Grand Marshall Kaine looked at the report from Sluis Van and smiled. Thinking for a second, his smile grew.


It was time.


"Get me INS.." he mentioned and the secretary went to work.

J-6 was in hot pursuit of the suspects, his speeder trying to keep up in the crowded streets. Behind him, J-1 and J-4 hopelessly ran to keep up. J-5 had dragged Jose to safety in a bush and was tending the large stab wound, while J-2 and J-3 were both making their way along the rooftops to intercept the speeder.


J-2 and J-3 reached the end of a rooftop overlooking a large street, panting. At one end, coming their way fast, was the speeder, and close behind was J-6. J-2 turned and nodded to J-3. "On the count of three, ok?" he said. "One... Two..."

As the suspects' speeder passed below, J-2 shouted three, and the pair jumped. However, they'd mis-timed the jump by the narrowest of margines, and landed on the back of J-6's speeder, who struggled to maintain control of the vehicle.

Elsewhere, J-4 (the Cerean) came to a stop. J-1, surprised, turned to him. "We have to hurry, they're getting away!"

But the Cerean wasn't listening. After a few seconds, he began to run down an alley. J-1, remembering the Cereans are a psychically attuned race, ran after him.

The two in the speeder floored it, and were about to reach the outskirts of the city. Once they did there was ample places to hide. Suddenly, J-4 could be seen at the side of the road, casually holding out a stick at head height. The two drivers smacked into it and went flying into J-6's speeder. J-1 stopped panting next to J-4. "Good... Work..." he was able to say through lungfuls of air, as they moved over to the rest of the team.

J-6, the Azguard, stood to attention in the speeder and declared "Sir! Targets apprehended, prepared to read them their rights and put them under arrest."

J-1 nodded, and said "Ok then... I'll just call J-5... make sure Jose's ok... then ask Commander Mumphs what the next step is... Good work today guys... I think I'll have a lie down."

The meeting was taking place in the darkest, dankest room in the CIB head office. Commander Mumphs wasn't one for drama, but he knew this was something best discussed behind closed, locked, and bolted doors. The heads of each Wing of the CIB sat around a table, along with J-1 (Steve Rooni). A holoprojector sat in the middle of the table.

"All right everyone" said Mumphs "Listen up. Our primary terrorist threat, the Galactic Liberation Front, is harder to track down then a worm across flat rock in heavy rain. But our man Steve here's caught two of their mid-level organizers, and has some information for us. Steve?"

Steve stood up, and tapped a small device in his hand, the holoprojector came to life, and showed the mugshots of the two captured organizers, both human. "These are the captured perps, Ulysses Quaid and Carl Kistanza. Both of them have been getting quite a fair share of money from an unknown benefactor. Now, a government search of corporate financial records - we've been secretly monitoring as much of the financal markets as possible - shows their purchasing spikes correspond to Belgardi's major employee payouts."

He clicked the device again, the image changed to Pavo Prime "Now Pavo Prime, home of Belgardi, is owned by Rico Belgardi, pretty much. One big company. The activities of the company have become harder to trace and more erratic lately, to the point where its' impossible to estimate exactly how much money the company has and where its' going. But the steady pay these two were recieving suggests a wage, not money just stolen as they could find it, and Belgardi is providing little information on the two, trying to hide the fact that they were paying them."

Once again, he clicked the device. The picture changed, now it was a formidible looking office building. "This is one of Rico's many office buildings. However, it is the most secure one, and the one he seems to hold most of his more 'low-key' meetings at. It is securely guarded, more so then any building containing mere corporate secrets. One wing of the CIB has been monitoring him for some time as a dangerous corporate leader, and has noted Rico has taken many a mysterious trip, often shortly before an event related to the GLF or another unusual occurance within the corporate world."

He clicked it once more, and the device deactivated. "My suggestion is simple. We run an operation, and investigate the secrets of Mr. Belgardi's head office. We found enough evidence in these two's rooms and persons to know they were plotting for Brutus, and a lot of their money is coming from a secret account of the Belgardi's. But our surveillance is limited so we don't know much else about what the Belgardi's are funding."

