Summary: Pnning the next stage of the war, and Padme wants to strangle someone again.

  Warning! Chapters 79-82 were all published back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!

  Chapter 81: War Pns

  Orbit of Nal Hutta – 70 Days Post Start of Hutt Crusade

  General T'san was the st to arrive to the meeting. While he'd been here, controlling most of the army groups throughout Hutt Space from Nal Hutta, he'd also had to deal with the loss of Jilrua this morning. To what appeared to be a Death Watch led series of strike teams. As such, his almost-te arrival was entirely understandable, and Izuku wasn't about to take him to task over it. As the Gungan settled in and powered up his terminal, Izuku took the chance to sweep his gaze over the rest of the attendees.

  Admiral Lin was present, of course. She'd finally arrived four days previously to take command of the new Fleet that had been forming up over Nal Hutta, though Izuku and Aay had been off visiting the Nimban shipyards when she'd gotten here. It now marked the first time that he and Admiral Lin been together in the same pce since the start of the war, but he'd managed a quick holo-conference with her two days ago when they'd arrived back in system. As the two people most in control of the overall shape of the war, getting their heads together before this meeting had been important.

  Of course, she wasn't alone today. Along with Admiral Lin, representing the rest of the battle fleet, were Commodore Rikman and Commander Jager. The former was the Fleet's newest Commodore, recently pushed up to that rank after proving himself running several raids around Nal Hutta while Izuku and Lin were out capturing systems. He was going to be left in charge of the defenses here at Nal Hutta, and Izuku believed he'd do well in the position.

  The tter, Commander Jager, was a male Octani, with four arms and eyes. An arrangement which apparently served him very well in a starfighter cockpit. He was currently the highest-ranking Wing Commander in the Fleet, having been managing the various recent starfighter-focused spoiling raids. The purpose of which had been to keep up at least some pressure on the Hutts while Admiral Lin's new fleet was put together for offensive action. So far, he and his people had done well, disrupting supply bases and softening up the defenses of a dozen or so worlds.

  General T'san, to match his Fleet colleague, had a Colonel and a Major with him. The first was a Twi'lek male, the other a human female, neither of which he recognized from personal experience. Though he did know their names were Ka'Lucha and Emma Forre from having seen their personnel jackets in the past. Shaak Ti and Knight Usai were also present, as was Sacha Swiftbird for the Shattered Shackle. Each more-or-less representing one of their 'regur irregur' groups, as it were. The groups welded officially into the Crusade, but not technically part of the League Military.

  The st group, aside from Aay and himself who both fit in multiple camps, was made up of research and development, intelligence, and logistics types. All of whom had come to lend their expertise to a meeting that was, ultimately, about picking their next pn forward for the war against the Hutts. Dar'Dokura, effectively the Deputy to the entire Spaceworks industry for the League, Figrun Aharo who was the League's head spy. Luxum to represent the experimental R community, and Rear Admiral Ringo to represent the various logistics works for pretty much the entire military. He was, in fact, literally their only Rear Admiral at the moment, which just highlighted their still problematic ck of top-level officers.

  Finished with his sweep of the attendees, Izuku gently rapped his knuckles on the conference table, instantly getting the attention of the few who hadn't already been watching him. He punched up the gaxy map of Hutt space on the main holodispy at the center of the table, and stood to address the group.

  "Alright, dies and gentlemen. I won't waste words, since we all already know why we're here. In basics, we now control every major way in or out of the core of Hutt Space save the Kessel Run, and we've gotten lucky enough to grab some extras from rebellions or defections. In particur, the Ilosian Spur is ours in its entirety, with most of the worlds having joined willingly, and the few that didn't not having defenses that could stand up to the small task group of frigates we dispatched."

  Heads nodded all around at the summary. Not that any of them had been unaware of those details, but he had to start somewhere.

  "The Ilosian Spur is going to simplify our logistics when it comes to a few things like food, but it's honestly not going to have a huge impact otherwise. What will have a huge impact is the fleet of Battleship modified Lucrehulks we found at Nimban. While they are in various states of completion, examinations of the records and surveys of the ships show that twelve of them can be completed in under a month, with two of them already complete enough that we activated them to undergo trials."

