Beep, beep.

Universally maligned noise.

When someone is sleeping and with a heavy head invariably will disturb the incessant beep, beep of the continuing world around.

Alarms.

Doors.

Communiqués.

The source of the noise was inconsequential. Sure, in a few moments when the cold sobriety of accepting your inability to return to sleep, it becomes important, but for those few moments all that matters is that some bastard somewhere took it upon himself to rouse you from your sleep, and you want to know why.

Decker wanted to know why.

On this occasion the beeping was his communicator in his main room. Decker knew of few people outside his sphere of close work associates who knew his frequency, so expected another command to return to the office for a late night miracle discovery he always, invariably, told them could wait until morning.

“What. This better not…”

“Decker, is that you?”

To say that Decker was surprised would be an understatement. “…Maxson?” He had a graying beard and a face full of dirt, and the wrinkles on his face made him look a decade older then when last he had seen him, but undeniably beneath the years of shit caked to his face and the wearing down of his body done by time, it was no one besides Maxson, only and inexplicably, Maxson.

“I hope I didn’t wake you.”

Decker, unsure what to say, fussed his hair. “Well, yeah. What are you doing, where are you? Where have you been? I couldn’t get an answer on your com…”

“Shut em off.”

“…I came by your place…”

”Moved.”

“But where? Why? What…?”

“Decker, do you remember the last time we were face to face?”

Decker slowly nodded.





”You may not recognize me, but my name is Doctor Richard Grey Maxson. I am a scientist, more specifically, a technological research analyst working under the deploy of the Coalition Medical Corps, an arm of the Galactic Coalition. I was assigned to a project known internally as P38-1X9. You have undoubtedly come to know this insidious project as Pancea. Its spread through the Galactic Coalition was heralded as an end to disease. A new future with a better, healthier people.

The best laid plans of men…

What instead ensued could be grossly understated as the worst in a series of admittedly lengthily and catastrophic disasters. In a small amount of time, those injected with Pancea began to experience… side effects. They were becoming ill, some seriously ill, as a result of an adverse reaction with Pancea. Though we tried to avoid accepting it, Pancea was making our own people ill.

Today I stand before you not unapologetic and self-assured but very much a conflicted man. I will not lie and try and pretend that this disaster did not occur. I will not lie to you and tell you that it was the fault of foreign manufacturers or the people who injected Pancea using it improperly. I will not credit Imperial Propaganda for overblowing this situation. I am here to apologize.

Because of an oversight in the development of Pancea, the metal casing chosen for the Pancea probes was one that a vast majority of the Coalition was allergic to. How such a grievous error could occur, I am not sure. What resulted was people’s bodies rejecting Pancea as if it, itself, was an infection, in some cases this led to severe stomach illness that required immediate medical attention. Thank the gods that we discovered this, and inadvertently a thanks to Imperial scientists as well for making the situation so public. It was partly because of the scandal that scientists began to work so hard, so fast.

Within Coalition space no person who took Pancea has died. Within Coalition space everyone who took the treatments is alive and on their way to recovery. There are still people in a serious condition but they are getting better, not worse. To these people I would like to apologize. I would like to admit to the mistakes that were made and I would like to place the burden of those mistakes on my shoulders. I do not want to blame anyone for what ultimately was my mistake. As a research analyst and moreover the senior research analyst it was my judgment as to what testing procedures Pancea underwent and for how long. To put things into simple, laymen’s terms, I jumped the gun.

When I began to see dailies of the research on Pancea’s effects I rushed the program ahead to human trials. These trials, which can normally take years before beginning and then years before conclusion, began, and ended, within a series of months. This was my error and mine alone. I became… blind, to everything but the positive potential of this treatment. I let my medical professionalism and conservatism slip by the wayside. It was a terrible error of judgement and I apologize profusely for doing it.

Now that I have seen to the reversal of the errors that I made, and Pancea is being redistributed in a safer, better tested variant, I feel that I owe something to everyone who was effected by my misjudgment. As such, pending this moment I am resigning my commission as a Coalition doctor, effective immediately. I will not allow myself the opportunity to make another mistake that will effect millions of lives. I cannot trust myself not to repeat the mistakes that I have made and I do not think, as it is now, I can ever forget the results of my last mistake or the ill faces I saw everyday as a direct result of my lack of judgement.

