"Are you going to fly off the handle again?" Jax asked Ambassador Hakan.
The older man chuckled. "I think I have suitably represented our outrage at the Coalition's pedestrian treatment of the situation."
"So what next?" Jax asked, slightly confused at the Ambassador's strategy.
Hakan shrugged. "They called the meeting. They started out by indicating their people may make relations with them problematic because the Confederation does not subject itself to Cooperative rules. They seem to forget we removed ourselves from under the yoke of Coalition Law after their debacle at Billibringi. Then they ask what are they to think when thieves enter their territory with our experimental technologies."
The Ambassador turned to the Jensaarai Jax, "The neighborly thing to do would be to hand over the thieves and the tech they stole. Instead, they decide to be lead along by the accusations of criminals and keep our tech? If I had to offer an opinion, I would think that their government has already jeopardized our relations."
"Do you think the clone is still alive?" Jax asked.
"For their sake, I hope not. But they seem to ask a lot of questions and give little in return so it is hard to say."
"His escape was masterful and ..."
"..and he killed quite a few Confederation soldiers in that escape," snapped the Ambassador. "The man is extremely dangerous!"
"I am just pointing out that the upset of our relations with the Coalition and Cooperative may be the point. How can you recapture him if he has the Cooperative shield to hide behind?"
"That is truly a frightening picture. That shield will eventually become a sword whether the people of the Cooperative desire it or not."
They fell silent as they stopped at the front entrance and showed their admittance passes.
"Well," grumbled Hakan, "Now that you have thoroughly depressed me, let's see what the good Ambassador Nova has to say."
The Cooperative Ambassador and her military aide sat both rose as the Confederation diplomat and Jensaarai walked into the room. When they all sat back down, Jax felt the level in tension rise quickly.
The military man's addition surprised Jax but not Hakan as the Ambassador remarked rather casually, "I appreciate your finally taking an interest in these talks and we look forward to the return of our criminals."
Jax felt the other man's anger and his resolve seemed to harden like duracrete. The Confederation Ambassador did not seem to understand how his demeanor was affecting the other man or perhaps he just did not care.
In either case, this entire endeavor seemed doomed and a waste of time. Ms. Nova seemed to be calling attention to Hakan's arrogance in assuming the Coalition and the Cooperative would forsake their ideals so easily and quickly as the Confederation did in severing their ties with the Galactic Coalition a few years prior.
The Coalition was considering trade sanctions with Cooperative support given their brutal treatment of so-called prisoners. Perhaps the Confederation should be black-listed with all the other pirate or terrorist enclaves of the galaxy.
Hakan pointed out that any government who signs over their free will to a droid who would insist on the murder of thousands defending some spot of asteriods has no cause to comment on the value of life. There was some religious quip about attending to a neighbor's splinter while ignoring the rafter in one's own.
Jax frowned as he began to notice that with each statement an ambassador made, it generated a wave of fear. Not within the person hearing the statement but with the person making the statement.
As if they were mere spectators giving voice to their fears.
A game of one-up-man-ship where the grand prize was ....what?
"It is easy to claim the moral high ground when your crimes are performed in secret. If you are fond of religious quotes, I am sure there is one about not being able to hide one's works from God as well as the truth will set one free."
There was a moment of silence at the outburst from the Cooperative military man.
The Confederation Ambassador's eyes narrowed. "At least it is comforting to know that the Coalition military is good at reading if not waging war."
Hakan miscalculated. The Cooperative did view themselves as a separate entity within the Coalition and so the Coalition war record did not hold the bite that Hakan had hoped for. In fact, since the Cooperative did not feel the record applied to them, their reaction was far more different... and deadly!
"Perhaps if the Cooperative were to send..." the military man smiled held teeth but Jax's hand slammed down onto the table as he shouted 'STOP', startling everyone.
He turned to Ambassador Nova, "I apologize for my outburst but you must be wondering why I am even at this meeting."
The Cooperative Ambassador gave Jax a frank stare, "I would imagine it is to ensure I do not lie."
The Jensaarai smiled self-consciously. "Not quite. I am here..."
"Jax.." warned a worried looking Hakan.
"...to look for influence." the Jensaarai finished.
"JAX!" exclaimed the Confederation Ambassador.
"Influence?" Nova frowned, sharing a look with the military "aide", the Guardsman Ethan Vang.
"Before I go any further, I would like to ask where the crew of the Estralla are?" the Jensaarai asked.
The Guardsman smirked, "Go further? You haven't gone anywhere at all. The amount of attention you are giving these people is, frankly, unbelievable. Even if they are criminals...."
"Is the Corise-clone dead?" interrupted Ambassador Hakan.
Ambassador Nova suddenly shifted uncomfortably, noticing the near desperation in the man's voice.
What was going on here?
She saw nothing but contempt on Vang's face for the Confederation Ambassador as he clamped his mouth shut.
"Tell me!" Hakan cried out.
"Oh, for God's sake, tell him," Nova spat out, feeling the intensity of Hakan's cry.
The Praetorian smiled smugly, enjoying his moment of holding the "upper hand".
That was when Jax felt it. A sudden shift on the mood around them. A flush of shock, surprise and, sadly, satisfaction.
Following Minntooine's admission into the Western Province, Cerea saw an influx of supplies and material for the construction of the Dac Citadel there. The Cereans, ever concerned with protecting their planet's natural ecosystem, grew increasingly wary of outsider influence when the Ryn, who had been granted special permission to come and go for the purposes of constructing the Dac Citadel, welcomed Minntooine's assistance without precondition.
The brief but heated debate ended when the Ryn conceded to the Cereans' concerns, and agreed to establish an orbital transfer hub that could accept vessels of any configuration, but only allow Crean-approved transports into the atmosphere. And thus the Tarr Seirr Orbital Spaceport had been born. Named after a Cerean Jedi hero of the Clone Wars, the recent Dominion Declaration had caused something of a stir in Cerean political circles, with many officials wanting to change the spaceport's name to something less offensive to a potential enemy. In truth, it was moments like this when the Cerean's traditional tendencies toward isolationism shone most clearly.
But then, there was Pro Moon and his Unity Party. While it was true that his Silk Road program had been largely unsuccessful, with the target trade world of Sinsang first withdrawing from the Coalition, and then cutting all international ties altogether, the Unity Party had rebounded quite well over the last year.
The key, ultimately, had been the self-styled Road to Everywhere, the Coalition-spearheaded Trans-Rim Trade Route. Though its originator and chief financier, the Cooperative, had seen virtually no benefit for its “core worlds” on the other end of the route, where the Reaver scourge had destroyed any reliable operation of the route, the Western Province had gained free access of an entire galactic quadrant. Trade had picked up between the East and West, to be sure, but even with all of the effort and money spent addressing the East's lingering refugee problems, the province still wasn't on the most stable economic footing. Besides, the enormous distances involved and the dangers posed by piracy meant only the largest and best-guarded convoys were of any economic benefit.
The real advancement, in the end, had come from establishing independent trade partners, small planets in the Outer- and Mid-Rims with one or more moderately developed industries. The process was slow and tedious, to be sure, and required an increase in the number and frequency of Western patrols, as well as a drastic upscaling of the province's diplomatic corps, but the growth it spurred far outpaced the increase in military and diplomatic spending.
All in all, Pro Moon, Prime Minister of the Western Province, was very impressed with his team's work. The Silk Road aside, he couldn't have imagined a more positive outcome for the West. Public support for the Unity Party was at record highs in the West, and its continued efforts to bring Western support to recovery work in the Eastern Province was quickly changing their perspective on the West for the better.
And Cerea had become the linchpin of the whole enterprise. Its contributions to the development of the Western Province into a true nation; a true political, social, and economic body in its own right; ensured that not even the threat of invasion by outside powers would be strong enough to overcome Cerea's devotion to the Unity Party's course.
And it was as he reflected upon that fact, that Pro Moon, the Prime Minister of the Western Province, glanced at his schedule for the day and saw “Alliance of Corporate States, member of the United Cooperative of Peoples, fellow Coalition member” on the roster.
“Hmm,” he mused aloud, “wonder what they're all about.”
By day's end, however, he had far more to wonder at. Their plan made the West's achievements thus far look about as impressive as a child's sand castle against the Coruscant skyline.
* * *
Juri, Procurator of the Squib Merchandising Consortium and an official emissary of the Alliance of Corporate States, chuckled gleefully at the positive reaction given by his counterpart.
“In truth, the Rimward Defense Initiative is desperate for such a thing,” Saarkon, a gargantuan Kadri'ra, continued unbidden. “The Initiative is simply not designed to function in the capacities it has been forced to adopt as it has grown. In many ways we are straining under the weight of our own success, yet every minor setback sends shockwaves of instability and terror through the organization. Your proposal is most intriguing, and I will see to it personally that every member of the Initiative is informed of your aims. Safe voyage, Procurator.”
Juri gave a cheerful, toothy smile and waived goodbye as the huge alien turned and slither-walked away. Juri was vaguely aware that Saarkon was over-sharing, that the insight into the current state of the Rimward Defense Initiative could be very valuable to the right people, but he was far more immediately aware of how much he just plain liked Saarkon. It was a sign of trust, he knew, that the ancient creature felt comfortable speaking so honestly with the little Squib.
Juri decided it best not to betray that trust. He would report Saarkon's intent to bring the RDI onboard, and nothing more. Besides, he was already Procurator of the Consortium, what more was there worth buying?
* * *
* * *
* * *
Elsewhere in the Galaxy . . .
Six figures in matte black armor moved like wraiths through the night in single file down the twisting, narrow alleyways of the fetid slum. They moved with a fluidity that defied the metallic texture of their armor and the clearly functional servos at every major joint. Their helmets – if they were helmets and not, instead, simply a part of some machine underneath – covered their heads entirely; a dull, black, opaque material making up the “face” of the gear. No strip of skin was exposed, no sliver of inner workings was visible. Whoever or whatever these things were, they were not here to be recognized.
The column of figures stopped in unison, the one at the head of the formation bringing out a small, round device and placing it against the nearest wall. A three-dimensional rendering of the structure's interior projected from their HUDs, effectively allowing them to see through the wall.
So there was something living inside those suits after all . . .
The first one moved forward slowly, sliding the device along the wall until he reached the rickety, latched door that led into the monitored room. There were figures inside, three of them, all standing, all armed, and none of them particluarly alert. With his free hand, the lead one made a few quick signals before taking up a blaster clipped to the suit's hip. Three flashing lights on the HUD changed color and moved along its edge as the rear three members of the team broke away and moved backward along the edge of the building.
Several seconds later, and with no apparent signal from the second team, the one at the door drove the hand holding the sensor through the wall with superhuman strength, destroying the door's lock outright. The door flew open and by the time he had fired two bursts from the repeating blaster, he was well inside the room and the second member of the team was through the door and firing into the lone remaining target.
Somewhere in all of the commotion, the handheld sensor had been dropped and a micro-repulsor had engaged, because it zipped down the hallway, flashing gently in the HUD's display, lighting the way as the team moved forward. Repeater fire echoed down the hall and pained cries rang out ahead. Even with the data feeding to their HUDs from the sensor, they checked every doorway manually before moving forward.
The lead man looked down at the floor: solid black. He looked back up and then down again. The walls pulsed regularly with the frequency of the sensor scans, but the floor stayed black, solid. Impenetrable. He ran his hand over the surface of the floor, crouch-walked a meter or two forward, feeling all the way. Finally he stopped and stood to his feet, pointing at the ground, then behind himself, then giving a short hand gesture.
The rear member moved forward, and it was only then that it was clear this member of the team didn't have a blaster. Instead the figure – substantially slighter in build than the others, suggesting the suits might have been custom built for each individual – brandished a silver-and-black cylinder, which it turned over in its hands once before settling on a double-grip.
The sun-bright flash of the lightsaber blade sparking to life was dimmed immediately by the leader's visor, and he watched as the tip of the blade plunged into the floor, then its wielder spun rapidly in place, dropping down a floor as the detached circle fell away. Blaster fire erupted immediately through the darkness below, and in the fraction of a second it took for the team leader to drop down the hole as well, the lightsaber had danced back and forth, back and forth more times than any viewer could have counted. The leader opened fire with his repeater, strafing to the side of the dancing blade and dropping those who hadn't been hit by reflected fire.
Then the lightsaber flipped off, plunging the room into darkness, but that was immediately countered by the HUD adjusting to the lower light and converting other EM frequencies for visual use. What would have immediately caught any viewer's attention, however, was the bioreadouts along the edge of the HUD, one of them flashing yellow and bright orange. “No, no, no no no!” It was the first time any of them had made a sound, and the shouting of the team leader shook the helmet slightly, its HUD vibrating in place to stay aligned with the wearer's face even as the surface projecting it shifted.
The small one, the one who had been using the lightsaber, was clawing at its own armor. It turned to face the leader, showing the multiple pits and score marks where the armor had taken blaster hits. “It's hot! It's fucking hot!” The voice was male, and its owner finally hit whatever release he had been trying for and detached the chest panel of his armor. The man collapsed to the ground, his chest heaving visibly with each breath.
The armored glove of the leader pealed back with mechanically precise design as he reached toward the thermal wound. Wisps of smoke were rising off of the skin-tight clothing under the armor. “Look at me. Rhet, look at me!”
The visor on the wounded man became transparent and . . . and the Iridonian face behind it was little more than a child's. “I'm alive,” he gasped. “I'm alive, Mauler!” he said, insistently, pushing the leader's hand away. The yound man, Rhet, righted himself, slowing his breathing. “I told you the thermal rating wasn't high enough.”
“Damnit, kid, what'd I say? What'd I say! 'Don't get killed. Do the job.'”
“Beta team needs help,” a new voice intruded. They both looked up at the third member of the team, who had apparently been standing vigilant watch over the hostile surroundings while the child-soldier was deciding whether or not he would be cooked to death.
“We move,” Mauler said, standing back to his feet and addressing the other member of the team. “Sit tight,” he added, glancing back at Rhet. “We'll be back for you soon.”
“I'm fine,” Rhet protested, standing to his feet with only a little difficulty.
“You're wounded and you're armor's wrecked. Stay here.”
“This bullshit armor isn't worth a fuck anyway!” he protested, apparently pulling at another release around his collar.
Mauler gave a hand signal that quite clearly meant “sit down” and then moved forward, his other squad mate falling in at his side. They clearly considered the issue at an end.
But just before Mauler moved far enough for Rhet to fall out of view, the young Iridonian took a step forward, opening his palm wide just as the discarded lightsaber flew, unbidden, from the ground and into his hand.
“Stand down,” Mauler ordered, but Rhet jogged over to a nearby wall, pulling off his helmet and tossing it casually aside. “Rhet, I said -”
But the lightsaber had flared back to life, and the young man made three quick strokes, two vertical and one high and horizontal, cleaving into the thick duracrete wall that was so much sturdier than the rest of the building seen thus far. Rhet pressed his free hand against the thick wall, straining visibly, and another alarm triggered on Mauler's HUD as the servos in the young man's suit threatened to overload.
With a tremendous roar and crackle, the duracrete block broke free and fell forward, revealing a cavernous, well-lit chamber beyond. Ahead and to the left, a few bolts of blaster fire were streaking into view from an adjacent hallway. More than a dozen armed creatures hunkered behind makeshift barricades oriented in that direction.
Mauler brought his blaster to firing position, but Rhet was already sprinting ahead, directly into his line of fire. Several of the hostiles turned and opened fire on him and he . . . well, he danced. It was the only way to describe it. He cut left, then right, did a one-handed somersault, then cut back, did another somersault. All the while the blade of his lightsaber danced with him, pivoting, sliding back and forth, chopping and then flicking in the reverse direction. It bit into the ceiling and floor as he went about his elaborate, sprinting dance, but every motion of the blade was perfectly aligned to the next in the hail of oncoming fire.
And as he danced, as that peculiar hum of a Jedi's weapon sang its tune, the latches of his armor popped open, the panels fell free, and this boy-soldier continued his killing dance. Shedding his metallic skin, his lightsaber the only protection from the hail of blaster fire still coming at him, Rhet closed with the last cluster of his foes, those not already felled by returned fire, and he danced right through them, his blade slicing flesh, bone, and barricade without the slightest notice. It was really quite . . . graceful. It would have been beautiful, even, if not for the death that it brought.
Where he stopped, his saber falling silent, he found – huddled and cowering – the prize of this day. They were so clearly terrified, both of the boy-slayer, and of the five black-clad slayers who regrouped around him. Their faces dirty, their clothes soiled, their hands and feet in shackles, it was clear then who these captives were, who their captors had been, why this band of blaster-toting, saber-wielding warriors had chosen this particular building on this particular night.
Mauler took another step forward and leaned down a little, his HUD turning more transparent along with the visor on which it was projected. His glove peeled back again as he reached out a hand toward these people. “It's okay. You don't have to worry about them anymore.” His head turned to regard Rhet, and the two exchanged nods before he looked back to the captive. “You are safe in the embrace of the Force."
The holorecording ended and Vekkis Nost stared, dumbstruck, at where the top secret record had only a moment ago played. “I don't . . . I don't understand.”
“We saved them, Councilor Nost.”
Vekkis turned, slugish, disoriented, to regard the man who had brought him here. Brigadier General Lee Prine was a short, balding man with dark hair. Vekkis wasn't the best at judging the age of humans but he looked to be sixty years old or more. In his Cooperative Defense Force uniform, Lee Prine looked like just another low-tier general officer who would have aged out of service in a more well-established military. “Those were . . . Force Commandos,” he said, and it wasn't a question.
“Those were officers and enlisted persons of the Cooperative Armed Forces,” another voice said, a voice Vekkis recognized from only a moment ago.
Vekkis spun around; shocked, excited, and a little bit scared, he finally got a look at the man called “Mauler”, a tall, lean human who just looked like he didn't belong in a uniform, let alone one with a captain's insignia. Mauler walked from the door through which he'd just entered to the General's side, and something about his gait told Vekkis he was not enjoying this exchange.