  That caused more of a stir. Understandably so, given that Izuku hadn't revealed it to anyone but Admiral Lin and her two subordinates just yet. Those ships represented an incredible windfall…sort of. They hadn't been provided with their droid crews yet, though they'd discovered enough B-1 naval models in storage to easily do so with the first dozen ships. Assuming that had been what they'd wanted. Since the B-1 was horrible, and they had better naval droid designs of their own, it wasn't. Eventually, they'd want to crew them entirely with their own droids. But for now…

  "For now, I'm going to station one of those ships here at Nal Hutta and the other at Nar Kreeta. We'll deploy a mix of our own droids for the major positions and B-1s for the minor, non-critical system, then overstaff the sentient positions with people we want to train up on using the ships. They aren't truly designed with our methodology in mind, but they are simply too powerful of units to pass up. Using them to bolster our defense fleets will also allow us to forward the entirety of the first batch of Padin-css into offensive operations."

  That got a firm nod of approval from Admiral Lin. They'd already talked about it at their previous meeting, and Rana agreed entirely with his thoughts. The Lucrehulks might not quite be in line with their own fleet mix, but they would be an incredibly useful ptform for holding systems they'd already taken. With their numbers, low crew requirements, and the ridiculous number of fighters you could squeeze into one, even a single of the refitted ships could anchor a defense fleet. In time, they could likely even be modified a bit to match their own combat doctrine better.

  Even simply as they were now, combined with a few smaller ships and a few of their Plus Stations, they could realistically hold the orbitals of many more worlds than they'd originally thought possible. Which would allow them to shift all of the new Padins to offensive operations when they started becoming avaible, along with a greater number of Volitions than expected. Of course, those Padins weren't ready yet. Though the first wave of additions was due within a month. On that note, it was time to hear from someone else.

  "Before we go any farther, Deputy Councilor Dar'Dokura, would you care to update us on the status of our incoming assets?"

  The Twi'lek nodded, smiling as he stood, Izuku sitting to cede the 'floor' to him for the moment.

  "Of course, Sovereign Midoriya! Due to the hard work of both our R teams and our shipyard workers, I'm pleased to say that we are ahead of schedule on virtually all projects."

  The Twi'lek, whose unassuming yellow coloration was countered by a certain sort of genuine, charismatic enthusiasm for his post, tapped his own terminal to override the controls for the main holo. In pced of the view of Hutt Space Izuku had started them with, was now a striking image of a Padin-css.

  "In fact, not even our boss here knows this, since I only just got the word this morning, but the second Padin-css, just named the Sword of Liberation, has officially cleared for duty. We were legitimately expecting more problems from the shakedown runs and her four sister ships did have those issues. But by some twist of luck or fate, the Sword of Liberation cleared her trials almost perfectly on the first pass. Meaning she's ready to deploy as soon as her crew is fleshed out fully."

  Pleased smiles lit up the table at the unexpected boon, though the Councilor didn't linger on it long.

  "That said, don't expect to see the rest of the first wave Padins for roughly another three weeks. Note, that's still a week earlier than original estimates, so it's still fantastic work, we just didn't get quite as insanely lucky with them. When we do have them, there will be four additional ships in the first batch, with additional sets of six becoming avaible roughly every two months after that point. We're working to expand that number, of course, but we're having to build more yard capacity that can handle ships so rge."

  That got understanding nods. It actually took closer to four months to build a Padin from first rivet to trials. The only reason they would be getting them every two was that they'd already expanded that same yard capacity once, while the first batch was under construction. As that capacity had come online and hit their full production stride roughly two months into the original production of the first batch, the two sets of docks were staggering their deliveries between them.

  The current speed was already impressive, but expansions of various shipyards would triple their capacity within a year. Now that they were no longer trying to conceal their buildup, they could run as wild as their finances allowed them to. Which, since seizure of Hutt wealth actually meant they were currently running the war at a profit, meant racing ahead full steam. That wouldn't st forever, particurly as they had to start investing resources into the League's overall infrastructure. But for now, it was still true.

  "Moving on from the Padins…"

  Dokura did just that by tapping the holo controls to advance to another image, repcing the Padin with a ship Shaak looked puzzled by. As she should, given that it had been one of their most highly cssified projects until this very moment. Izuku had authorized her to know, since the moment they started using them it was inevitable that the Jedi scattered throughout Hutt Space would figure it out anyway.

  "…Project Interdictor is finished. Four of the newly designated Veto-css Interdictor cruisers are fully tested, crewed, and ready for deployment. Also, yes, they really named them the Veto-css. Bme the design team for being allowed to name a cssified ship without input from PR or Marketing to stop them. They, I'm sure, think it's a terribly clever name."

