While my downtime was often filled with a lot of bureaucratic work, after four or five days, I could start to feel the itch to get back to some real work. The rest of my crew, despite their attempts to keep busy with getting involved with the rest of the Vanguard, could feel it as well. Even Ahsoka could feel the call, a mix of boredom, knowing you could do more with your time, and the knowledge that you were at what you did made sitting around and doing "nothing" feel more and more criminal the longer you did it.

  The day after Tatnia, Miru, and I enjoyed a taco lunch, handmade by yours truly, the rest of my crew started to ask when we would get back out there. Tatnia and I both became a common sight at the offices of our growing Intelligence branch on the , where our people were going over all sorts of leads, looking for appropriate missions.

  "We need Sheora," I said, leaning against the doorframe to the Ex-Rebels room, the human woman sitting at her desk. "Even if it's just some pirates."

  "Really? Don't you think you guys have moved past small-time stuff like that?" She asked, turning away from her computer. "We've been focusing on large scores."

  "Maybe, but for one thing, every pirate group we take down, the better our reputation gets in the outer rim," I pointed out. "On top of that, even a small job is better than us just sitting around."

  "Not entirely true, it does cost credits to mobilize each Group... But that's fair," she admitted, looking back to her computer for a moment before nodding once. "I think I have something you'll be interested in then… Okay, here it is. The Rebellion has heard a few rumors that after a conflict over territory, a few pirate groups joined together. Their MO is the usual, show up to a common hyperspace route and then wait for someone to drop. Once they are done, they jump away.

  "Okay, that sounds promising... Why keep it from us?"

  "Because the reports are unsubstantiated," Sheora responded with a shrug. "We planned on looking into it, sure, maybe by sending 3rd Group when the was done with repairs."

  "We got any faces attached to this group?"

  "A few. But again, we have no idea if this is worth our time," the ex-rebel repeated. "Very little info exists about them."

  "Why not compare their targets?" I asked after a moment of thinking. "If a few groups became one larger group, then surely their target range has increased, right?"

  Sheora looked at me for a moment before letting out a long breath, nodding her head in agreement.

  "Yeah, that would be a pretty good sign that they have combined." She agreed, running her hand through her hair. "Honestly, we should have thought of that. Okay, give me and my people a few hours. We will look into it. If there is anything there, we will put together a mission brief for you."

  "Sounds good. Thank you for your hard work," I said with a smile, turning to head out of the office. "Let me know if it's a bust."

  With my primary task complete, I kept myself busy for a while, visiting various groups on the checking in on everyone, and making sure they were getting what they needed. When an hour had passed, I figured that Sheora had found what we were looking for, so I started reaching out to the rest of the team that we would most likely be getting some action soon, so they should head up to the if they wanted to be involved. That, of course, led to a fury of activity as our ships were prepared, fueled, and organized.

  About three hours after my first meeting, Sheora called us back to a meeting hall in the with enough room for everyone, including the captains and Corvak's team. We settled in as Sheora arrived, tossing Corvak and I each a datapad.

  "So, it turns out that the rumors the Rebellion has been picking up are true, as far as we can tell," She started, giving me a look as she activated the holoprotector at the front of the room. After a moment, it displayed a map of the galaxy. "Basically, three pirate groups came into conflict for this area, as it is a high-traffic space in a relatively unpatrolled branch of this trade route. Basically, it's heaven for raiders and pirates. The result is either they combined, or one came out the victor and grew several sizes, as their target size spread has dramatically increased."

  "By how much?" Tatnia asked, leaning forward in her seat.

  "Previously, they would only target smaller ships, single small shuttles with minimum escorts," Sheora responded. "Recently, however, they have been going after significantly juicer targets. The most recent was a pleasure ship and its two escorts that were lost with all hands and passengers."

  "How did that not show up sooner?" I asked. "You didn't mention anything like that."

  "That's because it wasn't listed as being done by the groups we were looking at," she explained. " The ship composition is a combination of all three groups, but it was different enough that it was listed as done by a totally different fourth group. The current bounty for them is now five hundred thousand, posted by private citizens and the company that was running the pleasure cruise."

