#port knowhere

(hi @true0neutral)

“This is absolutely ridiculous, you realise!”

The only response the former Sith Lord Tromeros got to his complaint was a somewhat bewildered moo. Nerfs didn’t generally care much about politics, or status, or anything beyond whether there was sufficient grazing land. Small bipeds making noises at them generally only meant that the small biped wanted them to go somewhere, and this one didn’t seem to. He just seemed to want to keep making noises. It was confusing for a simple-minded grazing animal.

Tromeros didn’t care much about what sort of response he got. Standing in the middle of Port Knowhere’s grazing lawn, a poncho over his fairly simple clothes and his hair bleaching to new-minted copper in the bright sun of the desert moon of Jadvyga, all he really cared about was making his frustrations heard. “Obviously I didn’t expect immediate trust when I came here. But having to try every chore at this outpost? Horticulture at the hydroponics bays? Vaporator maintenance? Nerf herding? Did she do all of this?”

Then Tromeros really thought about what he was saying, considering the ‘she’ in question. ‘She’ was Jallira Greystorm-Harridin, who’d earned the rank of Master earlier than almost anyone in living memory (including her adopted sister Ahrianna, who’d previously held that distinction), and who generally referred to every incredible thing she’d ever done as “I just ... do ... things” with characteristic Jedi self-effacement. A holoimage displayed in the canteen came to mind: Jallira, her adopted sister Maelana, and six refugees from a Mid Rim farming community rescued during the Zakuul invasion. That, according to the stories, was taken at the very start of Port Knowhere’s existence, back when this now-bustling community was a deserted township on a forgotten desert moon.

“...I suppose she did do all of this,” he mused, as much to himself as to the nerf. “She’d have had to. It’s not as if she had staff. And certainly not slaves, not that I was ever a fan of that sort of thing. She told me,” he turned to the nerf, all but disclaiming, “that if I really wanted to help lead, I needed to learn what those who would follow need and want to let them thrive. She said this was how I’d learn. But I talked to my people! I--”

He noticed the nerf still looking at him with a confused, wary expression, then wiped sweat off his brow. “I need a hat,” he grumbled. “I wouldn’t have thought of a hat. I had people on planets as hot as this and they never told me about hats.” A thought occurred, born of the nervous look in the nerf’s eyes. “Were they too afraid of me to tell me things unless I directly asked about them? Is that what she meant?”

The nerf mooed a wary, noncommittal reply.

Tromeros shook his head. “Unless I experienced it for myself, I couldn’t possibly know the right questions. So I learn by doing. I harvest gor apples. I herd nerfs. And,” he added, feeling at once proud and dismayed, “learn Jedi wisdom thereby. Apparently.”

After a moment’s further thought, struck by a rather giddy urge that he now felt free enough of Sith expectations to indulge, he spread his arms wide and cried, “I AM LORD PONCHOOOOOOO!”

The market fair went well. Even if I did have to make a speech. I had been hoping to avoid it but Master Sortek was right - a few words did need to be said, all things considered. I just hope they were the right ones. They seem to have gone over well, at least. I hope so, because fairly soon we’re going to need all the boosts to morale that we can get.

The nerfery on the Holonet isn’t getting any better, particularly. After discussion with Shay, we’ve decided to try to accelerate some plans we already had in place - mobile base of operations and a new settlement. Master Sortek is doing some preliminary work on both as we speak, as Mychae is currently locked in the workshop with Alti, building mining drones and torpedoes. X’antho, I imagine, is doing the same...

...I should be kinder. Or at least less dismissive. I just ... have very strong feelings about biological warfare. It’s messy, it’s indiscriminate, it’s too easy to turn back on its creator, it’s just plain wrong ... I will not be Book. More, I will not be what Garr always said I was - nothing more than a weapon. I will not turn something that is for healing and life into yet another instrument of death. I have seen too many good things be reduced to nothing but weapons. I won’t add to that list. I’ll forgive him, probably - I won’t be less likely to provide snacks either - but X’antho’s total lack of understanding of why his casual suggestion of tailoring a horrible disease to attack only Zakuul was so abhorrent to me just ... stings. I suppose my role is to make him understand, if he doesn’t at this point.

There’s a right and wrong way to fight a war, and too many people are fighting this one the wrong way. I know that people say “it’s what works”, but ... does it, in the long run? Demoralisation and fear will eventually leave people with nothing left to lose. People that desperate do some fairly horrible things. I get the impression that Zakuul treats its native people a great deal better than it does its conquered, though. I sometimes wonder what the reaction would be if they offered their vanquished comfort and the benefits of the Zakuulan people, instead of putting a boot to our collective throat. Still, I know it’ll keep happening...

...There has to be a way to get a message out. Not ... quite like the speech I gave the other day, but ... similar. I said to Shay not long ago that being the example is what being Jedi is about.