  The dry delivery of that line got a few snorts and chuckles, though Izuku himself kept a weather eye on the few in the room that hadn't known about them yet. Thankfully, aside from a fsh of surprise from Shaak Ti in the Force, there wasn't a serious reaction. He hadn't thought there would be, as interdictors were only banned so heavily on account of fears of piracy. But the ban was pretty stringent in Republic Space.

  Enough so, in fact, that they would be taking the new Veto-css ships around the long way to come into Hutt Space from the newly secured Outnd Transit Station. Better the Republic not have reason to cim they had passed through Republic territory at all. They hadn't been built at Tythe, instead having been constructed at IES-Beta, and a route existed to take those ships around the edge of Wildspace and into Hutt Space without ever touching Republic territory.

  "Aside from those two pieces of news, I have the projections for new Volitions and other vessels, as well as the results of the decision to stop production of the Munifex IIs and the yard capacity freed up by that call. There's also a tentative report on the new Ray-css corvettes that the Gungans are producing for us, though it will be a while before we can build enough of them to consider repcing Defenders entirely in even a single Fleet. Generally, all of it is positive news. There is, however, one more surprise for some of you. Luxum?"

  Dokura ceded the floor to the Iron Knight who was leading the R representatives. She stood, taking wireless control of the holo to dispy what appeared to be a minor variant design of the Toru-css scout ship. Izuku knew better than to consider it 'minor' of course, though only Aay and Rana had been aware of this particur project, leaving most of those around the table looking confused. Luxum's artificial voice came out in distinctly feminine and rather pleasant tones as she expined what they were looking at.

  "This is the Toru II, a new iteration of our scout vessel that takes the design and pushes it to an entirely new level. Unlike the original Toru-css, the Toru II has full cloaking capability. It can erase itself from both scanners and the naked eye even at nearly point-bnk range."

  The holo-image showed that fact off by having the ship cloak, the image splitting to show feeds of the readings taken from a listening-post it was testing itself against. Far more sensitive than any ship sensors, even that post's arrays showed nothing until the Toru II apparently closed to within less than 500 meters. At which point there was enough of a spike to detect…but only because they knew what they were looking for. As it decloaked practically on top of the listening post, several people murmured in appreciation. Luxum answered a handful of technical questions before ceding the floor back to Izuku.

  "Alright, everyone. As you can see, we have quite a few more tricks to work with than we expected to at this phase. We may not have a lot of the Toru IIs yet, and the Padins will be a bit longer in coming in numbers. But, with the Lucrehulk discovery in particur, we're in a stronger position to mount a second sting offensive than we'd expected to be at this point. That means we need to assess and decide where to hit and when. As well as try to anticipate where the counter blows from the Hutts will nd. On that note, Head of Intelligence Aharo has some news for us…"

  And so their war pnning session went on, as the group shaped their new offensive around what they had to work with and what resistance they were expecting to face.

  ... ...

  Padme managed to hold her scream in until her test visitor was fully out of her office and the door closed. Even then, she somehow managed to suppress it to something closer to a growl of aggravation as she retreated into pleasant fantasies of spontaneously becoming a Jedi just so she could choke a bitch with her mind. After a long, long thirty seconds of indulging in that wonderful fantasy, she finally took a deep breath, held it for a five count, and released it. The little meditative trick, using the physical motion of expelling the breath as a focus to 'breath out' the violent thoughts, worked.

  Somewhat.

  Well enough, anyway.

  "You know, if you'd just let me change the uniforms to the Bunny design, we might be able to give him a stroke. You know how prudish Umbarans can be."

  Padmé's lips twitched, more tension leaving her at the humorous thought, even as she hid that fact by thumping her face into the now-closed door until she got control of her expression again. She had to admit, that was probably Sabé's best argument for the 'uniform change' yet. If only because Senator Mee Deechi was currently being a serious annoyance, while she and her team were already busy as kriff preparing to head back to Tythe at short notice.

  The Umbaran senator was firmly in the camp of the revitalized Pro-Military block of the senate. Which already put him at some odds with Padmé's personal beliefs, though not quite with her official positions these days. Unfortunately, it was a fact farther complicated by the man being in the minority of that block which was firmly Pro-Crusade as well.

  As far as Mee Deechi was concerned, the Hutts had everything they were getting coming to them. Which, to be fair, Padmé honestly agreed with despite her usual peaceful leanings. The problem was that he, as a result, saw absolutely no reason that the Republic shouldn't be pouring money into the League. Both as tacit support for the League's goals…and as a way to get access to the League's military technology.