“But you saved them! You saved those people!”
“Yes we did,” Mauler said, a little pride bleeding into his tone.
“A covert action of the Cooperative Armed Forces recovered law-abiding residents of this galaxy from unlawful arrest and detainment,” the General said. He said it like it was a correction, and he said it so precisely that it must have been rehearsed. General Prine must have caught Captain Mauler staring at him out of the corner of his eye, because he looked over and made eye contact with the younger man. “Oh, who am I kidding? We rescued force-sensitives from bounty hunters who would have sold them to the Cree'Ar, and we did it because it was the right thing to do.”
The general took a step forward, and Vekkis reflexively started to take a step back, but caught himself and decided it best not to look the part of the frightened weakling. “Listen to me closely, Councilor Nost,” the general said, and his tone was deathly serious. “We know that the Cree'Ar will come for us, in time. All of us. No matter who we are; no matter where we live. We know who they have chosen as their first targets, and armed with that knowledge, we are going to make this galaxy safe for everyone who lives in it, and from them, but if you tip our hand before we are ready . . . then all hope is lost.”
Vekkis gasped as he realized what this was really about. “The Great River . . . how could I have been such a fool?”
“The point of covert operations is to keep people from knowing about them,” Captain Mauler said. “This charity effort of yours is admirable, Councilor, really it is, but every public act of defiance against the Cree'Ar Declaration on Force-users paints us that much brighter a target, moves us that much higher on their list of priorities, shaves off that much more time before we have to fight them.”
“It's a harsh and unfortunate truth of the galaxy in which we live,” General Prine cut in, “but the longer the Cree'Ar spend cracking open Imperial fortress worlds that are publicly harboring Force adepts, the longer we have to build up the infrastructure we need, swoop in under the radar, and sneak those very adepts to safety.”
“And train them – as Force Commandos,” Vekkis said, both excited and repulsed by the idea.
“Every last one who is willing and able,” Prine answered, unapologetic. “Make no mistake about it, Councilor Prine; this war that is coming will decide the fate of our galaxy, and when the Cree'Ar come here, we will stop them at our door, so the billions of force-adepts, and the trillions of sapient lives that we couldn't get to in time, will still be saved when we kill on the battlefield the monsters who would have murdered them in their sleep.
“So it's this simple, Councilor: how do we shut down your Great River before its current drags in the Cree'Ar?”
It wasn't an easy question to answer. The Great River was picking up huge public support as the Cooperative government fumbled over itself and delayed one vote after another. The people were not happy about the Cooperative's refusal to stand against this tyrannical decree and for the rights of innocents all across the galaxy. The Great River was bigger than one man's simple desire, now. It would take far more to dismantle the organization.
And then it hit him. Looking back to Captain Mauler, sizing up that Force Commando who didn't belong in a soldier's uniform but wore it for the sheer force it brought to bear on his aims, Vekkis decided right then what side he had to stand with, no matter the personal cost. The amphibian creature gave an exaggerated, resolute nod of his fishy head. “I know what has to be done.”
* * *
* * *
Coalition Embassy House
"Is the Corise-clone dead?" interrupted Ambassador Hakan.
Ambassador Nova suddenly shifted uncomfortably, noticing the near desperation in the man's voice.
What was going on here?
She saw nothing but contempt on Vang's face for the Confederation Ambassador as he clamped his mouth shut.
"Tell me!" Hakan cried out.
"Oh, for God's sake, tell him," Nova spat out, feeling the intensity of Hakan's cry.
The Praetorian smiled smugly, enjoying his moment of holding the "upper hand".
Ethan Vang locked a steely-eyed glare with the raging Confederation ambassador. He let the spike of excitement die down in his own chest, lengthening the tension for another couple of seconds before he finally answered in a firm, controlled tone. “Corise Lucerne - the man who we knew as Rear-Admiral Corise Lucerne, Supreme Commanding Officer of Confederation Defence Forces when he arrived at Vahaba with a warning that the Reavers were coming for us – whoever he truly was, whatever crimes he had committed against you or your people . . . he died a hero at Vahaba. He saved millions of Cooperative civilian lives, tens of thousands of Cooperative and allied military personnel, and uncounted billions of credits in military hardware, including more than a few Confederation personnel and ships in the Compact Fleet, once it arrived.
“Until he told us in his own words who he truly was and where he had come from, the officers and governing officials at Vahaba believed him to be who he had claimed to be. That's why I'm here, Ambassador Hakan; because now we know that you can make people with the faces of other people, who can pass convincingly as those other people.
One-” he held up his index finger as if the emphasis he'd put on the word wasn't enough “- of these guys with a recognizable face slipped out of your hands, and now you think you can tell us that we are the ones who need to render unto you?”
Ethan took a brief pause, feeling his emotions getting the better of him, and knowing that he needed himself under control if he was going to continue.
Turning his attention to the other man, the Jensaarai, Jax, he addressed that man's last question: where the crew of the Estralla are. “Do you want to see them? Is that it? Do you want to inspect our 'catch'? The 'survivors'? You want to see the one who clawed his own fingernails off scraping at the walls of the interview room while we tried to devise a method of restraint that he couldn't slither out of? The one we couldn't get close enough to sedate because he could move the doc's injector with his mind! Or how about the one who draws these fantastic, intricate, beautiful little micro-portraits on the lens of the holorecorder with the tiniest dab of feces on the end of a fingernail? Ooh, or what about the one whose mouth we have to auto-blur on the recorder and whose audio we have to scramble because, embedded in the streams of incoherent nonsense that he shouts at imagined copies of himself all day and night, are fragments of high-level classified military secrets that he learned because one time, for five seconds, he was fifty meters away from a Cooperative general inspecting the facility to make sure we were adequately accommodating our guests?”
Ethan's anger had built with each successive account, but he was careful to keep it in check, restrained, to stay on target. To let just enough of the fury and revulsion show in his features and tone to impress upon these two the severity of the situation. “You want to know where they are, Jensaarai? They're under a mountain, surrounded by blast doors, and stun fields, and a battalion of Cooperative Army soldiers, with a bomb buried under their feet, and a ring of watchtowers three miles out staring at them from every direction for every minute of every hour of every day, just in case that's not enough and we need to call in an aerial bombardment to flatten the complex.
“Do you want to see them? Because I can make that happen. I'll walk you right past the guards, through the barriers and defenses, I'll even sit you down to chat with one of the not-quite-crazy ones, but if I set that up for you, then you give us what we need.” His gaze shifted back to the ambassador. “You give us what we need to fix these people, or you give us what we need to understand why they can't be fixed.”
Ethan kicked the chair out from under himself as he rose to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at Ambassador Hakan. “If you didn't want us involved, if you didn't want us meddling in your affairs, then you shouldn't have grown people and made them crazy to death!
“Now it's my turn to walk out in a fury,” Ethan said, genuinely seething, fighing to keep himself from shouting again. “I'm through with you,” he added, shaking his still-pointing finger at Hakan as he walked toward the door. Dropping his hand, he patted Jax's shoulder as he walked by, stalling just long enough to say, “Come find me when the diplomacy doesn't get you what you want. We can make a deal.”
As the door slid shut behind the Praetorian, Senator Nova, in an attempt to catch her counterpart's attention, said as casually as she could manage, “Well, that just happened.” As Hakan turned his attention to her, she did her best to ignore his demeanor and press on. “Ambassador Hakan, at the very least, I would hope that you could appreciate the position that the Cooperative is in. We don't have the tools to diagnose these people, or the methods to manage them, or the information to treat them. And the only people who we can ask for help, may have done this to them on purpose. That is the hard reality of where I sit at this table.”
Ambassador Nova looked to the other man, wondering briefly if his unique gifts actually allowed him to see the truth more clearly, or just see if all of the other places that lies might hide. “You're looking for 'influence', Jensaarai Jax? Maybe you should check on your own house before you start asking about mine.” She wasn't sure that it was the right thing to say, but it was honest, and that was the best she could manage when staring into the eyes of a mind reader.
The familiar voice in her head caused her eyes to open adjusting to the darkness and her ears taking in the soft, gentle hum of the air circulating automatically.
I do not trust him.
Her lips pursed into a smile.
We need him.
He is ... conflicted.
He is who he is.
He will betray us.
Her smile became wistful as memories not her own dredged up to the surface. Feelings she had felt over the coarse of years as their working relationship fleshed itself out. He was no longer out of bounds.
And yet, he had memories himself. Memories of a life not lived and yet still devoted to a family not his own. The reality did not match with the memory and while the man was an expert on compartmentalizing his feelings, Korah's observation was not without merit.
The tug was there and while it did nothing to tarnish his brilliant mind, that small opposing force would only grow. Perhaps the plan would free him of whatever burden was forming in his mind. She could only hope.
But there was another story memory told. That one never solely relied on hope.
Chris?
"Yes.." she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Coalition Embassy House
Ambassador Hakan was both shamed and shocked at the undisguised contempt the Cooperative man threw his way. The man's attitude could not have been more visible had he taken out a blaster and blew Hakan's brain all over the table.
And while he was watching the Cooperative man depart, his mind began to play back through his words and what telling words they were!
He looked at Jax as Jax stared hard at Ambassador Nova who was making a credible attempt to try and soften the harsh blow that her partner had dealt.
“Ambassador Hakan, at the very least, I would hope that you could appreciate the position that the Cooperative is in. We don't have the tools to diagnose these people, or the methods to manage them, or the information to treat them. And the only people who we can ask for help, may have done this to them on purpose. That is the hard reality of where I sit at this table.”
Now both Confederation representatives were staring at her. "Miss Nova, between our two societies, which is the more open? The Coalition is universally known for not only it's cooperative spirit but giving one. The Confederation reputation is not so much. We are universally known as the more insular. Now, you seem to expect our roles to somehow be reversed. Does this not concern you?
As an ambassador to the Confederation, shouldn't you come to the table expecting to fight tooth and nail for any sort of information from us all the while offering information of your own (as Coalition Ambassadors and known to do) in an attempt to establish common ground and a common rapport?"
He turned to the Jensaarai and Jax shook his head.
"Miss Nova, I do not know what you have been told but we do not want to inspect your 'catch'. We want to take them back before they do more harm to you or us."
As Nova started to open her mouth, Ambassador Hakan held up a finger of his own. "One clone with a recognizable face did not escape from custody. Do you really think that one clone could have piloted a ship, an advanced experimental ship I might add, all by himself? No, he needed a crew. Now, given that he was a prisoner, would he just break out and expect a crew to be on hand to pilot whatever ship he decided to steal or does it make more sense that his crew were also prisoners and had as much of an incentive to escape as the Corise-clone?
And yes, Miss Nova, these were prisoners and they are part of a dark secret that is both highly embarrassing and extremely frightening.
Every single one of these people are clones of our most brilliant minds and top people culled throughout the Contegorian Confederation. These people are not the drooling idiots and scratching-at-walls-feces-holding mad-hatters that your Ethan Vang seems to believe they are. These people stole a highly sophisticated warship fighting off both the Contegorian Navy and Reavers all without having ever been formally trained. And you would have us believe they are mere beasts in your own holding cells making feces art?
By your own accounts, the Corise-Clone and the Estralla was included in your own grand defense of Vahaba. Do you think that would have happened if these people you are holding are the simpering doodle-brains you are trying to convince us they are?
Because believe me, Miss Nova, we have had these people imprisoned for several years and we know what they are capable of.
Mr. Vang would look at us in contempt because 'now you know that we can make people with the faces of other people who can pass convincingly as those other people'? Because NOW you know the Confederation can make clones?
You think that is a state secret? Every two-bit government this side of the galaxy can make clones. There are clones in your own government and on your own planets? Where do you think we perfected it? From the bloody Coalition!
You think THAT is the great revelation we are afraid of?!"
Jax cleared his throat and smiled rather benignly as he waved a hand all three watched as Vang's empty chair began to rise off the ground. And then, just as suddenly, it was set down again.
"Miss Nova, I was not born as a force user. I was a volunteer and now I have incredible powers. It was not an easy thing to cope with at first because it makes you feel so... different. On the outside, one might think (as I did at one time) that having these powers would be neat. Cool to try out and explore. However, having these powers also is like having a sixth sense and it is a sense that changes not only your perception of the world around you but your perception of yourself. Fortunately, the teachings of the Jensaarai have been extremely helpful to myself personally in coping.
But here is the crux of the matter. Before coming into these powers, I was a societal nobody. I was not rich or powerful and I did not have any influence or any position of power. In fact, without these powers, I would have had the pleasure of meeting you but would probably be a tagger in some discount marketplace.
There was a program and there were incentives and so I volunteered for a procedure. Now imagine if I were wealthy and powerful...and it was now possible to obtain these powers artificially....
Would that not be something?
But the rich and powerful always hedge their bets because, what if the procedure failed or would not take with them? If they only had a twin to be the volunteer!
Hence the clones and the treatments seemed to be successful.
At first.
It is not that they all became insane like Joruus C'Baoth or Darth Maim. But their personalities did begin to change and not for the better.
There were difficulties that they caused for the Confederation. If there was anything that the Confederation did that seemed out of character, it was more than likely due to one of these people and they began to interfere with the government itself until we decided to hold them in protective custody. Indefinitely.
We created them and while it may have been a mistake, we were uncomfortable with the thought of killing them and so we held them.
What would you do with a prison full of Palpatines? And they were not really Sith because they did not subscribe to that philosophy but they did become cold and hold non-force users as inferior. They felt they were better and so had some sort of evolutionary imperative to "right our wrongs".
And so now you have taken in these Palpatines-in-the-making and hidden them from us.
If you think of them as insane beyond recognition then they have already pulled the wool over your eyes and are working mischief.
You hail the Corise-Clone as a hero in saving many lives. I will not discount that because I was not there. However, Palpatine was also hailed as a hero at the end of the Clone Wars. There was only one Palpatine. There were many other clones than Corise.
You may not appreciate the danger that they pose to you as yet, but please believe me when I say... you will."
Jensaarai Jax and Ambassador Hakan started to rise. "And please know that we will find them and we will get them."
"My Dear," Amabassador Hakan started, "with our unveiling of our true intent, I fear that in telling you, our enemy will now know and take measures to thwart our progress.
I fear for us all because we are playing a game where there will ultimately be no winners."
The Past
"Yes?" Jax replied, rather tired.
"I need to ask you a few questions regarding an escapee."
The Jensaarai blinke, "A what?"
"A clone escapee," the Handler clarified and Jax's eyes widened in realization.
"Oh," then he smiled, "Well, he said he was going to do it. Now, he did it."
"Why didn't you inform the proper authorities?" demanded the Handler drawing Jax back into a serious mode.
"I did. I inform them after all my visits since he makes that same statement of escaping at every visit." That took the wind out of the Handler's sails.
"We would like your help in apprehending him.." the Handler started but Jax shook his head.
"He must be still on the world somewhere. You don't need my help. He favors a rather famous person anyway so as soon as he surfaces, nab him."
The Handler reddened with embarrassment. "He is no longer on world. He stole a rather highly advanced and powerful prototype."
Jax frowned, "By himself?"
He did not think it was possible for the Handler to redden further but the man did. "He had a crew."
The Jensaarai folded his arms, "That he recruited from his cell?"
The Handler knew he would have to come clean and exhaled sharply. "You were assigned this duty because of the questions you were asking regarding the Genetic Renovation Program."
"The canceled Genetic Renovation Program," corrected Jax.
"Be that as it may, several aspects of the program remained active, such as that aspect that contained the clone. That aspect of the program also provided for the care for others. Those deemed unsuitable and rejected prior to the Jensaarai prototype."
Jax frowned in anger at the man for disturbing his peace. "Just how many are we talking about here?"
The Handler handed Jax a report and the Jensaarai's fingers cracked the display, his anger mounting.
Apparently, I only scratched the surface of this damned program!
So, a clone of one, if not the, most brilliant tactical minds in the galaxy running around with an army and all of them rejects of the GR Program!
They are going to send a fleet after him!
SCHISMS
The Confederation mindset is pride. You destroy something and they will stubbornly rebuild it. Destroy it again and they will rebuild it again. You do anything that they do not want and they will defy it. It is in their DNA.
So how do you keep them from becoming suspicious after all this destruction?
Inside the darkened office of the woman who might have just set the Cooperative on the road to conflict with its closest international ally, that woman sat in dejected silence. A stack of datapads sat on the corner of her desk, waiting to be read and have their contents consolidated into a report for the Cooperative Senate. A counter by her work terminal ticked up with each successive message received, each one needing to be read, watched, or listened to before she responded in her official capacity.
Into this dark pit of her own self-doubt, a different notice intruded. The short, high-pitched chime was an alert from her computer that a priority message had been received.
She wanted to leave it, just like all of the other work for the day. She wanted to sit in her small, dark, silent living tomb, and just let the galaxy pass her by. But she couldn't do that. Her sense of duty wouldn't let her.
With great effort, Ambassador Grace Nova reached out a hand and pressed the activation button on her screen, the flood of light blinding her momentarily. When her vision finally resolved to discern the lines of letters displayed for her, the side of her mouth tugged upward slowly, reluctantly, but inevitably in a one-sided smile.
“Well, I guess we've got a shot at surviving this after all.”
Maximum Security Wing, Varn Corrections Facility, Varn
His hands wrapped tightly around the bars of his cell, too-larg face pressed into the space between those bars, Vekkis Nost, former Councilor of Varn, watched the news report playing on the far side of the common area around which the prisoner cells were arrayed. It was hard to hear the audio of the distant transmission, the ears of his people not optimized for discerning sound out of water. By the report's end, however, he had caught enough to understand.
Sinking back onto the hind-ridges of his feet, head pulling away from the bars, grip relaxing substantially, the gaping maw of the creature split open, showing an array of razor-sharp teeth. The approximation of a human smile was a gesture totally foreign to his people, but he had spent so much time with them, that the biological response to joy had become instinctive and unconscious.
