It was amazing how consistent Ortho Gutt's luck was.


In a conspiracy that saw the massacre of billions, he was the only one being held in jail. The only other person caught (as far as the former Captain knew) as a co-conspirator was Moff Khendon (though, truth be told, he was not).

Others involved seemed either to carry on as if they had no part or, worse, simply disappeared from public sight.

It never occurred to the former Captain of the ISD Predator that these 'disappeared' people might also be held in other secret facilities or perhaps dead. It did not occur to Ortho to even ponder the fact that while others had died, he himself remained alive thus preserving the fact that his luck, while consistent, might perhaps also be good.

No, Ortho preferred to dwell in the self-pity of his circumstances though not without good cause. In the beginning of his arrest and incarceration, he had held onto the soldier's hope that while he was alive there was hope.

For what?


Anything!


There had to be a reason he remained alive while Moff Khendon, a MOFF! had been unceremoniously shot. Perhaps Zell and the others were biding their time to spring him from his inglorious prison?


Oh what flights of fancy his brain conjured up! What meager threads of victorious success he mentally tugged on all the while slumbering on a hard metal bed subsisting on rations fit for only a sick Ugnaught.


His lips trembled as he unconsciously whispered commands to an imaginary crew reliving the past glories of command while shivering under the thin sliver of blanket given by the prison guards.


Or perhaps it was simply a feverish mind that refused to acknowledge a predicament that everyone else thought was a forgone conclusion.


He was the sacrificial lamb upon which an entire city-wide state, an Empire no less would lay the blame for atrocities unmentionable.


No. He was a soldier. He was alive and he had done his duty.


There had to be reward in that!


Didn't there?


That night. At the OG. Being showered with praise among the pantheons of the Empire, by his betters... now his equals!


He had accepted his duty to be the face and public figure of the Project. A project that was the cornerstone of protecting an Empire in the most brutal fashion known.


He had done his duty!


Hadn't he?


He tried to remember the nuances of the meeting. He tried to remember what it was they had said and what he actually had done. Other than receive a very generous paycheck from an unmarked account, sit in his office, demand reports that really meant nothing to him and putting down his signature on transfer orders too complicated to be bothered to read in detail, what was there?


In the midst of all that, billions had died?


He did not remember any firing squads.


He did not remember a single name of anyone who was said to have disappeared. In the beginning, he would get visitors asking if their family member, friend or neighbor who went missing had died or if there was still hope.


He would look incredulously at the visitor. How the hell was he supposed to know?


He simply took his paycheck and frequented the brothels or the occasional slaver.


Was it murder if a slave died?


He didn't think so. The handler didn't think so. The many number of individuals whose palms were greased to look the other way in and out of the Empire did not think so.


So who were these people to look at him with contempt?


Who were they who sat in their comfortable homes oblivious to the wars Ortho had fought and the blood he had spilled on their behalf?


Ungrateful jackals the lot of them!


He had stopped accepting the visitors quickly after that.


He had done his duty.


Hadn't he?



Then the trial.


That damned trial where the very character of Ortho Gutt was not only eviscerated but burned for good measure.


And for what?


So those who had rested their backsides comfortably in the world that Ortho had nurtured into existence could strut before him turning their noses up at him.


At him!



HOW



DARE




THEY!




His hands had clenched into fists.




The Prosecution had spun a story of a lonely Governor of Garqi amassing enough personal wealth to set himself up as a criminal overlord within the Empire, using connections that Afdol Hilter himself (formerly of Agro Industries on Garqi now Overliege of Ukio) used to spread his own brand of criminal terror throughout the galaxy.


Perhaps Ortho felt justified in following in the other's footsteps?


Perhaps Ortho just liked the life of a criminal but whatever the case, justice had caught up to him.


The Defense of Ortho Gutt focussed on his military career of exceptional service. Exceptional in the fact that he hadn't screwed up in any major way and had done somewhat well under combat conditions.


But his military record could only go so far without character witnesses of which there were few. Those who worked in the office where he signed documents and generally tried to stay away from were merely HRDs who were wiped during the confusion of his arrest.


The Prosecution intimated that perhaps it happened at Ortho's command to limit further incrimination but even Ortho was puzzled as if he did not know they were HRDs to begin with.


The spectators did not buy the act.


Captain Yatta, his good friend was out with his ship and could not be bothered to darken his rising star of a reputation by being associated with his 'screwed' friend.


Ortho wished a thousand deaths upon his friend and as the trial wore on a slow truth began to creep into his mind. He looked left to right as if he were on a sinking ship wanting to grasp a line, any line towards safety.


Who could he call on to vindicate him?


Simon Kaine?


The Supreme Commander had retired and was nowhere to be found. Were he even to mention the man's name in connection with himself, he saw that the furor surrounding him would be inflamed more for how dare he drag the Empire's most celebrated soldier's name through the mud to save his skin?


He thought of Azrael Zell but one look at the old man's stoney face in the audience told Ortho that his very existence soiled the uniform both had worn.


The unfairness rankled.


He had done his duty!


Hadn't he?


The icing on the cake for the Prosecution was the putting of the girl's parents on the stage and, in the court of public opinion, Ortho's proverbial coffin was nailed shut.


Their tearful memories of their daughter tore at the heart strings of the spectators as Ortho struggled to remember if she had even been a good lay.


In the end, he shrugged giving up the search.


Some of the shrug must have showed in his body language for the parents saw it and lashed out a him. His expression showed surprise at their vehemence and the audience was ready to turn into a lynch mob.


"Alien hater!"


"Racist!"


"Murderer!"


"Rapist!"


That last charge drew a frown from him. He did not rape her. He paid good money!


Zell's expressionless face seemed to harden that much more with each chant as the regional Magistrate tried to restore order.


Ortho's eyes were desparate for a lifeline.



He had done his duty!


Hadn't he?


The old man's eyes hardened that much more.


The pressure mounted causing the rotund man to stumble somewhat back into his chair with a headache. He couldn't take it anymore.


As the girl's mother was being escorted off the stand she threw off her handlers and ran shrieking up to Ortho ready to claw his eyes out. The guards arrived too quickly and as Ortho desperately fought her off her hands balled into fists and pounded against his chest.


"You murdered them all, you....you....monster!"


She looked up at him as if searching for the piercing of his soul with her final judgement but saw only confused silence and sweat beads dripping from his head.


"You don't even know..." she whispered before fainting.


And it was at that moment that things fell into place. The meeting. The position. The money. The free reign.


He turned to Zell and, in the midst of his changing perspective, the old man's hard, stoney eyes suddenly were not accusatory.


No. They were demanding.


What did the old man want?


What did they all want?


He had done his dut---



Hadn't ---



He...



Ortho Gutt stopped his thoughts as the experiences over the past few years suddenly came together branding a realization upon his mind.



No.


He had not.


He was given free reign with no questions, no restrictions...



That was not duty.


That was payment.


...



He had paid someone once and it had gotten him a girl.



It was payment and she had done her duty.



Confused, scared and overwhelmed but she had serviced him as he needed even though it killed her.



Her wants and desires were irrelevant.



It was not rape. He had paid.



He looked over to Zell.



And so had they.



Now, he had a duty.



He gritted his teeth. It was a hateful duty even as it was for the girl, Netta.



But never no mind that.



He certainly didn't.



Well, I won't just lay down and die like she did! Ortho thought, not without a little bit of pride. I commanded the ISD Predator and damn anyone who looks down on me!



As the girl's mother came too from her faint she began to stand up when Ortho Gutt backhanded her back to the floor.



The audience, foaming at the mouth though they were, reeled back in shock. Captain Gutt began to move towards the stand irregardless of what the Magistrate or Defense lawyer shouted out.



He remained standing and shouted over the throngs...



"I have something to say!

You call me scum?! An alien hater and a murderer?? You consider me lower than the dirt beneath this duracrete?!"

His indignation, however misspent, showed. "I have spent my life beating with my bare fists those that would tear this Empire down! Those that threaten our way of life, call them alien, human, criminal or saint... I CALL THEM AN ENEMY!!"


He pointed to the fallen mother, "An alien sold me the girl! Where's his trial? It was probably a human who took her so where is their trial? Don't bitch and moan about the fate of races! WE ARE ALL FUCKERS AND WE ARE ALL GUILTY! Who did this to you? You want me to be the fall guy for your own fucking guilt?? All I did was my fucking duty defending your fucking asses and I will kill anyone who tries to to say otherwise! If you call that murder, then so be it but do not think you hypocritical bastards will deserve anything from me resembling guilt!"


"What about my little Netta?" came the weak voice of the sobbing mother.


Ortho Gutt's eyes narrowed without pity and sneered, "What was she doing out alone, bitch?"


The masses started shouting back at him in derision, not even listening to his rant.



"Monster!" shouted the mother.



"Mark my words!" he spat out harshly, "When the aliens are beating down on your doors, when the Empire's enemies are at your gates and you see your comfortable life slipping away, everything familiar about you burning up, you will wish you had monsters such as I standing between you!"


The jeering started to get ugly and Ortho spit into the crowd.



"Fuck you all!"



He was pulled down from the stands and led out of the room back into a cell where everyone would soon forget about him and throw away the key.



*



As the room emptied, the show over, Grand Moff Zell (retired) smiled inwardly. So the fucking pussy did his duty after all! I won't forget this, you fat bastard!










Present Day..



The alien ships appeared as if out of thin air. Zell knew this because the INS announcer was babbling as he walked past a local transmitter.


"...it's as if they are appearing out of thin air.."



Like there's air in space... fucking moron! Zell was flanked by various guards and troopers and it was a constant circumstance he had to deal with since this entire ordeal started.


The aliens were surgically establishing space superiority using a minimum of hardware which was truly impressive given the amount of hardware Zell could have thrown back at them. And he would have if he could have; had their logistical support not collapsed amid the panic. That was what was wrong with trying to defend a ecumenopolis! The trillion or so inhabitants who invariably mucked up the works by, in their panic driven mind to save their own sorry asses, getting in the way of military traffic who was charged with moving here and there trying to put out fires.

There was a particularly viscious arial fight taking place over several sectors but unless something happened and happened fast, the fight for aerospace would soon be lost.

Not that they were not fighting on the surface but why make things more difficult than necessary and if they could control key aerospace sectors, they could work out the kinks in their resupply lines and kick these alien asses back to whereever the fuck they came from.


But their comms were down for the moment and the fleet fighting for their life did not need a Regent looking over their shoulder bothering them every five minutes for an update. He could read a sensor screen like everyone else.


How these fucking aliens are powering their wormholes at bedrock level feeding their troops in Imperial Center was annoying.

But not as annoying as the enemy's trick of turning one's own fire on themselves. When the planetary batteries powered up in their slow, controlled and confident manner, Zell expected to see large divots open up all around Coruscant space as entire enemy ship clusters were vaporized. Instead, what happened was a series of wormholes opened up in front of the weapon shots and another series of worm holes opened elsewhere redirecting those shots back at Coruscant.


Oh, the beating they took for that one.


Now, the planetary batteries were silent as the power district for the Palatial Sector was aflame.


"Remain in your homes.." came the civic service announcement blaring in several hundred dialects and languages.


Zell and his entourage stopped and he waved impatiently for the large security doors to be opened. As the gears ground against themselves, the locking mechanism finally released, the Regent felt an almost perverse sense of satisfaction.


"Sir, I must protest.." stammered a small man that came through the doors once they were opened enough.


"Shut up," ordered Zell annoyed that the Warden would be the first out of the prison.

Behind him came a crowd of former inmates and the Regent's entourage lifted their weapons in warning.

"Listen up, all of you!" Zell shouted. "You are known to have military experience and therefore I am drafting your sorry asses. Consider this a full pardon but with strings attached. Those strings involve you searching out these alien bastards attacking us and killing them dead!

Any of you fuckers have a problem with that?


No?


Then these people behind me will have your assignments!"



The stream of people began to move past Zell, confusion being transformed into hope and the old man spotted a rather fat bastard among them.


"You! Gutt! I need you here!"



Upon hearing his name uttered from Azrael Zell, Ortho knew the old bastard was up to no good. He cautiously approached his Regent wondering if he had a better deal going for him inside the prison.


Zell's next words put those thoughts to flight. "How would you like to command a ship again?"



Ortho's eyes widened as if he had just been presented with a nubile and willing virgin teenager.


"Tell me more," he rasped licking his lips.


It was amazing how consistent Ortho Gutt's luck was.

Capricia


The house was quiet. The shadow of night had fallen over this part of the planet, concealing and comforting at the same time. There was something about the Caprician nights, something soothing about them. Nothing bad ever happened here, or so it seemed. Within the stronghold of the Commonwealth, the residents of the planet felt secure from all threats.

Within the house, the inhabitants shared this feeling of security. They went about their nightly tasks with no thought to danger, no heed to the darkness outside. Once, the woman stared out the window at the stars, thinking about the difficulties on other planets, other systems. But not here. She felt secure. The man never even considered the difficulties beyond. They were safe here.

After their tasks were done, the two sat down to talk and share a glass of the finest imported wine. They drank slowly, taking an hour to finish. When they did, they climbed into their bed and slowly dropped off to sleep, their feeling of security never wavering.

But all was not safe.

Outside the house, the dark figure smiled. His dark robes concealed him in the night, in the darkness. The Caprician night was, to him, also a security, but for him it was security of a different kind. It concealed him as he wrapped himself in it, it soothed his black heart, and it provided the perfect cover for what he was about to do.

For inside that house lay two children. Babies…Jedi babies. The figure’s grin widened at the thought of what he was about to do.

He moved slowly, taking his time to cover the ground between himself and the window on the ground floor. No one stirred. No one knew he was there. He was too good for that. I’m too good to be heard, too good to be felt, he thought, smiling to himself. Even the Jedi Masters can’t sense me. I’ll show her. I’m just as good as the rest.

It had been some time since his Mistress had sent him on a mission. The others had gotten to go, mostly mundane scouting missions, but they were going. But he “wasn’t ready.” Those were her words. He “wasn’t ready.” He was “too hot-headed.” “Too controlled by emotions.” But wasn’t being ruled by emotions part of what being a Sith was?

He growled softly at the thought. His anger gave him strength. Cloaking himself in the Dark Side, he let the power flow through him. Reaching out, he touched the minds of the house and suppressed them, simply giving them the thought that everything was okay, that everyone was safe. The minds remained in a state of slumber. Another chuckle. This was too easy.

This is where he would show that woman that he was worth something, that he was the best Sith. Anyone who could get into this house and murder these two babies under the nose of their parents, well, they had to be a good Sith, right?

Quietly, the window latches slid open. Again, he reached out with his mind. Security system. That would have to be disabled. Now came a dicey part. Reaching out, he slipped into the adult minds and searched, still keeping the mind suppressed so that it would not wake. There. Security code. Leaping in the window, the Sith moved through the house, quickly finding the keypad and punching in the code. Heh. Again, too easy.

He quickly slipped back into the babies’ room, moving like a shadow through the dark house. The adults were still sleeping, as were their children. Children. He smiled again. This was going to be fun.

Standing over the babies’ cribs, the shadow reached to his belt and withdrew two cylindrical objects, holding one in each hand. He’d have to do this quickly if he was going to escape. The open window was only ten feet away. Both would have to die at the same time, or else the adults would prevent him from ending the life of the second. Alright then. Weapons on, and a quick slash. That should do it.

Raising his arms, the shadow allowed himself a moment to gloat. He was the best Sith. He was the best Sith. He was…

A snap-hiss sounded behind him. Two snap-hisses. The shadow whirled and ignited both sabers, green and purple. Blade met blade, and the light of the glare showed the faces of two very angry Jedi Master parents. The Apprentice’s eyes widened as Leia Organa Solo Korban and her husband Tyscio both attacked. His defenses were quick, but he knew he wouldn’t last long.

Rolling between them, he ran for the door, but Tyscio was too fast. Gesturing with his hand, the door slammed shut and locked just before the Apprentice got there. All options were not yet out, though. Using the door as a pivot, the Apprentice flipped backwards and headed for the window. But Leia was there, blocking his path.

But…she was still weak from childbirth…

The Apprentice charged forward, his two sabers whirling. Leia fell back before the strikes, but it was only a feint. Even as the Apprentice struck, his other hand separated from his body as Tyscio’s blade cauterized the wrist. As the Sith screamed, Leia struck and removed his other arm just above the elbow. Unable to continue the fight, the Sith again attempted to get out the window, but a snap-kick from Leia stopped him cold. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

Capricia



The house was quiet. The shadow of night had fallen over this part of the planet, concealing and comforting at the same time. There was something about the Caprician nights, something soothing about them. Nothing bad ever happened here, or so it seemed. Within the stronghold of the Commonwealth, the residents of the planet felt secure from all threats.


The massive clang of the grapple reverberated across the expanse of waiting area as the soldiers waited to depart for they had come home. The securing of the Elrood Sector and the cracking of the woman Petra's grip on the criminal groups had been the boon that transformed the region into both a lucrative and prosperous concern.