  Something which, while many senators had dropped hints of various levels of bluntness about to her, was made extra annoying in this case. After all, the Umbrans themselves were known to have particurly advanced technology, including military equipment. All of which they steadfastly refused to sell to the Republic or, for that matter, to literally anyone else. The League, at least, sold export models of some of its ships. Such as the Defender IIs that Naboo itself had a number of. The Umbrans refused to even do that much, making the attempt to get Padmé to pressure for the League to sell the secrets to Null Torpedoes and Graviton Beams doubly infuriating.

  Sighing and forcing it from her mind before it stoked her irritation again, Padmé finally pushed off the door and turned to her handmaidens. Well, to Sabé and Eirtaé, at least. Dormé and Cordé, her two more politically-expert handmaidens, were out shmoozing with fellow political aides to unruffle as many feathers as possible. The Senate wasn't used to one of its own being more or less summoned by a foreign power, even politely, and many of those who had been fence-sitting were abruptly realizing they were about to be left behind as irrelevant.

  With Padmé now holding an official position with the League of Free Stars, there had been a much more successful series of movements trying to dictate what the Republic's goals should be regarding the League and the Hutt Crusade. None of those movements yet had anything like a majority, the Senate just was not used to working at the speed events were unraveling at. But she would be carrying at least some official directives and exploratory initiatives that everyone agreed on. The quick nature of the summons, without giving the Senate the months of debate needed to work out a true majority, meant that seemingly everyone was trying to bend Padmé's ear about what else to push for with the League. Or, for that matter, how to go about the basic, barebones directives she actually had so far.

  "Well, at least he was the st of the meetings that we couldn't turn down. We'll be aboard ship and headed for Tythe as of tomorrow."

  Padmé's comment got nods from both of her present handmaidens. But Sabé was quick to remind her that the respite was questionable.

  "Sure, but we also don't have a clue why Master Izuku made such an abrupt and personal summons. We were all expecting, given his known position as one of their only Admirals, that the next serious contact would be with their Liberty Council. Kriff, we'd been all but told outright that even that much would only come once enough of the new star systems they are bringing on board had actual representatives. There can't be more than a half dozen they've taken with enough of a government still in pce to have reps yet."

  Entirely true. Oh, there had been a small raft of reasons given by the message from Sovereign Midoriya. But none of them believed they were the true cause of the summons. Not even before the casual 'polite warning' that there would likely be a Trade Federation delegation in the Tythe System for 'negotiations regarding Hoersch-Kessel Drive Inc.'

  Negotiations regarding major holdings from Republic worlds in Hutt Space were, in fact, one of the directives she did have from the Senate, as it was something all sides could agree was needed. A lot of major corporations had holdings within Hutt Space, and those were Republic Owned companies. If the League tried to just seize them, just because of where they were operating, it would create a massive backsh. Yet, her directives had been to explore the possibility of negotiations on that subject. The idea that a trading group like the Federation was already getting a foot in that door, somehow, was seemingly coming out of nowhere.

  Worse, despite the bad blood between them and Naboo, it shouldn't have been something that drew special mention. Meaning there was something about the Federation presence that would either upset her personally…or professionally. Given that Padmé knew for a fact Izuku hated the Trade Federation on a personal level, they hadn't been able to sort out which it was. There had been some fear that Nute Gunray might be involved, but he'd been confirmed to be somewhere else entirely, embroiled in events that were unlikely to see him in Tythe anytime soon.

  So just why had they been politely warned? What message were they supposed to be taking from that fact? Just what sort of mess were they going to be flying into here? Sighing, she forced herself to push the thought off again. It wasn't going to get her anywhere without more information that she just didn't have. She needed to focus on moving forward.

  "We can't do anything about what we don't know. Sabé, do a final double check of our escort. The warning about 'pirates' starting to hit anything heading toward Tythe is something we can deal with. Eirtaé, as much as I have zero intention of trying to get any of the League's military hardware, the data Senator Deechi passed on might have something we didn't know. Compare it to everything else we have, but make sure to use the air-gaped system to check it over."

  The handmaidens got to work swiftly at her snapped orders. Prone to teasing her they might be, but they were still professionals. Ones that were, thankfully, very good at their jobs…

  ... ... ... ... ... ...

  A/N 1: This chapter basically exists to give readers an overview how the war has progressed, as well as to bring certain names back into focus. It also shows how much time as passed (a bit over 2 months since the start of the Crusade), and shows that new stuff is coming down the pipeline for them all.