I want to issue one last apology to all those that trusted me, and all those who worked with and worked for me. If any of you suffered from the lack of professionalism I displayed, I apologize to each of you. I hope you can rebound from this incident and have long and effective careers in the medical field. It is true in my belief that there is no more important or more rewarding career available inside the Coalition or beyond then the medical practices. There is nothing that can compare to the saving of a life, the curing of an illness, the hope and happiness that can provide beyond the person. Helping people to live better lives is what the Coalition was founded on, and to everyone in it, I hope that you continue your work and fight the good fight.

To all the civilians within the Coalition; Pancea is a good drug. It will save many lives that would have been irreparably ill before. If you don’t think now is the time, then don’t hesitate to wait. But the earlier mistakes that I have made have been corrected. Don’t hesitate to ever seek it out if you need it. It is a live saver and it is a miracle of modern medical engineering, and it can, and will, save you where prior you would have no other hope. It is my most profound hope that no loss of faith or trust of the Coalition medical service will result from my personal mistake. I ensure you, nothing like this will ever be allowed to happen again.

I want to leave you with something a man smarter then me once said. It doesn’t matter how long you spend at the top or how quick it took you to get there; the true measure of a man is how long he’s spent at the bottom. Failure builds character; success just breeds arrogance.

I hope that there’s some truth to that.

Richard Maxson, signing off.”





”Grey…?”

“Look, pack a bag. Tell your hootchy coochy you’ll be back in a couple of days, just get ready and get on a transport.”

Decker furrowed his brow, allowing a frown to cross his face. “Fine. Where?”

It was hot, and dry.

The heat made him miserable. He had no idea how he could be absolutely soaked and feel dehydrated at the same time, but as he wiped another liter of sweat from his forehead, he realized he had been like that for days.

Two days.

Two freaking days.

He’d been stuck on this stupid rock for over forty eight hours. Had been given a fairly simple mission. Find a scientist, get him on the ship, and wait for further instruction. He’d touched down and secured the landing pad for four hours. After a few hours he realized this might not be that simple.

Standard operating procedure for a simple friendly personnel escort was to make contact within the first hour and explain the situation and evac within the next hour. To be here two days later with no contact meant something had gone wrong.

More than likely, his contact was dead.

It was possible his identity was compromised.

He had made a living of his not having an identity. Walking into a crowd and just being another unimportant face. His ability to be anyone and or everyone a primary advantage he had when it came time to tend to his obligations. Now, there was a possibility that he no longer had that advantage. It made him uncomfortable, and he realized as he wiped down the back of his neck, a little paranoid as well.

Who here was aware of who he was?

Which one of this crowd of ruffians and barely sentient squatters was actually a skilled assassin, already with the blood of his contact and eager to sample the blood of the agent as well?

He tucked the rag back into his pocket. It was soaked now, like everything else, but at least he’d taken the sting out of his eye.

He hated this planet; hate was a strong word, and even for a man that killed people as a gut reaction, he was hesitant to ever commit to something so strong as hate. But he had taken the time to think about it as he searched for his contact and had decided that what he felt for this planet was actual hatred. If someone had come to him and told him that this planet was going to be destroyed, he did not believe that that realization would upset him in a great deal.

This wasn’t his first time on Tatooine; he didn’t know any operatives who hadn’t had at least one mission here. Nor was this the longest time he’d been stranded here, either.

During The New Order’s invasion of Tatooine, part of a campaign they referred to, though never officially, as Dark Empire, the agent had been caught on the world as the Imperial blockade had taken the Outer-Rim Sovereignty apart. Unable to travel to spaceports, he had to work for two months as a civilian laborer at a moisture farm. After a month of shoveling bantha shit, he almost welcomed the idea of internment in an Imperial labor camp.

Eventually, the blockade cleared. By the time he returned home, everything he’d fought for had changed.

This mission wouldn’t likely end up much better than that one. Sure, he had yet to be covered in shit, but he was drenched in sweat, caked in residual sand, and just generally coated in a thick musk of discomfort. He didn’t want to be here and the sour glare was evidence enough of that to anyone who walked by.

