Two, the wayward Conclave Executor, prepares to rejoin his comrades, also unwitting to the role he is about to play.

The plots of Grand Marshall Simon Kaine and those in his employ continue to spin, sharks below the calm waters of the Empire. He does not anticipate the fall that Gevel is about to endure, from a precipice none of them can see. One must wonder if the powers with which he toys, long buried in the past, in the history of the empire, are beyond him -- or whether they will allow him to forge a new Empire in his own image.

Now, each will face their own trial in the fires to come. The past and present collide, the time for exposition long past.

The cracks run too deep, the fissures too old to support the facade above any longer. The conflict to come will shape the galaxy for generations -- as will the dead who return to fight it...

Present Day...




Ciscero kneeled down to examine the body taking extra care not to touch anything. He had just arrived on the scene having returned from Bothawui.

"Know him, Major?" and Ciscero looked up to another approaching agent. His lips pressed together uncomfortably wondering just how many agents Isard had on site.

"Never seen him before." his eyes narrowed. "You have his bio?"

"Actually, that is the strange part. Reads clean."

"Clean?"

"Never been arrested. Actually a veteran of the attack on the Jutraalian Death Star. Part of Vice Admiral Drakiss' Fleet. Injured and awarded the Imperial Medel of Valor.

Part of the Veteran Pact."

Ciscero remembered the government program to care for permanently disabled veterans of the many conflicts the Empire had been embroiled in to regain it's supremacy. A way for the Empire to give back to those who gave of themselves and added incentive for new military initiates. For the Empire took care of it's own. Or so the mantra went.

Apparently, this poor soul was given an engineering assignment in the Imperial District which would put him close to many officers within the Imperial hierarchy.

Grand Moff Zell was a rather popular figure.

Still. It had all the appearances of a singular mad act.


But for person like Ciscero, appearances were transient.


"Why would he want to assassinate Zell?" Ciscero murmured to himself.


"Perhaps we should investigate the Grand Moff?" the other agent suggested and Ciscero looked up narrowing his eyes.

"Why?"

The agent shrugged. "The Director mentioned as much about a half hour ago. Something about Zell perhaps sleeping with the man's wife and maybe he was trying to get revenge."


Ciscero stood up and noted that the people who were to clean up the mess and return the setting back to his proper order had finally been allowed through.


Ciscero took one last look at the body before stepping away towards the weapon that had been dropped nearby as the security chain guns mowed the man down.


Anyone who worked in the Imperial District would have known about the security weapons.


The Intelligence Agent turned to look at the security blasters pointed down at him from overhead.


He wouldn't set hiimself up near one.


His eyes turned to see the approaching Director of Imperial Intelligence. "What do you think?" she asked, her colored eyes fixed firmly on him.

His expression seemed to shrug. "I think I should sell my apartment in the Imperial District."

"Cute," she growled and her eyes narrowed. "Now, specifics." she ordered.

"Your man here was an amateur."

"Because?"

"He's too close. Any assassin worth his weight would have set himself much farther out. There are sniper rifles that could reach..."

"Same conclusion we drew. He's not a professional. Actually, it seems to be what is called a 'crime of passion'. The man's wife is missing and we've traced some money from the Grand Moff's account to.."

"So you are thinking blackmail or revenge?"

"Probably both. We are widening our sphere and questioning the Moff as well."

"Nothing like being questioned like a criminal during an investigation into your attempted murder."

"This case is closed." Isard said with finality. "Be in my office tomorrow morning. Something has come up.."

"It always does," Ciscero sighed back. "Make it in the afternoon. I still have that damned Bothan stench."

"I wondered what that was." The Director wrinkled her nose and nodded. "Afternoon then." and walked off.


Open and shut.



Ciscero began to walk towards a lift to take him away from the scene and head back to a temporary apartment. The situation seemed reasonable enough and the motive the Director attributed to the attempt at Zell's life seemed to make sense.

But that still did not answer the fact as to how the would be assassin went about his attempt.

That he brought the unauthorized weapon in the District and the fact that he was lying in wait for Zell shouted of premeditation. He knew, at the very least, the Moff's habits enough to know he'd be taking the route that would take him past the waiting killer.

And if the act was premeditated, why did the person place himself before a security gun.


Unless he did not expect it to be activated!


And if he didn't expect it activated...... second rule of assassinations: Kill the assassin.


As the doors closed on the lift, a thought came to him.


If he was a recipient of the Veteran Pact, where was his disability?


He immediately reset the lift controls. With his mind racing, he departed the lift purposefully on the wrong level.


He did not like where his line of thinking lead him...


Conspiracy.

Utropollus Major

Macbeth was, in truth, now no more alive than Utropollus Major itself. Utropollus, the world that had mocked and damned him so – that had received more than its fair share in reply. Only by the barest, scantest margins could the last human being on Utropollus be considered a human being.
His repulsorchair still hung in the halls of the Plato District Minimum Security Extended Residence Prison Hospital, yet it was suspended now by the field of nanites that had burrowed into it, integrating themselves, chewing out its primary system and replacing it with their own constructs. Similarly, the Prison Hospital itself had been destroyed and rebuilt from the inside out by the little machines. Its roofs and walls had crumbled, its lab equipment and medical instruments had been smashed, and its inhabitants, of course, slaughtered.

