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Shortly post-Order 66, the galaxy is a very dark place (Tai and Sage self-inserts in Star Wars: Rise of the Empire Era)
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"Yes,"  Diǎnrán confirmed.

"Personally I'm more concerned with the CIS and what's happened to them, and who's capitalising on this. How they explain themselves murdering the Jedi will probably be fabricated conspiracies anyway," turning to Sage, she gestured for them to take the lead, "I'm not familiar with the layout of Taris Medical Station, if you know where to go please lead on."

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"Ah," they look around, "I'm not familiar with this station in particular... I think we should be able to access the holonet from any available terminal. I'll ask Dr. Finos if she minds us using the one in her office." 

They knock on the door to the examination room, leaning inside for a quick exchange, and then close the door again, nodding at Diǎnrán and heading over to the door with Dr. Finos' name on it. 

Inside, they settle in the seat in front of the desk, powering the terminal up and unlocking it, and then begin navigating to the holosites they need. "Should be easy enough to find what they're telling the public," they murmur, pulling up a news site.

Indeed, there it is on the front page news.

"Foundation of a New Era," they murmur, and, "Treasonous Jedi Plot Foiled, Peace Declared with the CIS, this is-" they pull away, a hand going to their furrowed brow. They have to take a few breaths to settle themself before they can actually make themself read those articles, but they leave them open so Diǎnrán can look while they compose themself.

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"A new Galactic Empire?!" Diǎnrán paused, sharing a look with Sage, before she kept reading, mumbling to herself as she went.

"Palpatine...new Emperor....Grievous dead on Utapau...CIS leaders assassinated on Mustafar....what the fuck..." Looking back up at Sage, she tried for a shrug, "well, at least we know who's the Sith Lord now?"

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They give a slightly hysterical laugh.

"There is that," they agree. "Force, you were right, all that time spent searching, and he was right there, before the eyes of the entire Order all along - I don't want to believe it but... who else could have done this - not to mention he's Emperor, now." 

They lean back in their seat, staring sightlessly at the screen, some of the depair they've been holding in leaking out through their shields.

"...What... do we do, about this?" 

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"What else?" Diǎnrán asked.

"We are Jedi are we not? Order or no Order, and we have a clear target," she said, gesturing at the hooded figure of Palpatine, lauding in his success in front of the Senate, "with the Rule of Two, there's only the Apprentice to find."

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"You want to take the fight to him? We'd need... far more information than what we have, to even come close. We don't know anything about his abilities, we know very little about his actual resources - beyond everything he already had as Chancellor - and we have no idea who the new Apprentice could be. Never mind any other disciples he might have taught Sith techniques to." 

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"True," she admitted, "but it's a direction to go in, I'm not saying march into the Senate, lightsabers ignited and start throwing repulsorpods into his face like idiots, but we should work towards the end goal of eradicating the Sith, especially since we know where one of two is."

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"Agreed."

They look off at a distant point, where they can feel their squad moving towards the medbay.

"Information, and allies," they murmur. "If we can figure out how to deactivate or remove this chip, I'm near-certain any clone who survived waking up would side with us. Beyond that, there must be other Jedi survivors, and more citizens of the new Empire who will want to fight." They pause. "Did you get that message from the Temple? The one from Kenobi, warning us not to return. That suggests he might be alive, at least. And where he goes, so does Skywalker. They would make for good allies, if we can find them." 

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"But how will we subdue them en masse?" Diǎnrán countered, "and going at it one at a time won't have a lot of effect." She paused.

"Maybe if we found out how to activate the chips? Then we'd be able to deactivate them, right?"

She shook her head to shelve that though for the moment, "Kenobi and Skywalker would be good allies, but I'm not sure where to find them. Skywalker's from Tatooine so he'd be safest there among his people, but I'm not sure he'd want to return to that wasteland....perhaps Naboo? They're both friends of Senator Amidala."

"Ah," she snapped her fingers, "speaking of Senators, we should contact Senator Prelict, she was always among the level-headed and reasonable members of the Senate.We'll need allies in both the governing body and on the ground."

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"All good ideas," they agree. "We should reach out to any contacts we have - carefully. All the intelligence of the new Empire will likely be turned to catch word of any Jedi survivors. We don't want to be caught before we can even begin." They pause, then add, "I have... contacts, with the Northern Mandalorians. I suspect the upheaval on Mandalore might have passed them by, to some extent. They will have been much more prepared to fight Death Watch than the New Mandalorians were. If we need somewhere fairly safe to go... well, no one will question a person wearing identity-obscuring armour in Mandalorian space." They glance towards the scanning room, "Though your Commander might need to leave that Beskar out of sight."