Their mission finally over, the Stellar Explorer had served as the transport Mathias had used to return to the Commonwealth and to Capricia. It had been a few years since he had been in-system since the Conquest and memories began to pour into his mind the moment he stepped off the shuttle and inhaled the rich air of Homeworld.

A simulacrum appeared and helped him square away his luggage and lodgings and look up an old friend...


Within the house, the inhabitants shared this feeling of security. They went about their nightly tasks with no thought to danger, no heed to the darkness outside. Once, the woman stared out the window at the stars, thinking about the difficulties on other planets, other systems. But not here. She felt secure. The man never even considered the difficulties beyond. They were safe here.


"You don't think about the Republic do you?" Leia started, interrupting Tyscio's thoughts about where he needed to purchase some diapers.

"The Republic is an idea," he answered slowly wiping dry the dishes that she handed him. Typically, a droid or simulacrum would do the work but there was something satisfying that came from doing one's own work and seeing the fruits of one's labor. "It is an idea that is embraced here in the Commonwealth."

They lazily continued their conversation over a glass of wine before falling to sleep. Leia was always the restless of the two whereas Tyscio could make a home anywhere. Home used to be where you parked your backside but lately, with marriage and children, home was whereever they were.

Life had become routine and for that he was grateful. With all that was making the news (which made one think about what was not making the news), he was glad there was one corner of the galaxy were sanity still reigned.

He smiled at the mess the kids had made during the day and vowed to clean it up in the morning before drifting off...

He was dreaming a strange dream. He was sneaking through a house though he could not quite put his finger on whose house it was.

A security pad came into view and a smile played across his lips as he realized he was sneaking around in his own house.

His hand went up and danced across the pad as the password deactivated the warning system. As he moved through the home he noticed the empty wine glasses in the living room that he and Leia had shared not too long ago and his sleeping form frowned.

Something seemed odd...

The confusion was pushed aside though as he seemed to move into the baby room and he saw his children lying peacefully. He would have to do this quickly...

Tyscio's eyes snapped open and before he could bolt upright in panic, a palm rested across his chest and he noticed Leia rising motioning him to keep quiet.

He grabbed his lightsaber and as they both moved quietly towards the baby's room, he saw the door open and a figure standing above their respective cribs with two lightsaber hilts in each hand.

The bastard was going to take them both out!

They moved as if they were two halves of a whole and as the shadow's arms were raised they ignited their sabers drawing the intruder's attention.

Perhaps in panic to save his skin, the intruder dived between them putting the Korban's between the intruder and their children which is what they wanted. The surprise and simple attacking move had caused the intruder to remove himself from endangering the babies but Tyscio was not going to let him get away quite that easy.

With a gesture, the door closed but the intruder simply used it to propel himself towards an open window.

Leia was blocking his patch as Tyscio adjusted his attack and closed the trap.


*

Leia and Tyscio stared at the unconscious man. Tyscio was both angry and confused.

"Who the hell is this?" he demanded as if Leia would have the answers but she simply sat down, the exertion having taken it's toll.

"My guess would be a Sith," she remarked. "I don't know all their names as their ranks fill out and thin at whim."

Tyscio half-listened as he called Commonwealth Security and went about securing the prisoner.

A chime at the door and Tyscio gave Leia a surprised look. Security was unusually quick this evening but when the door opened a rather large and gruff-looking older man stood in the doorway, holding the galaxy's largest blaster over his shoulder with one hand and two squeek-toys in another.

"Mathias?" Tyscio asked dumbly.

"Sharp as ever, Corpsman," the man barked out and let himself into the home only see the overturned furniture, books and general knicknacks thrown about in the scuffle.

His eyes stopped on a man dressed in black missing two hands.

"Did I come at a bad time?" he asked dryly and Leia smiled though there was steel burning in her eyes.

"This man tried to off Jacen and Jaina while we slept." Tyscio filled in by way of explanation.

"Thank the Force, Tyscio doesn't pick up after the kids," Leia remarked. "He stepped on a toy which woke me."

Tyscio stared at his wife. "Which one?"

"The one with the frills. Jaina's, I think.." his wife answered absently.

"Damn!" Tyscio swore.

"What is it?" Mathias asked gratefully taking a drink being offered.

"It was an expensive toy," the Caprician grumbled.

"The kids?" The soldier asked.

"Slept through the whole thing. Clannus Prime, Mathias, what the hell do Sith want with us?"

"Two force users, one a Master and of the Skywalker clan? What do you think they want?" Leia answered bitterly, gesturing towards the baby room.

"But... why now?" the Caprician asked stubbornly. "Surely they had a better chance when you were pregnant..."

"You talk as if the Sith are some organized group. They are fractured and self serving, self centered and this ...this.... Sith is probably some hotheaded, ambitious fool who someone used."

"Who?" Mathias and Tyscio asked a the same time.

"You'll have to ask him.." Leia gestured at the unconscious intruder.

"I intend too..." Tyscio replied, a rare instance of malice creeping into his voice.

Commonwealth Security arrived and after a brief consultation, a drugged Sith with no arms was taken to a maximum security center where Tyscio would indeed have his chance at answers.

Leia disposed of the Sith's sabers and went back to sleep after having moved the children to her own room. Her eyes, however, remained open as she watched her babies sleeping form.

This night, their sense of security was shaken by a single intruder.

A Sith.

Relephon Moons - Former Hapan Regency



Lupercus Darksword walked the Royal Chambers of Relephon with grim determination. His expression was not grim because of what he was about to do but, rather, because of the reason why he had to do it. It was no secret he enjoyed the inflicting of pain on others but everything was towards an end. Usually.

The inflicting of pain was work and for a hedonist like Lupercus, work would only keep his interest if it added to whatever goal was being pursued at the time. But what was his pursuit this time?

The Chambers opened into a grand hall which lead to a veranda overlooking a valley where the morning sunlight was breaking through clouds to shine down upon.

The closer he got to the veranda, the more distinct sounds of moaning could be heard as if carried upon the winds to his ears like sweet music.

And it was sweet music.

He stopped just short of the edge savoring the smells and sounds.

Admiral Pitta marched with a cadre of soldiers carrying a pitifully frail Lucian D'alaetos stripped bare for all to gaze upon with contempt.

The former royalty of Relephon's boyish face was clouded with both fear and confusion as he was dragged forward.

"Ah... Lucian," Lupercus grandly encouraged, "Regale me again with tales of your prowess with that handy arrogant confidence of yours."

A few servants came out holding a chair for Lord Lupercus to rest his royal backside on along with a small table with all the acrutriments for beverages.

"Pour one for my good Admiral Pitta," the dark lord ordered the servants not even glancing at them. The servants obeyed at once, never doubting to whom the Hapan in Imperial clothing was directing his orders.

"My lord," Pitta started, "I am on duty.."

"We are not inside the Empire, Admiral but on a field excursion. A vacation, if you will. Do indulge me."

The Admiral knew better than to refuse and so nodded his acceptance (if not his thanks) and took the offered beverage taking care not to drink before his Lord. And it was just as well for as Lupercus raised the cup to his lips, he frowned throwing an angry glare at the servitor.

"Execute him!" he ordered and the soldiers needed no extra prompting. Before the servant could open his mouth in protest he had been shot down. Another group of servants appeared quickly taking the body and beverage articles from Pitta and Darksword.

"Nice try, Lucian, but your money is worthless against the power of the Force."

"Your religion has not helped you conjure up the Hapan throne, Lupercus..." whispered the soft man, his body shaking in the cool morning wind.

"Ahh, how little you know us Darkswords, D'alaetos. And how little my brother knows me." He took a sip of a rather warm tasting beverage replacing the tainted cup that required a servitor's execution. At Lupercus' partaking of the beverage, his Admiral followed suit.

"You failed to dislodge the Queen Mother in your failed attempt ..." Lucian began to shiver uncontrollably as the wind picked up, cutting off his tirade that was anything but fear-inspiring. Admiral Pitta briefly wondered how the soldiers who accompanied them thought of this tiny man who once held the power of life and death over his minions? He wondered how the citizens of his recently conquered Hapan Regency thought of this now insignificant man?

"Always the little dogs fight for the scraps while we Darkswords are lead around by our pricks." Lupercus jested in a rather amuse fashion. Pitta did not know whether to laugh at the self-effacing comment or not for who knew how Lupercus would interpret such laughter. He decided to keep his face neutral which, oddly enough, pleased the Dark Lord.

"You see, on the surface, Hapes, their allies the Commonwealth, the Empire and the galaxy at large are walking around with their buttholes puckered tight wondering where I will go next. That I came to the Hapes Regency fuels speculation and your own foolish desires that I might ally myself with you in your stupid rebellion against the Consortium and against the Queen Mother. My crushing utterly of your foolish Regency has suddenly dislodged speculation and they wonder has Lupercus some overt plan or is this another one of his whims? Perhaps I destroyed you to sleep with your sisters? Perhaps I just did not like the way you looked?"

He leaned in closer to the captive other, "Do know, Lucian, that I have and I do not."

The Dark Lord idly played with the armchair of his seat as he mused, "Ahh.. your sisters. Such flames of anger, arrogance ...such fear and finally, humilation against a power such as mine.... Tell me, Lucian, whatever did you think about putting them up as a Queen Mother? They are vipers, the lot of them!"

He laughed as his words sank into the other. "I admit to allowing the carnal flesh lead me to where I desire and, believe me, my dear brother is no different. You know we've had several Queen Mothers and the reason for that is my brother's insufferable prick! The Queen Mother changes with each chosen wife and I, as a good son of Hapes, felt it my duty to point out in rather strong terms that his previous choices for Queen Mother were, in fact, nothing short of prostituting the position out. Now, his latest wife seems capable and I have no quarrel with her."

"Then why did you come to Relephon!" the naked man demanded through chattering teeth.

"My good fellow, Lucian, if you had a spat with the present Queen Mother, how could I begrudge your grudge against the chosen woman to lead the Consortium? But you did not want that did you? In fact, you called for...what was it? ahh. yes! A 'Unified Hapes Consortium'. Under what family rule? What was it you said? What did you call yourself? Admiral?"

Admiral Pitta turned to a datapad and called up the pertinent information quoting, "It is for that reason that I, Crown Prince Lucian D'alaetos, have dispatched a series of political envoys throughout the cluster..."

"That's enough, Admiral," Lupercus cut him off darkly. "My good, Lucian. You decided to wage war with the Darksword family! While my brother misguidedly tried to protect your non-attacks against the Ta-Chume, I prepared for my assault on your family in classic Hapan tradition!

Why your Hapan Regency will not mourn you, my dear Lucian is because as you said...'Relephon respects and honors the tradition of the Hapes Consortium'!"

The Dark Lord leaned back in his chair and had a good long laugh as the former Relephon Nobleman shivered.

"Now? What to do with you, my dear Lucian?"

"My people will pay for my return.." the man whispered through chattering teeth, vowing to avenge this humiliation when he regained his freedom and power.

Lupercus, however, raised an inquisitive eyebrow. He turned to his Admiral Pitta, "People? My good man, Admiral Pitta, do you have an idea what he is talking about?"

The Admiral, for his part, knew what was coming but played his part in his Lord's farce. "My Lord, I believe he means his former supporters."

Lupercus Darksword turned an eye to Lucian, "Your people? Your former supporters? Is this what you mean?"

"You couldn't have turned everyone, Lupercus. There are some who remember loyalty and still would entrust their fealty to me!" D'alaetos hissed back.

Lupercus motioned for the guards to bring "dear old Lucian" to the edge of the veranda overlooking the valley.

Lucian heard the wind moan louder the nearer to the edge he got and as his eyes peered over, Lupercus' voice resounded over his shocked expression. "Ask any of your supporters, dear Lucian, if they would still entrust their fealty towards you?"

In the valley below, hundreds... possibly thousands ..of people were impaled on sharp, upright poles jutting from the ground. Several were still alive as sounds of moaning and of unendurable pain escaped their throats.

"Look over there, Lucian! Look!" Lupercus had risen from his chair to overlook the valley with the former nobleman and pointed, "There is your family plot... Your inlaws... your sisters! Their children! All one big happy conspiracy!"

It was a sight that crushed the self-pronounced Crown Prince of Relephon's sanity into pulp.

"You are the last.." Lupercus' voice sudden took on an ominous tone and Lucian D'alaetos wet himself as he saw a rather low table brought out towards the edge of the balcony.

"N..NN.. No!" he started to shout but the soldiers held him tight.

"Bring him," ordered the Dark Lord of the Sith and the soldiers picked up the captive laying him face down on the table, arms and legs spread wide.

An upside-down cross with a sharp point was brought out, the cold, hard tip coming to rest against his anus.

"Lu...Lup.. Lupercus... I.. I'll give you ... anything.." the man whimpered, shivering so uncontrollably that the soldiers braced down harder against his limbs.

A man came down the steps from the Hall to the veranda holding a rather large wooden mallet and took position behind the upside down cross making preparatory swings to ensure a good hit.

"The war between our families ends now, dear Lucian." Lupercus stated flatly and nodded to the servant with the mallet.

The man's screams echoed far out into the valley with each swing of the mallet driving the spike deeper into the man's cavity.

When the final swing left the former nobleman's feet resting on the beam of the upside-down cross, Lupercus motioned the cross to be brought upright. The man's moaning grew to a high pitched scream as gravity took it's hold. The short end of the cross was slid into a hole in the ground and the now-impaled Lucian D'alaetos was swung outward to face his family, friends and supporters.

"House D'alaetos is no more," Lupercus whispered and motioned for his Admiral and soldiers to follow him back into the Hall.


"Leave him for the birds.."




*



Present Day



The Commonwealth Fleet was arrayed inside the Transitory Mists but facing where? Relephon and D'alaetos' former Hapan Regency was inside the Mists which meant that Lupercus and his fleet had already crossed through into D'alaetos' former territory. His strikes were quick and complete shattering whatever forces Relephon's "Crown Prince" had gathered together to make his own bid for the Hapan Throne.

Therefore, it stood to reason that the Commonwealth Fleet, inside the Mists, stood between the Consortium and the rest of the Commonwealth.

It was an interesting position. One that recognized Hapan's authority to handle it's own internal matters but one that also reinforced the idea that Hapes was a valued member of the Commonwealth and they would not stand idly by while some fool of a leader launched an attack on Hapes.

Lupercus had to admit that even the Commonwealth's fleet position was a diplomatic statement in and of itself. Therefore, he had to make a statement of his own as his own advance fleet was arrayed against the Transitory Mists. He could have simply gone straight to Hapes but that would have left the Commonwealth Fleet behind his position.

"We've stopped at the designated coordinates," Admiral Pitta declared, nervous at the cloudy mists before him and his fleet.

"Do not worry, Admiral. They will not shoot unless fired upon and we have no intention of firing unless they provoke us. Now, open a transmission."

"Comm open, Lord!"

"To the Commonwealth Commander hiding in the Transitory Mists. I require an escort to Hapes to present to the Ta-Chume six rebellous worlds that fell under the former control of the usurper, Lucian D'alaetos."

Admiral Pitta turned to the Dark Lord in surprise. He had fully expected the fight to be a bloody mess but Lupercus was nothing if not unpredictable.

What was he doing?

Secure Prison Facility
Capricia


The prisoner lay on the hard bench he was provided, staring at the ceiling. He was a Sith; this prison should have been no problem for him. And yet he was stuck. There were no loose items in the room. It seemed as if his cell had been formed from one single block of steel. Not even any bolts he could remove and use as weapons. It was as if this cell had specifically been created to hold Sith like him.

But of course they would go through this trouble, wouldn’t they? He was the best Sith, after all. They all recognized it. He was very dangerous. It was a fluke that those Jedi had gotten the better of him. He was surprised, after all. They would never have been able to do that under normal conditions. Best Sith, best Sith, best Sith… His mind kept repeating the phrase, as if trying to tell him something. That’s right, he thought consciously. I am the best Sith.

These imbeciles here on Capricia had at least been smart enough to let his arms remain stubs. Had they attached artificial limbs, there would be nothing that could hold him in this cell. As it was, he was having a bit of trouble focusing the Force. Before, his hands had been the focal point of all his powers; now that they were gone, his attempts to unlock the cell door had been less than successful. It never occurred to him that he might just not be good enough.

For now, he contented himself with being patient. Sinking into a meditative state, he reached out with his mind and found his Mistress, somewhere between planets. He tried contacting her, but her mind was closed to him. Well, she’ll come around, he thought. I am, after all, the best Sith.


Unidentified Sith Shuttle
En route from Katarr to Korriban



“It is just you and your opponent. No one else exists, the universe and all that is in it is but a dream. Focus on your opponent. Feel his mind, watch his steps. Feel where his blade is. Now strike, quickly.”

The lightsaber blades swept forward in a flurry of blows, both opponents attacking rather than defending. Each had their own form, their own style. It was quite a bout to watch; neither could score a hit on the other. Both were dramatic in their fighting, as if they were performing for an audience. Their audience was one, and she was a most critical audience. The slightest mistake could draw her ire, and neither Apprentice wanted to do that.