Yet it had been reborn as the centerpiece of Macbeth’s nanite army. Mechanical constructs, both composed entirely of nanites and of former prison property infested by them, filled the entire complex. Holograms and massive flatpanel screens, enormous computer systems, production facilities, solar panels, and all manner of transmitters and receptors filled its halls, rooms and offices. Strung along the walls were thin strips and patches of dully radiant nanites, casting the entire prison in a sickly orange glow used for illumination by some of the more primitive nanite constructs.

All throughout the prison were facilities and machines designed for the infestation of both living and non-living entities, the former being almost entirely humans and the latter being their implements, and for the creation of weapons and mechanical units. These facilities could fill entire rooms, but were often scattered in the midst of other rooms and hallways. The bustle of full scale industry bustled the entirety of the complex, drudges and other monstrous constructions haggardly dragging themselves throughout.

In fact, beyond simple industry, the facility had even taken on a bizarre form of commerce. There was a perpetual flow of human flesh and body parts – some part of a whole and some severed from their original owners – into Macbeth’s compound.

Human beings had become a sort of catch-all resource for Mabeth’s machines. The nanites infested them for use in combat, consumed them for energy, and used them to reproduce. Bodies were torn apart and put back together to make great, monstrous leviathans. They were strung from the ceilings – whole human bodies, bloated and paled by death, bulging with the nanites that had infested them. In time, they would burst, unleashing a horde of the tiny robots.

Another prominent and horrifying feature boasted by the revamped Plato District Prison Hospital were the tanks. Pervading the facility were great, towering tanks of a grey preservation syrup that glowed with the same orange light as the illumination devices. Within floated human beings, in whole and in part, dangling from electrodes and suspended forever in a permanent state of semi-death.

As pervasive as the tanks were, they were never more so than in the room Macbeth floated that very moment. On the furthest walls were the various pieces of equipment, operated by drudges or unattended. But there, in the center of the bombed and ruined room, was where Macbeth spent most of his time. Surrounding his chair on either side were row upon row of the glowing orange tanks. Vestiges of human beings clung to a hopeless sort of life within them; halves of torsos, spinal columns, all attached to brains.

This was where he kept minds. Interesting minds of the dead.

In every sense of the phrase, Utropollus was now a gate between life and death; a place that had been torn apart from the inside, and the void thus created refilled by a twisted sort of machine life.

Here the barrier between life and dead meant nothing; both were simply commodities that Macbeth traded in.

He stopped at one of the tanks. Inside was the shredded torso of what once had been an adult male; a spinal column was visible, leading up through partially exposed ribs to a fractured skull. Within, the perfect memory of machines had faithfully reconstructed whatever small parts of the man’s brain they had destroyed.

Macbeth smiled, and dissolved into the memories therein, the implant in his neck guiding him through the twisted labyrinths of thought down into chemical memory.

The memories were those of Warden Vexim, of the Plato District Minimum Security Extended Residence Prison Hospital.


<i>Warden Vexim stared down from the observation deck at the pitiful, scarred form of Macbeth, where the droids worked on him. He felt something distinctly, and at first he wasn’t sure what it was. Then he realized. It was pity.

He glanced over at the doctor. This particular doctor – a well-built, impressive man – had dealt with Macbeth’s case since he had come to them almost a year before. His name was Dorot, and he was there to oversee the operation, though in truth his role was little more than passively watching the droids do their work.

“How long before the implant takes effect?” Vexim asked. “I mean, until it is usable.”

“Two, three weeks. Less if the bacta treatments take hold. It’s being implanted at the base of the brain stem, where the nerves can heal themselves quickest.”

“May we proceed with the cauterizing of the wound, doctor?” One of the droids chirped.

“Yes, you may proceed,” Dorot replied. “It will probably take Macbeth at least a week to fully understand how to operate the implant. But once he is able to, he will be able to operate any computer with ease and efficiency.”


…the memories jaunted ahead in time…


Now Warden Vexim stood before a crowd. Next to him was Macbeth, sitting pathetically in his wheelchair with a computer screen on his lap. Several feet away, a group of small droids – about as high as a person’s waist – fettered about, performing menial tasks. “Observe, as the patient interfaces with the machine as if it were his own body. He is able to communicate with almost any computer on almost any frequency. Only three weeks ago, this man was utterly helpless; now, he is all but self-sufficient.”

He recited lines he had no business reciting, fed from a prompter with little understanding of any of the medical science before him. “The brilliance of the implant is the use of nanotechnology.

“The word implant is a misnomer. It is not one implant, but a construct composed of thousands of individual parts. Tiny robots – nanites – replicate and replicate themselves at the base of his brain stem, interacting with the nerves he uses to interface with machines.

“Whereas traditional mechanical implants require expert training to use, occupy the majority of a person’s thought processes and can take years to fully master, the nanites in the Utropollus Government’s Phoenix Project are able to alter themselves, replicate and work independently, filling any role required of them. In other words, if a patient has difficulty mastering a particular aspect of the implant, the implant adjusts itself almost instantaneously.”


…and again, through time…


Vexim watched as Macbeth sat silently in his chair, the computer on his lap buzzing as he operated the droids just beyond him with expert efficiency. They were adding a new wing to the hospital.

