Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 139-140 - Strange Movement
The "Demon Moon" hangs in the sky.

The night at Jay Chou's base is anything but peaceful!
After Prokhor and the two Jedi apprentices toured the prisoner-of-war camp, Raine had Vander make arrangements for them and then ignored their whereabouts.

After they left, he and Van der hosted their "guests" that night.

"You fucking have to be kidding me!"

Van der's voice rose in anger, almost a growl.

“Van der!” Krazzka clan warlord Olko Baz shook his head gravely, his face masking darkened in the twilight as he looked at Raine. “I’m not joking. The Amros and Dol-Drell clans have sounded the rallying cry and are gathering their warriors for war. They consider the passage agreement between the Ezelk clan and your ‘Iron Men’ to be an act of cowardice.”

“Not a single robot has ever set foot on the territory of Amros or Dor-Drell!” Van der stomped his foot angrily, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. “What the hell does this have to do with them!”

A bitter expression appeared on Olko's face. "Fear can make people lose their minds, warrior. When you see hordes of metal creatures marching into the forest, who can still tell where the boundaries are?"

Vander cursed fiercely, his voice so loud it startled the owls in the nearby trees: "I swear on the Purple King's balls! Tell me, how many people can those two families muster?"

“The Amros clan alone,” Olco Baz replied in a deep voice, his fingers unconsciously stroking the bone dagger at his waist, “could field at least forty full-strength flying squadrons of war beasts, each squadron consisting of about fifty riders and war beasts. As for the number of the Dor-Drell clan… we don’t know; they are entrenched behind the mountain barrier, and their information is scarce.”

“Amros alone has two thousand warriors and berserkers…” Renn muttered as he calculated, his brow furrowed. “…Wait, why did they suddenly gather their warriors? We haven’t even set foot on their territory!”

Olko's expression grew even more somber, like the sky before a storm. "Those plainsmen of Amros and those mountain barbarians of Dor-Drell, their blood feud dates back to when the mountains were still rocks. They've never done anything but kill each other. Now they're sitting together in an alliance? There must be a powerful force pushing them together! There's only one force in this world that can reunite these sworn enemy beastman clans."

The Force!

Raine's heart skipped a beat. He grabbed Vander's shoulders and pulled him forcefully towards him, his voice low and urgent: "Jedi! Where are Prokon and the two apprentices?! Where are they?"

“I sent them back to Izzi using the fastest Skrefs,” Vander said, swatting his hand away. “They should be arriving soon, and everyone will be there on time for tomorrow’s prisoner exchange ceremony as planned.”

Ryan finally let out a long sigh of relief, his tense shoulders relaxing slightly. "You understand what Olko meant, right? He wasn't referring to the Jedi."

“It’s the Kira family pulling the strings behind the scenes,” Van der spat, his tone full of disdain and annoyance. “Those arrogant bastards disappeared from Izzi for a hundred years, and now they think their time has come, believing they can come back to seize the throne based on their ancestors’ glory! Now we finally know why they ignored King Rush’s summons; they were busy fanning the flames and preparing for a civil war!”

Predicting the Kira family's actions is extremely difficult, mainly because the family disappeared so completely.

It's no exaggeration for Van der to say they've retired from the political stage in Izzi.

Since the Dendup family usurped the throne, the Kira family had recalled all their vassals and followers, hiding in their impregnable mountain fortress, where they had not shown their faces for a full hundred years.

Since then, no one in Izzi has ever seen a person with the surname Kira again.

But that's not the main issue; there's a more pressing problem right now.

“The worst part is that there’s a whole bunch of old fogies in the Royal Court who would bow down at the mere mention of the name ‘Kira,’” Renn snorted, his voice filled with deep worry. “We absolutely cannot handle a political summit that affects the entire galaxy and a planetary civil war breaking out in our own backyard at the same time!” In his view, there were only two practical choices.

They could either pray that the Kira family had some sense of the bigger picture and waited until the Republic and Confederate delegations had safely left Ondron before launching the civil war.

Either take action now and nip the fire in the bud before they gain any real power.

Ryan prefers the second option.

Van der also fully understood this principle.

“Not counting those lumps of iron,” Vander raised his voice, making sure Olko next to him could hear clearly, “we have five thousand real soldiers at the Jalen base. If the Krazka clan is willing to let us pass through your forest…”

He looked at Olko, “We can be at the gates of Fort Kira within a few days. It may take weeks or even months to take it, but at least we can keep them pinned down in the ravines far from Izzi, giving the summit enough time.”

“I will persuade the elders of the tribe,” Olko clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking slightly. “They are willing to pay any price to fight the Amros clan. We have only one condition… We must not let those iron-skinned monsters defile our forest!”

“I guarantee that not a single robot will enter your territory,” Renn said confidently.

He knew perfectly well that the Beast Rider clan had been mobilized because of the fear of the robot invasion, and that the Kira family had cleverly exploited this fear, directing their attacks at the current king.

Sending robots into the forest now would play right into the Kira family's hands, only making Amros and Dol Drell even more devoted to them, which completely contradicts his goals.

“Vande, immediately send your elite cavalry squad to scout and monitor the outskirts of Kira Fortress,” Raine decisively ordered. “Remember, it’s surveillance! Do not initiate combat. Your task is to remain there, watching their every move until our main force arrives… Orko, can the Krazka clan join the battle?”

Olko Baz grinned, revealing teeth stained red by a local red berry, exuding the fierceness of a warrior. "As soon as our horns sound, twenty-six full-strength flight formations can take off at any time! Our men have been itching to get going!"

This means they will be deploying approximately 1,300 fierce riders against Amros's 2,000.

Although they still have 5,000 regular troops available, it remains to be seen how many men the Kira family can muster.

More importantly, to launch a proactive attack on what is possibly the most powerful and oldest family on the planet, he must obtain official royal authorization.

This was not only for legitimacy, but also in the hope of gaining the support of the Royal Army.

“We’ll break camp and set off at daybreak,” Van der patted Ryan hard on the back, the armor making a dull thud. “And you… you need to hurry and get General Tandin’s permission. I don’t want to be stabbed in the back halfway through the war and have someone accuse you of treason!”

Olco Baz turned and strode toward his growling war beast.

(End of this chapter)