  "That's a damned good start," I nodded. "Easily pays for any material wastage and fuel."

  "I figured it would be enough to get you going, but we still put together a list of potential assets," Sheora responded, gesturing to the tablet. "Between the final reports pulled from the wreckage of the pleasure liner, as well as a few other sources, we know that they have several boarding craft, mostly modified shuttles and freighters. On top of that, they have at least a squadron's worth of starfighters, mixed, of course, as well as five primary warships. An old style, two modified of unknown make, and two, which we assume are of the assault or strike variety, since normally they are pretty defenseless."

  "That's not a small fleet," I said with a frown. "Good for us as a prize, but we would likely need to bring in 3rd Group to assure a clear advantage if it turns into a slugging match."

  "We also don't know what else they have," Sheora continued, nodding in agreement at my statement. "We have a general total list of what all three groups had, but we have no way of knowing how much of it survived."

  "Well… besides the variation in assets, it seems like a pretty straightforward mission, even if it is on the large size," I stated, Corvack nodding in agreement. "We keep the starships, including some support from 3rd Group, a safe distance away, a microjump preferably, while we ride the down to the surface. From there, we make our way to the base, divide and conquer as necessary. Once we go loud, we can call the cavalry in to pin down the large ships or destroy them if they are a threat."

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  "Should we bring more droids to aid us?" Corvak asked. "I'm not concerned about being overwhelmed, not with our armor, but with how many ships we will need to clear, I am concerned we won't be fast enough."

  "Especially if they are spread out," Tatnia added, Corvak giving her a nod.

  "I… think you're probably right," I said, chewing on my lip for a second before an idea came to me. "We have a team of BXs prepared to ride inside the Guardian-class as a part of 4th Group once its repairs are done. How about we take that team with us? This could be their inaugural mission. That should speed us up quite a bit. We weren't all fit in the at once anyway, so this will just have to be a third trip."

  We continued to talk through more plans, mainly focusing on contingencies since, in reality, only the starships were a threat to us, and they would already be our main target. Locating the pirates would be pretty easy, since we had nearly a dozen bounty listings of potential members, as well as detailed images of several of their starships. It would just be a matter of triangulation, standard fare at this point, especially with Racer tagging along.

  After we finished our planning, I started making calls, informing everyone that we would be leaving for another mission. Sheora promised to get working on something for 2nd group, but I explained they should still have another day or two off since they had only just come home from working on Tatooine.

  That was when I realized that the was still being worked on, getting the damage done during the Tatooine mission repaired. According to Orbor Fakkiv, chief of repair and maintenance, it would likely take another full day and a half of work to finish. So, rather than delay ourselves, we decided that the 1st group would head off first. We would go through the triangulation process to locate the pirates, which could likely take at least a day. Meanwhile, 3rd Group would leave for our general area when their repairs were finished, then meet up with us specifically when we had our targets in sight.

  It took about two hours after we confirmed our mission to get everything ready, including loading up the BX units into the . We also took on some extra B1 units to act as support. While one of the hangar bays was carrying the , the other was still carrying two TX-130 Saber tanks. We also had two pairs of C-PH speeder bikes in the hold. While I didn't predict needing or using them for this mission, I had been meaning to move over crew for them so we could deploy them as extra assets rather than just have them for us to use.

  With our supplies stocked, a small army packed away in the hold, and all the other ships in the group ready, we finally left the Nirn behind, jumping to lightspeed as we cleared 3rd Group, and the defensive stations.

  Surprisingly, this was going to be a pretty long trip, nearly five full days. We had been relatively lucky for the most part, in terms of time spent in hyperspace, mostly because our two main bases, Omega Station and now Nirn, were pretty central for the Mid and Outer Rim, meaning we were usually within a two-day trip to a considerable amount of places, give or take a bit. Now, we were traveling a significant way around the "bottom" curve of the Outer Rim, which added a considerable amount of time. Luckily, the was a pretty comfortable ship, all things considered.