“Careful, there, with the binary load lifter –” Vexim began, but was instantly silenced as the load lifter corrected its course. He was certain he saw Macbeth’s glowering eyes cast themselves over his way contemptuously, but bit his tongue.

One did not, after all, abuse such a useful resource as Macbeth had become. His ability to control mass numbers of droids allowed him to assist in all manner of complex work around the prison, from construction duty, to secretarial and organizational work.

A familiar voice called out to him, and he turned to see Doctor Dorot. “Hello there, doctor,” he said genially. “Lovely day.”

“Yes,” Dorot agreed absent mindedly. The doctor was eying Macbeth gloweringly, suspicion playing across his face. “Do you always allow patients to wander after curfew?”

“He’s assisting in the construction of the new wing,” Vexim said. “Didn’t you read the memo?”

“I did,” Dorot replied. “I’ve just noticed you’ve been giving Venn Macbeth quite a long leash lately.

Vexim shrugged. “Has he given me reason not to?”

It was Dorot’s turn to shrug.

“The Prison is under funded,” Vexim continued. “Our droids are older than my grandfather’s grandfather – any way that I can speed up progress, I’ll make use of. What about this has you so concerned?”

“Nothing.”

Vexim shook his head. It wasn’t like Dorot to be nervous, about anything, and he had chosen a spectacularly foolish thing over which to take up the habit. One paraplegic in the courtyard was hardly a threat to anyone…</i>


Macbeth laughed out loud at the last thought, drifting back into his own mind at will. His chair slowly drifted forward through the two rows of orange tanks, coming to another of his favorite selections from among the maddened dead.


<i>Doctor Dorot quickened his pace as he heard another set of footsteps. It was a nervous reaction, one which he knew was very common. Nervousness inspires a sort of paranoia, where even when one is fully within one’s rights in what one is doing, they perceive that somehow they are on the verge of being caught.

Dorot stepped into the Prison’s security center, a small, dull room full of holographic feeds and old, unused camera equipment. Nurse Anasthella entered behind him, locking the door as she did so.

“So what’s this all about, anyway?” She asked innocently, pressing herself up against Dorot. He brushed her away and continued to examine the computer panels.

“Not <i>that</i>, of that much I’m sure,” Dorot said. He found the panel he was looking for and began hitting several buttons.

“Then what?” Anasthella asked.

Dorot found the feed he was looking for. “Look at that,” he said.

What he was referring to was a holographic feed. It depicted a man in a wheelchair, sitting in front of a computer. Anasthella looked at the feed, then at Dorot, then at the feed again. “It’s… nice,” she said. “Was that it? Can I go now?”

“Don’t look at him,” Dorot chided impatiently. “Look at the machines in front of him. The assistant droids we licensed him. Look what they’re doing.”

The four droids appeared to be working on something small and delicate, the particulars of their project obscured by their diminutive metallic forms. Every so often, one of them would drift away from the rest, dip behind Macbeth and examine something on his neck. Then the droid would examine something on his computer, then return to the others.

“What? I don’t understand.”

Dorot rushed to another terminal, punching up a set of security logs. “Look at this,” he said. “Macbeth has been spending hours in various computer labs. Every waking second he’s not doing something for Vexim, and even some of the seconds he is. No one ever watches him anymore, so he’s just been drifting around, working on whatever it is he’s working on.”

“So,” Anasthella said, “what does this mean? He’s doing something he shouldn’t be?”

“Of course he is,” Dorot snapped, picking up a datapad. “And look at this. Vexim won’t listen to me, so I watched and waited for a week, until Macbeth forgot to clean one of the terminals he was working on. This is what I found.”

He thrust the datapad at Anasthella. She looked at it dubiously.

“It’s a series of diagrams and scientific notes,” Dorot explained furiously, “detailing every micrometer of the nanites which make up Macbeth’s implant.”

Anasthella looked up at him. “He’s building them?”

“He’s building them, and modifying them, in an uncontrolled environment. The ones in his neck couldn’t possibly operate in the real world. But given how much time he’s spent, he could have made changes. This technology is dangerous, dangerous beyond anything – ”

“I get it,” Anasthella said. “So why are you showing me all of this?”

“I need to know that I can trust you.”

“Of course,” she said, giggling excitedly.

Dorot pressed on, obviously irritated. “I need you to go speak to Macbeth – pretend you don’t know what he’s doing. Stall him. Keep him there. I’m going to get Vexim.”</i>


Macbeth pulled away again, laughing as he reemerged into reality. He proceeded to the next of the dead, plunging once again into their memories.


<i>Nurse Anasthella rushed down the hallway, her tremendous cleavage bouncing up and down and drawing excited stares from young doctors interning at the Prison Hospital. She, of course, delighted in the attention. Her mind was on anything but what was about to occur.

She slipped into the computer lab that Macbeth occupied silently, hoping to surprise him. His attention was fixed on the computer in front of him and the robots working so ponderously just beyond.

“Hello, Anasthella,” Macbeth’s said, his voice surprisingly clear for that second. Anasthella nearly jumped ten feet straight into the air.

“Oh, hello Macbeth,” she said gaily, overcoming her surprise quickly. “You sound different, today.”

“…I’m… not surprised,” Macbeth replied. He still struggled for breath slightly, she noticed.

She searched her vapid mind for conversation topics. “I heard you were working on a musical piece for the next mass,” she said finally. “That your droids are going to perform it as a band.”

