Present Time


New ships had a smell to them, at least to any experienced sailor among the stars. Paints still wreaked of recent application, tile of fresh sanitizer, and conduits of burning ozone that had not been flushed out - some opened up their noses to the assault of olfactory sensation, others took the ship's newness as a slap in the face, preferring instead a vessel that had proven itself as had the sailor himself.


If a new warship presented a dilemma of experience over modernity, the Pleasiast offered no conflict at all. Ever the seasoned sailor, Captain Maddox wrinkled his nose as the ship's barrage of sensation tossed him about better than any turbolaser cannonade. His human eyes scanned left and right; pipes creaked from lack of maintenance, paint pealed from hull-supports, and not one piece of steel maintained any vestige of luster. I suppose if I think about how bad it could be, then it shall become so. 'Must be thankful for what I've got.


" Welcome to the Pleasiast," came a scratchy alien voice. Maddox looked at first and could spot no one speaking to him directly. Then he looked down. He bit back a smile; the puny alien was just over a meter tall and thin to the point of hilarity. Kaminoans had some artistic form, but this creature appeared emaciated.


" And you are?" Maddox quizzically replied, beginning to move off headed for the bridge. Realization struck with a wave of new smells he could only think of as less than pleasing.


" I am Captain Foju-sulaan." All comic intimations ceased as the name triggered a few neurons to fire in the human's brain. The man he had been ordered to meet was a mercenary: one who had been sentenced to death by both the Coalition and the Empire. The diminutive figure certainly did not look fiercesome, but Maddox had learned over the years never to judge.


" Situation?"


Foju-sulaan took the lead. " Otoraan has been taken and my second force is en-route to complete the conquest of Patria. Dorci is in our hands, but unfortunately I had to lay siege to the capital when they refused to the wisdom of your ideas. Saleucami is all but pacified of the resistance, and I have left that up to internal forces."


" Excellent. Dorci, what remains of the capital?"


Without humor, the small alien pushed open a pair of double doors some manufacturer had carelessly forgot to put sensor-openers on. " Nothing."


The bridge was a rough collection of duty stations that seemed to have been cobbled together from parts of a hundred command centers. A few rectangular viewports let starlight in while species of all kinds worked as efficiently as their quest for currency allowed. Maddox stepped forward, leaving a droid with his baggage at the corridor's yaw.


Saleucami loomed large off the port-bow. All is proceeding well. After dividing, we have conquered. Under the banner of unifications we shall bind all to one aim. To do our bidding they must be made to believe it is their own and by their warped fanaticism we shall succeed. When all is done, I will return from retirement yet again and sleep on Balmorra's shores once more. Until then, a tremendous price in blood must be paid before my masters release me from service.


" Captain Sulaan, things here are well in hand. We need to consolidate now; there are three more systems that need to see the light and glory that unity brings."


The small alien mounted a central perch that for an average-sized being might have been a chair. " Captain, philosophize and propagandize all you like; we don't care. We will unite and divide until you cannot pay for us anymore. Helm, get us ready to move. Limden II is next"- the alien twisted its thin mouth into snarl -" so that all may live joyously under 'Cami peace."


Maddox turned back to his gaze of the world below, fighting off the old habit of placing gloved hand in gloved hand at the small of his back. He smiled, only to himself - not that any of the bridge personnel cared. Into the depths of space he mouthed two words of an old and proper tongue he had learned when he began gallivanting amongst the stars, decades ago. Remembrance tasted of sweet nostalgia, but was a risk he could not endure - his thoughts needed to be on the present. Still, the picture of a polished triangular titan lingered for just a moment longer as the Pleasiast leapt into hyperspace.


G.....

Captain Maddox let his eyes wander towards the smoke-filled sky, his gaze drawn by the whine of aerial fighter engines. The pair passed and each wiggled its wings in turn before flying on to rest and refuel, the day's work now finished. The human shut his eyes and when they opened again, he took in what surrounded him - ash and stone. Rubble was piled as high as a corvette placed engines against the ground, each pile still puffing smoke from smoldering fires. Rubble and cinders was all that remained of Limden II's second-largest city and the raging inferno that had spread from end to end.


They were told not to resist. They did not listen.