  Of course, I didn't spend the time twiddling my thumbs. As soon as I realized that we would have a significant chunk of time, I immediately realized that this was my chance. I had been putting this off for a long time, concerned about what could happen, and I had been generally satisfied with what I already had. But now, not only did I have a need, I had the time.

  I was going to make my own spell.

  Now that I had a proper sword, one that could cut through armor and had proper combat enchantments on it, I realized I needed something. I needed a shield. Technically, yes, my armor was tough enough to tank most things without worry. But now that the Empire was fielding beskar weapons, having a magic shield could come in handy. Not to mention that some of my more varied and potent sword styles required an off-hand shield. Unfortunately, I couldn't just carry one around. My armor was bulky enough as it was, and with my repulsor pack on my back, I couldn't wear it there. Of course, I had another option.

  Conjuration magic.

  Not only did I have a bit of talent in that particular branch of magic, but between Conjure Sword, Dagger, Battleaxe, and Bow, I also had several examples to build off of. It was just a matter of comparing them all together and mixing them around until I knew the part well enough to start adjusting them manually.

  I started by copying all spells down outside my grimoire so I could study them side by side. After nearly a day of identifying similarities and trying to find common patterns in the spell matrixes, I started to try and create my own. I wanted to make a three-matrix spell, technically making it an Adept level, as that would be powerful enough to be worth using but not too challenging to learn.

  My first few attempts were complete busts, sparking out and failing the moment I "Cast" them. Each time, I would adjust the spell and try again, using a mix of guidance from my other spells and trial and error.

  Finally, on the third day, I cast my first successful custom, from the ground up, completely self-designed spell. A, glowing purple and partially see-through.

  After that, Ahsoka and I spent the rest of the trip sparring, putting my shield through the wringer and dusting off our skills.

  After four full days of travel, we started trying to triangulate the pirate base location, running through casts of Clairvoyance for the Pelta class ships as well as a few of the more wanted members. It turns out that the merge was potentially more bloody than we had anticipated, as four out of ten people I scanned for no longer existed in a state that was comparable to their previous form. Unless they had somehow gone through a full body and soul transformation, they were dead, most likely in a brutal, explosive fashion.

  This was a double-edged sword, as while it made our current mission easier, it was likely they didn't give up without a fight, which in turn meant they had likely died with resources we could have stolen. Still, even with just what we had already confirmed, we stood to make a decent amount of credits as long as everything went our way.

  It took five tries to finally triangulate our target, though it left us a bit confused. The planet we tracked the pirates to was, according to what databases we had access to, very much not a planet almost any biological species could live on. The atmosphere was incredibly caustic, and the weather was harsh enough to ruin unprotected systems. A might survive for a time on the surface, but beyond that, I didn't know of any other species that could.

  "Perhaps the information is wrong?" Nal suggested.

  "If that's true, then we just stumbled into a location almost as safe as Nirn," I pointed out, shaking my head. "It's possible but not likely. Much more likely is they managed to find some sort of base."

  "Clone Wars, you think?" Julus suggested from the couch, poking his head up over the top.

  "There's no way to know," I responded before frowning and looking over to Ahsoka, who was looking things up on a datapad. "Does the system have anything worthwhile? Any reason to set up a mining outpost or something?"

  "Not that I can see," she responded, shaking her head. "It could be something they set up themselves."

  "You think a bunch of pirates are smart enough to do that?" Julus asked with a raised eyebrow.

  "Don't underestimate greed," Viz said, shaking her head. "If there is enough money involved, those who crave easy wealth will figure it out."

  "Usually at the cost of a few casualties as they do," I pointed out absently. "Alright, well, there isn't much we can do until we see this for ourselves. It might be that this just got a lot harder, easier, or more interesting. There is no way to know."

  "We could take a peak…?" Julus suggested with a cheeky grin, to which Tatnia responded by grabbing his shirt neck and yanking him back down along the couch, where they were both lying.

  "Yeah, not tempting fate, sorry," I said with a chuckle. "We wait for our reinforcements before deploying to the planet. We can solve this mystery then."