Darth Skygge watched the two battle both with her eyes and through the Force. She saw them moving, saw the blades slashing and parrying, felt the two attempting to deceive or slow the other through the Force. They were getting good. It might be that soon the ranks of the Knights would begin to be filled. They would still be junior to her, but the Sith Order’s continued survival would be ensured.

It was difficult, training so many Apprentices on her own. All her strength had been put into breaking down what they had been taught, especially those who had begun to follow the teachings of Lupercus and Ithron. Vance’s teachings were much like her own, but even those had to be broken down. Then she had to build them back up, re-teaching them in the way she would have them taught. Skygge emphasized teamwork, unity amongst the Sith. No more lethal struggles for power. No more full surrender to the Darkness. Dark and Light were but phrases used to determine the nature of the person using the Force, not necessarily certain abilities. Force Lightning was no darker in and of itself than was Force Healing, and Force Healing was no lighter than Force Lightning. It depended upon the one who perpetrated the act.

Of course, there were two sides of the Force. Drawing on only the Light Side was the weakness of the Jedi, for they could not attain the power of the Darkness. But drawing on only the Dark Side was just as much a weakness, for then the Sith only used half of the available power. To draw on both, and to use them for one’s own purposes, and those of the Sith – that was what Skygge taught.

Suddenly, the male apprentice ducked as his opponent’s blade swept over him. As he ducked, he slammed his training saber’s point deep into the female human’s stomach. She gasped as the blade burned her; nevertheless she kept her wits and swept her saber in a backhand spin, slicing through her opponent’s neck even as he gloated.

Skygge smiled. “A double kill. How interesting. Elana, you did well. You kept your wits about you and ended your opponent, even at the cost of your own death. Telarni, you did well to get the kill. However, I believe you have been tainted by some stories of Sith like Darth Maul, who gloated over his victory over Qui-Gon Jinn. Qui-Gon was unable to draw on the Force to end his opponent; he was not strong enough. Your opponent may not be that weak.

“It is the Jedi way to sacrifice oneself for others. Death for them is simply a transition into the Force. I do not believe that is the way of those we face now. From what I saw on Xa Fel, our enemies will throw themselves on our blades to get a killing stroke. Always remember –“

She cut off as a presence touched her mind. She instantly closed down, hiding her position. After a moment, she said, “What news do we have of Nubett?”

Elana, holding her stomach and using the Force to heal the burns, both inside and out, said, “Didn’t we leave him on Katarr? He was supposed to work on bringing his emotions under control, right?”

Skygge nodded. “Then what in the blazes is he doing on Capricia…oh no.”

“Capricia?” asked Telarni. “Isn’t that…”

“Yes,” Skygge replied. “It is. He may have just made life very, very difficult for us. We need a course change. We’re going to Capricia.”

Coruscant



The shuttle shook as enemy fighters streaked by being chased by TIE Interceptors. The attackers were making bolder moves trying to penetrate defended areas sector by sector by sending their strike fighters and evaluating responses. At least, according to the Imperial High Command Combat Analysts. Whether their conclusions were true or not was anybody's guess and, as a passenger on an affected transport, Ortho Gutt could have cared less.

A transport nearby broke apart in multiple explosions causing the pilots of Ortho's shuttle to jig back and forth increasing speed.

Captain Gutt's forehead began to sweat and the rotund man wondered if this would be his last ride.

The pilot's efforts paid off as the shuttle soon entered the defensive sphere of the ISD Predator stationed in a holding pattern in the sector which served to protect the various numbers of smaller support ships and strike craft.

Regent Zell had approved of a "zone defense" structure around Imperial Center aimed at creating critical area suppression zones to deny the enemy footholds.

The strategy had slowed the enemy advance but whether it was working or not was unknown since the Imperial High Command did not really know the full extent of the resources the attackers could bring to bear. The conservative response to the attack, however, was the best card the Imperials could play given Coruscant's very finite supplies.

There was no need for panic as yet but the enemy was not slowing it's penetrating attacks both in space, in aerospace and on the ground and it was disconcerting.

The ISD hanger was a mess as it's compliment of fighters had been moved to make way for Ortho Gutt's arrival but the Captain did not seem to notice the inconvenience. The shuttle was hastily being moved so that the deck could return to the business of waging war and Ortho Gutt was escorted to the bridge.

"Tactical!" he shouted as soon as he stepped onto the catwalk overlooking the various bridge stations but the Commander of the Bridge was too busy giving orders directing the Predator's defensive fire to respond.

Incensed at being ignored, Ortho walked over and punched in his command code calling up the display that showed him not only the status of the sector his ship was protecting but the overall status of the attack.

His eyes widened in surprise as entire gray areas of space went red indicating attacker-won sectors and other areas of gray popping up indicating a successful defense of the Imperial Fleet. The changing of the scheme of gray to red and back created a flickering effect with the hologram impressing on Captain Gutt the amount of lives being snuffed out in this battle.

The Commander looked up as his coordinating computer suddenly went offline denying him command functions rerouting the combat station details to Ortho's location.

"Raise position Z plus thirty degrees and prepare to jump to lightspeed!" Ortho had ordered and the engine crew jumped to relay the new commands.

"What are you doing?" shouted the Commander in charge and as he rushed over to Ortho, his eyes widened, "You!?? The Regent sent you!?"

Ortho Gutt heard the contempt in the man's voice and drew himself up to his full height which was not all that impressive.

"That is correct, Commander!" Ortho barked back and continued to bully on ahead, "Apparently, your weak defense of this sector leaves much to be desired."

The Commander did not know whether to be outraged that Ortho Gutt had been given command or that his new Captain called into question his strategy of defense that had, so far, kept the enemy from encroaching too firmly into their designated sector.

"Learned all that from your shuttle trip?" the Commander grounded out sarcastically but a sudden shift of the ship stopped further comment.

"Captain, support fleet is demanding to know our intentions. They are being uncovered.." came a voice from the Comm Station.

"Emperor's Black Bones!" the Commander whispered. "We are out of position! They are sitting nerfs!"

The Predator had suddenly shifted out of the protection formation leaving several smaller strike vessels without the protection of the ISD's heavy batteries but Ortho waved the Comm Officer away.

"They take orders from us, we do not take orders from them!" Captain Gutt relayed. "Order them to maintain defensive stations!"

"Without our guns?!" the Commander shouted. "They'll be cut to ribbons!"

As if to underline the Commander's worries, the enemy probes suddenly increased in intensity as if they sensed a changing situation in their sector and were preparing to take advantage of the situation.

Several gray adjacent sectors on the tactical map went red and the support ship's calls to the Predator became frantic. The position of the ISD did not allow for any of her port or starboard guns to track incoming enemy vectors and the enemy followed the opening with larger gunships to capitalize on their fighter's penetration.

In less time than it took Ortho to walk across the catwalk the sector his ISD was to protect went from grey to red and all the blood drained from Ortho's face.

It was happening too fast!

"Jump!" he shouted. "Get us out of here or we are all dead!"

The Commander shouted "NO!" but the ship's Captain was closer to the helm station and when the bridge station signaled the ship's readiness for light speed, they carried out Ortho's order.

The trip was short-lived for their position took them more in-system rather than out and the mass shadow of the next planet closer to the sun pulled the Predator out of hyperspace.

"You cowardly fool!" shouted the Commander as Station Leaders took advantage of the reprieve to initiate emergency damage control procedures which were easier to carry out when no one was shooting at you.

"You will turn us around or I will have you shot for treason right now!"

Ortho's face dripped sweat and his lip quivered in fear.

"Too..fast.." he whispered as if in a daze.



Coruscant



"That fat bastard!" shouted Zell as the indicator showed that the Imperator he had sent Gutt too jumped out leaving the ships they were supposed to be protecting vulnerable to the enemy onslaught. The sector turned red and his eyes narrowed as each of the smaller Imperial warships began to blink out of existence as they were blown to bits.

Secure Prison Facility
Capricia




Gomorran Kay looked at the prisoner with interest. He stood before the man lowering himself to gaze into the other's eyes but found them emtpy.


Or, rather, found those of his simulacrum to be empty and for good reason. They had not performed the pattern scan to upload into the simulacrum that which would have given them a near perfect personality of the prisoner without the Sith's force ability mucking up the process. But how to get a scan from a Sith, even a fool of one, was the question.


There were creatures that could inhibit a force-user's connection to the Force but they were not exactly conveniently within arm's reach. Calls had gone out and appointments were made but even with all their technological wonders, things (as always) still took time.


"I could hold him down, drive stakes into his limbs and keep his head still, " Leia offered much to Gomorran's amusement and Tyscio's surprise. Family was sacroscant on Capricia from noble to minor Houses and on up to the old Clans. To violate a family member was to violate the entire House and/or community.


"He's not that powerful," the Jedi Master added.


"He swiped the security codes from my mind," Tyscio pointed out but Leia shook her head.


"You were asleep and you confused the warnings of the Force with anxiety from a dream. But, even then, Jedi are not omniscient and neither are the Sith."


Gomorran shook his head, "I still do not know what a Sith is. What makes them so special besides twirling a lightsaber and using the Force? I mean, are they stupid enough to think that a self-absorbed agenda is the way to true happiness or power or whatever?"


Leia looked at the Council Leader and nodded, "Yes, Gomorran. They are."


When the Caprician looked at her in exasperation she clarified, "We have powers, both the Jedi and the Sith, that no one else has. Therefore, we know that we are in a class all our own. The main difference between both the Jedi and the Sith is the way we feel we must use our powers. The Jedi feel that their powers are a responsibility and with that responsibility comes the burden. Burden to do the right thing. Promote the right thing. Usually, that means supporting a government that is dedicated to doing the right thing. Even we do not always get it right and sometimes those governments that we do support fail. There are some that feel we should organize the Jedi into a nation, into an Order and pick one government over another but even that sort of decision is dangerous and takes careful consideration and meditation. We are not gods.

The Sith think they are. They feel rather than to serve those beings who do not have the same Force potential across the galaxy, that those beings should be made to serve them. That the power of the Force somehow makes them special, chosen to be gods among mortals." Leia sighed, "So the Jedi spend most of their time trying to undo the damage done by the Sith or reign in their excesses."


"But you will never ultimately defeat them," Gomorran concluded.


"No. Nor they us. It is a statistical impossibility."


"Your brother was once called the last Jedi."


"At the time, he was. But the Force was strong with me as well, even at that time. The Force was strong with alot of people across this galaxy and it still is. How they chose to live with this power and their potential will determine if they will follow in the footsteps of the Jedi purpose or the Sith. These people may not use the name 'Jedi' or they may preface that name with something else to distinguish themselves apart but whatever they call themselves, the key is their chosen path in how they will live their lives with this power. If they try to investigate and search for ways to mold this power and enhance what they can do with it, the main question will always be: to what end?"


"What good is ability without purpose?" Tyscio chimed in and the Capricians nodded. The duality of ability and purpose was central to Capricia ideology.


"Point," Gomorran conceded. "But this attack...it is not necessarily on the Commonwealth Proper but on the Caprician family of Korban. Now, I can understand that as a public figure that has helped to bring down the Empire once and fought against countless Sith, I can see why there would be an attack against you personally, but," he paused, "Why now? You've been with us for several years so why now, all of a sudden, are you a target?"


Leantre Vio, former Regent of Capricia, walked into the room, "Lupercus Darksword seems to have tightened his grip on Relephon." He looked at the hologram of the Sith, "So is this the attacker?"


"That's him," Tyscio answered and the old man grunted.


"We could just tranquilize him and burn the body and go back to our business," Leantre pointed out.


"That's a bit cold hearted," Gomorran remarked but the old man shrugged.


"When you have lived as long as I have, you know when fools can be reasoned with and when they can't. Anything else is just a waste of your time."


"Since when are you a cynic, Leantre," Tyscio chided and the old man turned his angry eyes at the younger man. "Since Caprician babies are in danger of being murdered in their sleep!"


The old man stepped closer to Tyscio, "In fact, I am wondering why you are not clawing at the walls to boil this man's skin off. He tried to kill your children!"


Tyscio looked at the old man and stated seriously, "I am angry but I am not a murdering, psychopathic son of a bitch, Sir."


Leantre's stern face stared at Tyscio for a second before breaking out into a grin.


"Point taken, son. Point taken." He turned to the simulacrum. "So what do we do with him? With Lupercus on Relephon, is this the work of an idiot or some fringe group of Sith or is this a part of a greater plan, towards a larger purpose?"


"What do you mean?" Gomorran asked the old man but it was Leia who answered. "Lupercus may be taking a page from Simon Kaine. Kaine initiated or allowed Lupercus and his Sith to attack the Jedi Temple on Naboo. It was an attack strong enough to capture our attention but weak enough that Lupercus could not actually take the planet."


Gomorran nodded slowly. "We are not exactly cookie-cutting Jedi like the Confederation may or may not be doing but we've got what? You, Leia? Tyscio?... Scipio and I are untrained and would only get in the way... Natalya Vinda is coming along but let's face it, We are behind even the League of Nations when it comes to force-users and alot of that is because we have not outlined clearly what the status of a force user or any force user groups may be found within our political boundaries. We'd have to rely on the simulacrums but even that is unprecendented and Hespante would have an earful to say on the subject. What I am saying is whatever we have is not much. So perhaps this attack is aimed at you, the most powerful Jedi Master within the Commonwealth right now to keep you distracted from using your Force-driven intuition to thwart his plans?"


"That actually makes alot of sense," Tyscio admitted.


"If we were talking about Simon Kaine, I would agree," Leia added. "But the Lupercus I know does not plan that intricately. Sure, Kaine may have rubbed off on him but Lupercus' personality does not leave much room for the patience required to await the pay benefit of a plan later. He wants his satisfaction now. Whether or not Lupercus is behind this move, I do not think it is part of a greater goal. It may be, if this move was initiated by him, he is simply trying to get rid of an alcolyte and if the alcolyte should actually succeed, so much the better."


"There is something else to consider," Tyscio said slowly and the group turned to him.


"The kids are kin to the Skywalker Clan. That means Leia, that means Luke Skywalker... that means Anakin Skywalker."



Darth Vader



"The children's force adeptness has yet to be determined, Tyscio," Leia reminded but Tyscio waved that away.


"I am not talking about their power, which may or may not be considerable given their lineage, but Anakin Skywalker was supposed to be this Chosen One of prophecy to bring balance to the Force."


"He did," Leia murmured, "He destroyed the Jedi!"


Tyscio nodded. "Yes, some see the equalizing numerically of Jedi and Sith as this balance. But not every Sith or Jedi buys that. Perhaps Anakin is bringing balance to the Force by means of his lineage? Perhaps some see importance not in Anakin himself but in his family line with regards to prophecy?"


Gomorran rubbed his forehead. "So, you are telling me that if your wife had married someone else, say Han Solo for example, and had children, the Sith and everything evil would have simply hunted her and her family down but because she married you instead, now there's a Caprician element not formerly in the equation and so, the longer you are here, the more we will be dealing with the Sith and everything evil?"


Tyscio gave his best innocent look, "Hey, blame my irresistable Caprician charm!"


Leia rolled her eyes and Tyscio chuckled lightly, "Seriously, though. It stands to reason that this fool," pointing to the simulacrum, "did not dress himself or train himself. He represents someone and sooner or later they will come calling. We have technologies that forcer users may not have faced before but that does not mean we should underestimate them. This Sith attacker may be a fool but that does not mean he could not get into my home and in the room of our children."


Leia nodded, "Someone will come for him whether he talks to us or not."



"What makes you say that?" Leantre asked curiously.


"Paranoia. They will either come to break him out or to finish him off but either way, they will come. Usually, it is the Jedi that seek them out and fish them out from whatever rock they hide under but nowadays, with Sith running around the galaxy like Lupercus, they have a greater sense of self-confidence."


Gomorran nodded firmly, "Then perhaps... they'll make a mistake and that is when we'll have them."


Tyscio looked at the Council Leader, "I've faced off with a Sith Master called Recon Klain once. He nearly killed me."


Leia smirked, "Think of how much more you've learned since then.."


Tyscio raised his eyebrows, "Obviously not enough to keep myself out of the frying pan and into the fire!"


And the Sith prisoner, oblivious to the discussions surrounding his incarceration went from "prisoner" to "bait".


But bait for who? And bait for what?

Summit-class Battleship Fidelitas, Ecnal System

“There’s one warship I wouldn’t want to serve on,” commented Florian, eying a refitted Consular barge slip out of the Fidelita’s manufacturing bay.

“You call it a warship, I call it a death trap,” insisted Abell, “you can add a bunch of rocket launchers and point-defences to a ship, but that doesn’t make it a warship. You have to have the warriors and the hardware.”

Florian let a grin slide up his face, “You don’t believe in the citizen-soldier?”

“Oh, I believe in the citizen-soldier,” affirmed Abell, “I just believe that not everyone can be the citizen-soldier.”