Silence filled the room, as everyone contemplated what he was suggesting. "Its' risky" said one of the Wing Leaders "Our evidence is pretty circumstantial, but its' pretty much all we got."

Murphy nodded "Get it planned, and get it going. If Rico is in on it, I want enough evidence to haul him kicking and screaming off Pavo."

Elsewhere, two large efforts had begun to repair the damage the terrorists had inflicted.

One, on Tammar, focused on curing the biological damage. Being terrorists, the chemicals they had released were not particularily avant-garde, because such chemicals need facilities and specialists too closely monitored for any such terrorist groups to obtain. Quickly, environmental clean up crews were released to gather the spill quickly before it contaminated the environemnt. Victims were treated at special centers set up across the planets, following in the wake of the clean-up effort.

It wasn't that hard, once the full effort of the Coalition was turned to it. Although some people suffered from the effects long after the cures were distributed, and some areas remain off-limits until careful decontamination takes place, the damage was minimal when the possibilities were considered.

In response to this, the Coalition toughened up customs, making it nessecary for all ships to identify themselves specifically using codes assigned at the beginning of a trip and then input at the end of one. This will prevent fake ships mascarading as food or water or other such transports from getting too close with potentially deadly cargo.

The next effort, however, would be much harder. Anoat had been a place of declining tensions. After the Coalition implemented their constitution allowing each member state their own self-government that would work in tandem with the Coalition Central Government. But these terrorists had awoken old hatreds, carefully masking their newfound freedoms under curtains of ignorance. The people had stood at the edges of embassies, demanding things they already had.

In response to this, a huge educational effort was launched by Anoat to explain to the people exactly what it is they can do now. Their powers to run for office, and the large powers granted to elected officials, meet and exceed the wishes of the protestors whipped into a frenzy by the Front. As the truth came out to the people they felt embarrasment, realizing they had fought and screamed for nothing, and a huge wave of resentment towards the front and its' emmisaries was felt by the people. To help illustrate their rights, the planned state-election on Anoat has been bumped forwards four months, as to allow the people to appreciate their new freedoms sooner.

The terrorist threat, it appears, preyed only on the disunity of the people, something which was fading quickly in the face of their animosity. In a roundabout way, you could say everyone achieved their goals at the suffering of the innocent. But personally, Regrad still made it clear he wants to beat Brutus to death with his own arm.

Anoat
Liberty Sect Safe House

Graiel Yurq had to admit, at least the Coalition was trying. The new coalition had launched a massive educational and government effort and plan to allow Anoat 'self-rule' and educate the people about the goodness of their new government. Some people, those who had been sheltered during "the Breaking" would turn easily. Others would appear outwardly satisfied, wanting to believe someone was their to help them- someone was trying to give them what they wanted. There were a lot of people like them; who would feel embarassed by their own true emotions, at least at first. Time had hidden the scars under the surface, but had barley even began to heal them. All it took was a little scrape to reveal them for what they really were. It might appear that the population of Anoat was pacified- it might appear that the population truley believed in the government sponsored projects- but it was all a delicate house of cards, supported by smoke and mirrors and half promises. The Coalition might even mean well- but that alone was not enough.

They could never erase what had happened during the Breaking.

No one talked about, at least not now. The public didn't, government officals didn't, no one did. The didn't mention it in the classes, never spoke about anything but the future. That might be good enough for them; but that was them. They hadn't expereinced it, hadn't felt the pain. They could say they empthized, might say they wanted to forgive and forget- and maybe they did. It didn't matter, they were still foriegners- they couldn;t understand. They may not have been responsible, but that doesn't make them the ones who could make it right.

There would be people so scarred by it that they didn't want to relive it- who would go to the classes and listen to the holonet and try to go on. But inside, the pain was eating away at them- and those were the best of them, those who had already expressed publically their embarrassment. The average citizen, when the went to a mass grave, or remembered their sons or daughter or husband or wife was gone felt the pain anew againa and again. They could hide it under a veil of the future- but couldn;t heal it until they dealt with it in the open.