After a few days here, he almost welcomed the idea of an assassin giving him the old what for.

At least that would give him closure.

He spat; a terrible waste of water, and it left his mouth full of dry, tasteless salt, but he was beyond the point of placing his survival above his disgust. He wanted off this rock, but he couldn’t desert his mission, no matter how impossible that mission might be.

The agent frowned and kicked sand.

Ahead of him, the glowing neon sign for The Weary Traveler cantina seemed to beckon. He wasn’t allowed to relax; especially not in a dodgy bar full of potential enemy spies. Nevertheless, he wasn’t supposed to hate his job either. He wasn’t supposed to do a lot of things and he was beyond the point of caring.

The Weary Traveler, like the city of Anchorhead around, had seen better days. It had seen better days, written about them, lost the books, and then forgotten the very memory of what a good day looked like. The place smelt slightly of urine, which was actually slight upgrade from the outside air. The lighting was bad and the floor was sticky and damp, but gods bless the bartender, he kept the air conditioning working.

He walked towards the bar, always keeping one hand on his blaster, when he stopped. He turned, and did a double take, making sure.

Instantly, he was on the man. His hand slid under his chin and his arm pulled him from his seat. The man tried to struggle free, but it was entirely futile. The other patrons of the cantina barely noticed as the man dragged his captive out of his seat and backpedaled all the way out of the bar. When they got outside, the agent spun the man in his grasp so that one hand was cupped over the man's mouth while the other slid a blaster up into his armpit, aimed at an angle that would blow directly up and into the man's head.

“If you scream, it will be the last thing you do,” the agent said. He looked around; he'd ducked out a side door of the cantina, so he wasn't nearly as exposed as he would have been had he come out the front door. He had enough cover that he could probably kill this man and no one would notice. “Alright, now, I'm going to take my hand off of your mouth. Yell, scream, or try and draw attention in any way, and you will regret it. Understand?”

The man offered a soft, slow nod. The agent moved his hand and he sucked in a big lungful of air. “Who are you?” the man demanded, and then he felt the gun pressing deeper into his skin.

“Don't ask me questions,” the agent said. “I have a question for you: Are you Decker?”

The man nodded again. “Yes, I'm Decker. And I don't think it's out of line for me to ask who you are, given that you just dragged me out of a bar and then held a gun against my skin!”

The agent ignored his question again. “What the hell is wrong with you? Didn't you get your orders? You were supposed to wait for an escort.”

“I got my orders, four days ago,” Decker responded. “Stay in one place and wait for your escort to arrive. I assumed you weren't going to show.”

“Because standard operating procedure is to register yourself publicly, at lodging, or appear in public places,” the agent said. “I can't find you if you're hidden away in some dark cantina. People don't just meet people in random bars.”

Decker frowned. “Are you ever going to tell me who you are?”

“That's a stupid question; if I know your orders, then I was sent by your superiors,” the agent said. He stepped back and gestured with his blaster. “I have a ship at the hangers, eight blocks down. Are you ready to go, or did you want one more drink?”

Decker shook his head. “I'm ready to go. I've been...”

“Stow it,” the agent said, annoyed. The two men began walking. “Look, the sooner I get you to Kiyar, the better, okay?”

“Kiyar?” Decker asked. “Where the hell is Kiyar?”

“It's a few days from here,” the agent said. “You've never heard of it?”

“No, but, that doesn't mean much,” Decker said. He had a tendency to be rigidly focused on one thing, and never raise his head to explore anything else but that thing. It helped him succeed as a scientist, but limited his ability to interact with others and to assess, and become involved in, the situations around.

“They got nuked,” the agent told him as they continued walking towards the hanger, “ambushed and assaulted by their neighbour. They put out a distress call and, in an unusual display of bipartisan concern for human life, most major governments sent a force to aid in the systems defense. During the conflict, something happened, and the government of Kiyar fell. Among the chaos much of the situation became confused and in the end, only the Coalition stuck it out.”

“So it's a Coalition world?” Decker asked. The two had walked close enough to the hanger now that Decker could see a man in a transparisteel booth, no doubt making sure only those with clearance could enter the hanger.