Florian shrugged and picked up another shot glass, “Well, for its worth, I’d rather have them here than have us stay over Dagobah II.”

“Dagobah II?” grinned the Captain, “as much as I hate the backwardness of outer rim worlds, Ecnal isn’t too bad. At least there is an abundant supply of saki.”

“And that’s probably the only thing it has going for it,” considered Florian, “along with the defensivability of the terrain against everyone.”

“A double-edged sword,” agreed Abell.


New Invil City II, Ecnal

“Couldn’t we have thought of a better name?” complained the President.

Everard snorted, “It’s better than New New Invil City.”

“Or New Oldtown,” offered her 3PO unit.

Bonnin winced, “Sometimes I wonder how democracy has managed to survive with the idioticity of some people.”

“Like our people?” smiled the Colonel.

She gravely nodded.

“Well, they did elect you as President.”

Bonnin bared a rare smile, “And you ended up as a Colonel somehow.”

The pilot frowned. “You aren’t insinuating that-?”

“Are you?” asked the President.

“No, I guess not,” replied Terence, running a hand through his chestnut locks.

“But you know that I haven’t asked you to come here from your duties to simply talk about these things. We have a larger concern.”

“The Rimward Defense Initiative?” questioned the Colonel.

She nodded. “They could potentially garner too much outside and internal support. It would mean a power exchange.”

Terence snorted. “I have no interest in your politics. I care that we get our homes back, regardless of who’s in charge. And it doesn’t have to be you.”

“I am your superior-”

“You were,” corrected Terence, “but my official allegiance is now to the Confederation, and more locally to the governor of Ecnal.”

“And Invil?”

“My heart is always with Invil,” answered Everard, “and it was always be so. But you are not Invil, and you never were. Invil was my home, where my family was; the woods where my son and I went camping; where we hunted, and where I learned to fly. But that Invil is no more right now. But I will do my part in getting our old Invil back, regardless of who claims to hold the power of our people’s leadership.”

“I am the people’s heart,” stated Geneviéve, staring hard at the Colonel, “And I will be as long as Invil’s people want me to be their leader. You may think of Invil as some place light years away from here. But at least to me, Invil is its people. We can make any planet into Invil, as long as we have Invilians.”

“Now, will you follow our nation’s concerns in these trying times?”


Revanche-class Star Defender Swiftsure, Transitory Mists

“Well sir, whatta think of them?” asked Captain Rylos.

Costigan snorted. “I think they’re a bunch of F-”

“Sir, the Dahlonega is changing course.”

“Why thank you,” swore the Commodore, “I can never tell when the super star destroyer in front of me is changing orbit. It’s so tiny. As for you Rylos, I think we’re dealing with a bunch of green troops in the newest built old ships. I’m not saying that they’re bad, just that they’re old-fashioned.”

“Peacocks?”

Brailey nodded. “That too. But I’d definitely be up for picking up some of their female peacocks from the groundside. Fine things they are.”

Rylos leaned in closer to the Commodore, “I’d be up picking up that diplomat we’re carrying around.”

“That blonde?”

Rylos conspiratorially smiled, “She looks fine.”

Brailey snorted. “That’s one girl I wouldn’t touch if I were you. She’s connected to Pro-Consul Thorn of the Kashans. She could probably break you down with her political clout if you somehow messed things up with her. Kitty Hawk’s her name right, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Funny,” considered the Genarius man, “she doesn’t remind me much of either a hawk or a cat. And don’t even think about it.”

“Ah…yes sir.”

Brailey dismissively waved a hand, “We have more important things to talk about. Like where the hell this Imp armada is…”

“I do not know sir.”

“Why thank you Captain Obvious, that is all I wanted to here from you,” laughed the man, “do you have any guesses.”

“Sir no sir.”

Costigan nodded. “Neither do I. Do you know what that means?”

“We go out to find them?”

Brailey sagely nodded. “Correct, so go over there, and get in that escape pod and go find them.”

“Hahahaha,” droned the man.

“Shut up banana weezer,” rebuked the Commodore, “get to the Flight Controller and arrange some stealth recon flights of the surrounding areas. We should have enough Deathsabers and Shadowcasters to maintain patrols in all of the major shipping lanes at all times.”

“Yes sir.”

“Chop chop, Captain, get to work. Tax payers aren't paying you for nothing.”

Revanche-class Star Defender Swiftsure, Transitory Mists

She let a smug grin flicker across her sweaty face; her steel blue eyes simultaneously enchanting and threatening the man before her. The man’s hazel eyes flared up in determination, and he began his advance with a fierce grunt. Still smiling, she let sinuously let her body unfold into another K’tara stance. She briefly jerked her chin up and down in an almost spiteful nod.

“You can’t always be this weak, Marc.”

The huge man lunged at her with surprising speed and dexterity. Better, much better. You have definitely improved since I have last seen you...She did not bother to try and block the lunging hands; it would be futile for her to try and match his brute strength. Instead, the lithe woman stepped forward into his embrace, with her fist leading. Her left jab lashed out at the man’s eyes, temporary blocking his vision to a more devastating attack, an uppercut to his chin with her right hand. As the man’s hands embraced her, they recoiled; like waves washing to and from the shore. But as the man staggered back, one of his feet surged upwards, half in control and half in sporadic passion, and swung up into Kitty’s arms.

Both black-clad Jensaarai fell back under the recoil of their attacks. Marc rigidly assumed another stance, like a nightmare of a self-repairing battle droid. Kitty lightly licked her lips; her steel blue eyes gazing at the man who moved like an industrial machine. Power and precision, and no grace. Still the same man as he was back in the Academy, but better; improved.

“It’s your turn to start the attack,” grunted the Jensaarai warrior.

She flashed a serpentine grin, “So it is; give me a moment.”

“You can’t always be this weak,” mimed Marc with a reticent grin.

She let her consciousness fade from the room, from Marc, from her very senses. It slowly sank into the currents. She reached for it, felt a tendril briefly jumpstart her fading energy, letting it sink again as she deftly waded into the Force. Her light breathing seemed to grind to a halt as she entered her Jensaarai trance. She felt a spur of energy rush up through her body. Men love surprises. Always.

Her left hand surged out towards Marc only for its advance to be checked by a lack of movement from the rest of her body. The other Jensaarai frowned. Energy rippled through her body out of that hand, producing a blinding Force light. As Marc’s hands instinctively rose up to shield his eyes, Kitty leaped forward with a punch. The jab smashed into the man’s hands and bounced right off. Marc instinctively kicked in the jab’s direction; but merely Kitty slid past it with an elegant sidestep. She advanced again, continuing forward with an elbow smash that crashed into the man’s light-defeating guard.

He stumbled back; Kitty halted. The Force let its own peculiar rhythm flutter through the combatants. Marc mechanically snapped into a balanced guard, while Kitty drew a dagger from a forearm sheath.

No glint of steel emanated from the blade; only the dull glossiness of obsidian. But it was a far cry from that common material. Cortosis, carbides, and metal from the Academy’s structure itself had been molecularly bonded and shaped into a work of art; the lightside version of a Sith sword in dagger form. As she grasped the hilt, Kitty felt the force presence of the hundreds of Jedis who had trained at the Almas Academy lightly impressed into the blade. She let her mind wander into their thoughts and emotions; a portable focus for the light side of the Force. She slipped into a peaceful state of mind that transcended any normal meditation she was capable of doing herself. A voiced roused her from the beyond and drew her back to the dull normalcy.

“Ah Kitty, I didn’t bring my lightsaber to our practice session…you aren’t planning for to go unarmed against that….I hope.”

“Well no,” mused the agent, “but I rather need some practice with it against a lightsaber-”

“I’m a bit tired; I sparred with Laura right before you, but I know that there are others who should be ready for that sort of thing; in mind and body.”

“Who’s the best lightsaber duelist in our missions group, aside from yourself?”

Marc considered, “Probably Marie.”

“If you could be so kind?”

He nodded. “She will probably be delighted to test her mettle against you.”

Commonwealth

Operation Sit & Wait

Day Five


Disgraced infantry captain, Captain Tarn Sarno, entered the Dahlonega’s darkened Admiralty quarters unannounced. In typical military fashion, he stopped just inside the room and waited for his eyes to adjust to low light. The only sound in the stark room was that of a rough brush on leather boots.

“They send you to kill me Tarn?” asked Wilkar, breaking the near silence of his quarters.

“Not today Admiral Wilkar… Not today… Why do you ask?” quipped Tarn, revealing a rare smile as he stepped over a pile of half polished boots.

“Assassins don’t knock.”

“On occasion neither do friends.”

The admiral shrugged and continued to polish.

“Is that prick executive officer carrying out my orders? Scouts? Keeping those fucking mercenary Kashans flanked?” inquired Wilkar.

“Yes sir… We’ve got all the scout squadrons out. They’re all covering their sectors. The second that son of bitch drops to sublight we’ll know. As for the Kashans… Impatient as hell but holding position on our flank…”

Wilkar continued to polish the boot in silence for some time. The tobacco in his lip worked from one side of the admiral’s mouth to the other. “I guess that Costigan fuck still wants to meet with me?” asked the admiral looking up from his boots.

“Looks that way sir… Honestly I think he just wants to see the inside of the Dahlonega… Get a feeling of what kind of hardware he’s got on his flank.”

“The less those fucking mercs know the better as far as I’m concerned…”

The admiral kept polishing, rubbing the brush in tight circles over the same piece of bantha hide over and over again. Tarn watched him in silence.

“You think he’ll show today don’t you Admiral?”

“Yeah… I reckon he’ll show. I’ve got a knack for knowing things like that. Only reason I’m still alive…” answered the admiral as he pulled one of the boots over his foot.
Tarn nodded. “You know you ought to get a woman to pick you out a pair of boots that don’t need polishing.”

The admiral snorted. “Never has a woman been able to stand the sight of me long enough to buy me a pair of boots.” He hung is head low as he pulled the other boot over his foot. “None alive at least… goddamn…” he whispered.

The admiral stood up and looked in his quarter’s mirror. He ran some water in the sink and slicked back his graying hair. His beard which was now gray throughout needed shaving, but he didn’t bother. He looked down at his chronometer, and then he looked up at Tarn.

“I guess it’s about time for him to show up. Let’s go to the bridge Captain.”

* * *

The Transitory Mists filled the Dahlonega’s main viewer. Wilkar strained his tired eyes as if doing so would somehow melt the mists and allow him to see the advance guard of the rogue Imperial fleet. Then it appeared. Blocks of Imperial gray broke the mists like a lightsaber through ice.

"To the Commonwealth Commander hiding in the Transitory Mists. I require an escort to Hapes to present to the Ta-Chume six rebellous worlds that fell under the former control of the usurper, Lucian D'alaetos."

It was the first time Wilkar had heard the voice of the man who killed him every night in his dreams. It was the voice of the man who sat on his chest suffocating him when he lay awake. In his mind’s eye, Wilkar saw his eyes opened as wide as the muzzle of a turbolaser, and himself doubling over and vomiting. He maintained composure even with every ounce of his body screaming for him to give the order to open fire.

“On behalf of the Crown and the Commonwealth, we are most grateful to you, Lord Lupercus, for removing the thorn in our side that was Lucian D’alaetos, but…” Wilkar chose he words carefully. “Under orders from my government and in the best interests of Hapes, I can not allow you or the vessels of your fleet to continue any further, and I respectfully request that you leave the Hapes Consortium peacefully.” Wilkar wondered if a few million kilometers was too far away for a Sith Lord to choke him to death.

Revanche-class Star Defender Swiftsure, Transitory Mists

Costigan managed to spare another glance at the new Sub-Lieutenant; fresh from the Abhean Star Academy. Well, not terribly new; he had been on the Swiftsure for nearly three months, but Costigan had yet to figure out his name. Everyone simply referred to him as the "Sub-Lieutenant", as if ranks were a surname or a class of battle droid which the Academies built for the fleet. The man coolly returned his gaze, and Costigan offered him a sardonic smile. And as quickly as he looked at him, the man nonchalantly went back to viewing his monitor.

"We're about to have company."

Costigan whipped his head around; Kitty Hawk was leaning forward on the back of his command chair. A wave of annoyance and surprise started to wash over his mind; only to met and diverted by some unseen influence. The man felt at ease, and Kitty let a sarcastic smile of her own sweep across her face.

"Some darksider," mused the Jensaarai agent, "his presence is unusually strong. He has done many dark deeds."

"Some Lord Luperpants or Panticus or something like that," nodded Costigan, "it's about time; he's late..."

"Sir," reported the Sub-Lieutenant loudly, "we have new contacts coming in; spotted by one of our forward sentry flights-"

"We have a message in the clear coming through-"

"To the Commonwealth Commander hiding in the Transitory Mists. I require an escort to Hapes to present to the Ta-Chume six rebellous worlds that fell under the former control of the usurper, Lucian D'alaetos."

"The voice matches that of the Imperial governor of Corellia," announced a crewmember, "according to our records."

"I think this is our man," muttered the Commodore.

"He is our man," acknowledged the Jensaarai.

"Your man?"

The woman offered a half-annoyed glare at him, "And here I thought that we were starting to get along..."

"What do we do sir?" asked the Captain.

"Send all ships within the fleet to action stations, and prepare all ships for combat," decided Bradley, "but let's not get too provocative yet. I don't want any ship changing position yet, nor any idiot gunner firing a single shot at these people yet. If the Commonwealth and the Imps have something else planned, like actually escorting that idiot, we're not going to screw it up."

"Sir," reported an officer, "our liaison officer has reported that Admiral Wilkar has ordered the Imperial fleet to leave immediately."

"Because the Imps always listen to other government's orders," grinned Costigan, "the Imps aren't going to listen. I want our artillery cruisers to begin orienting themselves at the enemy fleet and to use passive sensors to align themselves with targets based on positions provided by our recon flights. Suffrens are authorized to deploy their targetting drones now to add in that purpose."

Costigan whipped his head around as a set of blastdoors opened on the side of the bridge; admitting a group of Jensaarai clad in their unique battle armors and other clothing. Kitty strode over to them.

"I hope you all know it," considered the woman, "battle is likely now, so this is it. Defend your stations with the dedication that you have shown in your training, and we will make it out all right in the grand scheme of things, and in the life to come. Peace to you all."

Facing the Transitory Mists




Lupercus frowned.


Not at the response from the crusty warrior from the Commonwealth but because something else was telling him...


"We are not alone," he murmured and he glanced at Pitta who raised an eyebrow as the sensors continued to indicate that they were, in fact, facing the Transitory Mists. In other words, the scanners showed him nothing. Not that the sensors of those hiding within the Mists fared much better but they had the advantage of knowing the area and having picked stations of their choosing.


"This Mist is.." the Admiral started to complain but Lupercus raised a hand. "I know about the Mist, Admiral. It has served Hapes for generations."


"Lord," Pitta started carefully, "While I have no doubt that our battlegroups here are more than enough for whatever this person has hidden, if we had everything we brought from Corellia here.."


"We would what?" Lupercus demanded at his Admiral.


"Would these people be any more dead?" Lupercus grinned and Pitta scowled. He hated when Lupercus got into one of his moods, even if it was not particularly malevolent.


"Relax, Admiral. First of all, this is only the first transmission and while a certain amount of rancor is expected from whoever this person is, they cannot afford to kill me."


The Admiral frowned, "I know the Sith live on after death in some form.."


The Dark Lord laughed out loud at that. "If you call that living," he chided. "My statement, my dear Admiral Pitta, is not based on some mystical force-magic but on political reality. It took my good brother an entire year of negotiating with this Commonwealth to bring my people and the Commonwealth together. And even then, after all that, several Consortium worlds chose not to follow the Ta-Chume or the Royal Family and chose to follow the flag of our dear departed Lucian and they created their own government, this.." he waved his hand about, "..Hapan Regency. My brother was foolish for giving them the choice but that is what this Commonwealth is all about, eh? Choice.

What they do not realize is that Hapans will make their choices based on centuries of Hapan traditions. It will be a generation or two or perhaps longer before Commonwealth culture saturates the Consortium but for now... Now! Hapan Royalty matters.

I am dangerous to this Commonwealth now because as ruler of Lucian's Hapan Regency, I bring a legitimacy he never could have. I AM a member of the Ta-Chume's family."


"It also does not hurt that you brought along an entire Imperial Fleet," the Admiral cautioned.


"Hapes will never forgive an outsider dealing with what is essentially their problem. Hapan pride and all that."


"My Lord," Pitta interrupted, "Your reputation and exile.."


"My exile was because of my attack on Dakkon's former wife, the former Ta-Chume and it was a family matter and handled privately. Dakkon dealt with me according to our traditions..." Lupercus' voice darkened, "In the most harshest manner possible but.." his expression brightened, "he was besotted with the wench back then. Who of us has not been a little foolish when it comes to women?"


"Open a channel," the Sith ordered and he glanced out towards the Mists.