“…you know,” he said, “I’ve… waited a long time to tell you… just what I think… of your fu</i><i>cking Mercerism, and… your forgotten god.”

“I’m sorry?” She said.

“…you should be.”

Macbeth’s chair turned, and for a moment she look into his eyes, noting for the first time their cold, dead luster. Then the droids in the center of the room cleared away, and a tiny, buzzing cloud arose from the ground.

It flashed forward, leaping towards her. The little bugs bit into her face, burrowed into her skin and surged up her nose.

In a second, she was dead.</i>


The surreal carnival festivities continued, as Macbeth once again came to in the real world, moving back to the beginning and casting his mind into the memories of Warden Vexim, once again.


<i>“He’s been spending hours,” Dorot said to him, “doing nothing but sitting in these computer labs, his droids toiling endlessly, extracting information from his implant about the nanite technology.”

Vexim took a deep breath, nodding in greeting to a pretty blonde woman as they passed her. He saw her around sometimes, even recalled talking to her. Samantha Koortyn, that was her name. She was ferrying the new technology.

Macbeth’s technology.

“This is hard to believe,” Vexim said. “Macbeth’s been doing good work for us. He’s a big success story – not to mention how welcome we are to have dodged any flack for that incident at Clevinger with Warden Anselm.”

“Believe it or not, you’re about to find out. Anasthella is stalling him right now.”

Vexim sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t rock the boat like this. It’s not like you.”

The two proceeded out into the courtyard. An aide came flying out of one of the buildings across from them – from the new section Macbeth had built. “Sir! Sir, you have to come quickly, there’s been some sort of –”

And that was when Vexim noticed it. A black cloud, just in the sky, slowly descending towards the courtyard.

In split second later, another black cloud emerged from the door behind the aide. For a moment it was almost surreal – how could a cloud be on the ground, or moving so quickly? But as the cloud broke into sections, each wisp pursuing one of the prisoners or guards in the courtyard, Vexim began to understand.

“Run!” Shouted Dorot. One of the miniature clouds swallowed the aide whole, surrounding him and burrowing inside, killing him in seconds. Guards fired their weapons to no avail.

Shooting clouds was, of course, impossible.

Another of the clouds took Dorot, slamming him into the ground as it buried itself into him viciously, nanites squirming into every orifice and burrowing into his skin. Vexim panicked, fleeing.

There was an explosion in the building beyond. For a moment the warden saw vague forms emerging from the fire, viciously assaulting those who yet survived.

Then the cloud from the sky descended upon the courtyard, and he, too, died.</i>


And on to another, Macbeth moved.


<i>Thom Wyat sat in his office blissfully, three hundred floors up in the headquarters of the Vexan corporation, sipping a mild drink and watching the holonet. He was sure there was some sort of work he was supposed to be doing. But those who helped Senator Tallon M’krah found themselves quickly elevated to positions which freed them from such menial concerns.

He flipped the channel lazily. Outside, the day was becoming hazy. In the distance he saw flashes of lightning.

Wonderful, he thought.

Thom spent several more minutes absent mindedly watching the holonet, until he looked out his window again. This time, he spilled his drink.

The flashes of lightning had become blood red chutes of cinder and flame, as a mob of some sort poured through the streets, semiautomatic weapons blazing. Other skyscrapers were silhouettes on a crimson sky, great blasts of artillery echoing far in the distance. Smoke and ash filled the city streets, and blood smeared the pavement.

And the clouds. The clouds had descended upon it all, permeating everything from the sky to the earth, great black walls of murder. A building crumbled in the distance.

The mob, the flames, the smoke, the ash and the clouds formed an ever expanding wall, thousands of feet below. And for ten whole minutes, Thom Wyat could do nothing but watch as they slowly approached his building, until nothing but the great black clouds were visible ahead, and only flame could be seen down below.

Then the wave of carnage began to swallow his building. The ground rumbled and shook. Then the glass walls of his office shattered, the black clouds finally pressed bare against the face of the building as the mob fought its way up from below.

Shards flew, slicing his skin, and the cold air soured the wounds bitterly. Swarms of the black things – whatever they were – rushed in, crashing through the door behind him and into the offices beyond. Screams could be heard.

And, in the chaos of it all, as Thom Wyat fell to his knees, the buzzing sounds around him coalesced into a voice, which spoke to him.

In confusion and terror Thom stared up into the inky blackness of the buzzing cloud, wondering what he could have done to deserve this.

Then the identity of the speaker occurred to him, and he understood. Then he died.</i>


Macbeth languished in the vindictive pleasure of Thom Wyat’s pain for a moment before he moved on.


<i>For Tallon M’krah, there was no surprise. He lived among what would be one of the last districts to be destroyed. He had watched the news coverage, sketchy as it was, for hours. In the distance, explosions had echoed for hours. Air traffic was utterly jammed, and most of those who tried to flee were mysteriously shot down.

Tallon M’krah knew what to expect. Like Thom Wyat, he sat, slowly sipping a drink as the end came. “All of my work,” he said. “All of my pain, toil and,” he swallowed the rest of the bitter concoction, “sacrifice.”

He watched the wave of destruction swallow his district, and then his building. The voice that spoke, just as death took him, was unknown to him.</i>


Another.