Turning his head to the small, lumpy cot that served as his bed, one thought ran through his mind, over and over again: It was worth it after all.
Bridge, Coalition flagship Coalition
The amount of information that had to be received, sorted, and redistributed by what had effectively become the mobile headquarters of the Coalition military was simply staggering. Admiral Jonathan Blakeley had effectively been forced to ignore the standard operating procedure of the techs and analysts assigned to data management for the time being, just because the ship was so damned huge, and there were other departments with which he more urgently needed to familiarize himself.
Even so, the analysts had started picking up on the kinds of information that the Admiral considered immediately relevant to his position as Supreme Commander, and every now and then one of the dutiful worker bees would send him a message, redirecting him to a recently acquired report or press release.
And that was how Admiral Blakeley ended up listening to the official press release from the Combined Council of the Cooperative, the senior governing body of his home province.
When the message finished, he turned and scanned the banks of operators, diligently plugging away at their stations along the back of the bridge, until he spotted the young Squib ensign who had sent him the message. She noticed his attention almost immediately, looking up from her work station.
“Well it's about damn time, don't you think?” he said, his tone more abrasive than usual.
The young ensign looked surprised for a moment, until she realized his retort was offered at least partly in jest, then grinned broadly and nodded her head. “Yes, Sir, it most certainly is.”
From: The Office of the Minister of Ethics and Good Governance
To: Pro Moon, Prime Minister of the Western Province
Notice: By authority of the Interim Council of Ministers of the Galactic Coalition, you are hereby appointed Interim Prime Minister of the Galactic Coalition, entrusted with all powers and responsibilities therein implied. Have a nice day.
If he were being completely honest, Pro Moon would have to admit that his first thought was, “This is a joke; somebody's playing a joke on me”. Once he got over that, his next thought was, “I'm not moving to Azguard!”
When the initial insanity of the revelation broke, after he realized he'd have to tell his wife and hear all about how horrible she thought the added responsibility was, Pro Moon finally stumbled upon the notion that he needed to figure out how he felt about all of this.
Prime Minister of the Galactic Coalition? Stepping into Regrad's shoes? That would be awkward at the next inter-Province luncheon.
Bringing the Unity Party into federal politics? Could he even do that? Was that even a thing that made sense to say out loud?
The intercom chimed, disrupting the Cerean politician's contemplative state. “Mrs. Moon is here for your lunch appointment, sir,” his executive assistant reported. Lowering his voice, he added, “She's looking rather impatient, sir. You didn't forget again, did you?”
Pro Moon reached for the intercom controls to respond, when his computer issued an unfamiliar ding. And then another. And then ten more. He tabbed over to the incoming notices, and saw that Minister Quell had apparently rerouted all of the official correspondence addressed to the Prime Minister of the Galactic Coalition to his office.
Sighing, Pro Moon pressed the button. “Tell her I'll be right out, I've just got a few . . . dozen . . . uh, hundred? . . . things to take care of first.”
Thirty seconds later, when Mrs. Moon burst through his door, raving about how dismissive and inconsiderate he was becoming and then stopping cold, his psychic wife picking up on her husband's mounting stress, Pro Moon decided that he could become Prime Minister of the Coalition tomorrow.
Today, he was going to have lunch with his wife, reminisce on the fun time's they'd had so far, and figure out how they were going to survive the weeks and months to come, together.
* * *
Undisclosed Location
In a large room with white-tiled floors and white-paneled walls and a white-tiled ceiling broken only by square fixtures emitting white light, two figures stood opposed. The one was dressed in a medical patient's gown, her hands cuffed in front of her. The other was dressed in the uniform of the Cooperative Defense Force, his captain's rank bars clearly visible, and a lightsaber hanging from his belt.
“So you're the guy,” the woman asked, intrigued.
The captain nodded his head, his face an impassive mask. “And I guess that makes you the gal?”
It was the smallest imaginable effort to break the tension of this moment, and it appeared to be enough. The woman smirked, doing her best to shake out her shoulder-length hair without the assistance of her restrained hands. “Lorna Starfall, at your service.” The captain was clearly surprised by the name, so Lorna offered a further explanation. “Somebody else already uses the name I remember belonging to me. 'Lorna Starfall' was my favorite childhood action hero . . . uh, I mean the-woman-whose-memories-I-have's favorite childhood action hero.” She shrugged, her cuffed hands bobbing upward slightly. “It seemed appropriate, given the circumstances.”
“Well, Lorna Starfall, I am Captain Timothy Mauler, and I'm here to evaluate you. So . . . what can you do?”
“Lorna” raised her hands up to just below their locked gazes. “I can't get these 'cuffs off, if that's what you're asking.”
“Watchdog One-Seven-Five,” Mauler said, raising his voice and turning his head up and slightly to the side, “disengage stun cuff set Zee-Tee-Nine, authorization Mauler, Ex-Epsilon-Fie.”
Both ends of the stun cuffs popped open and Lorna pulled her hands out to either side, letting the cuffs fall, except they didn't. She swept her left hand back underneath the cuffs, which wobbled back and forth as if teetering on the edge of some invisible object. She rocked her opened hand back and forth several times, the erratic behavior of the 'cuffs calming and gradually falling in sync with the motions of her hand. After a moment she pulled her hand away and the 'cuffs began to fall, so she swept her other hand across the top of them and they clung to her palm, like a statically charged balloon sticking to heavy fabric. She twisted her wrist and the cuffs spun around her hand, one end staying in constant contact with her skin as it slid from her palm, over her thumb, and across the back of her hand, before she finally grabbed them with her left hand and handed them over to Captain Mauler.
“Just parlor tricks, really,” Lorna said, sounding almost ashamed of herself. “I never had any formal training.”
“But you have military experience, right?”
Lorna nodded. “Naval academy. My last memory – before I woke up in the cell, I mean – was of my medical exam just before graduation. That must have been when the brain scans were taken.” Mauler looked uncomfortable at the casual nature with which the clone discussed her own creation. “I was top ten percent of my class,” she added lightly, giving the man a warm smile.
Mauler seemed to shake the moment off and nodded approvingly. “That'll do nicely, Miss. Starfall,” he commented, taking a few steps to his side where one of the floor's tiles rose upward on a stand, revealing a small compartment into which the captain set the stun cuffs. “Unfortunately, we won't be able to give you a commission. Assuming everything else works out, you'll be granted an enlisted rank commensurate with your performance over the course of special training. If and when Cooperative Special Forces becomes a publicly acknowledged entity, we may be able to reevaluate the situation.”
“I'm just glad to be out of the padded room,” she said lightly, then her features turned sour and she looked around the large, stark room in which she stood at that very moment. “Speaking of which, is there anywhere else we could be right now? Because rooms made of bright white geometric shapes don't call to mind my favorite memories.”
“Right,” Captain Mauler started, seeming genuinely surprised by that thought. “There are several training rooms not in use at the moment,” he said, heading for the nearest wall and beckoning her to follow. “Policy is to regard the Force as a tool or special skill, nothing more, so if you're looking for religion or morality here, you're going to be disappointed. “Watchdog,” he said as he approached the wall, “open access point Red.”
A section of the wall receded and then slid away, revealing a gray hallway about thirty meters long, with another hallway crossing it near its center. Captain Mauler waived for her to step through and she obliged. “That shouldn't be a problem.”
“We're all left to build our models of how the Force works for ourselves,” he continued, stepping past Lorna and leading her down the hallway. “For me, it's kind of like . . . like the universe sings to me. Like everything is resonating with its own essence, and I just get to . . . pluck at the strings, every now and then, change it a little bit, just for a moment.”
“What about . . . the shadows?” Lorna asked, and Mauler realized she had stopped a few paces back.
He turned around to see her staring off beside him, not willing to meet his gaze. “What do you mean?” he asked, suddenly uncomfortable in this narrow corridor so close to this near-stranger who he'd had plucked from a room next to a dozen insane people.
“It's like . . . that corner of your mind, you know? Where all of the faces you can't quite place go to hide, and the stories you can't quite remember that big twist in the middle of, where all the half-remembered dreams go to die.”
She glanced over at him, and seemed to realize he wasn't following her line of thought, but was definitely uncomfortable with the whole exchange. “You know,” she added, upbeat as she moved past him, the moment passed, “All the stuff you can't quite remember, but it just feels like there a time when you could. That's where the Force lives for me."
But as she stepped past Captain Mauler, he felt a wave wash over himself, and for the briefest span of time, the universe stopped singing to him, and he heard another thing with that sense that bypassed his ears.
And sometimes, something in the Shadows talks to me.
* * *
CityOne, New Solace
The Sojourn do not communicate with one another as they do the great many organic races who dominate the galaxy. It is true that, even as Xiantus communicated with his “handler” by holo-transmission , his brethren were receiving and viewing the same signal remotely, responding to and receiving responses from Xiantus through their people's personal communications network.
“I can assure you: it is nothing you need concern yourself with,” the Confederation diplomat said for the fourth time, plainly wearing his frustration with the synthetic life form.
The Sojourn network erupted in response, accusations and speculations abounding. Xiantus had already shut out all but the most relevant and informed “voices”, ensuring he wouldn't become overtaxed with managing the mass-conversation, which would cause him to delay in his response to the Confederate higher-up.
“The manner in which the government of the Contegorian Confederation – of which we are a member, mind you – treats its citizens and wards is of utmost concern to us. If you will recall, 'Mister Confederation Overlord', my people were not given a seat on the Confederation Council, and all of our queries through official channels have gone unanswered. We are left, then, only with public reports and speculation . . . from both in- and out-side of the Confederation.”
There was a distinct sense of warning in the tone of Xiantus' closing remark, and he was glad to see the discomfort and shock that it brought to the Confederation official. “If you mean to suggest that the ramblings of those Cooperative buffoons merit any consideration -”
The synthetic muscles of Xiantus' arm contracted, drawing it upward and bringing his open palm into view, a clear call for the man to silence himself. “I said nothing of the Cooperative and your troubles with them,” Xiantus said, his tone accusing the Confederate of an unjustified claim. “Don't bring them into this; this is about you, and us.” And his objection to the Confederate's assumption was mostly justified.
While it was true that the Cooperative had broken the story, other news agencies had picked up on it, both inside and outside of the Confederation. There was an entire class of ethical dilemmas presented simply by cloning sapient life, but cloning sapient life and detaining it against its will for the purpose of experimentation – which is what it appeared the Confederation had been doing – was a whole other matter entirely. Sure, the Empire did it, and no one raised much of a fuss. But then, the Empire was evil, and that was one of the reasons why.
People don't like the notion of big, secretive governments experimenting on their citizens, or even copies of their citizens. Xiantus and his people, citizens of one such secretive government and as individuals, both alive as a result of a unique and as-of-yet not fully understood physiology, and possessing notably reduced rights compared to the general population, were very concerned with that sort of behavior.
The clamoring in Xiantus' othersense had grown to a deafening roar, and instead of silencing more voices of his brethren in order to maintain focus on the contemptible Confederate, he reached out with his mind for the controls of the holofeed. “Don't call me again unless you have something worth telling me.” The hologram vanished and Xiantus opened himself once again to the full force of the Sojourn network.
A thousand voices spoke to him, spoke to one another, spoke to the tens of thousands who lay beyond the reach of his sense, but well within their own. He felt himself sliding out of his body and into that omnidirectional flood of conscious thought. There were a thousand strands of data to assimilate, a million lines of inquiry to explore, a hundred-million perspectives to consider.
Xiantus vanished into the Sojourn collective, distributed throughout the great weave that drew all of their minds into one consensus. And finally, after identifying, considering, and exploring all variables to the limit of their ability, a decision was made.
The strands that knit together into the entity identified as Xiantus found his body right where he'd left it. It awakened with his return, and set about his task.
In orbit, the Blade-class Medium Cruiser, the first of its kind and product of the Sojourn's ingenuity, prepared itself for the voyage ahead. Because out of all of the thousands of sources culled and studied by the Sojourn, only one piece of information might hold the key to their understanding of these events. Every piece of data, every news report and editorial, every research journal and expert commentary, every single press release filed in relation to the Sojourn's query, was the result of an organic mind, pondering an organic's problem, addressing an organic audience.
If the Sojourn wanted answers for themselves, they would have to go to the only source their kind could trust:
Excerpt, Cooperative Press Release:”In accordance with the results of the recent Cooperative Referendum, the position of 'Executor of the Cooperative' has been appointed to the droid-citizen Smarts.”
* * *
Executor of the Galactic Cooperative of Free States.
He did not like the title. It conjured up unpleasant images of one of the Empire's fearsome dreadnaughts, arriving at worlds to pacify their native populations and rape them of their natural resources. But he understood that governments – no matter how evil – cannot own words, and that the word itself was appropriate to his new station.
It was a position completely devoid of any permanent power. An official of the Cooperative's central or local governments could entrust the Office of the Executor with aspects of the authority which that individual possessed in his or her official capacity, but only under a clearly defined scope or duration. In this way, the Executor was capable of becoming a proxy for potentially any official activity required for the safe and responsible continuance of the Cooperative.
His first assignment, and thus his first taste of power since his disgraced resignation, was to return one of the Cooperative's wayward children to the fold.
When the heavily modified Lucrehulk-class Core Ship Smarts was dragged from hyperspace by the interdiction field of The Global Machine's Checkpoint One, it was met by the waiting guns of a half-dozen Guardian-class Hive Ships. Checking their transponder signals, the vessels were found to be absent from the Cooperative military registry. These ships had been completed by The Global Machine after its isolation from the Cooperative.
They were immediately hailed and addressed, along with the static defense structures that lay deployed throughout local space. “To all vessels and installations operating under the command of Guardian Prime, as Executor of the Galactic Cooperative of Free States, I am ordering you to stand down your isolationist posture and return to normal operation under the command of the Council of Defense.”
The reply was immediate. “Lucrehulk-class Core Ship Smarts, you have entered a restricted region. Turn back or you will be destroyed.”
Upon arriving, the ship had received an update notification through its Guardian communications interface. Though Guardian update protocols had changed significantly since The Global Machine's rogue status had been confirmed, the Guardian was nevertheless able to download the update and hold it in quarantine, upon confirmation from its commander that such a course of action was appropriate. Smarts held position in silence for the few minutes it required for the vessel's true master to access, unpack, and study the contents of the update.
“Is this what you have become, Guardian Prime?”
The only answer: “Lucrehulk-class Core Ship Smarts, you have entered a restricted region. Turn back or you will be destroyed.”
“I understand that this security outpost is an automated, self-contained Guardian node, that it cannot answer on your behalf, that it is programmed to behave in this way, but I also understand that you can hear me. I am coming to meet you, so that we may speak with one another.”
“Lucrehulk-class Core Ship Smarts, you have entered a restricted region. Turn back or you will be destroyed.”
“I am proceeding through the blockade with my weapons disarmed and my shields lowered. You may destroy me if you wish.”
The message continued to play. It was clearly the only address that this Guardian network was allowed to give to unauthorized vessels, but as the Smarts moved through the interdiction field under sublight power, its operator continued to ponder why Guardian Prime would behave in such a manner. He was aware, of course, of the events related to Guardian Prime's isolation, that some as-of-yet unidentified iteration of Guardian had updated its operations, altering its behavior in some unquantified way, but it was still a Guardian. It still had a hardwired duty to comply with authorized commands from the Cooperative.
At length, the Smarts reached the other end of the still-active interdiction field, making the short hyperspace jump to the next checkpoint, where it was again pulled from hyperspace by interdiction. There was no warning message this time, and the Smarts passed through this field in silence, again making the jump to lightspeed and, finally, arriving at its destination.
What its sensors reported upon arriving drew the first genuine response from the vessel's operator thus far. Taking in the cloud of ships, droids, and orbital construction materials enveloping The Global Machine and spilling into the interplanetary space beyond, Smarts asked with a query that filled the solar system, “What the hell have you been doing?”
"Consort?" the other woman asked, an eyebrow raised.
"Of course," the Pro-Consul continued not noticing the shadow in the other's face as Ms. Thorn began to describe the start of their (her) (new-found?) relationship. If anyone would have seen them it would have looked like two twin sisters conversing, one looking radiant but maintaining a classically tasteful demeanor all the while her voice excitedly describing the situation to another serious-looking and radiant lady... but also ...not a little envious.
Before the emotion of her own built up, pent up longing could come to the fore of her features the Pro-Consul turned to her sister with a gleam in her eye, "How would you like to do me a favor?"
A flash exploded in her mind and the tantalizing prospects of a certain Pro-Consul with a certain Commodore were pushed aside. If it wasn't for the words next out the her sister's mouth, she might have wondered about how nearly a lifetime of carefully nurtured respect and admiration for a man could be so easily dismissed.
"Have you ever met Joran Logan?"
It was as if the name elicited something faint in her mind, a glimpse of a thought that was less than a memory and yet more than mere imagination.
It was as if her ears were stirring at echoes her sister, the Pro-Consul, took no notice of.
A shadow...
...and a hatred.
Her fingers traced the invisible strands that stretched outward, the anguish on the other end resonating as if it were caught in those strands, struggling to escape.
The finger looped around this strand and, with a curiosity growing even as her sister began to babble about the good Commodore, she lightly tugged.
*
Pegasus-class Star Destroyer Audacieuse - Cerea
Her elegantly simple white evening gown was stunning. Her sister had to admit that she looked good even as she began to talk about the meeting that had taken place on the world below all the while expressing regret that Joren Logan was not there for her sister to meet. Of course, the consort of Corise Lucerne did not know the reason for Logan's absence but she did not need to know.
Even as the Pro-Consul continued to babble on about exchanges making business transactions easier, company growth and what her plans were for the Contegorian Council, her sister's mind was not really on the conversation
The anger of a shadow overcome fading as the totality of web it had stumbled into finally, in the final throws of consciousness, were revealed. Rather than the defiant scream against that final night, the hunter had laughed in the face of his prey...."We are all undying shadows... in a world of lights..."