A trio of speeders passed at an almost leisurely pace, not looking at all as if they were a part of an occupation army still landing. An officer in the lead speeder, standing with the wind in his face, tossed a salute at the tall male and his small entourage of guards. Maddox looked at the man for only a scant second, mostly staring at the purple banner trailing from each craft. The guise of unification had brought war and carnage to Limden II, but the base design of the Royal Saleucami Flag was quite evident.


Maddox snorted. Unification indeed! But we do what must.


" My Lord," bowed the nearest of the mercenary guards, a comlink headset resting uneasily on his Borothian's exoskelatal forehead. " Our Commander orders our return. He commands me thank you for the final payment of our service and informs you his contract is fulfilled."


Maddox looked away from the guard, taking another look at the broad debris-strewn avenues that had once been a city's centre. He had been a warrior for some time; he had been both besieged and besieger. This was so much different - never before had he seen a city where no refugees or survivors crawled from the wreckage to pry some semblance of order from all-encompassing chaos. Foju-sulaan was very skilled in his art. Were his spending habits more refined, his recruitment efforts more concentrated, his force of twenty-some odd ships would have been targeted by the Empire for destruction.


No doubt that is why he places his treasures into pleasurable company and opulent palaces on more worlds than the Hutts. He stays below the radar of those forces capable of squashing him. Maddox smiled. [/i]Stayed...[/i]


" Very well soldier. I will remain here and join the Saleucami Army. Your Lord may depart as soon as he is ready. He has my thanks, and the thanks of my Master."


" I will relay the King's message," replied the Borothian.


Maddox smiled yet again, wandering off towards a nearby staging area, his mercenary guards heading off in the opposite direction. Twenty days of war and they think I serve the King; they doubtless think I serve the Saleucami cause. Their ignorance is my bliss. My master is much larger than any King.


Limden II, what remained of it, now lay squarely inside Saleucami control. Better still, it was now under Unified control. As Maddox considered his unexpectedly quick success, he realized his time in the spotlight was now at an end. A larger picture remained to be painted, and that artist would arrive within the next few days - then the masterpiece would be unveiled to the averted eyes of an impatient galaxy.

Office of Premier Avrin Denaris, the planet of Saleucami

The war - if you could call it a war, for the world of Saleucami had found itself quite inable to resist an enemy that came from within - had been over for but a few days, and already the people were crying his name in the streets. The hero of Saleucami, they called him.

It made him feel good. In his previous position he had enjoyed much power, but little respect, save for the kind fear commands. Here... here we was not only listened to, but loved. On the promise of rebuilding Saleucami he had won their love.

He smiled at that. The people of Saleucami were a simple people: war and galactic struggles outside the border of their small republic were of little interest to them. Inside the borders of the ancient coalition, a tight-knit group of planets under independent rule but sharing common values, the wars between the Rebellion and Empire, Republic and Empire, and Coalition and Empire, were if not ignored, shrugged off as 'outsiders'. While people of the greater galaxy were welcome on all their worlds, their visits were not encouraged.

Until things had changed. Until the war - the great Saleucami Unity War (as it was becoming known) had shaken the coalition of worlds to its very core. Things had, indeed, changed. War ships, some built by Stellar Enterprises, others purchased as derelicts from the Galactic Coalition or the New Order, and some provided by the Vinda-Corporation under circumstances some might refer to as "shady", patrolled the skies, bristling with guns that scant years ago would have been necessary only to prevent the occasional pirate raider.

The people of Saleucami were not unfamiliar with war, but nor were they practitioners thereof. Like Alderaan, they had abandoned their weapons at the end of the Clone Wars, preferring to focus instead on their extensive efforts to preserve and prolong life: Saleucami's clone masters were considered some of the best in the galaxy at Partial Body Regrowths - organ harvesting was the less diplomatic title for what they did.

"They certainly seem to like you." A cold voice said, rising from the shadows of Denaris' office. He nearly jumped - his aide had a rather annoying habit of not announcing his arrival, and Denaris (while putting on a brave face for the masses) was actually much more easily frightened then he led on. Which is exactly what had led him to politics and not the Fleet. Even chasing pirate scum was more than the man was cut out for.

"They had better." He snapped, his voice losing the familial tone he used with the people of this world. "I still don't like this plan. Out here in the middle of nowhere-"

"Hardly nowhere," The other said, standing and moving closer to the fire that was the sole source of light in the room. "We're only steps away from the Galactic Coalition."