<i> – Alisha Teritol Macbeth huddled in her kitchen, holding her children as the sound of bombs shook plaster from their ceilings. The children cried bitterly, and so did she. It had been hours since the first strikes. Nobody fully understood what was happening.

Her mother had gone out for bread and never come back. Above their heads, their windows shattered. Smoke and flame filled their apartment, followed by wisps of black cloud.

She heard a voice, too – ”</i>


And another.


<i> – Shevil and Torkle, sobbing in the office they shared, bitterly bemoaned their planet’s security forces. Where, when someone needed defense, were the defenders? “We gave our lives to this place,” Shevil said.

“And look how it repaid us.”

The building shook beneath them and their windows shattered. A voice spoke to them, before the floor collapsed and –”</i>


And another.


<i> – Elha Varrithane, of the Isellington, West Isia Varrithanes, sat cold and alone as the nanites took her. Vacantly, as a dark, foul voice muttered something to her, she wondered where her brother, Banks Varrithane, was – </i>


Interesting minds.

Macbeth could drown in the cosmic irony of it all, in the sweet serendipity of his revenge, of the universal justice delivered by the cleansing fire his machines embodied. Through the implant in his neck, he felt the throbbing non-life of his self-replicating machines all around him, encompassing the entire world, chewing upon the last remains of the people he had hated so.

The voices of his family and friends replayed in his mind again and again. They made him smile and cry simultaneously, evoking a well of emotions that he had no time for.

There was a part of him that longed to see the faces of his children again, who wished to whatever god that might exist he could undo their slaughter, or perhaps simply kill himself to end his wickedness.

But in that body of flesh, as upon the face of Utropollus Major, there now beat the cold, bitter heart of a machine.

Unlike the terror exacted on Utropollus, it wasn’t a physical change; beyond those in his neck, still replicating themselves, there were no nanites in Macbeth’s body. He was still flesh and blood.

Vacantly, he wondered if it had simply always been this way. That machine heart throbbed in his chest, in his mind and in his soul, forged from his pain.

And for every death, for every act of brutality that the little part of him that was human still abhorred, that part of him delighted.

Every time he watched his family die, it drowned him in euphoria.

And against the torrent of that euphoria, Macbeth slowly felt the human part of him shrink away, until he couldn’t even feel it anymore. All that echoed in his mind was the delight of the simple statement, delivered to each of the dead in the room in the same buzzing metallic approximation of his voice.

It was the little statement each of them had heard before they had died. And it was this:

<i>“I just wanted you to know, before you died, that it was me.”</i>

Macbeth laughed again, his chair lazily gliding away.

He had other dead to attend to.

Hyperspace

Body rigid with tension, Samantha Koortyn’s hands still clutched the hyperspace lever, her knuckles white. Beads of sweat had formed on her pale forehead just around her hairline; her back was slick with more of it. She continued to stare out the transparisteel cockpit windows at the silver-white whorls, for once very thankful for their reassuring, though migraine inducing, presence around her ship as she traveled at .6 past light speed, putting progressively more distance between herself and Utropollus Major. I’m safe.

Frak, from his position adjacent to Sam at the nav-computer, swiveled his polished durasteel dome toward her and chittered a short report, confirming what her eyes were already telling her. The smuggler finally loosened her death grip on the lever and leaned back in her pilot’s seat, exhaling loudly – she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath – and closing her eyes.

The grey and light blue astromech then whistled a lighter tone, his scomplink connection affirming that Thera was clean – none of the nanites had managed to infect the ship.

“Good,” Sam replied simply, leaning forward in the chair and resting her elbows on her thighs as she wiped the sweat from her brow, then pushed her damp blonde hair away from her face. “Remind me never to do business with the Black Dragon Empire ever again. Cyborgs, nanites...” The smuggler had no way of knowing, of course, that the two events – her last job and the nanite infestation – were in fact related.

Frak beeped sarcastically and retracted his manipulator arm from the scomplink, rolling away.

Standing, Sam stretched her stiff back and made her way toward her small quarters located on the opposite side of the YT-2400 freighter, pulling her sweat soaked shirt over her head as she went, and tossing it onto her bunk as she entered the ’fresher.

Steaming hot water sluiced over her body as Sam replayed the events leading up to now in her mind, from her first contract with Caas Dom'or, her innocuous series of med-equipment runs between Bakura and Utropollus, the disturbing encounter with General Grevious, her gunlabird chase back across the galaxy for her final payment, and finally...

The swarms.

Sam shivered in spite of the nearly scalding temperature of the recycled water. In all her years as a smuggler specializing in weapons tech, out of all the things she’d been witness to, she had never seen anything like the devastation being wrought even now upon the planet from which she’d just escaped. The fact that she’d been aboard Thera scouring the undernet for information on her deadbeat client had been what saved her, though she continued to berate herself for remaining planetside and stubbornly attempting to track down Dom'or, even when holonet reports that something was wrong began to filter through her data retrieval system: strangely moving clouds, unexplainable equipment malfunctions, increasingly erratic behavior amongst the droid population... surely none of those things would affect her.

Then the swarms of nanites had begun openly attacking. Then everything had gone to hell.