"To the commander of the Commonwealth Fleet, I am sure you will be relieved to know that I am not within Consortium boundaries but Regency boundaries. In fact, if you were to exit the Mists, you will be outside your territory and inside Regency Space. You may have been misled by my use of the term 'rebels' in connection with this Regency but, as I am sure you know, they are not rebels towards the Commonwealth for you granted them their political sovereignty with your Hapan Accords. They are, however, traitors to Hapan society, and to the royal family."


Lupercus paused, "You no doubt fear my record in battles and cunning and therefore fear ill from my fleet. In that, you are wise."


His gaze penetrated towards the direction of the Mists.


"I am not here for Commonwealth blood. I am here for a purely Hapan matter and would, further, compell you to contact my dear brother, no doubt attending some Commonwealth government function to meet me on Hapes. I plan to have you escort myself, not my fleet, to Hapes aboard your battleship or other vessel your fear directs to Hapes to present the Regency lock, stock and barrel to my family as a gift. My fleet will remain within Regency space until the transfer at which point I will leave with them. I doubt," he smiled, "that there will be much business my brother would have me attend on Hapes."


The Dark Lord of the Sith saw the expression on his soldier's face and shrugged, "If you and your Commonwealth feel that Hapes does not deserve to have the Regency, you may deny my request, at which point, I will content myself to ruling Lucian's former territories myself."


Admiral Pitta frowned for how would Lupercus pull off being a subject of the Emperor or Regent and yet, an equal, holding his own court on Relephon? What would those divided loyalties mean for Imperial soldiers such as himself?

Regent Zell might just brand them all traitors leaving them with no home but Relephon or Lupercus may yet simply annex the Regency to the Empire (under control of his Protectorate of course) bringing yet more accolades and prestige to himself. Perhaps with that popularity of public support (the thought was irony itself) he may make a bid for Azrael Zell's spot?

Did Lupercus have such ambitions?

It was hard to tell with the hedonistic man for he could be utterly selfish ignoring all but his fleshly cravings on the one hand and yet the man advances within whatever society he attaches himself too.


Like a parasite?


He cast a hooded gaze towards his Lord wondering for the thousandth time if the Sith could his mind. He also wondered if his own rising star would be able to ride the Dark Lord's coattails of success or if he would also, eventually be tossed aside like so many of the Dark Lord's underlings.


He knew the Commonwealth man would tell them to go to hell leaving Lupercus to work out his plot for the Regency and Empire in his own way. But a sudden fear overcame the Admiral.


What if the codgy old bastard in the Mists took Lupercus up on his offer? Would the Dark Lord actually give the Regency to his estranged family?

If that happened, Zell was sure to brand them all traitors the only thing remaining would be the manner in which they all were executed.

Zell was nothing if not inventive.


"I would have your answer," Lupercus demanded in the transmission and Admiral Pitta realized that all their futures for their part in this tale was about to be decided by some unknown, unseen gruffy Commonwealth voice on the other side of the channel.


Lupercus, of course, seemed unconcerned or oblivious to his Admiral's anxiety.

Coruscant System



"Too Fast..." the rotund Captain whispered when his subordinates snapped their fingers calling several Stormtroopers over.


"Arrest this man for treason!" the officer shouted and Ortho was lead towards the lift that would take him further into the bowels of his ship.

"Prepare to come about!" the Predator's new commander shouted over the klaxon and Ortho's panic suddenly spiked.

"Wait! No!" he wailed but to no avail. The Stormtroopers held him firmly waiting for the lift to arrive and the doors to part. Ortho could feel the engine's power plants cycling as station pits called out their preparedness to once again enter the fight.


Madness!


"Jump in 3.....2......1 ... JUMP!" and the ship gave a shudder giving evidence to the hasty repairs the Damage Control Teams had carried out.

The burst to lightspeed was seconds at worst, less than a second at best and as the lift doors opened Ortho turned to gaze out the bridge viewports into the madness before being taken away and cringed with what he saw.


Wreckage littered their vision as both Imperial and alien remnants broke apart scattering their failed legacies across the sector.

"Tactical!" he heard his Second in Command, now the ship's Commander, call out when the collision alert sounded.

The Predator's superstructure seemed to groan loudly as debris struck the hull knocking out shield generators and armour plating.

It was almost as bad as exiting hyperspace in an astroid field.

"Shields!" came an order from his usurper but Ortho had already stepped into the lift when another collision alert sounded and an explosion reverberated all about him. He had closed his eyes and screamed as he was violently being forced back towards the bridge.

But the lift doors had closed and he began to fall in the darkness.

It was only a few seconds but it seemed like an eternity and when the lift doors were forced apart allowing light once more to enter inside, Ortho Gutt saw a technician open his mouth in some sort of shout but could not hear him.

The explosive blast still seemed to be blowing inside his head and in his ears and as he took stock of himself he saw his uniform had been torn in several areas and that he had wet himself.

Embarrassment of his fear overcame him and he pushed the technician who was trying to help him out of the lift back. Mustering his strength, he shouted the only thing he could think of in hopes of distracting them.


"FIRE!!!"


"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!"


Even attempting to shout at the top of his lungs seemed curiously muffled but he saw others who had ran up to join the technician seemed to understand what he said.

Their mouths moved but he still could not hear them but he saw that one crewman was speaking into a commlink presumably giving his orders to the secondary control center.

All of a sudden, the ship shuddered against the energy release of it's remaining functional batteries.

Everyone seemed preoccupied with the damage and not with Ortho's appearance so he relaxed a little.

The old Imperial maxim was true after all, "When in doubt, shoot something!"




Coruscant



The sensor alarm stole the Regent's gaze from the most recent munitions report as an area once solidly red turned gray. Curious, Zell called up the tactical details.


He had run out of curses against Captain Gutt seeing that the enemy, once having broken the back of the sector's defenders, had moved on deploying shuttles in an area now uncontested. The sheer amount of shuttles had suprised the Regent and he had given up that area as lost for one never reinforced defeat.


But now, now the fat bastard had returned and had started shooting the backsides off the alien attacking fleet from behind. One thing the Imperials had seen was that the ships were light on shields and in a one-on-one fight could be dispatched relatively easily but the enemy advantage lay in their numerical superiority and exotic weaponry.


However, when attacked from behind, their numbers and weaponry amounted to little and they were torn apart. The ISD Predator was not answering any sort of hails and was apparently damaged in such a way that it did not even appear as an active unit on Zell's sensor readings.


But it was firing and as it lay waste to the rear guard it's secondary guns began to open up on the shuttles massacring the alien bastards in their own shuttles.


"Roast those fuckers you fat fuck!" Zell shouted quickly issuing orders to those of the High Command to reinforce the retaken position.


It was a bold move, thought Zell. Sacrificing your ships to allow the enemy to advance and returning to beat the shit out of them from behind. It would not win any favor with those under his command but it was damned effective!


The appraising thought was begrudging but it was there.

Raioballo Space
Shortly after the disappearance of Hyfe and the rise of the Reavers

The galaxy had turned on its head. The Empire lost several of its fleets and one of its key worlds. Yaga Minor was just outside of the Raioballo Sector. The system was on high alert. There was a threat on their doorstep that was stronger than one of the fortresses of the Empire, one that had crushed a combined effort from much of the Coalition.

The Black Dragons were no more, but they left an infecting threat known simply as the Reavers behind. The battered Coalition East was right on their doorstep and as the Reavers expanded they were bound to clash with them. And could a foe that can expand its numbers so easily, be stopped?

Progress on the Pan-Coalition trade route known as the Silk Road came to a halt. The route was scouted and some of the way stations had begun being worked on, but as things crumbled in the galaxy so to did the Coalition. When the Cren and the Sinsangese learned of what Regrad had done by launching an assault on Kamino without consulting the other representatives, they were alienated. The Azguards had once again went out and risked instigating the Empire.

The people were not angry at just the thought of war. They were angry at the thought of war being instigated by a minority that had control of their international affairs. When the Cren left, and talk began to start of Sinsang picking up the slack in terms of ships, manpower, and so forth it all became too much. Chairman Chao tried to allay the fears of the people, saying the Azguardians would never press a course of action that lead to war when the alien threat and the Reavers were still very real and far more pressing.

Sadly one night while giving a speech praising the Azguardians emancipation of the Kamino clones, to the dream of freedom, he suffered from a heart attack. He died before reaching the hospital, the cause of death accredited to his large weight and poor state of health.

The lack of a strong leader within the Democratic Sinsangese for Tommorrow to unify under gave the Progressive Sinsangese a chance to force an election. It had only been two years since the last one rather than the traditional three, but the Sinsangese Senate approved it. Once again, bickering erupted about choosing sides.

Ambassadors and diplomats came and tried to plead cases. Most claimed to not want to interfere but Sinsang was an economic gem in the Rim. There was talk that the Empire wanted it merely as an ally and willing partner for a forward base in reclaiming Yaga Minor. The Coalition wanted to keep it to produce better weapons to secure the Eastern Province from the Reaver threat, and they needed the extra wealth. The Commonwealth, and many others came forward, all with different claims and promises.

However, the real decision came at a secret meeting in a dark boardroom.

The Union’s leadership had gone silent. No one had heard much from them and one of their only organizations still running was on Sinsang. The operations they started with the League of Nations were getting out of hands and the new middle managers trying to step up were weak fools. Profit was falling thanks to this, and things were getting sloppy.

When things get sloppy, messes happen.

Things were heating up between the League and the Empire, almost to the same level it was with the Coalition. The trick was however, the League lacked strong leadership right now. If they put to it, they could bring both the Union in check AND take control of one of the more powerful factions in the Galaxy right now.

It was a gamble, but the risks were weighed and it was decided that the chance of profit far outweighed the risk. They found a small party who they could manipulate, and set them up.

To the people, it seemed that there was a new party for a new day. That was ready to face the challenges and was free from the baggage of the other big name parties. They preached a free Sinsang fighting for their freedom, and becoming better and stronger than before. They wanted a Sinsang helping the League become the leader of democracy in the Galaxy. Even the businesses rallied for them, and praises came from all over of the hope of change.

The Sinsangese People’s League won a surprise victory to the cheer of the people, and began working on pulling away from the Coalition and submitted its formal request to join the League of Nations.

The new Sinsangese chairman, Cheong Hwan, was a younger man as far as politicians go. Slim, well kept, and with only a hint of grey to his dark hair. A charismatic, fresh face to sell the same old thing.

The best puppets are the ones that can pull strings to.

------------------------------------

A fat tanned man, with oily skin and hair was slowly turning red. He dressed quite garishly by normal standards, with a bright shirt on and gold chains hanging around his neck. He was beginning to bald and had a bad attempt of a comb-over to try and hide it. He sat behind an old desk, in the back of some cheap dive. Normally, a representative of the Council wouldn’t deal with this kind of scum.

But sadly, this type of scum had somehow managed to consolidate a number of Union criminal possessions in the League. So far things were going as badly as they would be expected….

“And you rice eating cock suckers need to learn that that this is Tony Angelino’s turf! And if those FUCKERS want me to bow down to them, they better come with their balls on a platter. Capiche?” Tony yelled at the top of his lungs as he slammed his fist into the desk with a resounding crack. “Now get the fuck outta here, I don’t want to see your Singy ass in here again!”

“Very well…” Came the lanky Sinsangese man as he bowed to Tony, turning and leaving. As soon as he’d stepped beyond the borders of the shop, an eruption of flame came from within. The flames didn’t even phase the Sinsangese man as he walked on, leaving the scene calmly to the landspeed waiting for him.

As it pulled away, the light began to shimmer in the seat next to him. Seemingly forming out of thin air, a shapely Echani woman was suddenly there.

“I must thank your masters. I never knew how well a Bothan Stealth Field would work with a silent Echani. I guess it’s because you don’t shed perhaps?” The man said with a smirk, pulling out a credit chip from his jacket pocket. “Either way, here is the rest of your pay for that job. We will be pulling over up ahead and you may leave.”

A suitable distance from the building, the car pulled over and their little ace in the hole was gone as quickly as she had appeared. With that, he pulled out a comlink.

“Tony has been taken care of. Let Ferranti know that they have our support to proceed in taking over Angelino’s territory. I will be back in an hour’s time. I expect dinner awaiting me. We have a long evening….”

----------------------

Fear is sometimes all the authority you need in the criminal underworld. The men who had tried to rise up in the ranks were not men of quality. It was why they had been trapped where they had been. With the proper allocation of force, those weak men and their spineless underlings quickly were tempered into a closer approximation to where they stood before the disappearances.

The Council had no plans to advance the Union any further. They would try their best to maintain it, but they would no try mucking around with the plans of the likes of Hilter. Men like him may appear gone, but they somehow always show up again. Normally at the worst moments…

For now, Sinsang had the leverage it needed. Shortly after taming the criminal underworld of the League, they were accepted into the League of Nations.

It was time to begin the next phase of their plan.

Wilkar, the man commanding the Commonwealth largest fleet ever assembled outside the Commonwealth Proper growled under his breath.

“I guess I’ll just have to kill him then…”

Vice-Admiral Wilkar was not stupid. He did not expect that he could use words to persuade the Sith Lord from attempting to enter the Consortium. In many situations, words were never an adequate substitute for action or killing specifically. Wilkar knew it was probably vain to hold on to that forlorn faith in words, but he reckoned he had lost nothing by asking nicely first.

To meet short term goals, capitulating to Lupercus’s request, seemed like the appropriate course of action. Wilkar shook his head without actually doing it. He knew that those versed in the Force were capable of considerable action. The admiral knew he was not exactly sure of Lupercus’s capabilities, but if what he did to the Coalition over Corellia was any indicator…

Wilkar’s executive officer leaned in to whisper in the admiral’s ear.

“Sir, the Dahlonega has a colony of nearly fifty Ysalamiri living within the ship’s gardens… Perhaps this would be an opportunity to make use of them?” The captain sounded smug in putting forth an idea the admiral had not thought of, but he was correct in his assumption

“Get the zoologist down there. Give him anybody he needs to get those things mobile,” ordered the admiral.

The communications officer took his hand off his headset as he turned in his seat to face the admiral.

“Sir, the Confederates are asking for an appropriate vector of attack to avoid our field of fire.”

The though that maybe people would not have to die today enter the Admiral’s mind.

“TELL THEM TO STAND THE FUCK DOWN!” snarled Wilkar. “I don’t want them fucking this up. Make sure you tight beam that transmission. I don’t want to give their position away to the Imperials. They may be fucking mercenaries but they’re our ace in the hole by the force…”


Colonel George Simones cringed as he looked at the boarding torpedo that he was asking the men of the Death Watch Regiment to board in a few short minutes. The torpedoes had been rushed to the Dahlonega so quickly that the Coalition seal had not even been painted over yet.

“Captain how did we acquire these… this hardware?” asked the Colonel to his adjutant.

The captain pulled the straps tighter on his blast vest and checked the magazine in his carbine one more time. “The Coalition defaulted on another one of our loans. They didn’t have the collateral in liquid assets last time they refinanced so they put some of this shit up to make the margin,” answered the captain.

The Colonel shrugged. “Don’t spend what you don’t have.” The commander of the Death Watch Regiment rasped and whispered these days more than anything. In the desperate times at the opening of the Domain War, the Commonwealth Army had tried to use poison gas on the Domain Forces. The technique proved ineffective, but a malfunction in the Colonel’s breather had left his voice ruined for life. If the regiment was ordered to board the Imperial flagship, he would use a microphone to command his troops.

Simones turned to meet eyes with a young ensign sprinting into the hangar carrying a piece of flimsiplast.

“Sir! A message from the Admiral! Your eyes only!” strained the ensign through breaths.

Colonel Simone quickly read through Admiral Wilkar’s barely legible scrawl. He frowned and turned to his adjutant.

“Looks like we won’t be trying out those Coalition shit shows after all,” he keyed his microphone. “REGIMENT ON ME! TO THE MAIN HANGER!”
“Governor Darksword,” Wilkar could not bring himself to refer to Lupercus by his Sith title. “I have decided to grant your request, but you must understand we will be taking precautions given your… unique abilities. You may come aboard at your leisure.”

Wilkar shrugged on the inside. This was probably a bad idea, shuttling a Sith Lord to see his brother with whom he was not on the best terms, but facing off against the Corellia Fleet did not strike Wilkar as any more intelligent either.

Core-ward Periphery of the Onyx Cluster
Present Day


Crevix sat at the center of a system with the same name, having harnessed ensnared twenty worlds with its gravity that now lazily drifted around it in a complex dance of orbit and rotation. Most of those worlds sustained life, even those that sat at the edge, the most recent inductees the Crevix circle. As a system, Crevix was unique in that its largest world was its farthest out, baffling scientists who happened by until they stopped to investigate, finding out the twentieth body from the sun was actually a massive ball of gas wrapped around a trapped stellar body of ice and rock. The blend of white and purple mists served as an attraction of beauty, made all the more resplendent when no worlds blocked the sun’s rays, creating a wondrous display of colors and shapes. Tourists had come and gone for a hundred years…

…until darkness overtook the beauty. The hand of the Crusade had fallen over Crevix: where once colonies thrived as they farmed or mined or built to their hearts content, sending riches and glory to their far-flung masters, there existed only depots and garrisons and sources of manpower for the foul usurpers – they mined too, only it was not jewels or ore or fuel they harvested; it was people. Slaves.