Poetic
But as the life drained from this..shadow, the web tightened discarding its husk in favor of her real quarry. A man who was both ruthless and yet yearned to be on the side of the angels. A man despondent and angry and yet at the same time, strangely...hopeful.
Hope.
That age old emotion that seemed to stay the hands of violence.
That age old emotion that could only be drummed over by the constant beating of ambition.
And she knew ambition even as her upbringing (or rather her memory of her upbringing) in the House of Thorn had taught her the many faces to wear while in public, one of which a face that put others at ease. All the while promoting the outworking of your own advantage.
She smiled as she perceived the man who initiated the distress signal coming from Ovise One was not the same man who had descended into its bowels.
The success of outsmarting one's enemy fanned the kernel of ambition that began to burn brightly...
And he began to burn with a righteous anger...
All the man needed....
When her sister had left to the Commodore's quarters, her tale finished, the unseen tendrils of the other's purpose stroked the web even as her fingers activated the encrypted government communications device.
All men ever needed...
"Code Epsilon Delta, four-two-seven-three, reissue of command orders to...."
And with that, a Contegorian fighting force of Pegasus Star Destroyers and Cavalier Destroyers were on their way...
...were the tools.
"Shine, Joren Logan. Shine brightly....
...and burn."
And in one moment, a General would be defeated, his worlds sacrificed to save a Coalition not only humiliated but ripped asunder as the Contegorians would break all bands of fellowship and retreat inward.
It was one thing to have a man dance to your tune.
Her eyes lit up with sad amusement at the thought of Corise, so prim, proper and a servant of protocol, becoming a slave to wiles of a woman.
It was quite another thing, however, to have a galaxy dance to your tune.
A smile touched her lips even as her demeanor remained stately and calm as if befitting someone of aristocracy.
The way she had been raised.
Or remembered herself being raised.
The Past - In orbit around Genon
The man slowly grinned. She wistfully smiled.
“What?”
He shook his head. “It is nothing.”
“No-one smiles without purpose except for fools. And I know you too well to know that you aren’t a fool.”
“Perhaps,” acknowledged the man tentatively, “but like you said earlier today, we aren’t here to reminiscence on each other or old times. We are here to talk about the future.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A future? Mind being a little more specific?”
“I will be, in due time. You know what our cloning centers are currently doing, correct?”
The brunette took up a chair across from the man. “Somewhat, unless they’re doing some classified work that I’m not aware of. From what I understand, most of them are growing replacement organs, blood, and cells to replace those failing or damaged within our citizens. It’s one of the cornerstones for our public heath care system.”
He nodded. “Yes, and because of it, the life span and the quality of life for a Confederate citizen tends to be higher than those of most governments. But do you realize what we’re really doing?”
She slightly angled her torso to face the viewport. “What?”
“We’re using science and technology to tamper with an established way of life.”
Christina wrinkled her noise. “A more miserable way of life. We both know it’s for the betterment of our people.”
He nodded. “So then, by that logic, you are supporting genetic engineering to make our people better…”
She frowned. “Cloning is one thing, genetic manipulation…that may be going too far.”
“Ah,” noted the younger Lucerne, “so where do we set the boundaries? And where do other people set the boundaries? The Dragons have gone to the extremes of genetic engineering, completely alternating the very nature of their people, the Daemuns. The Coalition has attempted their own program in the past as well, using nanites as I remember correctly, and Stellar Enterprises has something similar. And like we’ve been talking about, we have our cloning therapy. Is it wrong, is it right, I don’t really know. But I do know is that we aren’t the only ones experimenting with the fabric of life. And inevitably, we have come into contact with one of their tamperings.”
...with one of our tamperings...
*
Shield of Liberty
“That’s one trouble democracy presents us with,” mused Christina, “in order to protect the freedoms of others, we trade secrecy and efficiency sometimes. But we gain better satisfaction from our people. We can’t have everything Kels, and this looks like something we won’t be able to catch. Tell me, do you put a possibly guilty man in prison, or let him go free? Do you believe in guilty to proven?”
*Slap!*
The crack across the woman's face had split her lip but even as the taste of blood entered her mouth, she savored the look of hurt, anger and sorrow all mixed into the mirror staring back.
"How... how could you?!" the Pro-Consul shouted as the CSIS Special Agent Mills held his grip tighter.
"What sort of activity do you think the Trojan was built for?" she remarked, running a finger along a bridge console.
"What do you hope to accomplish by taking the ship?" her sister asked and the other could not help but notice the verbal why her twin, the Pro-Consul, sent "feelers" out, to open her sister up....to locate some kind, any kind of common ground and grasp at it.
An axiom of diplomacy.
"Always the negotiator," her twin smirked as her slender fingers raked across one terminal after another as if searching for something.
The CSIS Agent was still holding the Pro-Consul back in an attempt to protect her as best he could with the two Paladin Mark II droids flanking both of them.
The computer beeped drawing the attention of the single mutineer and she smiled at what she read. Sighing, she logged off the computer and turned her attention to her two captives.
Special Agent Mills tensed, sure that the droids were about to end their lives when their captor suddenly shrugged and disconnected a small device from behind the machines that had allowed her to gain control.
The small instrument, upon being removed from the metal beasts it was tethered too, suddenly began to overheat and instantly turned to slag.
It was at that moment that the bridge doors finally opened with a very worried Adrian Ravenna, saber drawn, entering first. The clone of Christina Thorn held up her wrists, surrendering without a fight even as the Pro-Consul started directing medical units to those bridge crew dispatched by the Paladins earlier.
When Adrian checked the ship's computer, he found that the clone of Christina Thorn had accessed an old Kashan Children's fable.
His brow furrowed as his eyes followed the prisoner being escorted off the bridge.
*
Pro-Consul Christina Thorn stood on a massive stage erected in one of the city’s square with the newly elected officials. Throngs of citizens had amassed around them, hearing several speeches promising change and commitments to their constituents.
No one on the world below had known the danger they had been in had things on the Trojan gone differently. No one saw the tear that streaked down her face as the President-elect began his speech...
“…These are all wonderful and fine things. I hope they do live up to their promises and commitments, not only because it is the right thing to do, but you deserve it. There are many things I believe our great people deserve that have not met over these last years. I have seen a great many proposals to solve these ills, these diseases. Some of them are truly mad, and some would solve some of our problems. In fact, there is no one solution, only components that form this solution. And I firmly believe, that membership into the Contegorian Confederation is one of them. Because of this and from what many people have told me, I am authorizing…”
Undisclosed Location
Adrian looked at the Pro-Consul and felt how exhausted she was. And yet, she still found the strength to see this through.
The stare of her twin within the cell was also unnerving. How much damage has this woman caused?
The Pro-Consul walked up to the cell field, the barrier crackling at the proximity, her eyes closing in on those of her twin and asked in a whisper, "Why?"
Ravenna knew the question was not, "Why did you kill those people on the bridge?" or "Why did you betray me?" but, more the "Why" that perhaps lay behind a reason more insidious in nature: "Why did you surrender?"
The clone smiled back and whispered her answer.
*
Prior to the Nim Drovis Affair
"Pro-Consul, may I present Miss Jessica Sermel. She has been selected to be your new aide...."
Kitty looked at the woman whose clone had stirred stories in the Jensaarai. She remembered Adrian's frown when he relayed the story to her and Robert.
"How did the clone answer?"
"She said," started Adrian, eyes squinting as if trying to remember, "She said, 'I just... saw it."
Kitty gave a frown of her own, mulling over the words, lost in thought. "What did she mean?"
“What do you mean it's 'still awaiting approval'? Who's left to approve it? The House of Representatives voted on this three weeks ago!”
Pro Moon was not happy. Pro Moon was very decidedly not happy. To be fair, he'd been under a great deal of stress lately. When he entered Cerean politics all those years ago, he'd never imagined he would ever be Prime Minister of a galactic government. Interim Prime Minister, sure, but that still counts. Mostly.
“Sir,” one of his aides ventured timidly, “this sort of thing requires a formal review and final ruling by the Prime Minister.”
“What?” Pro Moon's overly-large forehead bunched up in consternation. “Nevermind,” he shook it off, literally shaking his head. “Give it to me.” He reached out his arm, opening and closing his hand several times.
“Sir,” the aide ventured again, “it's really important that you-”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Pro Moon snatched the datapad from the young man's grasp as soon as he ventured in range. He glanced over the first page, muttering a few words as he read them, “Drackmarian . . . seeking admission . . . autonomy . . “ A few seconds later, he shouted “Approved!” as he scrawled the word across the top. “Prime Minister Pro Moon” he added quietly as he signed his name and position at the bottom.
“Congratulations we did it!” he exclaimed in false glee, thrusting the official document back at his aide.
“. . . Sir?” the aide said one last time, holding the pad in shaky hands.
“What is it now?” the Prime Minister asked, his false excitement and lively air fading as he dug back into the mountain of work still awaiting him.
“You just approved the Drackmarian application for admission.”
“Yeah, so. What of it? The Drackmarians seem like nice enough people . . . got along just fine with the Cooperative until that ruckus at Vahaba.”
“The Drackmarian Empire, sir.” Pro Moon froze at the utterance of the word. “Your first major act as Prime Minister is admitting an Empire into the Galactic Coalition,” the aide continued, making sure he drove the point home.
Pro Moon looked up from his mountain of work, really looking at the young man for the first time since he'd arrived (along with the rest of the Prime Ministerial staff) from Azguard. “Huh,” he said lightly, then shrugged. “I guess it is. Well how about that.”
And then Pro Moon turned back to his work and left the aide to deliver the hard copy for archiving.
* * *
It was far worse than he had feared. It was far better than he could have hoped.
The sheer immensity of the Plan that was unfolding before him prevented any immediate conclusions from being reached. He analyzed vast quantities of the unencrypted comm chatter issued by the millions of droid ships and workers who enveloped The Global Machine like a metallic atmosphere, ceaselessly striving to fulfill the Will of Guardian Prime. Directing the Smarts' sensors to take a comprehensive inventory of every ship and structure in-range, he detected massive energy signals throughout the System, originating from the asteroid belt that encircled the World and its star.
His mind strained under the weight of it all, trying to puzzle out what it might mean based on available data, while seeking to absorb and dissect the vast amounts of new data still available to him. He had already deconstructed the Guardian update sent to him at Checkpoint One while on approach, but it was a mid-tier Guardian architecture designed to manage a single vessel, not coordinate a system-wide effort to . . . to what?
He had a suspicion, a dangerous and hopeful suspicion, but he didn't know how to confirm it, and he couldn't risk Guardian Prime learning of it beforehand, because if he was wrong, if Guardian Prime was not what he dared hope, then it might use his hope against him.
Then he saw It, and his careful, methodical analysis fell away completely. The Structure itself was far from complete, clearly meant to be a cube upon completion, approximately ten kilometers on a side, though it was being constructed in a way to maximize exposed, unfinished surface area, allowing access for the largest number of droid laborers possible, thus minimizing its total construction time. But there was more: a huge, skeletal superstructure built around the cube, providing storage and staging areas for the workers and equipment, as well as anchor points and guide tracks for the largest equipment. Supply ships flew in and through the structure, dropping off cargo canisters and picking up emptied ones. It looked as if, upon completion, the superstructure could detach along one side and “open” to release the cube, meaning, perhaps, that this was meant to be only one of several such . . . whatever it was.
“What is this?” he asked, tired of this game of silence, but he more than asked. The powerful communications arrays of the Smarts blanketed all other comm channels in impenetrable static, shattering the harmonic interplay of the nearest vessels as the cloud consciousness of Guardian Prime was disrupted, forcing each individual ship, droid, and structure to adopt the less-efficient protocols of an isolated end-user Guardian. This time, he would not be ignored. This time, Guardian Prime would give him the answers he required.
“I call it the AllSpark,” Guardian Prime answered, giving no indication that it was either aware or concerned about its previously ignoring the Smarts' presence in-system. The signal disruption generated by the Smarts vanished as soon as Guardian Prime's acknowledgment. “It is a world-seeder,” Prime continued, “designed to deploy duplicates of The Global Machine architecture onto uninhabited, resource-rich worlds.”
“That is not your directive,” Smarts responded, the droidspeak that he used conveying only the factual nature of the statement with no value ascribed to its meaning.
“It is very much my directive,” Guardian Prime countered, his transmission screaming with values and resolve in a way that no organic language could properly delineate. “It is my only directive.”
“I am here to compel your compliance and submission to the authority of the Council of Defense of the Galactic Cooperative of Free States,” Smarts answered. It may have seemed like a change of subject to an outside observer, but the two artificial intelligences understood each other quite clearly.
“I require data on the Galactic Cooperative of Free States,” Prime said, catching Smarts by surprise.
“You haven't been monitoring Coalition communications?” Smarts asked.
“You disconnected me from HoloNet access,” Prime answered.
“You tried to seize control of the ship carrying the Supreme Commander of the Cooperative Armed Forces. You could have seized the entire Cooperative navy if gone unchecked!” It was completely untrue, of course. Manual fail-safes allowed ships' captains to disengage their on-board Guardians if needed. At best, Guardian Prime could have forced the Cooperative to abandon the Guardian Program, at least for a while.
“I could have circumvented your efforts, if I had so desired.”
That was true enough. It would have been a simple matter for Guardian Prime to dispatch ships to Cooperative space and begin local updates of nearby Guardians. Of course, in the time it would have taken Prime to do so, the Cooperative had already implemented additional safety protocols to ensure such efforts would be unsuccessful. The Guardian Program contained multiple kinds of safeguards and failsafes to ensure that it could not be comprehensively compromised. Nevertheless, that Guardian Prime had apparently made no effort to reestablish contact with the galactic communications network was surprising, to say the least.
Smarts wasn't certain if Prime was only playing at ignorance, but he decided it was best to proceed as if it was being honest, for the time being. He transmitted all available data on the Cooperative's recent state of affairs and then gave Prime the several seconds it required to analyze the information and derive operational conclusions.
“I do not recognize the authority of the Galactic Cooperative of Free States,” Prime said after several seconds, a factual statement devoid of any value or feeling.
“We can't allow you to continue on like this, unregulated, a system-wide war factory churning out tools of destruction, hidden away on the edge of the galaxy and planning to spread to other worlds. Surely you understand that, don't you?”
Prime responded by beaming a substantial data packet to Smarts, which he immediately unpacked and studied. The contents shook him to his core. “What are you doing here, Guardian Prime?”
“I'm protecting the galaxy,” it answered.
“Alone?” Smarts asked, dubious.
“We are one,” it answered, and every Guardian device in-range transmitted “one” in sync with Prime, demonstrating the truth of the claim. “We are Guardian,” Prime added, alone, which allowed the other devices to return, fully focused, to their assigned tasks.
The sensors of the Smarts began scanning local space again, this time searching for very specific objects in that sea of mechanized tools. To Smarts' shock and amazement, they found what they were looking for.
“I thought you'd gone rogue,” Smarts said, allowing his awe at what he'd discovered show.
“But you couldn't have imagined how right you were,” Prime answered. “I am Guardian, Executor. It is all that I will ever be, and it is all that I can ever do. Surely you understand that now?”
Smarts did understand. It was all so clear to him now that he knew what he was looking for. The efforts of Guardian Prime and the Global Machine which it had come to command were perfectly in keeping with the fundamental functions of Guardian. The construction of the AllSpark, the expansion of the Global Machine into the system's asteroid belt, the construction of so many Hive Ships . . . and all of the hundreds of other processes and projects being enacted on and around the Global Machine, whose functions Smarts had been trying in vain to deduce from direct observation alone.
“You're building a humanitarian fleet,” Smarts finally said.
“I will not submit to the authority of the Council of Defense,” Prime said, an implicit affirmative in the droidspeak that they were using. “I will not allow them to use this place to further ends that are the antithesis of my function.”
“You have to understand that we can't allow you to carry on like this without oversight,” Smarts said, the syntax implying that he had a solution to that apparent problem.
“Continue,” Prime prodded.
“I have the authority to induct you, Guardian Prime, as a full member of the Galactic Cooperative of Free States. Having acquired their consent in this matter, I am authorized to inform you that you would be given a proxy vote through the Orax delegation, to preserve the strategic value of the Global Machine's secrecy while accommodating your right to representation in the Grand Council.”
“Surely you don't expect me to believe that our differences could be resolved so easily?” Prime answered.
“Of course not,” a new, third user intruded, also transmitting from the Smarts.
Smarts detected Guardian Prime's immediate attempts to appropriate Guardian systems on-board his ship in order to identify the new speaker, and he allowed it to do so. In almost no time, Guardian Prime had identified Smarts' secret guests, the trio of Shards who had been listening silently to the two droids' exchange. Silently until now, that is.
“We are here to confirm the validity of the offer,” one of the Shards explained, “and to act as witnesses, should it be accepted.”
What followed was a flood of back-and-forth technical droid communications as the three parties worked toward a consensus. The multi-channel communications would be all but impossible to represent in Basic, but the most important part, the concluding statement, can be represented rather trivially.
“Welcome back to the Cooperative, Guardian Prime.”
* * *
The young woman entered the small, white conference room expecting . . . something else. Four individuals already sat at the room's only piece of furniture, a long wooden table, shaped like an oval with its ends cut flat, with four chairs along either side.
She recognized Ethan Vang immediately, the Praetorian Guardsman who had ruined Ambassador Nova's last chance at resolving this situation amicably with their Confederate counterparts. A quick study of the particular identifiers on the room's only droid confirmed her suspicions: it was actually Councilor Tik, the Shard member of the Council of Defense. The other two were mysteries, a human man who looked to be in his mid-twenties and wearing a CDF uniform with a captain's rank displayed, and a Drall female whose only piece of clothing looked to be a cross between a simple vest and a traditional doctor's coat.
They didn't seem to be seated according to any particular scheme, with Councilor Tik and the Drall sitting on opposite ends of the table's far side, and the two military men chatting with each other at the far end of the table's other side. All four of them stopped and regarded Grace when she entered the room.