The agent shook his head. “No. The Coalition eventually pulled out as well, though the public reasons are a mystery. I guess we're going to find out,” the agent said. He showed his badge and the man in the booth nodded.

“I guess so,” Decker said with a nod. The door to the hanger began to rise, and both men made their way to Wesker's ship, with the agent casting one last look at the dusty plains of Tatooine.

About goddamn time.

The journey to Kiyar could not have taken any longer if the ship’s hyperdrive had gone kaput and both men had had to get into spacesuits and swim the rest of the way.

In fact, that may have made it faster.

It was only a few days from Tattooine to Kiyar, but trapped in a small stealth freighter with a career soldier was driving Decker mad. The two established on day one they had nothing in common; Decker’s interests included scientific pursuits of the physical, chemical, and biological nature, which Wesker’s pursuits mainly involved not dying. While Decker was a large fan of not dying himself, the two went about their appreciation in very different ways.

So Decker had gone to work, trying to prepare himself for whatever it was that Maxson had wanted him for. But without any idea of what exactly it was that Maxson had wanted him for, Decker had little to do.

So he started pacing.

Asking Wesker random questions.

Some meaning of life stuff thrown in. Those were the questions that got a curt, and short answer. Most others met only silence.

So Decker went back to pacing.

He didn’t like waiting; didn’t think anyone did. But he had no choice. This wasn’t his ship, and it wasn’t his mission. He was just helping a friend. Helping a friend to do what and where, he wasn’t sure, but he’d been assigned Wesker to help. That should have reassured him, but it didn’t. If he needed help than it was something that Maxson thought was dangerous. And Decker didn’t like walking into dangerous situations blind.

“Decker,” the intercom blurted out. The ship wasn’t that big but Wesker didn’t like to yell. “We’re getting close. Get up here, we have some things to go over.”

Decker didn’t have far to go, just having been in the mess a few doors down. “You know, we could have gone over this days ago,” the scientist noted. “Killed some time.”

“Right, but, if I did that, you’d forget it,” Wesker noted. “And forgetting important things is generally bad, but in this case, it can be fatal.” With that, Wesker handed Decker a gun. “Ever use one of these?”

“No, and I never plan on it,” the scientist added, firmly. He did not take the weapon.

“That’s your choice, and I’ll respect it, but take it, and put it in your bag,” Wesker said. “That way, if something happens and you change your mind, it’s there.” Decker hesitated, but then grabbed it. Wesker stood, pulling out his weapon. “Hold on. Now that you have it in your hand, you need to know what to do with it.” Wesker held out his own weapon, putting his thumb on the one of the buttons on the side. “Safety. Thumb it up to disable the weapon.” He reached for a second button, paired with a third on the other side of the handle. “If the weapon won’t fire, it’s probably the heatsink.” He thumbed the button and the top of the barrel popped open. “Heatsink regulates temperature as the burning gas moves through. Too hot, the heatsink melts and won’t discharge, but the barrel is fine. Pop the heatsink and put in a new one or, if it’s deathly urgent, just fire away. Don’t use a heatsink, though, and you slowly ruin your weapon.”

“You really think the situation will require weapons?” Decker asked.

“You tell me,” Wesker said. “I’m acting on orders to meet with you and bring you to Kiyar. After that, I follow along while you do… whatever it is you’re on Kiyar to do.”

Decker slowly nodded. He looked down at the gun with a measure of trepidation before he slid it into his bag. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do…”

“Well, let me give you a piece of advice,” Wesker said, putting his weapon back in the holster on his thigh. “When I was in training, we were told of a line. Past this line, civilization does not exist. The rights, and freedoms, that we take for granted are not even considered to be possible, nevermind the accepted standards. And stating a rank and serial number registered with a legitimate government will offer no solutions.”

Decker nodded, following the thought process. “You think Kiyar is one of those worlds… past the line?” Wesker nodded his affirmative. “And… these missions, past the line? What advice were you given regarding them?”

Wesker shrugged. “Don’t take them.”
Decker followed that thought process too and softly sighed.