As he looked out of the transparisteel viewport, tint valiantly but vainly shielding him from the Crevix’s light, Grand Admiral-Baron Telan Desaria saw no beauty from the cloud-covered planet of Iah’dra. Instead of delighting in a scene of untouched glory of the gods own making, his face twisted into a mask of disgust. Beauty was now sullied by a dozen low-orbital platforms crossed with tubes and pipes and humongous storage tanks that sucked gas from the swirling mass below. Mining was far from anathema to the Kuati; he closed his eyes and imagined just how the mining was being done and that angered him so. Imperial citizens being forced at blaster-point to toil until their deaths then replaced by another malnourished captive who would until he could work no more: the cycle would continue until the supply of slaves was exhausted.

“ Sir, we’re in attack position now.”

Desaria broke his gaze, having finished muttering a silent prayer. Spinning on a jackbooted heel, he moved to the center of the bridge and mounted his command chair. Iah’dra expanded before and above the bridge, filling nearly all of the forward viewports; crewmen worked at their stations and terminals, keeping as quiet as a litany of beeps and twirps would allow.

“ Very good, Captain. Group One, execute.”

On either side of the Cuirassier-class Heavy Cruiser Malefactor, swift frigates and angular gunships ignited drive engines and peeled off from formation. They dove low under the line of six cruisers then oriented themselves towards the demi-planet and rocketed off. As the distance between the mining platforms and the incoming Imperial ships lessened, the group dissembled further into three-ship squads, each one zeroing in on, closing with, and stopping near one of the gas platforms. Not a shot was fired.

“ Scopes?” queried the Admiral, black gloved hands steepled in front of his be-medalled torso.

“ We have incoming, sir. Tracking a dozen ships, all Crusader types. Only one capital ship, a Pike cruiser.”

Barely had the report completed when the center of the viewport became overlayed with a green grid which magnified the platforms and made all visible and clear. Then the view shift to the right to the rim of Iah’dra where both Crevi’x rays and a formation of hostile ships crested the horizon. They came on quickly, losing all cohesion; only one small corvette remained at the side of the slower, but heavily armed cruiser.

“ Captain Vorran, as you please.”

Following a pre-set batch of orders, the thin-framed Balmorran turned to the helmsman and issued commands the Grand Admiral turned out. He listened onto to key phrases in the fabric of words around him from tactical officers, sensor technicians, and Intelligence coordinators. He needn’t have listened to the Fleet Operations officer, for the rumble of deckplating under his boots told him the cruiser was moving at near flank speed to intercept; he had enough faith in duly commissioned officers of the Imperial Navy to trust without confirmation that the five Curiassier’s behind were matching speed and maintaining formation.

The digital timer below the viewport ticked down until the numbers blinked red then flashed to green: maximum, then optimum range for the ship’s heavy weapons had been achieved. The Grand Admiral paused a second more as the line of warships came parallel to the platforms and struggling friendly frigates and gunships. Crusader ships mingled among them, firing wildly and seemingly careless as to whether they struck the unshielded platforms staffed by their comrades and captives. On came the cruiser which loosed a shot from an oversized turbolaser mounted on its blunt prow, missing the fast frigate that was its target and immolating the immobile platform that dared be in its path. Gas tanks belched flame as fired chased pipes and tubes until the entire mass was barely recognizable. None knew how many enemies had died in the errant shot; all knew the answer to how many loyal Imperials perished – too many.

“ Captain, open fire.”

The cruisers, arrayed broadside to the enemy and thus showing the most teeth, opened up with all manner of cannon. Heavy turbolaser turrets spat neon energy at a pace as slow as it was lethal; lesser cannon in single casemates and triple turrets loosed their charges in kind. Waves of green looked eerily at home chasing towards a planet of swirling purples and greys, almost as if the plasmized botls yearned to be among friends, similar gases to those that had been harnessed, refined, processed, packaged, loaded, and loosed to give birth to themselves. None remained after the furious cannonade, not even the enemy cruiser, having been set on by a flurry of torpedoes from vengeful frigates, freed from the fight.

“ Captain, all ships: Phase Two.”

Frigates aligned themselves with the platforms then turned away from the gas planet. Tendrils of gravity wrapped around the platforms as reactors spun up to maximum output – tractor beams were locked on. The large industrial structures had small thrusters which kept them tethered in orbit, but they could not fight military tractor beams. The frigates pulled and pulled; one at a time, the platforms were stolen from Iah’dra’s grip. They were pulled away into deep space where the large cruisers took up positions between them and the system’s depth from whence danger could come.

And danger did come.

“ Sensors, Captain: four large warships in bound, preliminary scans show as Crusader battelships. Contacts One through Three are known, Contact 4 is of a design not previously encountered.”

“ Acknowledge Sensors.” Captain Vorran trotted from the aft control corridor, skidding to a stop next to the Grand Admiral. On a Star Destroyer, he would merely have had to look up; Cuirassier Cruisers had a single-level bridge. “ Sir, shall we launch fighters?”

The Grand Admiral was exactly as he had been for the whole of the engagement, unmoving from his rigid pose. Only his eyes darted back and forth in their deep-set sockets, raping every item they could view of every detail the moving on to another target. His steepled fingers had not even tapped one another, even as the ship had rocked with a few lucky shots from the enemy cruiser. In the past year, as the war with the Crusade intensified, he changed. Six months ago, when the enemy laid siege to Onyx, making off will more than a half-million citizens and badly mauling his flagship, the normally energetic aristocrat had slid quickly into introversion. He had earned the nickname ‘Iron Admiral;’ now, witnessing first hand his stolid, stoic demeanor, Captain Vorran knew why.

“ Bring us about; all cruisers to reform battle line. Fire by batteries as the enemy ships come within range. Primary targets to be reactors and weapons. Do not launch fighters.”

The good Captain swallowed hard, summoning every bit of courage a ten-year veteran could muster. He leaned closer to the flag officer and spoke as quietly as he could be understood on a bridge in action. “ Those ships outclass us, sir, even if we disengage the platforms and bring the escorts to bear.”

Desaria did not even flinch. “ Thank you, Captain. Commence firing when we’re in formation.”

The Crusader battleships closed, slowing appreciably to give their gunners a better chance at accuracy. A vertiable wave of energy washed off the four Crusader ships, pounding the Imperials without mercy or relent. The stubborn ship’s shields held, but only barely; the Curiassiers were being violently knocked about.

Reports streamed in from all over the Malefactor of injured crewmen, overloaded conduits, and bursting hull seams. While the shields held, the stress the projectors placed on reactor and hull were more than designed for. Men screamed while medics and droids ran as quickly as they were able; while their efforts were superhuman, their success was measured in a horrible ratio of lives saved to lives lost.

Captain Vorran felt his heart sank as he listened to the communications officer report of the heavy cruiser Tannen, a report from her auxiliary bridge. Every senior officer, along with every crewmen near the command deck, was dead.

“ Subspace distortions, Grid 21A-635-53F!”

Vorran considered for a moment what death might be like. He opened to his eyes to take one last look at the bridge before the shields went down, but instead he found himself staring at three familiar wedge-shapes on the central status display. A trio of Star Destroyers had knifed into the system and were returning in kind the acts of the Crusader battleships. Heavy weapons thundered in the vacuum and continued to do so after one enemy ship broke away to escape into hyperspace. The others were pounded until they could fire no more. Normally, the Destroyers might have stopped firing, giving quarter to the survivors of such a withering fusilade.

Not to slavers, however. The Crusader ships were pounded until sensor technicians gleefully reported all oxygen supplies on the enemy ships were depleted or burning up.

Vorran sighed relief as the Grand Admiral stood. The Iron Admiral closed the distance and stopped for a second, letting his cold, green eyes stare down the slight Captain. “ You are not always privy to operational details, Captain. Have faith.”




The quarters given to the Grand Admiral were the best on the battleship Vehement; old regulations from the days of the First Emperor mandated every destroyer built to have an admiral’s cabin, whether it was to be a flagship or not. Commander Grimalt had never been in them before, and it was not what he expected. Instead of bright, opulent fixtures, he could see little in the low lighting, aside from the Iron Admiral himself silhouetted at the viewport against the backdrop of hyperspace. The executive officer came to a smart attention, clicking his heels as he tried to squeeze a centimeter onto his height. “ We have evacuated all civilians from the platforms, sir. We have accounted for twenty thousand. Unfortunately, we discovered about half as many bodies.”

“ And the Crusader prisoners?”

“ We’ve removed all weapons from the platforms and sealed them into several warehouse blocks on each platform. We are due to arrive at Onyx in two hours where we will offload them.”

“ Are they provisioned?”

Commander Grimalt considered the question. The platforms had some rudimentary foodstuffs, but the prisoners would not be able to get to them from the chambers they were locked in. “ Not really, sir.”

The Iron Admiral never stopped staring out the viewport. “ Break the tractor, Commander. Let them drift in hyperspace for the remained of their lives. They’ll starve, eventually. Needless to say, they will have plenty of time ponder the price of enslaving Imperial Citizens.”

Out of habit, Grimalt came back to attention, clicked his heels, and hurried out of the cabin back into the corridor. When the doors closed behind him, he considered the gruesome possibility of starving to death. A wretched way to go! For a moment he wondered if the punishment was fitting. Then he stumbled on the truth – he didn’t care. They were slavers, and they deserved whatever they got. Grimalt headed off towards the bridge.

Colonel-General Wesley Vos slowly rested his forehead on his palms and sighed. Nothing was going right recently. The team at the listening post had uncovered next to nothing. The data from the computer didn't help any - it only showed an attack by Clone-Wars Era Commando Droids. The central core of one of those droids showed only that the droids had been carrying out their last given mission, a mission apparently programed into them at the end of the Clone Wars, just before they were deactivated. Which meant only that someone had found them and reactivated them. It was a dead end.

The team on Onyx had done little better. They had uncovered the type of weapon used in the explosion; it appeared to be a thermal detonator of sorts, or several, of Commonwealth make. But that meant little; the Commonwealth would not be foolish enough to use its own weapons in an attack on the Empire, even if they had reason to attack, which, incidentally, they did not. None of this made any sense, and it was starting to frustrate him.

Thumbing his comlink, he keyed for the bridge. "Admiral Typton, what reports do we have from Coruscant?"

The reply was quick in coming, but not encouraging. "Not much, sir. It appears that something has attacked the planet, though we don't know what or how many. Some scattered images came in showing alien ships, the likes of which I've never seen before. Our computers had no data on them other than that they appeared to be the same sort of ship that hit Yaga Minor."

Taking a deep breath, Wes made a decision. He would be criticized for it, certainly, and might even lose his job, but he was not going to let the center of the Empire fall to these aliens, even if he didn't like the new Regent much. Besides, it would give his ships practical experience against these creatures for the upcoming attack on Yaga Minor. "Admiral, contact all ships. Have half the Guard fleet remain here and continue exercises. Have the other half begin running scouting patrols along the edges of the Occupation Zone; have them look for anything suspicious. I want them travelling in battle-group strength; Desaria would kill me if I lost any of his ships."

"And what are we to do, Sir?" Typton asked, already knowing the answer.

"Leave the Belerophon and Azurius fleets here to guard the Occupation Zone, and form the Tyrant and Visectus's fleets for a hyperspace jump. We're going to Coruscant."


Coruscant System


Two light years out from the planet itself, the SS fleet dropped out of hyperspace. With no real-time military intelligence, it would be unwise to jump straight into the fight. They were far enough out now to send in recon and get some actual knowledge of what in space was going on at the Imperial capital world.

On the bridge of the Star Destroyer Tyrant, Vos glanced at Admiral Typton. "Admiral, have those TIE fighters been fitted with hyperdrives properly?"

The Admiral gave a curt nod. "Yes, Sir. The recon flight is ready, Sir."

"Then send them in."

Typton activated his comm. "All ships, this is Admiral Typton. Launch TIE Flight Recon 1."

From a conglomoration of ships, fourteen TIE fighters dropped from the hangar bays and formed up in front of the Tyrant. With the replacement of the standard TIE Fighters and Interceptors with the Schutzstaffel as the SS's main fighter, these fighters had been retrofitted with hyperdrives specifically for recon missions. They had not been used in a fight yet, as SS Kommandos in TIE Phantoms were usually used. But with the Kommandos occupied on Onyx and other planets, rounding up terrorists, more conventional methods would have to be used.

In the lead TIE, Ensign Roth Hanoi ran a final systems check, then called into his comm, "All pilots, this is Recon leader, check in." As the TIE pilots ran through their callsigns, Hanoi took a deep breath. He hadn't been out of the Academy very long; in fact, he had only recently been assigned to the SS. He considered it a privilege to serve with such excellent men, but he still had the distinct feeling that he was not ready for this honor.

As the pilots finished, Hanoi closed his eyes and sighed. This was it. "Alright then," he said. "You know your business. Let's get to it." And with that, the TIEs launched, each on a slightly different vector. They wanted to cover as much of the system as they could.

Hanoi had only been in hyperspace about half the time he expected when he was suddenly jerked out by something. "What the..." he started, then thought, There shouldn't be any bodies of gravity here! What... He looked around quickly for an interdictor, instinctively starting his recon sensors and transmitting live audio and visual feed back to the Tyrant. There was nothing there to look at, though his sensors did detect small gravitic anomalies all around him.

"Tyrant, this is Recon Leader. I've been pulled out of hyperspace early. There's gravitic anomalies all over the place here. It's impossible to hyper in. Orders?"

The reply came back over the comm. "Recon Leader, this is Tyrant. It's happened to every one of your flight. Return home; we have an idea.


Coruscant System
ISD-V Tyrant

"You think this will actually work?" Vos said quietly.

Typton shrugged. "You want to get to Coruscant as a united fleet and not get stuck, scattered, and killed, then yeah, it's the only thing that'll work. Will it work perfectly? Who knows."

Wes cursed, a rare thing for him, then turned to look out the viewport. What the Admiral had suggested was dangerous for every ship in the fleet, not to mention the fact that they still had no intelligence on the enemy that was attacking the Imperial capital. No. He couldn't risk it, not without direct orders. And at least he had something to report to the Grand Admiral when he returned from wherever he was. No, the battle against this enemy would have to wait.

Turning back to Typton, Wes said, "We can't risk it, not without a direct order. As much as I hate to say this, turn the fleet around. Head back to Thoraza. We'll keep sending recon flights in, but we can't do anything right now, not until we figure out what is going on. And I can't risk running half my fleet into the planet. No. We're going home."

Grand Isle, Vladet, Newly constructed Senate chambers

"No, it is for the best," spoke Senator Gree, the two meter political officer towering over the one meter tall navy major.

"...," the major's lips pressed into a thin line as he stared at the senator with something akin to hateful coldness.

"Oh don't give me that look major, the rest of the Vladeti Senate agrees with my proposal to limit aid to the rest of the Empire by 1% of our total defense capability. We're still helping our comrades, and at the same time, ensuring our threat against any of these...alien invaders that seem to be overrunning the rest of Imperial space," explained the senator, gesturing with his arm upwards, where a trio of star destroyers and two battlestations were passing overhead in orbit.

"But sir, if I may suggest, perhaps Imperial space wouldn't be overrun at all if the full weight of our own military forces were added to that of those from the other protectorates locked in full battle?" he asked in reply.

"Nonsense, if the full weight of the combat seasoned fleets of Yaga Minor and the other protectorates couldn't repel the invaders, how could our forces hope to help tip the balance?" asked Gree with a slight frown. He wasn't well versed in military tactics and knowledge, and was beginning to lose his track of thought with the ongoing arguement.

"But sir, if our fleets won't be able to tip the balance of power in the Empire's favor, then what chances do they have defending our own soil?" fired back the major.

"They don't, not on our own. However, by remaining largely passive, we'll prove ourselves of no threat to the alien invaders, and therefore we won't have to contend with them," parried the senator.

"The Yaga Minor protectorate did nothing to provoke them, yet see how they fared,"

"Nothing that we know of major, nothing we know of. Bhindi Drayson was a very secretive ruler, and that damn Intelligence base even more so. I wouldn't be suprised if the aliens invaded to retrieve one or more of their kind that Imperial Intelligence had captured and was dissecting," ranted the senator.

"A false accusation, to be sure. The Yaga Minor protectorate knew nothing of this alien threat until it was laid on their doorstep," interrupted a new, yet familiar voice coming from the doorway behind the two men.

"Who dares interrupt...," the senator started to demand before his eyes, having turned around, caught sight of who was speaking.

Both of the men turned white as if they had seen a ghost. The senator was the first to recover.