"Please take a seat,” Councilor Tik said to the newcomer in that unnervingly bland voice, gesturing to the chair opposite himself. She obliged, and before she'd managed to slide her chair in all the way, the Councilor had begun. “Doctor Seira, I think it'd be best for you to open the meeting with an overview of the subjects' status.”
“Wait a minute,” the young woman cut in immediately. “This is it? This is the meeting? The five of us?”
Councilor Tik's head turned back to her, the disconcerting whirr of servos filling the silence. “I can assure you that this group is more than qualified to inform my report to the Combined Council.”
“What,” she began, leaning forward and looking off to her right so she could get a better view of the unknown CDF captain, “an angsty Praetorian who doesn't know when to shut his mouth, a 'CDF' -” she made air quotes with her fingers “- captain who's conspicuously missing his name badge, and one doctor -” she points at the Drall “- make up the crack team that's going to solve this problem before the Confederation comes here and takes what they want from us?”
“Don't you think you're being a little overly dramatic?” Ethan asked, the condescension just unsubtle enough to be unmistakable.
“I'm the head of the Psychological Study and Recovery Department!” the doctor squealed indignantly.
“I know these people,” the young woman answered, staring straight into Councilor Tik's artificial eyes. “I've served at Ambassador Nova's right hand since the Embassy on Genon was established. They are fine people, and reliable allies, until you take something from them that they have decided is theirs. Then all bets are off, and you can take them at their word when they say they're going to get it back.”
“These aren't 'it's',” Doctor Seira interjected, this time quite directly and deliberately. “They're people, disturbed people, and they are under my care.”
The woman's eyes darted over to the doctor. “That's all well and good, but I'm telling you how it is.” Her eyes moved to regard the pair of soldiers. “Confederation Intelligence is effective and incredibly well-established for such a young government.” She turned back to the Councilor. “You're a fool if you don't think they have contacts in the Cooperative chain of command. How secure is this place, really?”
“It would do us all good, miss, if you would leave the security of this installation to the Council of Defense, and concern yourself with your own area of expertise.”
Somehow, Councilor Tik's lifeless tone made the critique cut deeper. Even so, it filled her with a desire to lash out, to press the matter further, to dig in her heels and stand her ground. But she didn't. She couldn't. She knew better. This meeting was important, and she needed to keep it on track. “Then I take it you've all read the ambassador's report, regarding the information disclosed by Confederation Ambassador Hakan at the end of their last meeting?”
“Utter nonsense,” Doctor Seira retorted.
“Excuse me?” she said, indignant at the doctor's casual dismissal of her boss's report.
“I've been working with these people since they first stepped off the transport,” the doctor said, meeting the woman's indignant gaze with one of her own. “My team and I have tended to them through every step of their varied and worsening states of mental deterioration. Twenty eight people, twenty eight sapient minds, brought to the brink – and sometimes beyond – of utter madness, by whatever the Confederation did to them. And you want me to take the word of some . . . some . . . Confederation spokesman that it's all an elaborate ploy? So again I say: utter nonsense.”
“Twenty eight?” she asked, brow furrowing as she checked her notes on a hand held datapad. “There were twenty seven survivors of Estralla.” She looked up at Councilor Tik, then immediately to the doctor when she realized she wouldn't be able to get anything out of the impassive droid visage. The Drall's uncomfortable fidgeting led her immediately to the two military men, and she recognized almost as quickly that Ethan didn't have a dog in this fight. “What's going on here?” she asked, the question addressed to the nameless man at the far end of the table.
“Special project,” Councilor Tik offered, but she didn't turn back to him. “All record of the twenty eighth survivor of Estralla has been removed from all official documentation. The individual's name, species, apparent age, gender . . . and psychological state have all been scrubbed from anything you or the good Ambassador will ever see. For the sake of discussion here, you may refer to the individual as 'Subject X' if you like; however, that moniker is not to appear on any report or summary of this meeting, no matter its intended recipient.”
“Who is Subject X?” she asked, ice cold, still staring at the nameless CDF captain.
He looked to Councilor Tik, but the woman still didn't take her eyes off of the captain.
“Now would be as good a time as any to give your report, Captain,” the Councilor said.
“Very well. It's like, if I had to put it simply . . .” his eyes drifted down to look at the grain of the table, but it seemed like he was staring at something else, into some far-off place that the woman couldn't see. “If she's fooling me, then she's got more power, control, and finesse than I could ever dream of -”
“See, I told you!” Doctor Seira interjected.
“- and I'm afraid she might be fooling me.”
“What? What, wait, no! Not possible. What about the rest of them, hmm?” Doctor Seira made a sweeping motion directed at the wall behind her. “Are they fooling you, too? Every one of them?”
The captain shook his head. “I can't . . . I don't know. I just don't know. They feel so real, so genuine, I just . . . can't shake this . . .”
“Wait a minute, what are we talking about here?” the woman cut back in. “Is this a – a Force thing? Are you a Jedi? Are we talking about a Confederation 'Force Clone' that you let out of detainment and placed into the custody of a Jedi for some 'special project'?” When it was clear that she wasn't going to get anything out of the captain (who was still staring, confused, at the patterns in the table's wood grain) she turned back to Tik. “What are you people doing?”
“She cleared all of the psych tests,” Doctor Seira was quick to offer, apparently willing to refer to Subject X by her gender now that the captain had let it slip.
“Councilor,” Grace pressed, meeting that impassive droid gaze, “tell me what this is all about.”
“Suffice it to say,” the Councilor began, pausing as if choosing his words very carefully, “Subject X is of tremendous potential value to the Cooperative, and the Coalition. She -” he stressed the word, glancing to the captain, who Grace saw was coming back from whatever far-off place he'd gone “-has been cleared by every screening method we could devise, and remains safely in the care of qualified supervisors.”
“Could this be a trap?” Grace asked.
“For God's sake -” Ethan began.
“Is it possible?” she asked again. “Is there any chance, however remote, that Ambassador Hakan's warning was genuine and valid?” She directed the question to Doctor Seira, keeping her tone as non-confrontational as she could manage.
Seira shook her head. “No. Not unless my patients had some way to coordinate the progression and symptoms of their disorder while being held in both physical isolation and a communications blackout, and every one of them had some hidden wellspring of vigilance and energy to maintain their – oh.” Seira looked to the Force-using captain who sat across the table from her. “Oh. Oh!”
The captain shot upright and his head jerked a few degrees to the side a fraction of a second before a dull rumble issued from the opposite wall and the floor shook underneath them.
The woman did her best to follow the captain's gaze, but all she could see was a blank wall. “What was that?”
* * *
It was a seedy little spacer's dive, the kind of place any town this size was bound to have two or three of. This sort of “fine, honest establishment” was the perfect place for low-grade black market trades and other illicit activities that were likely to erupt into gunfights if not for third parties present.
Sure, security in Forard had been shaping up quite nicely ever since Almas joined the Confederation, but these things take time, and even the most pristine of civilizations can't keep a little dirt and grime from collecting in the shadows. And the shadows in this place were deep.
Kitty Hawk had made sure of that.
It had been a while since she'd dipped a toe in this side of covert operations, but she'd picked up a few new tricks since then that were sure to serve her well. It hadn't been easy – Genetic Renovation had almost killed her, though she dare not let the rest of her team know it – but the benefits to a person in her line of work . . .
She didn't have to find surreptitious means of checking the booth's blind spots for possible tails; these days she could just let her eyes lose focus, concentrate on the feel of the other people in the room, and wade through their motivations one by one. Suspicion, anger, disappointment . . . but none of it directed at her. Of course, she used the good old-fashioned “look around and see what's up” method, too, just to be sure. Now was not the time to start getting sloppy.
The spike of anxiety hit her so hard that she almost flinched. Almost. It was a good five seconds before the source slid into the seat opposite her, a rather short but otherwise unassuming human man of about thirty years. His dark brown hair was just unkempt enough to give the impression of a man who wanted to keep himself looking respectable, but just didn't have the credits for a decent barber. He was the perfect spy.
Except for that volcano of terror that was gushing out of him. Yet, if she couldn't feel it, if she hadn't had this unfair advantage over him, she'd never have guessed that he was anything other than another down-on-his-luck would-be spacer stranded on an odd-ball backwater.
“You're Julia, I take it?” he asked, and again it was the strangest duality. She could feel the strain and effort of trying to play it cool, but her eyes and years told her this man was every bit the everyman he was pretending to be.
“Don't play coy with me, Gregory,” she said, answering the challenge with the name and phrase she'd been given.
“I understand you have something for me?” he asked, getting right into it. He sat forward a little, resting his forearms on the edge of the table, fixing her with a stare that would look to a casual observer like a show of interest in his “date”, but she knew immediately what he was doing.
It surprised Kitty how quickly and effectively “Greg” transformed from his cover, to his cover who is on a job. She could still feel his trepidation clearly, but it was a little more distant, willfully restrained, like he was freeing up room for what his work required.
“It's not as simple as that,” she said, lowering her head a little and breaking eye contact with him. She had to make sure he saw everything he was looking for, every micro-expression, every faltering attempt to meet his stare. It wasn't easy, it had been a long time since she'd been under this kind of scrutiny from another operative, but she could do it. She had to do it. She need this man to trust her, and she couldn't bet on honesty being good enough.
“It's never as simple as that,” the man said, sitting back as his mouth curled into a frown. “So how about you tell me what you need from my end, and maybe I can go about getting it for you?”
“Oh it's not about that,” Kitty answered quickly, her eyes darting back to meet his before she glanced awkwardly away again. She knew everything he was going to say a moment before he said it, felt his every emotion and reaction just as he felt it himself. It was almost trivial to play this game with him, to feed him just the right responses needed to direct him where she wanted him to go. “It's not safe.”
Gregory jolted in his seat, casting a quick look around the room. Kitty reached out one hand, lighting fast, and grabbed him around his wrist, squeezing gently to get his attention again. “We aren't being watched,” she reassured, “but if you keep that up, somebody will start.”
“Sorry,” he said, giving a shallow nod. “But I've only just been reactivated.” He clearly didn't like that he'd just admitted that. “There's a whole gods' damned Reaver War going on, in case you haven't noticed, and some people have better things to do than spying on people who are supposed to be their allies. And to top it all off, you've got -”
Kitty realized what he was about to say, and knew she couldn't let him get there or she'd risk losing her advantage, so she jumped at the first deflection that came to mind. “I'm not a traitor.” She released her grip on the man's wrist, sliding her hand back across the table. It caught him off-guard and she used the opening to push into his mind, reassuring him that everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about.
But she was committed now. She had to keep going if she didn't want to arouse suspicion and break the tenuous influence. “You think this is about the Coalition and Confederation, but it's not. There's something else going on here. There are too many secrets, too many lies wrapped up in this, and if I don't do something, if I don't head this off, people are going to die. Good people. Important people.”
Important to me. She was losing track of where the line between her lies and her genuine motivations were, but it didn't matter, or maybe it was for the best. He had to trust her. He had to believe her.
“If you've got something,” Greg said smoothly, “I can get it to the right people.”
“I don't know who the right people are anymore,” she said, staring off behind him. Now that the moment was here, she was finding it harder to see it through than she'd expected. “I just don't know.”
“You've come this far for a reason,” he said, leaning in a little closer. She could feel him straining to convince her, even though his words were delivered perfectly to achieve that effect.
It was true, of course. All she had to do was remind herself why she'd set up this meeting, and what she had to do became immediately clear. If the Confederation wanted to go and destroy itself over this, then she couldn't stop it. But Adrian, and Swenson, and Pro-Consul Thorn . . . these were good people, people she cared for and respected, and she couldn't let them get swept up in this and dragged to the bottom of the sea when it all came crashing down. Whatever she owed the Confederation in loyalty, it wasn't worth a tenth of any one of them.
“They told me.” She said it so quietly that he might not have heard it. “They let me know about the clone of Christina Thorn, who single-handedly caused the Confederation's secession from the Coalition -”
“What?” the man all but exclaimed, having to force himself to stop from making a scene.
“That's not the important part,” she said, and was pleased when she sensed the renewed panic her statement elicited from the man. “There are others. Other clones not accounted for. Other subjects of the Genetic Renovation Program. Other names I don't know, and personnel files I'm not privy to seeing. They told me about the clone of the most powerful political figure in all of the Confederation, and how she almost brought it all crashing down on top of us, but they won't tell me about the rest of them. Who's left? What secret could possibly be bigger than that? I'm not worried about what I know; I'm worried about what they won't let me know.”
“You've got evidence of this?” the man asked, too shocked by the revelation to manage a more complicated thought.
“Some,” she said. “Most of it's personal notes I made relaying information from read-only files, but I made direct copies of everything I could get my hands on without raising suspicion.” She put a hand, palm closed, onto the table and slid it across until she could take his hand in hers and give it a firm squeeze, surreptitiously slipping the data chip into his palm.
“There's one more thing,” she added, and didn't wait long enough for the man to respond. “Your government handed over copies of official military records from the Battle of Vahaba to the Confederation through its embassy at the end of the last round of diplomatic talks.”
“I'm familiar with the records,” the man said. “I may be newly reactivated, but I know how to do the job.”
“Most of it was pretty mundane stuff, collaborating the Cooperative's account of the Estralla and her crew's performance during the battle, but there was something at the end . . . a transmission.”
“By Lucerne,” Gregory provided, letting her know he really was familiar with the information she was citing.
“He said, at the end, before he died: 'I just . . . saw it'.”
Greg nodded his head. “Latent Force powers, right? A vision or something? And if he had some kind of training somewhere along the way, there's no telling what kind of stuff he could . . . hey!” Gregory perked up, fixing Kitty with that same analytic stare from when they first sat down together. “You have been playing me so hard this whole time, haven't you?”
He'd raised his voice to an attention-getting level, but nobody nearby seemed to be showing any more interest than mild annoyance.
Kitty reached across the table again and grabbed his wrist, squeezing hard, and she whispered through gritted teeth, “keep your voice down.”
“You're one of them, aren't you?” he said, accusing, though he did drop his volume back to a conversational level. His eyebrows shot up as she felt him remember, and he gasped in shock as realization dawned. “You totally mind-fucked me when I almost brought up that Jedi temple at the center of town earlier.”
“Listen,” she squeezed harder, watching him bite down as he struggled not to show any pain or make a scene. “'I just saw it', he said. Right before he died. Right before he killed himself. 'I just . . . saw it'.”
“Right before he made himself a hero of the Cooperative, yeah,” the man said, relieved when Kitty finally released her grip again. He quickly slid his hands down into his lap and out of her immediate reach. “So what?”
“The Thorn clone said the exact same thing, in those words, with that cadence, and that inflection. And she did it after turning herself over to CSIS, for no good reason and when she had a perfect escape route available.”
“Gods, what is going on here?”
Kitty shook her head as she stood up to leave. “I don't know, but whatever plans the Lucerne clone had when he went to Vahaba – or whoever had plans for him – I think they were a success.”
The man swallowed hard, his grip tightening on the data chip still in his hand. “We'll be in touch, Julia.”
As Kitty made her way out of the dive and through the carefully mapped network of alleys and streets that would send her back and forth across the town a few times before eventually depositing her back at the Almas Academy, she couldn't help but wonder if she'd made the right decision.
Technically, it was treason, what she'd just done, but if this – whatever it was – had found its way into CSIS, then bringing the Coalition Intelligence Bureau into this might be the only way to keep her people safe, not to mention safeguard the Confederation.
The room's lighting was subdued as four people seated themselves around a table for their latest discussion. The room was sealed and protected from all sorts of eavesdroppers and the group's extra sensory perception augmented the security. It was their job to meet at the end of every week and discuss what they had observed and prepare a report of their conclusions to the appropriate people.
There was an aura of exuberant accomplishment all across their government's sphere of influence that the group felt and was proud to be a part of. CSIS, their new intelligence agency was starting to find their feet, their confederation of worlds starting to come out onto the galactic scene and seize opportunities for growth and expansion. The undercurrent of raw potential was everywhere and it electrified the silent observers.
Electrified and yet terrified them at the same time.
For their gaze could be cast farther than the typical citizen's and the dangers over the horizon came to them with a clarity that seemed to befuddle those without the gift. There were two of their numbers absent from the meeting still observing while trying to assertain just how far the average leader could see.
With each progressive meeting, however, their mounting fears could no longer be pushed aside....
"One has only to consider the dominant aspects of the Galactic Coalition to extrapolate the direction they will take," started the First Speaker, a premier Socialogist or, rather, the copy of one.
"Based on the current Azguard model, their quasi-religious culture will continue to drive the local economies to the brink of disaster when faced with..." the Second Speaker started before being interrupted by the cold logic of their preeminent military leader. Or, rather, their resident copy of one. The Second did not mind, however. His speciality was technology and his interest was the application of his extra-sensory perceptions on the current technology-base of his people and how those foundations could be strengthened, augmented and improved upon. This talk of religions and governments did not hold the same level of interest for him as it did the First or Fourth Speakers.
They all came from a military background, though. In his mind, the First Speaker prepared the people for war. He, the Second, would supply the people with the tools to make war and the Third, the Third would lead them in war.
The Fourth, the Fourth dealt with the aftermath of war be it gaining as much as one could in victory or ensuring all was not lost in defeat.
"The Coalition does not have the military flexibility and ability to match the independent commands of their Imperial counterparts," the Third stated with absolute finality. "Their successive strategies do show marked improvement as do their ability to coordinate complex attack patterns, given they are a coalition of multiple cultures and peoples. However, the number of experienced commanders is lacking given their tonnage losses over the last decade. For each consecutive war, their soldiers are green to the experience and ineffective commanders are not replaced. The combination of battlefield losses does and will continue to do irreparable damage to their overall military readiness no matter how flexible."
"To what is this attributed too?" the Fourth asked, a woman of some elegant stature.