”Entering orbit over Kiyar now,” Wesker announced as the ship broke out of hyperspace and settled into a high orbit. “Picking up… lots. Decker… you’re a scientist. You take a look at this.”

Decker stood beside Wesker and took a lot at his scanner output. “It looks like a lot of gravimetric disturbances… I’d expect an unstable wormhole would be nearby. That kind of tearing or folding of space would leave such an effect behind. I’m more interested in that.”

Wesker followed Decker’s finger and softly whistled. “Looks like from sensors that that is some kind of orbital relay designed to draw energy up from the surface,” Wesker said. “I’m slightly confused though, surely all of the power generation on the surface would be from their own generators? Why generate it on the surface only to send it up through the atmosphere into space?”

“Because one form of energy on that planet doesn’t need them to generate it,” Decker said. “You mentioned the planet had been nuked. It probably left residual radioactive material, material that would break down over time, releasing particulate energy and contaminants into the setting around. If they could make that decay rate faster…”

“Change the rate of atomic decay?” Wesker asked.

Decker nodded. “It is possible, but certainly not easy. With the amount of energy being transferred… they’re probably breaking it all down. I imagine that relay is orbiting the planet and is taking regular transfers of energy from the surface from various points across the world. If they did that…”

“A couple of interesting questions pop up,” Wesker commented. “Namely, who are they, and what are they doing here?”

“I think we’re about to find out,” Decker commented. One of the vessels in orbit had turned their way, and was making a swift pace to draw within weapons range. “Safe to say that when the green light comes on, we’re in firing range?”

“Who knows what their firing range is, though,” Wesker noted. “I’m going to try and open communications,” he added, then reached over and tapped the appropriate keys. “Unidentified vessel, this is Coalition Registered Transport #4337 carrying medical aid and a registered physician.”

The vessel slowed slightly. When they opened communications, it was with audio only. “State your intention,” a voice shot back, clearly robotic in origin.

“We’d like to land, and see to Coalition personnel who are still on the planet,” Decker added. “We were asked to come here by someone on the planet.”

The vessel had stopped now. It was definitely in firing range though, which made Wesker tense. His finger hovered over the button to raise shields, and Decker found his eyes were fixated on the button to fire weapons. “Very well,” the voice echoed back. “A marker will be relayed to an appropriate landing zone. Do not stray in your course to land.”

The vessel then broke away. Before it returned to its orbit above the world, it directed some kind of energy pulse that illuminated a landing pad on the surface of the world, which afterwards glowed and pulsed on sensors. “Alright,” Wesker said, easing up a bit. “Not exactly a warm welcome, but they’re allowing us to land.”

“That voice,” Decker commented, but couldn’t think of a way to follow it up. “What’s your lay of the land here, agent?”

Wesker shrugged. “Way beyond the line,” he remarked. He scanned the surface of the planet with his eyes. “Looks like we’re landing near some sort of Coalition prefab. The rest of the surrounding area looks a lot more high tech. Good bet your Doctor friend will be in the prefab.”

“Right,” Decker said, nodding. Maxson. The reason he was here. He saw something in the corner of his eye that caused him to do a double take. “What is that?”

Wesker narrowed his eyes, then shrugged. “Never seen anything like it. Judging from the size and the shape, some sort of artifact… religious maybe? It looks like it is wired up for something… maybe it glows during the festive season.”

Decker scoffed. “Yeah… something tells me we’re not here for the festive season…”




Once on the surface, Decker and Wesker both noted two strange things.

First, there seemed to be a constant hum coming from the distance.

Second, all of the people stared at them.

“I don’t think they get many outsiders,” Wesker speculated.

“That’s true,” a woman said, from the crowd of onlookers. “We’re surrounded now by outsiders, but many are curious as to the motives of most. What of you, outsiders? What motives do you have?”

Decker went to step forward, but Wesker stopped him. “I feel it somewhat out of turn to share my motives to someone without even knowing their name.”
The woman nodded. “I am called Jeleiya.”

Decker nodded his head. “I am Decker, and my friend is Wesker. And we mean you no harm; we’re from The Galactic Coalition. We’re curious about the situation here and the wellbeing of the people on this world.”