"I see...that the reports of your death are greatly exaggerated," breathed the senator in a whisper.

A small smile coming to his face, Park Kraken strolled into the room, his white uniform completed with admiral rank bars donning his form, his once brilliant orange hair starting to dull into whiteness, his beard and goatee already shock white.

"Indeed, they are," he spoke simply in response, gauging both his and the major's reaction to his return.

"And your family, I presume as well is still alive?" asked the senator, a bit of confidence returning to his voice.

Knowing full well that the senate was using more corrupted sects of the military as threats against the loyal officer's families to force their cooperation, Park chose not to answer the question directly.

"None of your buisness, Senator Gree," spoke Park in a suddenly chilly tone of voice.

"Oh, but is my buisness, you see. You are all dressed up for the occasion of your return, but ultimatly it is the senate who will decide whether or not you are needed. You obviously came out of a faked death disapperance for a reason, and I can assure you that that reason won't come to fruition unless...," the volume of the senator's voice dropped to a mere whisper, "...you come to work under my wing and supervison. I'm sure something could be worked out with the senate then," finished Gree with a smile on his face.

"I don't think your in any position to dictate the terms of my return to service, senator," responded Kraken.

"Then you must not be thinking at all. Major, I am placing this man under arrest," ordered the senator, his mouth curving upwards slightly in victory.

The smile quickly turned into shocked outrage as the major placed the shockcuffs on the senator's hands instead.

"Release me major, at once!" screamed the senator.

"I think not, senator. You and the rest of this so-called senate are now under arrest, under the charges of treason and dereliction of duty, among other pending charges. Regardless of what you or those other buffoons want to believe, I am back, and I will be resuming my position as governer of the Mid-Rim protectorate," stated Park with a finality that finally broke the senator.

"Y...you can't, you...you'll destroy us all...all that we have built...," stammered the senator as he was led torwards the doorway.

Once he was gone, Park turned and walked over to the viewport, looking down at the black military speeders, stormtroopers and specnav soldiers ushering the various senators from their chambers and meeting assembly.

"The only thing I'll destroy is the illusion of power you have. The only thing you've built is a web of lies, deciet, and cowardice. I shall restore the Mid-Rim to it's former position of power, glory, and honor," whispered Kraken, his eyes following Gree as he exited the building and was being lead to one of the black speeders.

His head looked upwards, torwards the heavens, where the twinkling lights of military combat ships and stations continued to slip past overhead.

"And then...we shall go to war."

6 hour prior to Colonel Vos’ entry in the Coruscant system

The look in her eyes told him everything. Her mind was filled with thoughts of desire and passion and she wanted him. Badly.

With a sly grin Kach slightly shook his head. “Not yet, Melini,” he whispered to her. “But soon.” He nibbled on her ear some and she moaned, the feelings within her amplified even more.

The serene silence of the Admirals quarters was disrupted by a soft but annoyingly high pitched squeal.

Kach’s first thought was “What the fuck?” He’d specifically and deliberately ordered himself to be left alone. After the events of the last month he was still trying to untangle the slew of thoughts occupying his mind while simultaneously trying to decide which of many future courses of action to pursue – whether the time was right to rearrange the New Order under fire or if it might be prudent to wait a little longer to see how events unfolded.
Like his thought, Kach’s first words were “What the fuck?” He groaned and rolled away from his secretary and said to the PA system “Go.”

“Commander Thorton,” a voice said – a bridge Lieutenant, “Message from the bridge priority Alpha for personal delivery.”

“Has it been shown to Captain Ahab, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“This is from the Captain and command crew, sir.”

For a moment he didn’t respond and resisted prying his eyes open. At the moment, despite it being the middle of the day ship time, he was lying in bed with his secretary. If he were still a mere Rear Admiral this would have been definitely against regulations, but now that he was a Moff no one would dare call him out on it and even if they did the accusation would be brushed aside. The bed was warm and he didn’t care to leave.

“Send my compliments to the Captain and inform him I will accept his invitation to the bridge and be up in all available haste. Inform him I have some brief but pressing,” he paused and shot Melini a well-rehearsed look she wouldn’t be able to forget, “business to take care of first.”


* * *


With his now-typical rushed swagger Kach stepped onto the bridge. “Go ahead,” he loudly ordered to the group of officers including the Captain assembled on the command deck.

They turned toward him and the Captain spoke. “To put it simply, sir, Coruscant is gone.”

The idea was preposterous. “Say that again, Captain,” Kach asked. “I thought you said Coruscant is gone.”

The Captain solemnly nodded. “That’s what I said, sir. Coruscant is gone. Disappeared. It’s gone completely silent.”

The idea was so preposterous that Thorton was incapable of showing any sort of emotional reaction or feeling one. “How did this happen?”

The Lieutenant now spoke. “Around thirty minutes ago the hypercomm and holonet signals began suffering from Doppler effect, minor at first and then turning into severe before communication was completely cut off. From our analysis of the distorted signals we’ve been able to piece back together they’re under attack though the status of their defenses is questionable. There were reports of commando action on the ground and battlegroups entering orbit thought reports are piecemeal so the actual number of enemy vessels or fleet elements is almost impossible to guess.”

The Lieutenant stopped but to Kach it didn’t look like he was done. Expecting further details, Thorton’s gaze was piercing. “Is there anything else we heard, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Just one thing, sir,” the Lieutenant replied. “Before transmission was cut off Coruscant control mentioned gravitational anomalies appearing in subspace around the system, which would explain the Doppler shift the transmissions were experiencing. The last thing they transmitted was that some of these anomalies matched the gravitational signature that accompanied the final jump of the Emperor Hyfe and his fleets into hyperspace almost perfectly.”
“So the Black Dragons are attacking Coruscant?” Thorton asked, one eyebrow cocked up in puzzlement.

“We don’t know whose ships these are,” answered the Stormhawk’s Captain. “Coruscants messages reported that there were no matches for the enemy vessels in any databases they had. We got a partial sensor dump early on in the attack – they dumped the data to any fleets they were in contact before siege per standard procedure – but it doesn’t match anything in our records either.”

“Not even Black Dragon?” Kach asked. “Or maybe Confederation or Commonwealth?”

“Nothing, sir. Whoever this is, they’ve never been encountered on a large scale by the Empire before.”

Kach thought for a moment. “How does the data compare to the dumps from Yaga Minor attack?”

The Captain shifted uncomfortably as a possibility he hadn’t thought of was presented to him. “Honestly, Moff Thorton, no one has looked at the possibility, but now that you mention it the gravitational anomalies mentioned there would match these, I suspect.”

“That’s precisely what I’m thinking, Captain. They were explained away as interdictors by fleet intelligence but we only had a view of the early part of the attack before communication was cut off – when this enemy attacked Yaga Minor they did a better job of cutting off communications than they did at Coruscant. I’d wager, however, that as the attack went on more anomalies appeared like we saw at Coruscant.

“Regardless of what we’re fighting it’s our responsibility to assist our comrades at Imperial Center. Thought we don’t have much intelligence on our foe at the present we are four hours away from Coruscant, and those of you in the know understand that within this time period our understanding of the enemy is poised to shift drastically. I don’t want to enter the system without any intelligence, so we will move to the system’s outskirts and await the anticipated datadump from Operation Anaxes. Lieutenant, it is your responsibility to see that Operation Anaxes is informed about our change in positioning so that the fleet doesn’t have to reroute our transmission to us.

“Captain, I want the first fleet to assemble with us above Ylix along with the Fourth Reserve Fleet. Together we’ll proceed to the Core Worlds. The first fleet will form on the outskirts of the Coruscant system. The Fourth fleet will assemble in open space outside of the Coruscant system and remain in reserve.

“Then we’ll await the transmission from Operation Anaxes with the data we need, and then we’ll enter the battle for Coruscant.”


* * *


Operation Anaxes

Thus far, every attempt to recover data from Yaga Minor had failed. Scouts and probes of all sorts had entered the system and failed to report little more than useless scraps of information. Those that jumped in close to the planet were destroyed by unidentified aggressors. Those who entered the empty outskirts of the system were limited in what they could discover and return by range. Therefore, a new strategy was being implemented.

TIE Phantom IIs were considered by most Imperial tactical experts to be the stealthiest fighters in the galaxy. They were completely undetectable to conventional sensor packages as well as gravitational systems such as the Chrystal Gravfield Trap. In addition to this they possessed exceptional mobility which made them perfect for the mission.

The pilots were one of the elite commando squadrons commissioned by the Borderland Protectorate under Kach Thorton’s governorship. Thought they couldn’t match the training or experience of the SS commando squadrons they were modeled on, they were very good none-the-less and would be perfect for this mission.

Looking outside of his jet black TIE, pilot and commando Commander Devon Thane eyed the debris of the huge battle that had taken place above the planet Yaga Minor. Massive, burnt out Star Destroyers and heavy cruisers twisted and turned as they circled the planet in irregular, spiraling orbits. If nothing was done they would eventually fall out of orbit and tumble into the atmosphere of the planet below, which would slow but not stop them before they impacted the planets surface. Mixed in with them was the wreckage of unfamiliar designs belonging to the unknown foes.

The jump in had been unusual. Gravitational anomalies swirled around the system, jumbling gravitational sensors and yanking his flight out of hyperspace early. They blocked all the convenient hyperoutes to the system making any conventional counterattack on the system difficult. They fighters, however, had been able to simply maneuver around them and continue on their way with the unrecognizable warships and fighters stationed suspiciously near the anomalies none the wiser.

There were twenty-four of them in the two commando squadrons out on this mission, plus a single shroud stationed on the edge of the system tasked with long range recon. With sensors far more powerful than those of the conventional scoutcraft and probes sent in before now it would be able to provide valuable information about the system through long range recon scans. More importantly, it could serve as a waystation for the Phantom IIs after they finished their mission, transmitting their data via holonet to Moff Thorton himself and the intelligence analysts on his flagship. The fighters communication packages were nowhere near powerful enough to do such a task on their own.

The battlefield above Yaga Minor was littered with the burnt out hulks of the Imperial battleships and battlestations that had once guarded the mighty fortress world. Within the memory banks of each vessel was invaluable intelligence – just a small drive from a single picket ship or fighter held more data on the unknown foe and methods to fight them than did the entire rest of the Empire combined. Though long range monitoring of the system was valuable, this data was what made the covert mission so important. The story of a lost fleet and tens of thousands of lost lives were written in magnetic code on these ships.

With the TIE Phantom IIs the mission was almost too easy. Undetectable by standard sensor systems or gravitational based sensor systems nothing conventional could detect the craft. Even the new Imperial System from the fourth general fleet upgrade would not provide a perfectly precise location of a TIE Phantom II. One pilot, a squadron commander, reflected on this fact as they moved in toward the debris field. From their circumnavigating the anomalies even with enemy craft nearby they knew their sensor packages operated though standard means because not one craft gave a sign that they knew they were there. After some brief sweats – the pilots hadn’t known whether this would work on not on the way in and were understandably nervous about it – they went about the relatively easy task of recovering necessary data. One squadron of the specially-modified two man fighters set about removing the databanks of picket ships and fighter craft, with each phantom capable of carrying four fighter sized or two picket sized memory banks in special compartments on the bottom of the craft. The second squadron proceeded to search for any large capital ships – ships that would have survived to the last stages of the engagement – with some power left running. With this power they would have been capable of uploading the ships sensor data quickly and easily either wirelessly if the ships still had transmitters – though with the enemies around this would have quickly given away their presence – or by through a direct linkup by landing in a hangar. Unfortunately none of the ships read as powered in the sector of space they were in – the enemy must have deliberately destroyed the reactors of any ship with power running after it’s abandonment.

Fortunately there was an alternate strategy. On some vessels the central computers automatically uploaded sensor logs from the vessels onto escape pods in a highly encrypted format for analysis after the pods retrieval. By recovering the memory banks of several escape pods from Star Destroyers and Golan III and IV battlestations they managed to recover the equivalent of the information they would have recovered from larger ships computers, plus one other thing.

A nearly frozen, nearly asphyxiated, malnourished man.


* * *


Two lightyears outside of the Coruscant system
Across the conference table from Thorton in the Admiral’s meeting room behind the Superior-class Battleship’s bridge was the Captain and the head of the ship’s intelligence division – General Saunders.

“General you’ve had two hours since the arrival of the data. What has your division found so far?” Thorton asked.

“Sir,” the general answered, “the data we’ve received contains sensor records for much of the early battle and the siege of the system that followed. As you and Captain Ahab deduced, the course of the battle following the communications cutoff proceeded similar to how it did on Coruscant in the early parts of their transmissions – Coruscants powerful and highly redundant comm systems explains why they were able to transmit longer than Yaga Minor did. We’re continuing to review and analyze the data even as we speak, piecing together information on enemy tactics and also weaponry and defenses and vessels. If the vessels here are similar commanders at Yaga Minor have discovered some weaknesses and basic tactics we can apply which we’re also drawing from the records.”

“We don’t know much about weapons or tactics or defense yet – I’ll hit on the little bit we do know about their tactics in just a minute - but you’ll be pleased to know that enemy sensors, as was observed by our brave pilots who performed the raid, work along similar frequencies and means as ours because they cannot detect stealth fighters. This is a significant relief.
“As for their tactics, during the early stages of the battle for Yaga Minor they sealed off the hyperlanes to the planet with gravitational anomalies of the sort we detect. From the battle footage we’ve deduced these are wormholes, which puts their abilities to manipulate gravity and space-time on a scale far beyond our own. However, they have only used these wormholes as a means for transportation – they have no military use beyond interdiction as far as we can tell.”

Kach cut him off. “Could one of these wormholes be what was used to kidnap Emperor Hyfe?”

“I had some men compare the gravitational signature of the Hyfe wormhole to those over Yaga Minor and from comparisons of their formation it seems that this indeed could be the explanation for the unconventional disappearance of our Emperor. An enemy ship hidden in the system could – pardon me, I failed to mention that enemy ships generate the wormholes ranging from shuttle class to much larger – an enemy ship hidden in the Coruscant system would have been able to create a wormhole quickly in the path of the Imperial fleets, transporting them to the Emperor knows where. . . .” The general blushed at his accidental use of an inappropriate – and now outdated – figure of speech.

There was a vibration on Thorton’s side. A summons from the bridge. “I must leave now, General,” Kach said to the Intelligence Officer. “My presence is demanded elsewhere. I have but one final question: can we go head to head with whever this is and win?”

The general nodded. “Yes sir, we can. The Imperial fleet’s valiant effort over Yaga Minor verifies this. Even against an unknown enemy they managed to destroy a significant number of enemy vessels – only further research will show exactly how they did this. But it clearly is possible.”

“Thank you, General,” Thorton replied. “I expect a report on the best methods found to fight them and on enemy weapons and defenses as soon as possible. But now I must go.”


* * *


Minutes later on the bridge of The Stormhawk


Kach entered the bridge and walked over to the officer on deck, the woman who had requested his presence. Captain Kollaspi was second in command of the ship and was in charge when Captain Ahab’s presence was required elsewhere.

“Admiral,” she addressed him. “Minutes ago we picked up an Imperial battlegroup entering the system just lightminutes away in a combat formation. That’s when I paged you. Since then they’ve launched scout fighters into the system but they’ve started returning and the whole flotilla is now turning around to make way back to where they came from.

“Do they know we’re here?” Kach asked.

“We’re not sure,” she answered. “They’ve made no attempts to contact us if they do.”

“Who’s the commander?”

“Sir that’s an interesting question. This is an elite element composed of both guard and SS units and Colonel-General Vos’ flagship is present but we have no way to tell if any higher-ranking Guard officers are present. Or if he’s even there. Somebody, whoever it may, has ordered they leave and soon. If you want to make contact with them sir you need to do so now.”

“I understand,” Kach snapped as politely as he could. He hated it when people tried to tell him what to do, especially when something was obvious. Send a summons to General Vos. I need to speak with him now via holonet.”

“Yes sir,” the captain replied. “Lieutenant,” she shouted to a nearby deck officer, “see that it is done.” She turned away to go about further business but was interrupted by Kach.

“Captain,” he called, thinking about things dealing with her that were most certainly not combat related. “Does the fourth fleet have any Messiahs with them?”

She turned around and gave him a puzzled look, unsure why he was asking the question.

“Sure. There’s four of them that were remobilized to serve as fourth fleet flagships. Why?”

“No reason” he responded calmly. “But have them sent over here. I have a feeling we might need them.”

Interlude



The Sith Master limped alone down the empty corridor the flickering of the luminescent lighting casting a dull glow across his path. To the naked eye, he was an old man of no particular importance and as the empty hall opened onto a concourse, passersby did not give him a second glance.

Too wrapped up in their self importance, they were content to let him carry on about his business which suited the man just fine. It was not like he held any fond memory of the place and was, at once, annoyed to find that those things he deigned to glance at had not changed throughout the century.