"Aye," Denaris spat, "The great fucking Galactic Coalition. The Empire probably doesn't even remember we're here."

A thin smile spread across the face of the other man.

"Oh, the Empire knows we're here." He said wickedly. "They have not forgotten us, nor we them."

Denaris smiled at that. No, indeed, the Empire would remember them a long time yet.

I knew only peace, blissful and yet quiet. I wondered, am I dead? Or asleep without the recurring nightmares that had plagued me for the past years? A sudden and very irritating beeping noise informed me that the latter was the case, and as I opened my eyes my left hand found the source of the offending sound and deactivated the alarm holotimer.

Coming to, I sat up on the bunk bed, my barren feet coming into contact with the cold hard floor of the barracks facility, and my head staying just below the bunk on top of mine. Shaking my head to clear away the stray cobwebs, I stood up and went to avail myself of the refresher facilites that were afforded to a person of my rank. When I came out, fully dressed and ready to go, I stopped, and pulling out a picture, I looked upon my past, and reminded myself why I was here.



"Mom, dad, wait up, where are you going?" inquired the eighteen year old boy. He had just graduated from senior high classes and was preparing to go study at the unversities of Mriist when his parents had come home one day from their jobs early, and had started packing.

"Oh honey, darling, there is a war coming. We have to go prepare for the conflict ahead. With any luck, the evil tyranny of the Empire will finally be brought to it's knees." his mother had stated in a firm and confident voice.

"By the way son, could you please hold off your travels until we return? I don't want you venturing out into the enemy territory until the conflict is largely over." added his father in a worried voice.

"Oh, ok then. Just make sure both of you make it back ok." replied the son on the cusp of adulthood.

They had left that day, both of them serving on the same ship, a Galatic Coalition Yunos class command cruiser. The starship in question was serving in the fleet that had been decimated over Corellia, his parent's ship having been captured by the enemy. It had taken time but eventually he learned that both of his parents, his father a strategist, his mother an accountant for the ship's stores, had been cut down by the Sith that had taken over the ship.

He had two younger siblings, one brother, one sister. His younger brother, full of patriotic pride, had enlisted in the Coalition military. He had died soon afterwards, being thrown onto the frontlines in the battle of Bakure, one of the engagements that supposedly had sealed the fate of the criminal organization known as the Outer-Rim Soveriegnty. He was serving as an apprentice midshipmen on the Soveriegn when a weapon of tremendous power had broken her back. He was incinterated in the initial explosion. His remains would never be recovered.

Finally, his sister, who held a secret crush on the Imperial supreme commander, Simon Kaine. What had confused the elder son was that only he and his brother had supposdely known about her secret loyalties. But either way, one night Coalition commandoes had broken into their home and kidnapped his sister. He would never see her again. Rumour had it that she had been ushered into one of their concentration camps for sympathizers and had died in occupation there of a broken heart and starvation.



He had abandoned his dreams. Sure, he could blame the Empire, the Sith, or the Dragons for the death of his family, but he chose not too. He should have been paid a pension for the death of his parents, been compensated by the goverment to where he could of started out somewhere again, but those funds had been with-held. Reason being; they had been donated to the glorious cause of rebuilding the shattered Coalition navy. Just one more nail hammered into the coffin of what used to be his love and patriotism for his home goverment.

Now, here he was, serving in an underground army, a comissioned army colonel. For the injusticies visited upon his family, he was about to gain revenge with interested.

Someone knocked on his door before entering. It was his commanding officer, Captain Netters.

"Colonel Ryker, your needed in the briefing chamber. We are having a meeting of the commanding officers at 1200 time."

"Very well then. I will be there soon." responded the now twenty two year old colonel. He took one last look at the picture of his former family before putting it back into his keepsakes section. Arming himself with just a blaster pistol, he departed his room. Time to see what was up.

In Orbit, Saleucami


The Ecclesiarch sat close to Saleucami, closer in fact than most larger warships would care to venture without the aide of yard tugs and many glowing tractor beam projectors. On this particular day, the ship was not helmed by mad men, nor commanded by a soul possessed of self or mass destruction. Instead, it was being used for the few that cared to watch as in instrument of demonstration. Power was being flaunted.