I ... think I have an idea. I’m not sure it’s the best idea, but it achieves several of our goals at once. Including taking attention away from Shay’s insurgency actions. I just want to ensure the safety of Port Knowhere as much as possible before we begin. Even if we start by taking refuge on a tertiary world while setting up a secondary base, even if we travel largely by stealth vessel ... ships are difficult to track once they’ve reached hyperspace, I know that much. Not impossible, but ... difficult. There’s nothing to be gained from impatience, but ... I’ll see what our intel acquisitions people have to say about potential targets.

PERSONAL LOG - MASTER GREYSTORM-HARRIDIN

BEGIN AUDIO PLAYBACK

The ... erm ... ‘call to arms’ worked surprisingly well, all things considered. We have allies. It’s not anything like what we had with the Marran, but ... those resources are long gone. We make do. Sometimes small and unaccountable is best, I suppose. Though admittedly, I miss the guidance of the Council sometimes. I suppose at this stage all I can do is hold their example before me and move on.

It helps that we do seem to have a fair amount of Jedi. Not just Force-users (if ‘just’ is any way to say it); Jedi still loyal to the Order. Taevi - a taciturn sort of Mirialan Knight - says she came to us largely out of curiosity and relief. We’re the first heavily Jedi-led organisation she’s found so far. I suspect that might be owing to a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ situation - there must be others - but we’re glad to have her anyway.

As we are the others. A Zabrak named X’antho came to us courtesy Mychae, in a way - she says they struck up some conversations during the resistance movements of the early years, and he struck her as the sort of person that might come in useful to take the load off herself and Alti in the supply-gathering department. Right now three or four of our number are swarming over his ship trying to make it ... well, flight-capable. Something about the drive core giving off smoke? I never entirely understood that sort of thing so I’ll just take them at their word that it’s bad. In any case, I feed him and am now therefore his new best friend, apparently.

Kaelira ... doesn’t give her previous rank. I’m not sure if she was on the receiving end of a MeepMobile visit or she just heard the rumours, but she’s former military. This is a bonus because while none of us are strangers to battlefields, it’s nice to have a tactical military mind around the place. She is also someone who has decided she likes me because I provide food. This seems to be a running theme.

If I gather a small army through the power of cookery alone, Alti will never let me live it down.

It’s not a lot of people, for an ‘inner circle’. But maybe that’s best. People get lost in the shuffle if there are too many people involved. And sometimes, being too large a force can lead to overconfidence. Yes, leading a massive force can be an advantage in a stand-up fight, but ... well, we’ve experienced how well that works against the Zakuul. Plus I’ve got used to working around and through size limitations from personal experience. Sometimes being small means you can fit into places that others can’t ... and so are best placed to strike at its heart from within.

That’s what Srina’idash says, anyway, though she agrees that now is not the time for anything like that. Mostly our discussions at the preliminary meeting at Port Knowhere was about resource management and settlement area. Master Sortek is planning a scout around the region for other places we could settle, to at least spread out our numbers. It wouldn’t be good if everyone we’ve saved these last few years could be taken out in one quick attack, and right now our only defense is invisibility. As for the more ... active and martial of us ... well, the point was raised that we probably don’t want to base our operations out of Port Knowhere for very long once we start being more ... I suppose ‘proactive’. We can be careful, yes, but one false move and we’re leading the Zakuul right to our people. We wouldn’t survive an assault by one tenth of the Zakuul fleet. We need a way to keep moving.

This is why our current plan is to try to find a ship. Not just one of the smaller ones, though obviously not something too huge or we couldn’t maintain it. Oh, nerf, I don’t know anything about ships, but ... it has to be something that could actually serve as a base of operations. Somewhere we could build a command centre and a medbay and possibly a hydroponics area and ... well, whatever else we need. A small travelling war camp. I don’t expect something like that to be easy to find, but those of us more adept at those things are rising to the challenge so far. Alti and Mychae wander starship graveyards - Alti tends to come back with parts and ideas and demanding pie, which I am happy to provide. Master Sortek and X’antho, as I understand it, have been scouting various planets’ orbits for derelicts, not to mention someplace to actually do whatever refits we’ll need on any ship we find. Srina’idash is scanning for signals in a similar vein - just a little less hands-on. Everyone else is more or less listening for rumours, as far as I know, as well as handling the day-to-day operations here.

Speaking of, day-to-day operations have been going moderately well. I’ve been continuing my research into various blood-borne pathogens and teaching myself veterinary science. Not that most of our livestock need much in the way of care - we raise goraks and gizkas, which more or less breed if you turn your back on them for more than ten seconds, and the biggest challenge with the nerfs is maintaining the grazing patch we had to plant for them, given the desert climate - but we still have to be careful. A strain of flu jumping the species barrier could destroy our livestock or kill half the settlement. Or both. Still, I managed to cure an entire species of a sterilising genetic defect; I think I can manage to vaccinate some nerfs.