And Sam knew she’d barely gotten out with her life. Only her Imperial-trained piloting skills – and a munkload of luck – had gotten her up and out of the atmosphere, swooping and juking as she was surrounded on all sides by a neverending barrage of blaster fire, to an altitude at which she could safely make a jump.

A jump to anywhere; it hadn’t mattered. A short hop was all she’d needed, and Sam had trusted her astromech to pick the location as well as make the calculations, while she concentrated on saving their wagyxes – though Frak technically didn’t have a wagyx.

Emerging from the ’fresher, her bare skin pink and even red in certain places from the shower, Sam dressed in a fresh, non-sweat stained set of clothing that was nearly identical to the attire she’d just cast off, and absently shook water from her short hair with her fingers as she returned to the cockpit to determine exactly where they were headed.

But Sam wasn’t that worried. Anywhere, any planet would be better than the one she’d just fled.

Endgame: Strengthening the Foundation



Her hand trembled slightly.

"I am instructed to tell you that should Vinda Corp wish to puncture the CSA's "false sense of security"..or decide to unilaterally strike and finish them off,

The full weight of the Empire will be brought to bear against you."

Jenice's blood chilled slightly at the sound of her own voice, realizing the weight her words carried.

"Mr. Vinda,

This is not said with intent to threaten. This is said to underline the necessity of what my company is doing on behalf of the Empire.

However, it will not totally be one sided.

If you agree to endure the CSA for a time, I am instructed to inform you that your company will be rewarded handsomely.

Very, very handsomely."


A wry smile crept across his face...

"....just how handsomely?..."


Hook, Line, and Sinker…

But then the man does have everything to gain, Jenice..


The byplay in her mind stopped utterly when Vinda’s last question registered.


"....just how handsomely?..."


Jenice laughed.


Men!


She stopped and walked over to the master of Vinda Corporation, sidestepping his desk. In a flurry of presumption and courage, a finger flickered out and traced the man’s face (almost endearingly).


“My dear Mr. Vinda. You need not worry about your reward.”


Her eyes gleamed.


“For if money is all that you love… then that is all that you will always see…”



*



It was an incident that had changed her forever. She had faced her fears and had succeeded despite the misgivings and taunts of her father and those within his circle.

She learned to express her independence and for that she was grateful to Kaine. But within that gratitude, she also saw that he had used her to get what he wanted, namely, the fall of Cryonics Industries and the way open for direct control over Coruscant's affairs.

She had faired well in the operation and Arliss Towers on Muunillist and Arliss Industries offworld had reaped much profit since the infusion of the new economies that had a revitalizing effect on the Empire.

Still, such growth and influx of monetary benefits she attributed to hard work and shrewd decision-making. Not as handouts from Kaine.


So, when the Grand Marshall came to her automatically assuming he would get what he wanted, she surprised him.

Having won the reconstruction bid for the battered ships, stations, buildings, systems from the attacks by the Galactic Coalition and their allies, the Outer Rim Soveriegnty, she was damned if she was going to jeopardize her largest account, the Imperial Government.

There were quite a number of vessels requiring refit, rebuilding, general repairing and upgrading. So much so that to comply with what Kaine had wanted (and for no good reason she could see), she would be over extending much of her already thin resources.


As brutal and harsh as her father had been to her growing up, it seemed that he had been instilling in her hard lessons to learn from. She came to understand that he was preparing her to helm the entire Corporate Empire he had built and kept alive despite growing competition and the ever constant threat of nationalization.


She had grown harder. Bolder.


She was independent.


And so, she looked at Simon Kaine, a man she had once had an affair with, and said with conviction:

*
*

Kaine merely looked at the woman he briefly had an affair with. It was not that he didn't, at some point, expect her reaction. It was the conviction her voice conveyed that surprised the Grand Marshall.


Ever since the Endgame Operation, Jenice Arliss had been coming into her own, taking a more active interest in the growth of Arliss Towers. Rather than keeping the distance between herself and her father, as he originally intended when he and the then Grand Admiral Hyfe and orchestrated with the conquest of Muunillist, she and her father were drawing closer together. Working, it seemed, to draw Arliss Industries and Arliss Towers back together.


While Seamus Arliss, her father, had lived with the decision the Empire made in separating the corporate headquarters with it's offworld holdings, the business mogul had thrown all his energies into creating Arliss Industries (the off-world conglomerate holdings) into the monster it was.

Jenice Arliss was now trying to make what was intended to be strictly a Muunillist entity match pace with her father by increasing Arliss Tower's own reach.


She had projects going and could not be bothered with something that seemed a minor scheme, on the outside.


He looked into her eyes and found that he could no longer trust her. Something would have to be done about her corporation.


He nodded silently and cut the connection to the encrypted holonet feed.


I have to seriously consider nationalization, he thought.


But first thing's first.


But what to do? The Galactus was already in dry dock and soon what he was proposing would not be feasible.


When broken down, what he was trying to accomplish was merely a form of deception.


His mind flashed back to an earlier instance where he had to employ similar deviousness and a slow smile formed.


He opened a channel to Captain Quinn, and old associate from the 256th and a leader of Shroud Command.



Time to make the Galactus disappear.

Imperial Center.... Prior to Apparitions: Spectres of the Truth




Regent Hyfe stared at the holocron intently, as if the mere act of staring could make the Jedi-made cube release the secrets within.