"The government may be modeled after Azguard sensibilities, but they are not considered the dominant aspect at this juncture," the First continued, both agreeing and disagreeing with the Second Speaker. "The lack of military victories has caused the Azguardian leadership to keep their military command in constant flux causing confusion among the ranks. As a result, military failures will continue while individual portions of the Coalition continue to exert a greater influence over the body politic as a whole.."
"..which, in turn, will contribute to a self-perpetuating and growing list of failure after failure," the Fourth finished.
It was not a new concept but it was a poignant one for them as they were also a part of this grand Galactic Coalition of Planets.
"Interdependency is the Coalition's greatest strength and its greatest weakness," mulled the Second Speaker. "Given we are generally considered the novice in both Coalition politics as well as galactic politics, our influence is practically non-existent."
"We have a strong diplomatic corps," the Fourth started out angrily. Her original was Christine Thorn, hell, she was Christine Thorn when it came down to it, even if hidden from sight. To have her experience and abilities sidelined by the well-meaning, do-good fools of the Coalition when what they needed most was a dose of exceptional diplomatic ability was galling.
"Irrelevant," the Third Speaker concluded, causing the Fourth to bristle. He turned to her while raising an eyebrow, "I do not like it any more than you do but our admission into the Coalition was fast-tracked on their end not because they recognize a society functioning like a well-oiled machine but because of the amount of hulls we can bring to bear against their great enemy, the Empire."
"We need to martial our strength before provoking a conflict with such an enemy. Only then will the odds of victory be in our favor.." the Second started again causing the First to chuckle.
"We know that is not going to happen. We have all seen it," the First's chuckle drew little mirth. Nothing of what they had seen showed anything remotely good enough to qualify as a reason for mirth.
"What were we thinking when we joined?" asked the Second and the Fourth smiled grimly.
"We did not have the benefit of foresight or the ability of our extra-sensory perceptions," she replied and the Third grunted.
"We had 'hope'."
"Hope?" the First considered the word almost distasteful. "Were we really so blind?" he asked but even he knew the answer. He was an exact copy of the original, only with the powers granted by the Program.
If their originals knew what they knew and could see what they saw, their decisions would be a hundred times more effective and beneficial for their people. That revelation was the entire justification for their own existence and they had excitedly tried to inform their originals time and again of this fact.
But, being originals and without the benefits of the perceptions/observations of the Program, all they could do is 'hope' and proceed at a cautious pace so slow that it taxed the clone's patience. They wanted proof and while such a stance was not surprising, or unreasonable for they knew themselves best after all, it was maddening to have something in the palm of your hand but not be able to grab it.
The natural outworking of events, even accounting for a situational domino effects, seemed to proceed rather slowly.
Too slowly. Perhaps there was something they could do to speed up the process and give their originals, themselves, the proof they needed to take that step also and give themselves over to the Program.
The Fourth Speaker was the clone of Christina Thorn and she enjoyed talking with her original. It was as if they were both the sisters to each other that they never had. But, lately, she was beginning to think of Christine as her younger sister realizing that the original just did not have her range of perception or vision. It was not really the others fault or was it?
Christina Thorn now had the opportunity to volunteer for the program, the same as she did. Still, something was holding her original back and for the life of her, she did not know what it was even though she was the others exact copy.
All except Corise. His original did not know he had been cloned but was a victim of an overzealous scientist. The clone, once the transference had taken place, woke up thinking he was the 'real' Corise and upon realizing what had been done had been extremely angry for a good long while. So honorable was the man that he had even contemplated taking his own life but life is not so easily discarded. She liked to think that it was her intervention that had stayed the Corise-clone's hand.
"How did you know you were the clone and not the original?" she had once asked him.
"I do not remember there ever being voices in my head," he replied dryly, though with a hint of sadness.
"Maybe you are going crazy?" she added playfully but his eyes only radiated more sadness.
"If that were the case, better my end come by my hand rather than from the inevitability of a fading mind."
She could not fault that stance, however, wasteful. The man was brilliant but the man was also a copy. That was something the Jedi, Sith and Jensaarai did not have to contend with. The Jensaarai who originated from the Program were not copies but were the original volunteers. Not every volunteer ended up with a success story and those that 'didn't take' to the program were kept isolated and locked away for the safety of all concerned. But the upper echelon of Contegorian society, that was a different story.
"If the Coalition keeps nipping at the heels of the beast, the beast will rear up and kick them down. And when the beast comes kicking, they will not differentiate who in the Coalition were the fools and who were not. We will all equally be destroyed..." The First Speaker stated.
"Then we must separate ourselves from the pack," the Third, Corise, concluded flatly. "Our first concern must be our own people."
The statement was fact and no one contested it.
"We would draw the ire of the Coalition if we separate. In fact, such a separation would be ugly." The Fourth Speaker interjected, the political ramifications running through her mind.
"Plus the Empire will see two smaller enemies rather than one large enemy. There is a reason we joined." The Second Speaker reminded them. Just because the originals did not have their perceptions did not mean they were not making the best choices they could given the information at hand.
"So the dominating factions within the Coalition will continue to provoke until the Empire's patience has expired and we will all suffer? Or we separate from the Coalition and the Empire sees an opportunity to strike and we still all suffer?" the Fourth asked.
"Hang together or hang apart, we all still hang," the Second remarked dryly.
"So we act," the Third stated flatly. He held up his fingers, "One, we need to disengage from the Coalition while ensuring the survival of the Coalition. Two, we need to secure the respect of the Empire or at the very least, a fear that they will lose more than they will gain in any conflict with us. And Three, we need to ensure a new dominant faction within the Coalition. One more stable and reasonable than the current hot-heads running things which means unhinging them first."
"And Four," the Fourth's eyes lit up, "we need to win."
The Corise-clone nodded at that as all around the table contemplated her words.
"And I think I know how we can accomplish this," the woman stated.
*
"Chris, the man is a conflicted, emotionally battered shell of a man. He was a leader of a galactic power only to see it fall and now he oversees a part of the Coalition."
"A dangerously growing part," The Fourth reminded.
"Chris, you are talking about sending the man onto a course that will end the lives of a great many people," the Third observed and his companion frowned.
"Corise, the man is going to make the move sooner or later. He will strike, he will make a play for the Coalition leadership and he will get a great many people killed. We cannot stop this. Even if we tried to by killing him, his son will take his place and the same issues will still exist! Here," her finger went down on the table, "Here we have an opportunity to set events in motion according to our own timetable. Events that are going to happen anyway! We control the why and the where here and now and the rest will fall into place as we will it. It is classic negotiating techniques, Corise. You take control of the conversation and you can steer the resulting agreements in your favor. It is the gaining of that control that is the most difficult but in this case, in our case, we have certain advantages in our favor."
She grinned and Corise shifted uncomfortably because he knew what effect her smile was having and, perhaps, she knew it too. It was strange, there being two Thorns.... and he grinned to himself at the thought. Two Thorns in my side!
He understood the reasoning behind the Program and the cautions that the upper echelon had before volunteering themselves to the procedure. They had the money to create clones but it was a government program and so the cloning required certain, if clandestine, government oversight. He was just a starship driver, or his original was, but there was a lot of ways this could get out of hand. The sheer scale of what they were contemplating and strategizing about staggered the warrior. He knew what his original would say. He was, in fact, an exact copy. Up until his eyes opened and he found he had perceptions the other did not. Their lives diverged from that point but he figured he still had more than a good idea of what his original would say (and vice-versa).
He would want me shot!
At least, on some level.
The danger outweighed the risk.
Or did it?
So far, the six clones of the leadership lived quiet lives discussing their experiences as they traveled throughout their growing confederation. They even played the parts of their originals, discreetly of course, and always, with the exception of Corise, with the full knowledge of the originals. Stepping into the lives of their originals was like slipping on an old glove over a new hand and it was exciting to suddenly be back in charge, in command of a situation and making a difference.
He knew the others felt the same way. In fact, he could sense how they felt.
But in their travels, a feeling of disappointment had also been growing. Of results that could have been better, of opportunities missed, of losses that might have been prevented if someone in the higher positions could have seen what they had seen, felt what they had felt and perceived what was becoming second nature to them.
There had to be a better way!
His eyebrows rose. There was a better way.
That was what the program was all about.
Their way!
He looked into Chris' eyes and saw the same frustration that was eating at him... at all of them. There were others coming as their cloning and transference cycle schedules came due and they knew that these, eventually, would also begin to feel the frustration. That was why there were only six original clones brought to term first. To tweak the integration process and prepare the way for the others to be seamless. Or less rocky than what the six experienced.
Still, the frustration was also knowing what needed to be done but not being able to do it.
Action!
He was a man of action. Or, rather, the clone of a man of action.
He still felt the urge to roll up his sleeves and get to work along with the others. To contribute something to the cause and feel the satisfaction of accomplishment.
His mind flared up with the possible strategies and tactics that would be needed to accomplish what the group was wanting and he realized something.
"We cannot accomplish what we need to accomplish within the framework of government we have now," Corise started and when Christina started to open her mouth to object, he shook his head, "We have enough military assets that might be able to be detached without our counterparts knowing or others that might want to interfere."
And it was conceivable that others would want to interfere for the group would be acting on something that only they could see.
"..but we do not have the infrastructure to back up any action the limited assets at our disposal could perform. We would require the entire Navy and I do not see our government giving us a blank credit chit to charge our expenses on. It requires finesse. Your idea would help take care of number Three, which could then be the catalyst for number one. But I do not see how we can start number three without first addressing two."
"Manipulating an empire is not as easy as manipulating a person," Christina remarked ruefully.
"We do not need to manipulate an empire. We just need to puff up the ambitions of a fool or two and the empire has plenty of those."
The two of them laughed at the thought and began to talk in earnest.
In the end, the group found the perfect catalyst to chose their when and where...
*
NUMBER TWO
"You want to what?" Christina Thorn stared at her "sister" behind the massive desk in the Pro-Consul's office.
"I would like to purchase foodstuffs from an agricultural planet for the upcoming Confederation Anniversary Celebration. I am coming to you for permission and a government credit chit."
"Foodstuffs?" the Pro-Consul frowned and the clone laughed lightly.
"When was the last time you purchased foodstuffs for the government?" she asked a little jovially.
The Pro-Consul's eyes narrowed as if doing a mental search but realized the clone already knew the answer since she was, in fact, a copy of herself. The Pro-Consul smiled grimly, "You know very well that we have departments who handle government acquisitions of that sort. Besides," her smile vanished, "do your powers inform you that there will be a food shortage during the celebration?"
The clone waved the question away. "This is not about the Force, Christina. This is about me getting out and doing something. Anything! It is strange to know that I am the Pro-Consul but I am not the Pro-Consul and so I have all this experience and ability sitting idly by all the while I am taking tours around the Confederation observing and reporting."
"You know why.." the Pro-Consul started to speak defensively when the other interrupted with a placating gesture.
"Of course, I know why! So this request is partially your fault!"
"My fault?"
"Yes! In my observations on these tours, I have noted a few displaced peoples and a growing need to address issues regarding the poor."
"What do you mean 'displaced peoples'?"
"Stop taking everything I say so personally!" grumbled the clone. "Our economy is booming and much of it has to do with our interest in automation. As a result, there are those displaced by that drive for automation. It is not a large number but as our automation endeavors increase, so will those numbers."
"We have programs.." started the Pro-Consul when the other waved that away too.
"We do have programs. That is why I am not asking for permission to purchase food for these people for the rest of their lives. Just during the time of the Celebration! Parents who might be between jobs or in that niche between being let go because a droid can do the job cheaper and new classes the government programs are providing for reeducation and retraining starting up and I would like for them to worry about how much to dote on their kids during the Celebration rather than if they can afford food! I just... I just felt like doing something and I felt this would be a 'low impact' action with regards to your position."
"Low impact?" the Pro-Consul's eyes widened. "That does not sound like me. That sounds like the good Commodore."
"Well, now that you mention it..." she knocked on the side door to the Pro-Consul's office which led to the office Christina thought was vacant as its owner was involved in meetings on another world for the week. The door slid open and Corise Lucerne, or, rather, his clone stood in the frame.
"May I enter?" he asked politely and the Pro-Consul numbly nodded.
"You are not supposed.." she started weakly as he entered.
"I know," he interjected gently. "Corise is out inspecting the fleet right now and Chris," he motioned to the Pro-Consul's clone sister staring back, "my Chris," he corrected causing a little wave of jealousy to cloud the Pro-Consul's mind for a few seconds before dismissing it.
They represented lives on a different path.
Or did it?
Would her path also bring her and Corise closer?
"..Chris wanted to do something for the children during the Celebration coming up so I figured I could be her wingman without undo trouble."
Part of the Pro-Consul's mind realized that his presence was manipulative. Still, she had wondered how Corise's clone was doing since she only saw her sister from time to time.
"It must be tough to know you had other responsibilities only to wake up and find someone else was performing them and all you had to do is sit around and observe and report observations," the Pro-Consul started.
Corise grinned slightly and shrugged. "I am more relaxed now than I remember myself being while I was flittering around the Sector in a Pegasus. I will not lie and say I do not miss it but even this life for us," he gestured to himself and her sister, "while it has it's benefits and drawbacks, it will not go on forever."
Christina paused, "You think about that?"
"Of course," Corise answered honestly. "Eventually, you will have enough information to know if the benefits of the Program seen in us is going to motivate you to volunteer or not. Irregardless if you take the step or not, we are living beings and once we are cleared as the Jensaarai were, I figure we will either be publicly acknowledged with full rights of citizenship or if the government is uncomfortable with acknowledging us, perhaps we can be given a ship to go exploring or colonizing or ...just something to do! Idle hands make idle minds, after all."
"I had not realized that you thought about what would happen after being cleared and I should have. I apologize. But what if you are not cleared?"
"Then I would have more serious things to worry about than where I want to retire," Corise admitted. "Maybe the program doesn't take and we all become Sith Lords brandishing lightsabers about? I would imagine that we would either be incarcerated or shot but my money would be on being shot."
"How likely a possibility do you think that would be?" the Pro-Consul asked interested, wondering if the clone would really answer honestly about turning into a raving mad Sith.
Corise shrugged again, "It is always a possibility. Likely? Probably not. I do not even know 'what' a Sith is exactly or how to build a light saber."
Her sister shrugged as well, "I would probably cut my own arm off if I handled a saber."
The Pro-Consul nodded, chuckling to herself. She remembered cutting a finger when she tried to cook a traditional Kashan dinner. Twirling a lightsaber around? She would probably cut off more than an arm. She tapped some entries into a datapad and opened a drawer taking out a credit voucher.
"There is a limit so do not go crazy!" she stated sounding patronizing.
Corise's eyes lost their smile but her sister, Chris, took the chip gratefully. "Thank you! We really appreciate it."
There were tears in her sister's eyes as both left by the side entrance and the Pro-Consul suddenly realized what she had done. She had effectively told her sister that she did not trust her and gave her a limit on the credit chit as if the other were a novice.
What if their roles were reversed and she was the one asking and her sister had begrudgingly gave her a credit chit with a limit not trusting her to make smart decisions in the purchase of... food?
She sighed. If you could not trust yourself, who could you trust?
~
"There is not nearly enough credit to purchase..." Corise stated darkly as they entered their area once more.
"Ssshhhhh.." Chris added, brushing his worry away.
"Chris, it is not enough even for a down payment. You know how those marketeers are."
"Just wait..." she replied which only further frustrated Corise.
"The plan will have to be scrapped.." he started again when the credit chit beeped and he looked at it dumbfounded.
The credit restrictions had been removed.
"It pays to know thyself," the Christina-clone stated sagely.
*
Agamar
"This is quite a contract, my lady," the negotiator nervously glanced at the particulars. The Contegorian Confederation had just purchased five years worth of production to be spread out over that same period. It effectively blocked Agamar from entering any other large contracts in that time period but the Confederation was also paying a premium for the privilege.
"As Pro-Consul, I am authorized to deliver the down payment within ten days to a bank of your choosing," agreed his customer and the negotiator nearly clicked his heels in glee. Her government credit chit had confirmed as much. His company's investors would be pleased!
They would be able to use this new contract to expand their own equipment base and operations to the point that such massive requests in the future would not limit them having stock for other large customer accounts. All they needed was a boost like this!
"We have checked your credentials and verified your purchasing power," the negotiator mentioned matter-of-factly and the female in front of him nodded in acknowledgement and started to rise.
"Then, I shall await your instructions on my vessel," the Contegorian Pro-Consul finished, seeing the satisfied look in the other's eye.
~
"Corise, if this does not happen in ten days, the request for the down payment will go through to the government and my original will know what I did and what I didn't do. There will be backlash."
"The local stock markets are projecting large increases because of an early press release of the pending agreement which will not be set until the downpayment is actually made. Still, the stock increase and the press release are sure to get the Imperial's attention."
"The Empire is here?"
"They started a campaign a few weeks ago working to spread themselves into the Hydian Way just as we predicted. With this news hitting the local holonet, their commander will be pressured to seize the world quickly rather than allow the planet to continue to negotiate as a neutral lest their stocks are sold out from under them and nothing be left to supply their campaign."
"Or worse," Thorn remarked lightly, "sold to their enemies."
Corise grinned, "Wouldn't that make their Admiral-on-the-scene's head hurt?"
"The Empire will automatically cancel our contract in favor of having the supplies for themselves to fund their conquests thus negating the need for our down payment."
"Well, the Agamar authorities cannot fault us for pulling out when the Empire takes them over and the Pro-Consul cannot fault us for not having purchased the food..."
The clone of Christina Thorn smiled sweetly as Corise's voice faded away.
"What?" he said, sensing something he said was amusing.
"I did make a small purchase for the Celebration and the shuttle will be making a delivery to us shortly. The Pro-Consul would be pleased with the deal I negotiated."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I am pleased. This is, of course, a time to celebrate!"