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"I'll....have to talk to him about it, " Diǎnrán allowed. "From what he's told me he took the armour fairly from a Mandalorian bounty hunter hired to sabotage a Republic convoy and, well, the Kaminoans tried to remove as much of Jango Fett as they could from his clones but Mandalorian stubbornness is hard to stamp out."

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"Hm. True enough. But... do you know the cultural significance behind it? In much the same way that many of the clones view their armour as their true face, the Mandalorians do as well. In a sense, he's wearing that bounty hunter's body."

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"I don't know much," she admitted, "but I do know that Dune doesn't see it that way because he repainted the armour, in the same way that if a trooper's armour was damaged and logistics issues them a replacement from a dead trooper they'd repaint the armour and consider it their own. Again," she continued, "I'll have to talk to Dune about it, he'll come around, I'm sure of it. Even he doesn't like it, he's responsible enough not to put his preferences above all of our well-being."

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They nod, "Let me know if you want me to explain more - or, better, you could ask Jinx, she knows the topic better and more intimately than I do." 

In the meantime, they turn back to the holoterminal, intent on giving the articles another read and then going looking for others to see what they can find out from the commonalities and differences..

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Diǎnrán hummed, "Let me know if you find anything in the articles, I have an idea for our Padawans' Trial of Insight. In the meantime I think I'll go have a chat with Jinx, the sniper by the ship, right?"

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"That's right. Her spotter is Snag," they add. "And I'd be happy to hear about your idea once you're done speaking with her. I'll probably still be here when you get back." 

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"Of course," she replied, before moving to leave."If anything does wrong you have my comm frequency."

With that, she left the room.

Arriving at the hanger, she raised her hand in greeting to the two Force signatures she felt by the ship, well-hidden against normal detection but flickering softly as all sentients do to her senses.

"Jinx and Snag, I presume?" She greeted as she drew closer, raising her hand in greeting. Turning to face the sniper of the pair, she continued, "I have a question for you, if you don't mind."

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There's a long pause as the sniper observes her from her spot next to a crate just off the ship's ramp, and then she shifts up and properly into view, offering a salute, "General," she greets, "I'm all ears."

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Snag hauls himself up beside her, copying her movements with a quieter, slightly more grudging and suspicious, "General," echoing after hers. 

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"I had some questions for the two of you regarding beskar, specifically beskar'gam, if you don't mind," she began.

"I spoke to Sage about it but they directed me to you for more information. Commander Dune had a set of beskar'gam he...liberated, from what he has told me. But as part of our flight it has been rendered," she hesitated, "untenable."

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Snag speaks up before Jinx can, "Commander Dune's been wearing someone else's armour?" 

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Jinx nudges him with an arm, "If it's actual beskar, it saved your lives, yeah? He kill the one he took it off of?" 

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"He...didn't really give me many details," she admitted, flexing her fingers, "it was before Venom Company had been permanently assigned to me."

"Of what he did tell me, it was originally from a bounty hunter -- I'm not sure if they were a true Mandalorian themselves or if they had stolen it themselves -- that he killed during one of his earliest missions. Just after Geonosis actually, if I remember correctly. Part of being at the front so much is you start to track long term time with which campaign it was, rather than specific months or even years," Diǎnrán gave them a wan smile before clearing her throat. "The only other things I can tell you is that he stripped everything off of it with some weak acid and that he once muttered something to me about a debt and that he's always been almost obsessive over keeping it well-maintained."

She chuckled, her eyes distant.

"We actually used to joke that he was a better face of Cobra Battalion to the media than I was, he always looked so pristine it was like he'd just walked off a modelling runway."

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Jinx flashes a small, wry smile at the comment about time tracking, and then nods thoughtfully, "I'll ask him about it later, then," she decides, "As for - well, how bad is it now? Is the metal itself busted, or the electronics, or just the non-beskar parts?" 

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"He took a few glancing shots," Diǎnrán began, "from artillery fire. So to answer your question I'd say yes and leave it at that."

"Some of that was because of me, I wasn't very focused when my Padawan was injured and didn't have the presence of mind to react to the bombardment."

She sucked in a breath and looked down to notice that she had began wringing her hands together and frowned.

Old habits die hard it seemed, even those as old as from her days as a nervous, stuttering Initiate.

"But in general his armour would be considered at about a third of its maximum capacity, mostly isolated to the areas protecting his lower body and upper arms."

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