Of all those stolen during the Sith attack upon Naboo, there were a few that refused to yield their contents. A circumstance that irritated the leader of the New Order to no end.


And it was not as if he could request assistance from any one of the members of the Naboo Sith Order. No, it seemed nowadays, the Sith only concerned themselves with the creating of groups as a child creates clubs. Those with the dark arts more concerned with membership dues and membership loyalties than sanity allowed.


Have we truly become so toothless in the galaxy?


He included himself in the proceedings though he really, deep down, did not mean it.

For he too was a student of the art of force manipulation. But only in as much as it served his needs and will. An Empire of the Sith was truly an oxymoron as the very nature of the Sith was one of self consumption and waste.

Objectively looked at, any empire led by the Sith was doomed to fall. At least, according to the Sith as an organization. And yet, the Sith were a necessity within the Empire. Who else could combat the power of the Jedi? And it was not as if the Jedi were lining up for jobs within the Empire.

But a leader with the powers of the Sith could do much to further his own aims.

And there lay the brilliance of Palpatine.


For what did he care of Sith organizations, Sith membership or antiquated Sith laws?

The dark arts were merely a means to an end.

So too, they would prove to be a means for an end that Hyfe himself intended to bring to reality.



In the vacuum left by Palpatine, the Empire became more of a militaristic state, the Moff's bringing back a Senate of sorts to aid in the administration of the shrinking New Order after the supposed death of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Then the old war between Empire and Rebellion/Republicans seemed to be put on the back burner as factions of Sith and Rogue Jedi erupted across the galaxy.

Soon what remaining resources were left were plunged into war at the whims of these idiots: Marzullo or the plethora of interlopers that took the title 'Darth' as their own. Self styled glory hunters who's shortsidedness was seen as one by one their empires flickered out, their minions scattering like galactic dust to the few remaining Sith/Jedi factions.

Only Empire and the Rebels had remained but the Empire had used that time to focus on their true enemy. The Rebellion was fracturing as their leaders began fighting among themselves, that idealistic fool Hiram Drayson seizing the Republic Fleet thus splintering their military organization beyond the healing point. The fool Jedi thinking they could train their idiot padawans, serve their perceptions of the force and lead a Republic with it's many nuances and still have success at the end further dilluted any sense of focussed unity.

That the Jedi still felt that they could 'do it all' was a testament to their overwhelming stupidity. To split their focus was to weaken all aspects of their action.

And so the Empire thrived and grew.


But even as the Regent delved deeper into the perceptions of the darkside, hints of an even greater web became visible. A web he had not fully realized was there.

It was an understanding that the Empire was no longer an entity led by him but rather, an entity that lived in spite of him. An entity that merely tolerated his existence and it was that thought that burned within him.


And the focal point of this new entity called Empire?



Grand Marshall Simon Kaine



The revelation was not one that really surprised him for he knew Kaine's personality. The man was, in reality, a loner. And it was his life's work to maintain that the Empire outlive them all, or (if one were to objectively look at it with even a bare amount of cynicism) in spite of them all.


The way the Empire was now fashioned, it was such as to clearly prevent any rebellious factions gaining strength and breaking away as the Rebellion had once done and as the New Empire had briefly tried to do.

As the Empire expanded, so too would the successes of it's Generals and Admirals. So too would the ambitions of the those leaders within. So too would the appetite of him that led.


And so redundancy after redundancy had been built into the structure of the Empire.

There was that pattern which people thought was the government.
There was that pattern which the government itself said was it's framework.
And there was that pattern which was the reality.


Facade upon facade built up to keep those ideologically opposed governments at bay, built up the keep the citizens in line, built up to keep the soldiers and leaders in line, built up to continue the New Order Policies.


It was brilliant and each piece played an intricate part.


There was virtually no chance of rebellion anymore. Or, rather, any chance of successful rebellion. Nor was their a chance of the government collapsing if the leadership was killed (as had happened with Palpatine).


It was a very subtle implementation of checks and balances but not what one might expect as in a democratic government. It was a series of checks and balances using the strengths of the Empire, its superior ambition, its superior organization, its superior paranoia.



It was brilliant really. How one man, without the force, maneuvered circumstances and people to a grander design.


But ultimately, as his perceptions increased, he saw it was a design that limited his power.


For this grand design was also created, he could see, to limit the power of the Naboo Sith Order.


The Sith were a necessity to combat the Empire's enemies who also boasted members using the force. But what was to stop the Sith (or more specifically the Naboo Sith Order) from an attempt at seizing power?


Especially with Hyfe's own powers in the growing stage. Even he knew he was not yet powerful enough to challenge Lord Lupercus and so hid his quests and studies from all (as Palpatine once did even during his time as Chancellor).


Right now, it was both the Bastion Conclave and the Office of Inquisitors. They were, after a fashion, the only stop-gap within the Imperial Hierarchy.


And so, the implications remained in the Regent's mind, whatever Kaine was working on to 'contain' the Sith within the Empire, it would also be used to contain himself (Hyfe) as well...


...And his plans to become Emperor once and for all.



Kaine was not blind. He held a great sense of perception that was impressive for one without the force.


The inevitable conclusion then was that Kaine must realize Hyfe's interest in or development of the force.


And it was this knowledge that he would definitely need to keep from Lupercus lest the Sith Leader try to extend a controlling influence over the Regent as Imperial Intelligence has during the reign of the unfortunate Darth Exceron.