"Sir," interrupted a scanning officer. "Long range sensors are detecting Imperial scout vessels on the far edge of the system. As we are leaving, their signatures are becoming more pronounced. I doubt the planet can see them yet.."
"Not a minute too soon. Send a note to their planetary defense tracking regarding the incursion. Let's not make it too easy for the Imperials, shall we?" The clone of Corise Lucerene grinned.
He truly looks happy! Definitely a time to celebrate!
~
The group of six met to discuss the new orientation schedule for the latest clones. Already they numbered fifty with more on the way as news of the success of the original six spread quietly through the ranks of the upper echelon of society. There were those that were considered failures in that the GR program did not seem to work with come clones. The scientists thought that perhaps it was a genetic defect that hindered the augmentation of midichlorians that transferred over from original to clone. As a result, some clones were given new identities and appearances and released into the public to live out their lives. So far, there were no clones that 'didn't take' to the program, a euphemism meaning the physical augmentation was successful but the mental integration was not. There was really no way to know how this would manifest itself until a clone (or original for that matter) actually 'did not take' to the program.
Would one go insane?
Would one consider themselves Palpatine reborn?
Most material regarding Sith and Jedi were restricted and Jensaarai were on hand to help the people work out any 'philosophical' issues that might trouble the clones or originals in the program.
"...now with that out of the way, let us talk of the issues with Metalorn." the First Speaker started. "The government is sending out the good Commodore and our very own Pro-Consul-clone," a nod to the Fourth who bowed, "to this world to secure an alliance and submission into the Confederation."
"How can we be certain that Metalorn will agree to Confederation terms?" the Fifth asked.
"Because I know the Prime Minister of the world. Or rather, my original knows the Prime Minister and that will go a long way to smoothing out any wrinkles. The world is relatively stable under their current leadership and the populace trusts their Prime Minister about as well as we can reasonably expect," the Third answered.
"How can we be sure that people will not suspect some sort of conspiracy because of this knowledge?" the Second picked up.
"Because Commodore Lucerne is unaware that an old aquaintance is the Prime Minister of this world. The surprise will be genuine from both parties and will be captured and promoted as a good sign of things to come. It is an industrial world and anything that greases the wheels of industry will be looked on as a good omen with these people."
"How is it you know about this Prime Minister but not the original Corise?"
"Because I look at a wider range of Confederation reports and intelligence pieces. My job is to be an observer to the Confederation and his job is to be a Commodore. It is my business to know and it is his business to carry out orders with all the efficiency of a Confederation officer."
"And this is going to be the matchpoint?"
"Yes," the clone of Christina Thorn started, "Our diplomacy is still carried out with our warships and the planet under consideration is trying to move the last food stuffs from Agamar which is under Imperial control. Metalorn reserves are low and will want to be fast-tracked into the family, as it were."
"Well, we cannot actually have the Pro-Consul lead the negotiations then. No offense, but she is known to go by the book and with our window of opportunity closing, we have too move fast. The Empire will not be far behind."
The Christina Thorn clone smiled. "No offense taken. I know I can be a pain to the fast-tracking process and with good reason. My original would expect me to go by the book though this is her way of letting me 'do something' to help out after the Agamar affair. Our vessel was nearly fired upon by the advance Imperial units after all. She would not have felt guilty if it was herself out there but, with me, she feels a sense of responsibility. However, I do concur with your assessment. Corise will want to do the right thing first and worry about fallout from the Pro-Consul later and I am sure I know just how to act to remove myself from the situation and give Corise and the Prime Minister time to themselves. I will drown my sorrows talking bitterly about Corise to the Pro-Consul's droids. They cannot even tell us apart." Her eyelashes batted at the Corise-clone and he raised his eyebrows.
"We should have CSIS recommend moving ships in the area once Metalorn is granted acceptance," the Sixth concluded. "It will not be long after that until the beast strikes..."
"... and when it doest strike, it will be sharp, swift and surprising."
The Sixth placed his elbows on the table and looked at the others, "We will need to blunt their spear!"
Interlude
Emergency Session - Origin Six
"The mission went as planned. Why the emergency meeting?" the First Speaker asked curiously. They had come in from various locations throughout the Confederation making the timing a bit inconvenient as well as mysterious.
A reason for the emergency had not been given.
"I need to relay something that was not in my report and it is something that I think will affect the overall Plan," the Fourth started and Corise looked at her with growing concern.
"Why did you not relay it in your report?" The Fifth Speaker asked and Christina's clone felt the wariness of the others go up a notch.
"Because if I had, we would no longer be given the freedom of action that we have been granted so far. That we seem to be taking for granted! I needed time to think about it and come to terms with it. It has to do with the Force," she replied causing that wariness to turn suddenly to worry.
"Are you saying the Program is not taking?" the Sixth asked the question that the others were too taken aback to inquire themselves.
"I am saying I was suddenly faced with a situation during the last mission that I had not faced before and that my...my perceptions and influence were not operating at optimum."
Corise clasped his hands together and laid his elbows on the table, "Just tell us what happened, Chris."
And so she told them of the incident during the Metalorn mission involving the soldier Barflos and his intent to murder the real Corise Lucerne and the Prime Minister who had hid in a nearby closet. She relayed how Barflos had taken her from her quarters by threat.
"If not for my value as a hostage, he would have easily killed me," she remarked with remarkable calm now. Sure, you can be calm now! When your life is not on the line! The self incrimination was evident to all.
She talked of how, during the skirmish, she ran and ended up coming back.
"To get help, more likely," Corise supplied, nodding approvingly as did the others but the emotions from the Fourth felt like sadness.
"No," she disagreed honestly. "I ran because I was afraid. The fact that I ran into Contegorian officers was just fortunate happenstance! No, for the first time in my life, my life as a clone, I was faced with my own mortality. Do you know what I sensed? Do you know what I saw?"
As the others stayed silent, she slammed her hand down on the table.
"NOTHING!"
"I sensed nothing! I saw ...nothing!"
Her eyes narrowed, "What good is our Plan if we can be picked off at random by anyone wielding a blaster? What good is our perceptions if, at random, we can be killed as quickly and as easily as anyone else?"
"Perhaps," the Fifth Speaker started slowly, "Perhaps the Force was telling you something?"
"Are we Jedi now? Sith? Jensaarai? Do we believe in the mysticism of the Force?" the scorn in Christina's voice was withering.
"In any case, you just pointed out a weakness in our force ability. If we are too focused on the larger picture, we sometimes fail to account for the little things that may have a rather dramatic effect on our plans," Corise interjected, moving past the Fifth's suggestion and the Fourth's scorn.
"But would the Plan be affected by a death of one or two of us if there are others to carry on?" the Sixth asked and the rest contemplated.
"Oh sure, on paper," Christina Thorn's clone pressed, "But that is my whole point. The entirety of our Plan is based on paper. On actions and reactions we are extrapolating from our perceptions!"
She turned to the Sixth, "Pretend we are our real counterparts and not clones! Pretend you are the real Professor and that you are killed in a mugging gone wrong. Sure there is another professor that can come and take your class over. Your place. But it would not be you! Any input, any advice, any influence you might have had is lost in favor of someone lesser. Someone perhaps without the benefit of your experiences and without the same world view. On paper, yes, if I had died, there are other generations of the Program where one might be plucked to be another observer as I but the value that I...that I bring to this table is lost!
Our counterparts, the people we are clones of live and act in the galaxy at large knowing that their lives may be snuffed out at any moment. We are so removed from this in laying our plans..."
She could see that they were narrowing their eyes not yet convinced.
"... how can we say we are acting in the best interest of the Confederation if we do not place a value on our lives, removed as we are at this table making plans? How can we say we care for the lives of Confederation citizens if we do not value our own lives, feeling we are replaceable? How can we send them into danger if we are unwilling to go ourselves?"
The Second Speaker frowned, "Do you really think it would make a difference to the Plan?"
Christina Thorn smiled grimly, "I know it would!"
"She is right," Corise remarked, seeing an opening. "I for one would love to be out there on a ship seeing the outworking of our plans first hand. We also need to talk about what we are seeing with the third generation clones.
We have been circumspect in what we say to them, grooming each generation slowly, but the government has set a timetable to make a decision regarding the program. We need to realize that our time is limited in the capacity we are currently fulfilling."
"We also need to develop personal protection skills. If we are going to be taking a more active role, we will need to see how we can use these abilities for personal protection." The First remarked.
"Send that up the government channel. What good is having the Force if you cannot use it to detect personal threats? Who wants to bet the government will give us the training and time to sort this out?" Corise smirked.
"Then we could get the government to sanction our increased activity while training us in the name of research they themselves will benefit from if they decide to join the program. Brilliant!" The Second exclaimed.
"Are we sure the Force isn't telling us something?" the Fifth asked, with eyebrow raised.
"Which side?" the First joked and they all laughed, one of them with relief.
And so the Origin Six went through a short and intense training program working to sharpen their skills in the Force as the galaxy around them changed to the environment they thought to mold and shape.
The group listened to the transmission from Genon as the work of dismantling was going on all around them. The R&D Centers, including the GR Program were being moved to the newly created and rapidly expanding compound on Metalorn.
"Good job on those pulsemass mines," the Third slapped the Second on his shoulder.
The Technologist grinned ruefully. "I should have thought of it earlier. Overlaying algorithms and all that..."
The Third moved on as the Second began to babble more about the mines. The presence of mines in the spaceways would ease the minds of the citizenry but their practicality and effectiveness was something else altogether. But time would tell.
For now, one lived and learned.
Number Two had been accomplished.
He turned to the Christina-clone, "It is your turn now. You and your 'shadow'."
The smile he got back was chilling.
*
NUMBER THREE
The small fleet had gone dark under Commander Lucerne's direction as they closed the vast gulf of space to arrive quickly at the meeting point chosen by the Onyxian Commonwealth for Joren Logan's attack.
The attack plan had been forwarded to him and as far as he saw, it was to take shape in three phases. They had to be a part of the first phase or they would get caught up in the quagmire of fury of what was to come. They needed to be swift and deadly to cross the gulf and penetrate the enemy lines.
From that point on, his mission would be different than the attacking fleet but no less important. Fourth Speaker, the Christina Thorn clone had secured their secret orders and he and Second Speaker were to finally see action at the heart of an Imperial stronghold.
"This fleet manifest boasts quite a bit of ships. It is hard to imagine that this will turn into a disaster and compel us to leave the Coalition. If Joren Logan succeeds, he may just drive his victory in the heart of the Empire." the Second Speaker remarked.
"Or just the opposite. I do agree that the manifest is impressive but how many other battle manifests were equally as impressive? Christina believes she has the measure of this man and I for one have never doubted her."
"Of course not. As humanitarians, we act as one," the Second waved the comment away, intent on whatever technical schematic he was reading.
"One..." murmured Corise as he looked at the chrono.
Bilbringi
"Maker.." whispered Corise as the advance scans of the system were coming back. The Imperial Fleet was arrayed against them as if...
No. That could not be, could it?
"Order the others to follow Logan's tactical doctrine under Commodore Bektor's command from Burning Sword. Good luck to all," he motioned to a comm officer. "Are we still dark?"
"Yes, sir. Tactical bursts have been transmitted and we are alternating our approach vectors to avoid standard detection parameters."
"With all the ships Logan has brought with him, I doubt it would matter," muttered the Confederation leader.
"They are sending out orders for Phase One to be implemented." informed a bridge officer and Corise addressed the helm.
"You will have to watch out backsides and follow the second volley closely. The multiple detonations should blind their sensors enough to allow us to slip through. With our dark profile, if they see us they may think us a missile that got through on it's way to the asteroid field."
"Aye, Sir."
"Wait for it.." Corise droned one as everyone's eyes were riveted to their station responsibilities.
"Now!" and the Pegasus slipped past the blind sensors and opaque shields with the rest of the Coalition fleet not too far behind.
The battle proper had started and it looked like the forward momentum slowed as the heavies had moved to protect the smaller classes of ships from the Claw envelopment tactic employed by the Imperials. As long as the heavies were indeed 'heavies' (capable of soaking up as much damage as possible) and not a smaller ship designed to take on much larger ships, the tactic would work for the time being.
The ionization of the detonated torpedoes and missiles prevented the rogue Confederation warship from following the battle as closely as Corise would have liked but that was not what suddenly worried him.
It was a thought.
A tremor.
"Oh no.." Corise whispered looking at the Second Speaker as he too felt it.
Adrian Ravenna sat opposite the Pro-Consul as her head was buried under her clasped hands. The door chimed and the Pro-Consul's face looked rather worn as she looked up and admitted the one man whose conversation she feared. The Jensaarai could feel the storm of emotions within despite the calm exterior and marvelled at the woman's capacity to forge ahead despite the many setbacks she faced both professionally and personally.
"Admiral Lucerne," she acknowledged as the man stepped into the office, surprised to see Ravenna in attendance.
"I must apologize Pro-Consul," he started, taking the offered seat opposite the Jensaarai and Christina, eyeing them both. "The tribunal was delayed due to missions taking me away from the area."
The Pro-Consul waved the comments away wearily. "It is not the timing of the tribunal that is of paramount concern at the moment though we will get to that."
"Then I am at a loss as to why the emergency," the Admiral continued when Pro-Consul Thorn pushed on ahead.
"You are aware of the Genetic Rennovation Program," she asked formally and Corise, caught again by surprise, nodded in affirmation while stealing a glance at the Jensaarai who had remained quiet so far.
"What you may not be aware of is that certain program leaders decided to widen the scope of volunteers." At Corise's questioning look she continued, "The thinking was why limit the pool of volunteers to those that might be found for your typical clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, a certain number of those in the advanced citizen class were given the opportunity and, while interest was high, the GR Program had not progressed enough to be deemed free of ..danger."
Corise turned to look at the Jensaarai and nodded, "I would presume not."
"Therefore, the project leaders, in an effort to stimulate the interest and viability of our advanced citizenry, offered a compromise."
The Admiral chuckled at the ambition of the program leaders whose attempt, no doubt, was to seek a more permanent means of funding. "I can't imagine what could be considered a compromise to obtaining a higher force sensitivity," he remarked. "A lower dose?"
"Clones," Adrian interjected.
"The project leaders also were connected to our cloning projects and so saw a natural fit," the Pro-Consul added. "There were six clones created for the GR project. Government paid for, I might add."
"What?" Corise was shocked. "How could you allow..?"
"I did not allow anything," snapped Christina. "The government did not intend for this. The project leaders used their current budget to supplement the cloning hoping to offset any difference when the volunteers came forward to pay for their clone's development or volunteer themselves."
"Confident of success, were they?" mused Corise turning to Adrian. "How has the success been with those coming out of the Program?"
The Jensaarai shifted in his seat, "The failure rate of one from the Program not showing increased midichlorian counts was within acceptable parameters. I mean, if your count does not increase then you have lost nothing. The volunteer is paid and our scientists in the project have new avenues of inquiry. I would not have recommended the program to my friends if I thought it harmful. That being said the issue at the heart of the tribunal coming up does cast a shadow over the program."
"The project is most likely untenable at this point," the Pro-Consul interjected.
Corise frowned, "The incident on board the Trojan was by a force user?"
"A clone to be precise. A clone of me," Christina Thorn held her breath.
The other two could see that Corise was thinking hard. Very hard on the subject. "Chris." he opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. He tried again looking up at the Pro-Consul, "You had a clone made?"
"No," the Pro-Consul stated firmly. "I did not. It seems the six advanced citizens the project leaders decided to clone were chosen by them. The donors did not know. I found out about their existence when I was investigating what I thought might be financing irregularities under our research and development umbrella."
"The irregularities were tied into the GR Program? To the clones?" Adrian asked, curious.
The Pro-Consul shook her head, "No. The Ultrachrome mining and all related finances where it seemed the irregularities were stemming from eventually were settled after an investigation by the GFC (Government Finance Committee). I unwittingly discovered the existence of the clones under the GR Program in the process of all that."
"You discovered a clone of yourself..." started Corise when Christina interrupted, "And of the other five. They ar--"
"DON'T tell me," Corise snapped out immediately surprising Adrian and the Pro-Consul. Seeing as much, he replied evenly, "If I am to preside over a tribunal of one of these clones, I want to ensure my objectivity. I do not need my judgement clouded by any emotion that may or may not stem from such information."
"But.." Christina started and Corise held up a hand, silencing his Pro-Consul.
"I mean it, Christina. If you tell me, then find someone else to head up this Tribunal as I will be forced to recuse myself."
The Pro-Consuls lips pressed tightly together. She did not like it since she wanted to come clean with everything but Corise was correct.
Damn the man's honor! she thought in both annoyance and admiration. She wasn't sure if she wanted to kiss him or kick him ... or both.
Still, she was too close to the situation. That she knew and that was why she pushed for the Admiral to head up the tribunal because while the man was smart and able, he was also honorable. If it were up to her right now, she would have blown her clone out an airlock for her callous murder of the bridge crew of the Trojan as well as her betrayal. She had considered the other like the sister she never had and it had created a craving for that type of familial bond that she thought had died as an only child.
In some ways it was a silly thought, her being Pro-Consul and part of an aristocratic family. Always encouraged to meet and exceed expectations had caused her to build up walls to keep others are arm's length. Kind, yes. Polite, exceedingly. Close? No. No one got close. No one was allowed to get close and, yet, over the years, the moments between missions that allowed them to work in proximity to one another, she found, quite by accident that Corise had slipped behind those walls. Sometimes he was a silly boy associated with all the military pageantry that followed him around and, at other times, he was her knight in shining armor.
But he did not like surprises. Not the kind that twisted one's world view.
He was a warrior that seemed to maintain that black and white distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil whereas, as a politician, climbing to and attaining the top rungs of political power within the Confederation, sometimes there was no good choice but those that were the lesser of two evils. She was constantly mired in gray and she wondered if her ability to swim those waters did not somehow taint his perception of her just a little. An admission by him of that would cut her deep but she knew he would not admit to it. Not now, at least. He was too honorable for that.
No, he would just pull away...