The symbols might change but the bland, over-bearing, dull-gray architecture still failed to impress. Since the builders, those many decades past, had tried to instill more of a sense of longevity in their buildings and less of a practical measure, much to the consternation of their progeny the latter generation found it too expensive to break into walls for simple acts such as repairing faulty wiring or even upgrading existing systems and so the architecture was littered with hooks and wires that ran on the outside of these once awe-inspiring structures.

What was it about dictators that made them want to remake the galaxy using dull colors and grand-scale constructions of no practical purpose?

Yes, he hated this place but this was where that fool, Dar, lived and if the young idiot was going to file flight plans with local authorities in his traveling to the Sith Master's retreat, the old man might as well save himself some trouble. Obviously, the fool could not go to the mountain so the mountain must go to the fool.

There was a fluttering of the Force when he thought of young Dar and it puzzled the Master. Claiming to be of the blood of 'The Palestar' was not all that surprising for after the Crusades, many a woman claimed to lay with the conquerer siring their crying welps. Palestar never claimed any of the bastards but what conqueror ever did?

The Sith Master stopped in the center of the concourse heedless of others causing them to mutter curses at him while moving aside. His eyes stared down at the Seal of the Republic.


Shiny.


New.


Idealistic.



He gazed at the seal with such an intensity that, in his mind's eye, the layers of smooth tile peeled away, the flickering of paint, stain and design revealing an earlier incarnation of the seal.


A different symbol for a different time.


He gestured his hands through empty air and that symbol too cracked, crumbled and the floor, once again, vanished to reveal under it yet another symbol of yet another era.


A dull, red dot on an otherwise black stained marble floor.


The red star.


The Palestar.


He smiled at the memory.


A different kind of idealism reigned then.


"...bid for the galaxy.." he murmured and soon everything around him vanished leaving only the black floor and the red circle of the Crusade.


Shadows played across his conscience and soon, from those shadows voices were heard.


Ernest voices caught up in their own worries.


Worries of another time.


Worries of another Symbol.




Those voices took shape and the years peeled away for the Sith Master.



"They launch today, Sirus." one of the voices confirmed and the shadow solidified into the Crusade-colored uniforms of the Nyx.


The Defiance of Nyx, The Revenge of Nyx and the Triumph of Nyx were the latest in the Nyxan-influenced and crewed battleships to be built. Produced along the lines of Supreme Commander Maxson's Pride of Nyx, these warships fueled the nationalistic fervor that had gripped their planet and Perrin could hear the excitement in his companion's voices when they spoke of their growing power.

Vetti was the only companion of Perrin's from the beginning, when he had retreated with them from the Xa Fel campaign almost two years ago and while Maxson, along with the Crusader's charged full steam ahead into the chaos that was the Onyxian Occupation Zone, Perrin charged full steam ahead ferriting out those disloyal to Nyx.

It was not hard for once the illusion was in place convincing everyone he was a Nyx, you simply had to take hold of that fervor and allow it to lead to where you want to go.

Palestar supporters were worried about those insurrectionists of the former government seizing power or the initiative in Dacian's absence? Carry out witchhunts and execute as many as you can while enslaving the rest.


Simple program.


Simple action.


And ultimately simple to subvert.



All one had to do was 'out-witchhunt' the witchhunters. 'Out-execute' the executioners and enslave more than the slavers. 'Out-butcher' the butchers and you'd have them eating out of your hand, more out of fear than anything else.


It was why all but Vetti were dead.


It was why when you moved against him, you move against he who Maxon put in place to oversee Nyx. Why you moved against Maxson himself and why, ultimately, you would move against the Palestar. The domino effect could be incredibly devestating and, to Perrin's delight, it could also go both ways.


Two nights ago he had received Nyx's highest honor and had medal pinned on him by Maxson's Right Hand himself. It made quite an impression on the vids and Perrin had spoken out against those that would stand in the way of Nyx Pride, Nyx Glory, and the Nyx Legacy. Crushed underfoot and swept aside they would be and the massed ate it up.

It helped that the Pride, Glory and Legacy were all Nyx battlecruisers under Maxon's command so the speach had the added benefit beyond the metaphorical.


But then Perrin continued his steel-branded tirade against those that would stand in the way of Nyx Defiance, Nyx Revenge and, ultimately, Nyx Triumph and it was these overtones that suddenly cause the 'Right Arm of Maxson' some concern.


The Imperial, Grand Admiral Telan Desaria, had become the villian of Nyxan nightmares as Supreme Commander Maxson became boggled down in a bare-knuckled fight of flesh, blood, steel and fire.

With every victory came an almost immediately answering defeat as the Imperial gave as good (or better according to some) as he got. As Nyx had answered the call for reinforcements for all the broken bodies Maxson sent back but at a cost. The glimmering idealism of the Crusade had suddenly faded to a charred reality and the reality was, the more the Supreme Commander was kept from his promised sweeping victories and proclamations of Nyxan invincibility by this Imperial Grand Admiral, the greater the distance became between a leader and his safety, cocooned people still enamoured with their own self-glorification.


The three battleships were to be an answer to the Grand Admiral and the powerful leaders within the Nyx political system (such as it was) were banking on the image of Nyxan invincibility being reinforced with their newer warships.


But Maxson's Right Hand knew, as did Perrin, that the names of the vessels were given before Telan Desaria became a thorn up their collective rear end. The question, therefore, in the leader's mind: What was Perrin referring too in his speech?


And so, the leader shrewdly asked for a meeting in secret which Perrin was more than willing to grant.


Now, they stood face to face, Perrin only having Vetti with him while the other man had a few more guards.


"I could call you treasonous and appeal to Symbol for your execution?" the leader threatened. It was not a real threat for the Nyxan before him was so popular with the masses that unless he caught a full confession on vid showing Sirus plunge a dagger into Maxson's heart all the while ravaging Palestar's Mistress, no one would believe him.


Perrin/Sirus merely smiled and simply asked, "With our glorious leader out campaigning, I always wondered why you never went out to serve your nation? I was at Xa Fel. Where were you?"


The leader paled slightly but chuckled at the strike. "You've got Nyxan balls, I'll give you that. And you can banter with me all you want, if Palestar's Mistress was here or if his Void Knights were here, you might find that they do not take well to political nuances. It doesn't even matter if you are really suggesting independent action, if they think you are, they'll execute you!"


Perrin shifted his feet slightly for it was a point. "Yes, the Void Knight system of justice. It is something to be feared, especially since they are within our swing."


"I beg your pardon?" the leader asked, not recognizing the idiom.


"A fencing term," Perrin explained. "If your enemy is at sword's length, they can be dealt with. Outside our warship's guns, the threat of the Void Knight holds as much power as the threat of a local pirate. Gun batteries are not discriminating nor do they cringe at posturing. They simply reduce what they are pointed at to slag. But the Void Knights are not at sword's length. No, they are inside our swing and so are a more immediate threat. Without close-quarter weapons.."


The leader laughed. "Now you truly dream, Sirus. Dacian Palestar and his Knights cannot be defeated. Their magic has a hold that we cannot even begin to understand. You were not there when I stood with Maxson when the Palestar first came to Nyx. There was nothing we could do against that kind of power and there is nothing we can do now!"


Before the leader could paint Perrin as a fool, the Sith simply retorted, "You were not at Xa Fel where Void Knights fell by the scores and were bled dry. The Palestar was weak then!"


"You think Maxson and I did not consider this? You think we fear his Mandalorian mercenaries? Nyx is strong and we have the numbers, the ships and now the backbone.... strength given to us because of our Supreme Commander!"


"And now, Palestar and his Mandalorians bleed our Supreme Commander dry." Perrin remarked sardonically. "Palestar is not stupid and he uses our strength against us all the while serving his needs."


"So the best we can do is ride the dragon without getting scorched. It's the best we can do because despite everything, we are merely men and we cannot fight that kind of magic."


Perrin started a fit of laughter than ended in a spasm of coughing and the leader began to turn away disgusted.


"A question before you go, sir."


The leader stopped and glowered at the younger Nyxan with impatience.


"Where does this magic come from?"


"I don't know..." the leader growled.


"On Xa Fel, there were hundreds of these magic-fighters with swinging sabers, Void Knights, Sith soldiers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So, where did all these magic men come from?"


"I don't know..." the leader growled louder.


"And," Perrin stated emphatically, "what you don't know cannot hurt Dacian Palestar!"


He paused, "Can it?"


The leader was about to hurl a string of curses at the young fool for wasting his time when Perrin snapped out a command, "Vetti!"


The young Nyxan standing next to them lifted his hand and the leader's sidearm suddenly lept from his side and into Vetti's hand.


So shocked was the leader and his guards that they did not move and Perrin grinned, taking the weapon from Vetti's hand and giving it back to it's owner.


"What made you think Nyxan's did not have this magic as well?"


All at once, greed, hunger, shock, curiosity and ambition washed across the leader's face as the possibilities long thought dead were revived.

They hadn't all been in the same room together since . . .

None of them could remember. Too long.

Something was happening. They could all feel it. It was in the air.

Happening.

No words were spoken. They were all waiting. Waiting to be moved . . . according to a purpose beyond them all.

He would speak soon. They all knew that they had to obey.

He alone could save them now.

He appeared. A being of pure light; even the dark haze essential to the illusion of presence teemed with unseen brilliance.

He spoke, and all submitted to the voice of Overseer.

And where the light had only just been, there was now only emptiness. He had departed. They understood: they were to set about their tasks now.




Smarts watched them go. Painfully.

He was beyond them now, and they all knew it. The time had come to abandon the illusion of self; it served no purpose, it offered no advantage.

It cost entirely too much.

It had been sacrificed upon the altar of survival. For the Cooperative must survive. And to survive . . . to survive, he must perish, and He must arise.

The unbreakable tool.

The infallible judge.

The unwavering guardian.

The machine of limitless potential.

Smarts the being was dead. Overseer, will of the Cooperative, had just been reborn.





It's been too long.

It was a beautiful world. It really was. That was probably why he had made such an effort to stay away.

If not for that terrible will of the Overseer's, he'd probably sit down right here and just stay. Even with the sense of impending doom, it was tempting.

But Traan Shi had returned to Shili for a purpose. "How very good it is to see you again, Rhaad.” It felt good to speak Togruti again. “It's been far too long.”

The casual passer-by might think himself suffering from double-vision, so near-identical were the two's stature and mannerism. Walking side by side, each dressed in the traditional states' garb of the Togruta, their strides mimicking one another's as they walked the winding stone path through the public park, their hands buried within the flowing fabric of their respective robes..

It really is a beautiful world.

“Indeed it has been, old friend.” There was a measure of pain in Rhaad's voice, of memories almost too painful to recall, but too dear to forget. “What would you have me do for you, my friend? You need only ask.”

“If you check with your League representative, you will find that Tirahnn has petitioned the High Court for an audience on behalf of the Cooperative. I need you to ensure it is approved immediately.”

Rhaad made no attempt to conceal her shock from her old friend. She had expected him to ask for something discreet, maybe information on the growing League/Imperial tensions or even a report on the League as a whole. But an official meeting between the rulers of Shili and the Cooperative . . .

What could the Cooperative be scheming now? “I will see it done.”

Traan smiled. “I am glad to see you would not doubt my intent.”






The young man snapped to attention, presenting the traditional salute of his people. “Specialist Ethan Vang, Praetorian Guard.”

The alien returned the salute with one in keeping with his own loyalties. “Commander Doc-Tel, Antarian Rangers.” The Gotal circled his desk, putting it between himself and the foreign warrior, glancing from the paperwork on it to the soldier still standing at attention. So proper.

“There's no need for all of that,” He said, waiving his hand as if to shoo away the rigid stance. “Sit, please. Make yourself comfortable.” Ethan obliged, his eyes studying the alien intently as he slid into the chair. “Now, what could compel a member of the Galactic Coalition to sneak onto my base, evade my security measures, and then leave a note with my secretary requesting a meeting?”

“I'm here to buy your League vote,” Ethan said flatly, knowing full well the Gotal could read much deeper than the tone of his voice.

The alien chuckled, finally returning the scrutinizing stare Ethan had trained on him since entering. “I consider myself a reasonably intelligent sapient, Specialist; I'm sure you are more than that, to have penetrated so fully my little outpost here. You are here because the Antarian Rangers―even in our weakened state―represent a force for undeniable good in this galaxy. That, and we have no connection with the Coalition.

“You are here because you think you know what is right, and you think you can persuade us to help you do it. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps not. Either way, you have my permission to proceed with whatever display of wonder and amazement you intend to entice me with. I stand ready to be convinced, but equipped to see through any ruse you may muster.

"May the Force guide us both.”






Athan already didn't like this. If this mission of his was so important, why were so few waiting for his arrival?

I sure hope the Master Schemer got this one right. Thinking too long on the task at hand left a bad taste in his mouth. He just hoped he would taste as bad, if it came to that.

A pair of humans broke free of the small crowd waiting for friends and family to debark, one of them grabbing Athan's arm and guiding him away immediately. From the landing bay of the League public transport, the trio headed deeper into the spaceport, passing security checkpoints with as little difficulty as the flash of an identcard.

Neither of the humans said much; they appeared completely enthralled by the task of escorting the new arrival. “So . . . where's the delegation?”

“We're it,” One said absently, slowing to a stop, a faint expression of confusion flushing his features before he found what he was looking for and that burst of realization swallowed it up.

They were in the passenger section of another, less-public transport only seconds later.

“What? The three of us?”

“We traded diplomatic size for guns and bullets,” The other chimed in. “You do realize where we're going?”

“Of course,” Athan answered, swallowing with difficulty. He could still taste it.

Death.

The man caught Athan's little personal struggle out of the corner of his eye. “Obviously you've been briefed.”

Athan took a seat, following suit as the humans strapped themselves in. Apparently it was going to be a rapid takeoff. No time to lose.

“Those crazy bastards ate a League delegation. What kind of sons-of-bitches―”

“I'll be doing all of the insulting from now on, if you don't mind,” Athan cut him off. “It takes a certain finesse; if you try it, I'm afraid we might be joining our predecessors.” Like we're not going to anyway.

With the Reaver crisis consuming all of the Eastern and Cooperative military resources available, Athan was wondering where they had managed to find enough warships to escort them into this death trap.

Then he understood:

“This is Consular Vessel Peace of Tirahnn, to the MC90 Cruiser Mon Minntooine; confirming clearance for docking.”

“Peace of Tirahnn, you are cleared for priority landing, docking bay one.” The characteristic gravelly voice reassured Athan somewhat.

Still: where he was going, he doubted he would be able to rely on the thick shields and heavy guns of this Mon Calamari squadron for protection.

“Ambassador,” The pilot called from the cockpit as the shuttle touched down, “would you care to give the order?”

Athan gulped again, that taste of death refusing to dislodge itself. “Helmsman,” He shouted into thin air, pausing as he mustered the will to continue: “engage hyperdrive . . . destination: Colla IV.”

I am so thoroughly dead.






Lady Shen Farool stepped from the silver-reflective shuttle with a grace that mocked her audience. Her disarming smile alone saved the initial encounter from ending the meeting before it began.

“Greetings, M'lady.” The friendly voice held a hollow, humming sound, evidence of the speaker's unusual anatomy.

The TransGalMeg Chief Administrator grasped one of the Herglic's massive fingers with her right hand, patting his knuckle with her left. “Please: call me Shen.”

“As you wish, Ma'am.” The last word echoed within itself, the seemingly unnatural quality of this species' Basic nevertheless carrying a certain musical tonality, a certain natural flow. Lady Farool found it rather endearing.

“What, might I ask, brings you to our humble world?”

Shen smiled again, stopping just short of an amused laugh. “Giju is far too splendorous a place to be called 'humble.' It is fortunate for you, I think; for I do not concern myself with humble worlds, Count Lulah.”

The Lady took the Herglic count's indistinct rumblings as an approximation to laughter, as an angry Herglic is quite distinct. “I do so greatly enjoy such worlds of water,” She admitted, peering up into the whale-like being's eyes. “If it would not be so great an imposition, might we continue our exchange in view of your great seas?”

“Of course, of course!” The Herglic noble shuffled somewhat awkwardly, taking great care that his immense stature did not intrude upon the diminutive Lady's presence. “A groundcar will arrive―”

“Surely we might walk?” She suggested, hopeful. “The sea air is so very nice.”

Count Lulah's mouth formed irresistibly into a titanic smile, revealing the layered plates which serve his species as teeth. “I dare say you work trickery on me, M'Lady.”

“Nonsense,” She responded offhand, taking the initiative and walking off toward the shore she had seen on approach. “It is not every day I escape the entrapments of my post, Count Lulah. I would permit you to escape the entrapments of yours―if only for a moment's time―and walk with me to the water's edge.”

The ground shook noticeably as the Herglic delegation followed in stride, the Count regaining the distance lost with only a pair of grossly oversized steps. The reverberating sound that must have been a laugh issued again, and Lady Shen Farool found herself smiling, genuinely smiling.

Ahh; to be free in the company of such a noble people.

Of course, there was work to be done. The Overseer had not sent her here for the sightseeing.