He would need to distract Kaine while his own plans were implimented.


And if distraction were not enough, Simon Kaine would be eliminated.
To coordinate his efforts, Kaine would require a focal point. Where all intelligence would come together for him to act upon and Imperial Center, if under Hyfe, was not secure (with Intelligence breathing around every corner).

Which meant an area secure, perhaps mobile.

Which mean't for him to leave, he would also need to secure Coruscant.

The man's arrogance burned Hyfe.


His warship the Galactus had been undergoing a refit for the better part of a year. And the more he dwelled on it, the more his perceptions through the force agreed with the assessment.


The Galactus was to be Kaine's command center.


To act with impunity on Imperial Center and to distract Kaine from any plans the Regent made, would mean the Bastion Conclave and Theren Gevel would need to be 'handled'.


But to break the power of Theren Gevel, and distract Kaine perhaps with more concerns militarily, would require something drastic.



And a thought entered his mind. A thought that could have only come from the Dark Side.


That thought?


General Grevious.



Regent Daemon Hyfe smiled on his throne and began to look through the list of those initiated into the membership of the Veteran Pact.


His smile remained.

*



"I am sorry, Sir. Those records are sealed." the droid intoned.

"I am a member of Imperial Intelligence and this is part of an ongoing assassination attempt investigation," Ciscero explained forcefully to the droid in charge of the records at the local Veterans Pact Office.

The droid quivered but did not relent. "I apologize. The records are sealed at the behest of the Regent. If you would like the hold lifted, please feel free to request it from the Regent."




*



It took Ciscero the better part of the day but he had uncovered the familiy that the assassin had though he was not currently living with them.


The wife was understandably upset at the outcome of her husband but she had been filing for a divorce as the man was disabled beyond recovery.

"What was wrong with him?" the agent asked in curiosity. "I saw no disability.."

"It was his mind. He had come from the battle with a very traumatic head injury. While the physical damage healed, his mind had reverted to that of a twelve-year old. The Veteran's Pact was a godsend, Sir." the woman sounded sincere enough. "Do you know how hard it is to care for a grown man with no more intelligence than a boy?"

The woman sighed. "I suppose with that mentality he would not have taken into account that he was standing over a security gun. If you will excuse me, sir, I have to go to work."

Ciscero handed her an electronic note that allowed her to be late for assisting Intelligence.


As he left, his mind began to piece the account together. Already, INS was playing the assassination attempt turning Grand Moff Zell into a minor hero though, in fact, he'd done nothing. Already the assassin's past was being rewritten to account for his highly illegal behavior.


As usual it was good work and it seemed Intelligence was closing the file on the incident though, by the order of the Grand Marshall, round the clock surveillance of those of Imperial High Command, the Moffs and the Regent was to be implimented to prevent any other similar 'incidents'.


Quick and Clean.



He sat down at crowded eating establishment and began to look over his notes from his small datapad and his gaze fell on the weapon used.



Would a twelve year old boy know how to use it to any success?




There was one bit of information he'd need and to obtain it, he would have to use unorthodox methods.

Utropollus Minor..... 16 light years from the Bastion Conclave




S'kre moved quickly through the Commerce Department's many corridors in agitation. Never had she experienced such a situation and the implications already made her head hurt with fear.

Bursting into the Commerce Department Head's Private Office unnanounced with a yelling secretary trailing, she came to an abrupt stop dropping her report. For one of the various pieces of furniture designed for seating was serving a function that such a piece altogether was never intended for. In a way, it was a creative use but none of that even krept into S'kre's mind.

The Commerce Department Head turned in response to the abrupt interruption and at seeing S'kre, he let out a yelp of surprise. He uncoupled from the female creature just under him whose position was not 'seated' upon the comfortable furniture.

"S'kre!" he began seeing his secretary turn in response to his lack of clothing and dangling organs.

The rage had instantly inserted itself within his life-mate, S'kre, and he knew this was pretty much "it".

The younger female holding onto the furniture had yelped in angry surprise at his abrupt uncoupling too much lost in the euphoria to even take notice of the office intruders. Now she screamed in surprise as S'kre entered her visual range (meaning from around the Commerce Department Head's rather large, naked rear orifice).

That she was a student worker only compounded the situation.


S'kre, too hurt and angry to respond with anything more than rage-filled jiberish, turned and as quickly as she came, stomped off, the report left on the floor.

A droid, sensing litter, shot out from an unseen location taking no note of the angst ridden occupants and sucked up the unsightly item. As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared back from where it came.



The report would not be the only one of it's kind but it had the distinction of being the first. The loss of signals from Utropollus Major was something of a cause of concern. However, the loss of transmissions from the trade ships that passed through Utropollus Minor towards the larger world was a cause of emergency. That forward sensor scans detected clouds just now coming into range that had not been reported on by the off-world customs stations situated between both words was cause of panic.


All of this, however, when unknown for the next twenty minutes. The time it took for the Commerce Department Head to redonn his uniform carapace and send the female student on her way with an account full of credits. By the time his shaking diminished to a point for him to actually deal with this new development took another ten minutes.


Already, far too much time had lapsed to save the world.


Just enough, however, remained for a signal to be sent outward.




And then, Utropollus Minor fell silent.