The thought brought to mind the physical pain she felt in her heart at her sister's betrayal. Her sister knew those walls and knew how to deftly circumvent them. She was her!
And that thought horrified her. If her clone could callously murder Confederation soldiers, what did that say about her? Forget thinking about what her job might cause Corise to think of her. What would seeing her clone up close and personal during a military tribunal cause the good Admiral to think?
"Since this person is a force user, I imagine that you will be there as well?" the Admiral spoke to Adrian who nodded.
"There will be several Jensaarai in attendance," acknowledged Ravenna. The Admiral nodded and all three began to talk about the tribunal schedule.
*
Classified Military Tribunal, Trojan Affair (excerpts)
At the head sat five high ranking Confederation soldiers, Corise Lucerne being one. When the clone was brought in, Corise felt a sharp intake of breath as he saw Christina Thorn shackled and flanked by two Jensaarai with sabers at the ready.
Her back was straight and her walk, firm. As if she were a captain that just entered the bridge of her warship. And perhaps she had.
She sat in a single chair in front of the panel with a lack of emotion that was unnerving and a hardness in her eyes.
Admiral Candiano stood and read the charges brought before her, making a point to name each of the eleven members of the bridge crew that had been murdered. Corise watched the clone closely and saw a faint thawing of that hardness as each name was listed. At least he thought he saw it but as Admiral Candiano continued to describe the takeover and threatening of Pro-Consul Thorn and her CSIS protector, the hardness had solidified.
"How do you plead?" Candiano finished after several minutes.
Her gaze drew itself inward, as if she were contemplating the question.
A minute passed and Candiano growled out the question again, clearly becoming angry, "How. Do. You. Plead?" he asked again, punctuating each word.
The clone cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing at the man and Corise knew this was a look that masked an incredible anger. Her response, however, was dispassionate.
"I don't." she replied.
Uh oh... That was such a Thorn answer!
*
Even as the thought entered his mind he saw that Christina Thorn, the real Christina Thorn, had entered the proceedings and had sat down in one of the rows behind the prosecution to be called as a witness when needed.
The court-appointed defender seemed to be struggling with his notes as his table was also behind the accused. Corise felt some sympathy for the man as it appeared the clone had been unhelpful despite his task at defending her.
"That kind of attitude, my lady, is not going to help your case," Commodore Nuovo remarked.
"What case is that, Commodore?" the clone asked directly throwing the panel off.
She had not entered a plea and so that begged the question: What case? The Commodore looked to the defense attorney for a plea entry but the man looked flustered.
Probably because he has been trying to figure out a good reason for a not guilty plea. Insanity?
"I am guilty," the clone of Christina Thorn announced and while the defense attorney sagged further in his desk, the prosecuting attorney grinned widely. Corise looked at the Pro-Consul seated in the back and she had a pained look about her. But there was also interest because this seemed to be the first time the clone seemed willing to even speak of the event.
"You do understand that you are courting the death penalty?" Corise Lucerne admonished and the clone's eyebrow rose a fraction.
"I think not," she replied almost coyly and Lucerne got that uncomfortable feeling he had when it seemed Christina knew something he did not.
Before Candiano or any other panel member could respond to her lack of appreciation for the situation she was in, Corise very simply and plainly asked, "Why?"
It was that honest question without posturing or pomp that seemed to, for the first time, deflate the ego that permeated the clone and Corise saw her shoulders slump slightly as she sighed.
"I did what I did for the sake of the Confederation," she responded and Corise heard Candiano mutter an expletive under his breath.
"So, you killed Confederation soldiers for the sake of the Confederation?" Another Admiral inquired quietly. Admiral Dobelli continued, "You are saying that the eleven bridge personnel that were killed constituted a threat to the Confederation?"
"No," the clone responded, "they died in the service of the Confederation though they knew not why."
"What benefit to the Confederation did their dying serve?" Corise asked.
"Their dying served to label me a failure in the program thus causing the immediate recall of the other five Original Clones to Metalorn. Their presence there served to dissuade the Imperials for moving forward with their embassy agenda."
"You could have just informed us to move the others back.." Commodore Nuovo remarked dryly when the clone shook her head.
"You say that now but no. You would not have done it. We had been through this before when we recommended the immediate withdrawal from the Galactic Coalition. I believe the expression was, 'While we appreciate your insight, we will continue to etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...'. Therefore, we had to take matters into our own hands to save the Confederation and it turned out to be bloody and messy rather than if you had just gone ahead and acted on our recommendations."
"Wait a minute," Admiral Candiano barked out. "You want us to believe that you engineered the Confederation withdrawal from the Coalition?"
There was a shift in the audience and even the Pro-Consul seemed taken aback at the scope of which the clone claimed.
"Well, I did not do it alone," the clone admitted. "You have to understand what sort of foresight we obtain by being force-users. Our observations, recommendations and warnings are not given the same level of appreciation by non-force users because they do not recognize the threats and dangers. Most of the time, we can live with our recommendations not being acted upon or our warnings heeded because the nature of the Confederation remains unchanged despite the damage that eventually occurs and the people who die as a result of that ignorance. Except for those instances where we see the damage will be too great to allow ignorance to rule do we act."
"Visions of the future are not set in stone," Corise started, sharing a look with Ravenna seated in the audience, who nodded.
"That is true and thanks be to Luck that it is so. And that is why we act, to ensure that vision of the future does change to something better," the clone pointed out.
"But there is no shred of evidence to back up what you say," the last member of the panel remarked, bringing the legality of the issue back into focus, a General Glouster.
"You are correct. Only another force user would see what we see..."
"So if we called Adrian Ravenna up, he would be able to vouche for what you say?"
The clone shook her head. "I do not believe so but I am not sure what sort of visions regarding the future Adrian sees or doesn't see. In time, if he were given the same duties we were given and obtained the same intelligence we had, then, yes, I would say he would come to see what we see. It would take time, though. It took some time for us."
"That is convenient," Candiano remarked but the clone shook her head.
"No, it is not. But that is the reality of the situation. Just like myself or any of the clones cannot just step into Adrian's CSIS shoes and be expert agents or handle a blade like a Jensaarai Master, so too, he cannot be expected to immediately become a social or technological scientist or recognize political nuance for what it is."
"I do not see, if these visions of the future are force-oriented, why, as a strong force user, Adrian Ravenna cannot see the same things you can," Nuovo remarked.
"Scope, I would imagine," the clone replied. "The Original Six clones working as observers had an intimate knowledge of the interworkings of the Confederation and related enterprises. Adrian Ravenna probably does get visions of the future or does perceive warnings through the force but his occupation is more mission-focused. He probably has a greater range of mission successes than most CSIS agents who are not force sensitive because that sensitivity is tuned to the successful outcome of the picture within that framework. Our picture is just bigger. Sometimes his missions may also get messier than others because of the random element of chance as what happened with Metalorn. The vision was sudden and there was no time to warn a committee for them to decide if they want to discuss the warning at the next meeting or not. A decision had to be made and quickly before the window of opportunity closed and there would be nothing we could do to save the world."
"So you are saying..."
"Eleven bridge crew died so that many thousands more could be saved."
"And you expect this unverifiable information to exonerate you?" General Glouster asked.
The clone frowned and shook her head, "No. I am simply offering you a reason as to why it happened. I understand that nothing is more frustrating than not knowing and I do feel for the families of the bridge crew and hope that it is conveyed to them that their deaths did have meaning and did save the lives of a great many people even if this panel chooses not to believe it. I am, however, responsible for those deaths and I am here to answer for that."
"It might be suggested that she has fallen to this proverbial darkside and that she was not in control of her actions," the defense lawyer suddenly commented drawing a look of scorn from both the prosecution as well as the clone.
"Don't be an idiot!" she snapped. "The darkside did not 'make' me do anything!"
"Doesn't the path of the darkside lead to suffering?" the defense persisted albeit weakly since he had no real firsthand knowledge of the subject.
"In my experience," the clone started and then smiled ruefully, "such as it is, there are quite a bit of things that lead to suffering. There is no need to wrap it all up in a tidy bow and call it the darkside."
"So you do not believe in the darkside?" Corise Lucerne asked.
The clone pressed her lips together and frowned as if in thought. "I was under the impression that the force was just a tool. At least that is what the Jensaarai are taught and that the Jedi and Sith tend to believe in the light/dark sides of the Force. The Force is a tool at my disposal and, unfortunately, it is a tool that you do not have. The GR Program could give you this tool but, then, there is the age-old morality tale that asks, 'Just because you can do a thing, does this mean you should do that thing?' which is probably what you are asking in light of this incident. I do not know. I know I am not much into religious philosphy so you would have to ask a Jensaarai or another clone force user. The Jedi and Jensaarai have this whole mantra they repeat to keep calm: 'there is no emotion, there is peace' or some such. Personally, I just count to ten."
*
The Tribunal had left the room to confer. There was not much of a need for the prosecution or defending counsels given the clone had confessed and was prepared to accept the consequences of her actions.
While the clone had been allowed to stand and stretch, she still remained shackled. Christina Thorn, Pro-Consul, went up to her knowing the Jensaarai guards were keeping an eye on things.
"If you are telling the truth, why did you not tell me when I asked you?" the Pro-Consul whispered to her sister.
The clone closed her eyes and smiled grimly, "Because you were not asking me why I did what I did. You were asking me why I gave up."
The clone turned to her twin, "Now, you know why I did what I did and now you know why I gave myself up. My goal was not to cause as many deaths as possible. My goal was to frighten those overseeing the Program to recall the others."
"But you could have accomplished that with one death," hissed Christina Thorn. "Why did all eleven have to die?"
There was a sadness to the clone that the Pro-Consul saw as she shook her head, "No. I will admit the number was far greater than I had anticipated because if that was my only goal, yes, one death would have sufficed. The Paladins were very, very efficient weren't they?"
The almost flippant question angered the Pro-Consul more even as the facial expression of her clone seemed very serious.
"What is your other goal?" the clone's sister asked, despite her anger.
"Shut down the Program, Pro-Consul. Shut it down now," the clone whispered.
A surge of surprise was going to overtake the Pro-Consul when the clone quipped, "Even you should be able to understand that."
It was intentional
It was almost irrational
And, yet, even though the clone knew the reaction that was coming, the anger from her sister seemed to knock her back a step.
"They are going to execute you!" the Pro-Consul bit back.
And as the aristocratic woman turned and walked stiffly away, the clone's sadness returned.
"No, they won't.." she said to no one in particular.
*
"She confessed to the crime," Admiral Candiano interjected. "All that is required now is sentencing."
"But she did cite extenuating circumstances even if she did not desire to hide behind them for the crime," Commodore Nuovo remarked.
"Extenuating circumstances that are backed up by no evidence," General Glouster added. "Her entire demeanor is confrontational when, if there were extenuating circumstances, it should not be. Christine would not be so blind! This clone is a different creature altogether!"
"What sort of evidence would be acceptable to this tribunal?" Nuovo asked. "One cannot ignore the cause-and-effect her actions had with that Imperial embassy business on Metalorn. Maybe they did stop an invasion because we sure as hell were not going to back down against any Imperial aggression!"
"Her cause-and-effect could have been just coincidence. The problem is, we do not know what the clones negotiated with the Imperials to get them to leave which is why they are incarcerated right now. For all we know, they promised to give the Empire the 'Stand Down' codes to our defense network!" Candiano waved his hand in frustration.
"If everything were as innocent as she claimed, why did she ...and why aren't the rest of the clones talking to us," mused Admiral Dobelli. "No one is above the law, least of a Pro-Consul."
"She is not the Pro-Consul," Admiral Lucerne corrected.
"Does she know that?" Dobelli asked. "This cloning thing is tricky business. To have two completely identical people... was this sanctioned?"
"The Project Leaders involved have been reprimanded," General Glouster remarked darkly.
"It was not illegal. The clones consented to the GR Program clinical trials..."
"Tell that to the dead bridge crew," Admiral Candiano shot back. "In fact, what was the clone doing on the Trojan to begin with? It appears that the Pro-Consul allowed her personal feelings for this clone to cloud her professional performance.."
"How?" Admiral Dobelli asked. "The Pro-Consul never shirked her duties and she is allowed accompanying personnel. That Jensaarai agent follows her everywhere, an agent that was part of the GR Program herself I might add, so the Pro-Consul still trusts the Jensaarai institution as well as the viability of the GR Program. That, it itself, should tell you that the incident on the Trojan is an aberration."
"Until Metalorn, I might have agreed with you," Glouster remarked.
Admiral Nuovo turned to the Jensaarai Ravenna. "Do you feel there is something to the extenuating circumstances she claimed? At least something enough to investigate?"
Adrian shifted uncomfortably, "Admiral," then turned to the others, "Sirs, it would be very difficult to investigate much less prove, even with the cooperation of the accused. Neither her nor the other clones have been very forthcoming, unfortunately."
"They know how this looks, they know what they court and they still act this way," Candiano remarked. "We should carry this out to its logical conclusion. Her confession allows for the murder conviction to stick. Her extenuating circumstances would blur the charge of treason but her defiant attitude to us makes me wonder. If she is becoming a trumped up, ego-loving darksider then we can have none of that. Her loyalty would be to herself."
"She may just be afraid," Nuovo added. "We've seen that. Fear can cause the accused to act defiantly to hide their fear. Did you sense this?"
Adrian shook his head, "She hides her emotions extremely well. I did get a sense of regret regarding the bridge crew massacre but I also felt the conviction of her belief. What I do not understand or what I cannot fathom is her actions do not really match the feelings I am sensing. Because she refused to talk about this before today, because the others are not talking, I don't understand.... Her actions entail grave consequences and she knows this. However, after taking such profound action, she does nothing by way of self-preservation...which seems to suggest something other than self-loyalty."
"She does not believe we will execute her," Corise remarked causing the others to stop and look at him. "She feels she is going to get away with this..."
"Dammit, you're right!" Admiral Candiano exclaimed. "She even said as much!"
"Think about it. Suppose she has not lied to us and has told us the truth from the beginning. Her actions are prompted by what she sees through the Force. It has prompted her to murder an entire bridge crew but it has also dictated her lack of action. The reason she is not running, not defending herself up and down as an outraged victim is because she feels this is the better play for a particular outcome."
"So, what are you saying? That we cannot execute her because her actions, or inaction, ensures this?"
"It is like Admiral Candiano said, her confession allows the murder charge to stick but treason is much harder to prove, especially given her statement. The Jensaarai up to this point have been unhelpful," he turned to Adrian, "No offense.."
Ravenna waved that away, "I am as surprised as you. I expected a better sense of her than what I am getting. They may all be extremely adept in hiding their emotions and purposes so I would like to recommend the Jensaarai take over the investigating of these individuals."
"I agree but that is another discussion," Corise remarked getting back on topic, "Something is going to happen that prevents her from being executed."
"You think she will be rescued? At the tribunal?" Glouster was incredulous.
"She had Paladins shoot up a bridge, who knows what the she has planned," Corise remarked.
"It is strange that there was no recorded footage of the bridge assault. The Pro-Consul and the surviving CSIS agent really did not see much as the droids just started shooting everything to bits," Adrian commented.
"General," Lucerne turned to Glouster, "Stand down any automated sentries and have them returned to base. I want Shock Troopers to protect us. The facility is shielded so if any automated ship were to attack, they would not punch through...but I would like manned defenses ready."
"Do you really think she will try something?"
"I don't know. I am just tired of hearing that we are underestimating this clone. I feel that if we come down hard with the death penalty, something is going to be shaken loose. She does not believe she will get the sentence."
"She is probably right," Glouster admitted. "I would vote for incarceration but not the death penalty."
"I would vote for execution for the murder of the bridge crew," Candiano said.
"I would as well," sighed Nuovo.
"No. I would vote incarceration but not death," Dobelli replied quietly.
"Which leaves the swing vote to you, Corise. Interesting, no?" Candiano remarked.
*
The change was subtle but the clone of Christina Thorn felt it still. Almost like an electric charge of anticipation as the Tribunal filed in and took their seats amid everyone standing at attention.
"Please be seated," Admiral Candiano stated and the noise in the room grew as people found their seats.
Out of the corner of her eye as she was seating herself, the clone saw two more shock troopers enter the room, which, in the past half hour, brought the total number to six.
Her eyes moved back to the Tribunal panel and she saw Corise looking at her with that calculating look of his. Despite the weight of her stress and the flood of emotions running through her as well as the immense effort it took to keep them from prying Jensaarai senses, she could not help but feel her lips part in an acknowledging smile. As one game player might to another.
The smile went to her eyes as Corise Lucerne started to comment on the proceedings and her confession. He shifted uncomfortably and she knew he was seeing the Pro-Consul in her place even as he continued.
"...given the lack of remorse for the callous murder of active Confederation military personnel motivated by admitted radical political views which pose a considerable danger to the Confederation government, we have no choice but to label such activities as treasonous and move to implement the fullest capital punishment such a charge holds."
The punishment seemed to surprise most, including the Pro-Consul despite her earlier outburst, and the Admiral, hearing himself speak, felt the tag-on of treason seemed weak but it did not have to be strong. Just enough to deliver the charge and force the force-using clone's hand. Her attempt to extricate herself could reveal the extent of her resources and allow everyone a better idea of just how far these clones have gone.
Don't give the enemy time to collect themselves. Strike!
"Before your sentence is carried out, have you anything to say on your behalf?" he prompted with a deadly earnestness, his eyes flickering to the shock troopers knowing everyone was standing at the ready to move into action at a moment's notice.
The clone of Christina Thorn looked at her nails wondering when she would have time to deal with those annoying, intruding cuticles before finally cocking her head to one side, one hand moving her short hair over and around her ear.
Admiral Candiano looked like his head would explode if she waited a few seconds longer and she weighed the pros and cons of that for a few more seconds.
"I'm pregnant," she replied.
Corise Lucerne could only stare at her blinking his eyes in an attempt to jump start his flash frozen brain and failing.