Rule through the fear of force before force itself.


A man stood on the bridge of the close-orbiting craft, his eyes drinking in every detail of the world below and its surroundings. The words crossed his mind, now only the echo of lessons learned long ago in - to him - one of the most laborious eductional institutions in the whole of the galaxy. Years spent learning had prepared him for his career; years spent in the service to a larger power had prepared him for his assignment now, one that he did not relish or enjoy but would do because he was commanded to.


Obedience brings victory.


" My Lord, Captain Maddox's shuttle has departed."


The man turned away from his inspection of the planet but did not fix his eyes on any target nearby. The bringer of news was acknolwedged by a nod before the man passed, walking aft with almost depressed deliberation.


" Admiral, it will be done."





(((will finish later)))

In Orbit, Saleucami


The Ecclesiarch sat close to Saleucami, closer in fact than most larger warships would care to venture without the aide of yard tugs and many glowing tractor beam projectors. On this particular day, the ship was not helmed by mad men, nor commanded by a soul possessed of self or mass destruction. Instead, it was being used for the few that cared to watch as in instrument of demonstration. Power was being flaunted.


Rule through the fear of force before force itself.


A man stood on the bridge of the close-orbiting craft, his eyes drinking in every detail of the world below and its surroundings. The words crossed his mind, now only the echo of lessons learned long ago in - to him - one of the most laborious eductional institutions in the whole of the galaxy. Years spent learning had prepared him for his career; years spent in the service to a larger power had prepared him for his assignment now, one that he did not relish or enjoy but would do because he was commanded to.


Obedience brings victory.


" My Lord, Captain Maddox's shuttle has departed."


The man turned away from his inspection of the planet but did not fix his eyes on any target nearby. The bringer of news was acknolwedged by a nod before the man passed, walking aft with almost depressed deliberation. Seconds seemed to pass into hours without any change in the mood on the bridge. The man still paced around as one hour became two, and still more when two became four.


When four grew to five, a small thin male in a featureless white shirt stepped off of the lift and whispered a few words into the pacing man's ear. Though the humanoids on the bridge would not have thought it possible, the older, distinguished figure in the black-trimmed dark blue uniform frowned even more than he had been.


The price I have paid for loyalty is great, greater than the entire stock of my honor. But what limit is there to the sacrifice one must make for the greater good? Is there one at all?


" Gentleman." The man turned to face the compliment of humanoids on the bridge. " Most of you have come aboard only hours ago and are becoming acquainted with the ship you were told weeks ago would be your new home. You will fight in her to avenge the wrongs done to our glorious kingdom. Saleucami began this year alone, but we shall end it at the peak of a federation of systems that will punish those who have soiled our name and brought destitution and isolation where peace and prosperity once reigned!


" I am Vice-Admiral Messhir. I am your commander. I ask if you do not believe in me, believe at least in our cause, and by the Grace of All we will triumph!"


The crew greeted the small speech not with the thunderous applause for it was not very rousing, but the underlying cinders of nationalism were kindled. They only needed to be fanned into a fanatic inferno of patriotism.


I do not like exploiting these people - this is not my style. It has never been; I am a soldier, not a propogandist. Nor do I like lying, pretending to be not only a loyal servant of a foreign banner but a member of a foreign race!


The man placed a black-gloved hand on the purple emblem on the left sleeve of his uniform tunic, and closed his eyes. Of course the crew could not see the faint traces of a tear that had escaped from tightened duct for the Vice-Admiral had turned away, but it was there. They would never know his pain, nor would the galaxy. Success depended on secrecy.


So it begins...





" Orbital control, this is shuttle Myoiloran, requesting approach to land on Zule-Alpha 187."


" Shuttle Myoiloran, this is Balmorran Control. Welcome back to the Empire. Clearance confirmed, Captain."


The pilot sighed as his jounrey neared its end. All that remained from a relaxing retirement was the long landing procedure every Imperial world maintained to prevent unauthorized access to worlds - especially heavily populated ones where atmospheric collisions could kill a thousand people on the ground below.


The rear of the shuttle lurched and jostled for a minor second, the pilot thinking that Control had locked on with a tractor-guider when all of a sudden the cabin became filled with a flash as bright and hot as a thousand suns...

*(post removed pending talks)