The woman looked over them both as if sizing them up. “If you mean us no harm, then why does he carry a weapon on his thigh?”

Decker looked over to Wesker, who shrugged the question off. “I have trust issues,” he said, his only reply.

That softened her gaze a bit and caused her to smile. “Don’t we all.”

Decker walked towards her, his arms raised out to indicate he had no offensive motivation. “If you could be so kind as to he help us find someone,” he stated, “we’d be very appreciative.”

“You’re looking for Dr. Maxson,” she said, correctly. “He’s with Zeratul.”

“Zeratul?” Wesker asked.

“Him,” she said, and then pointed.

Their gaze wandered to a pair of creatures walking towards them. One of them was a human… slightly taller than Decker, but markedly older… and hunched slightly as if under tremendous strain. Wesker struggled to identify the species of the second man and eventually concluded he could not. He could not, infact, infer from evidence that it was a man at all. It was tall, and walked in an odd sort of sway, dragging a third leg behind its two primary, reverse jointed legs. It was blue, but with shining gold armor wrapped around its thin frame. It had no visible weapons that Wesker could see, but by its size, he wagered he wouldn’t want to fight it without the benefit of a blaster distance between them.

“Zeratul, huh?” Wesker said, continuing to size him up. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much,” Jeleiya said. “He speaks our language, so he speaks to Maxson and tells him the rules. Otherwise, he is an outsider here also.”

“Oh?” Wesker said. “He walks tall. Like he’s in charge.”

“Zeratul is a man of… power, perhaps you may say,” Jeleiya relayed, “but he is also, amongst his own people, something of an outsider. You see his skin? It is blue. The others of his kind, with green skin, do not look on him as one of their own. He is almost like us, to them. Almost like a lesser being.”

“Interesting,” Wesker said. “Maybe that can be used to our advantage.”

Decker shook his head. “Used to our advantage how?”

Wesker shrugged, not even looking at Decker. “An outcast can be a valuable resource in the intelligence game. If there’s something we need to know, he might tell us if we can approach him the correct way. It might not matter. But you never know, it might.”

They were close enough now as the two walked that the assembled three could hear their conversation. “…just want to take a look at them. If they have really experienced something so drastic, it should be verified by science.”

“Faith cannot be empirically measured,” Zeratul answered, his voice deeper than most humans could offer. Though he spoke aloud, Wesker could not find his mouth.

“Maybe not, but I can exclude any…” Maxson began, but Zeratul raised a hand.

“The answer is no, human,” Zeratul said, dismissively. “I have my reservations about The New Path myself, but I have been ordered to allow their work to continue uninterrupted.”

“Fine,” Maxson said, defeated. It was then that he looked up and saw Decker. “Decker! You came!”

He surged forward and grabbed the man in a hug. “Nice to see you too,” Decker said, honestly. “I got your message, and came as soon as I could.”

“I see they made you bring an escort,” Maxson said, referring to Wesker. “Regardless, I should introduce you. Zeratul, this is my colleague Decker, from the Coalition Medical Service. Decker, this is Zeratul Daz’da’mar.”

Zeratul nodded. “Welcome to Se'T'ap'a'r'Koya. I believe that Maxson refers to it as Kiyar.” He opened his arms in an imitation of the gesture a man would make when welcoming someone to their home. “If there is anything that can help you situate yourself better here, Maxson I am sure can provide.”

Wesker stepped forward. “Zeratul, I am Wesker. I am with Coalition Security. I’ve been asked to make an appraisal of the situation here in keeping with our previous agreements.”

“I am not a tour guide,” Zeratul stated dismissively, “and I’ve lived amongst humans for decades. I can recognize the posture of their spies. Tread carefully, Agent: this is not your world.”

With that, the alien turned and walked away, leaving Wesker visibly agitated. Maxson turned from him back to Decker. “I’m glad you came,” he said, “but I wish you’d come sooner. Things here have developed since I contacted you, and not for the better I fear.”

“Tell me more,” Decker said. “For one, what was that Zeratul creature?”

Maxson sighed. “Where to start,” he said, considering it in his head. “I guess the best place is the beginning… the last days of war on Kiyar…”