Sith of old and how terrible their power in the dark side was. They seem amateurish now,” she said. Sure, stripping a planet of all life and destroying a star or two was the stuff of legends. Killing half of the sapient life in the universe was surreal enough; she had trouble feeling anything towards it other than emptiness.
“Just a difference in scale.”
Qymaen shook his head. “What a difference it is.”
“Let’s change the subject before I lose my appetite. How did you come to train Anakin?” Vega asked.
“I was stuck here, waiting for rescue. I created some air tunnels for ventilation. Imagine my surprise when this little boy managed to fall through one.”
“He was suspicious at first, kept running around, and hid. It took us a bit to understand each other,” Stephen snickered. Anakin rolled his eyes in response, preferring to forget that day.
“I first trained him to open portals so we could save Shmi too. After that, well,” he sighed, “once I understood nothing would deter him from his fight to eradicate slavery, I decided to give him the best possible chance for survival.”
“You have raised a fine warrior,” Qymaen praised.
Strange put down his utensils, looking at his student with slumped shoulders. “I wish I didn’t have to.”
“Why is that?” Asajj asked. Any instructor would be proud to raise such a pupil.
“Back on Earth, he would be considered a child soldier. Someone his age should be worrying about his school grades and girls, not having to spearhead an interstellar war against slavery,” he replied. He didn’t regret training Anakin, only that it had to be because the boy would head to war.
“I had forty kills to my name by the age of eight. Perhaps in a better galaxy, our worries would be so feeble. But now, we must fight, no matter our ages,” Qymaen said.
Strange coughed, reaching for a napkin. “True.”
“Same for me. I was ripped from my family as an infant and fought against pirates as a child. Your planet sounds like a peaceful world, but the Outer Rim is a harsh, dangerous place. You can’t blame yourself,” Ventress said. She had volunteered for this mission to
Strange ruffled Anakin’s hair, causing him to protest with a smile. “I don’t.”
“What’s in line next for you now?” he asked, wondering about the state of the war. Tatooine was liberated, the initial Hutt attack was repelled, and now their main force was annihilated. It was already looking great for Freedom First.
“We are going to retrieve the fleet stuck in dark space. After that, we will take Nal Hutta and the Hutt Council,” Anakin said. He wanted to stomp the Hutts like bugs, but Padme’s words rang in his mind.
Judging the Hutts in a court would give them legitimacy, something they had to have to be more than just a rebellion.
“Queen Amidala will send the Royal Engineering Corps and a host of droids to accelerate the refitting process. She is delighted by your gift.”
“Has she learned anything important?”
“Only that Gunray is a pawn, one disposable should it be necessary.”
“Right. Perhaps I should have kept Dooku.”
“Gunray is a coward. Dooku would not have spoken so easily, if at all.”
—
Geonosis
“Report,” the hooded person on the hologram demanded.
Tambor bowed, feeling the displeased tone chill the room. “His state was critical. Severe plasma burns required cybernetic replacement of his right arm from the shoulder. His intestines and lungs were damaged. He needs bacta treatment for at least two more weeks for total recovery.”
“And Gunray?” Sidious asked.
“Gone, presumably taken by the Sorcerer.”
He waited for orders, for answers, and for demands. What came was the feeling of weightlessness and the invisible hand closing around his throat. He clawed at his neck, trying to breathe.
“Lord Sidious, please!” he begged, gagging on his words.
“Find me Nute Gunray. I will deal with my apprentice once I am certain he won’t die,” Sidious sneered. He couldn’t torture him as he wished if Dooku were to perish. The holoprojection disappeared, leaving Tambor falling to the ground.
He pushed himself up, coughing. Dooku was asleep in the bacta tank, unaware of what was happening. Tambor considered him fortunate for now. Once he was awake, though, he would no doubt feel the full brunt of his displeased master.
“Inform me if there is a change,” he instructed the med-droid, leaving the room. Finding Gunray meant acquiring intelligence from Tatooine. Impossible given that the Sorcerer terrified the entire Outer Rim into neutrality.
He would have to try regardless.
He also needed to speak to the remaining leadership of the Trade Federation to immediately phase the central droid command systems out of use. One strike had wiped out an entire fleet, throwing trillions of credits down the garbage disposal.
Whether the loss was the Hutt Council’s problem or not didn’t matter. It would look horrible on their portfolio to have such a weakness.