Graiel had been one of them. He had fought in the trenches- suicidally charged the enemy and survived as his friends, many years younger than himself cut down. He had mercilessly slaughtered the enemy; slit their throats rather than take them alive- removed their erries helmets to reveal real people behind the mask, then kill them anyway. He had watched his wife blow apart by a artillery shell, and his son ripped to shreds by a bomb fragment, while he survived, with only a flesh wound. After the Breaking, he had tried to forget by any means necessary not wanting to dig up the horrors of that time- wanted to live his life as a new, forward minded citizen. Until he had heard her speak. They called her "The General" and see was as charismatic as she was beautiful. Her elquoent words, expressed via a holonet transmission had changed him. He had faced his fear of that time- and realized that only when he was sure it would never happen again could he truely be over it. He would teach that to the populace today- and from experience he knew they would listen.

"1 minute."

The plan was easy. Supporters of the Sect survived across the planet- and still outnumbered those, though by less in recent weeks, who were for the future. That number would drastically shift in the Sects favor tonight. There was no question- it was a certainty.

He shifted his posture. The desk in front of him was plain, and he sat, staring at the camera, a digital countdown counting down the seconds until the planet wide holofeed would switch to him. The event was being coordinated by supporters across the planet- he would reach everyone with this message.

3..2..1...

Time to go.

"Hello citizens of Anoat. My name is Graiel Yurq. I I know this isn't your regularly scheduled programming, but I ask you to please, her me out for a few minutes; I want to tell you a story.

I was one of the first supporters of the Liberty Sect, because I thought that the people of Anoat deserved their own future, and that I could help shape that destiny. I was young, overeager, and probably made a million mistakes, and done things I would never do again, were I given a chance to do them over. People say that the past is the past- its done so move on. Thats not true. I feel regret over things I've done in the past, and I need them reconciled. I don't care who you are- deep down that the way everyone feels.

I was really excited when the Empire pulled out, and we had a chance to be free. And I was shouting with the loudest when the Soveringty came to fill their position. I hate them for ruining our chance- for taking over the Corridor. I hated them, and I had never known one of them. I fought when they attacked- I was a company commander. I dug trenches, then got pounded and retreated to other trenches. I dashed wildly toward the enemy, filled with battle lust. It got me these."

He held up his arm to show large blaster scorch marks.

"I never thought a thing of it. I felt that if I fought with all my energy, we could drive them back. Never mind that they had an orbiting fleet and we barley had air fighters. I didn't think like that- it was the more ORS solider I kill, the sooner we'll win. But it didn't work like that. We got pushed back to Anoat City. I still thought we had a chance. My entire company had been killed, and I was leading a group of schoolboys and grandfathers, but I still fought like I was possesed. Then came the final push- and our unit was decimated and dispersed. I still didn't give in. I retreated to my house, and swore I would kill any ORS who came with in blast shot."

He sighed.

"An artillery shell landed on my house- my wife was ripped to shreds. I went in to shock. I threw my teenage son a rifle and ran. I charge toward the front- wanting to kill every last ORS soldier on the planet for what they did to my wife; to my house; to my life; to my world."

He paused, emotions begginning to overcome him.

"My son followed me. But before we reached the front, a bomber dive bombed us. The blast was right between us- I don't know how I survived- all that was left of my son was a charred corpse. I wen unconsious and woke up in a hospital."

He pulled back his bangs, revealing a huge white mark.

"A fragment logged itself in ym skull, inches from my brain. A few more and I wouldn't be talking to you tonight. I was a wreck, physically and mentally. I simply shut down. When I left the hospital I didn't even go back to my house. I told people I met I had never even had a wife, or had a son. I lived as a hollow shell."

Tears began building in the corners of his eyes.

"Then, I heard a transmission by a certain figure in the Liberty Sect leadership. I hadn't heard anything from them since the war. It wasn;t a tape calling for death or destruction- it was a message asking the people of Anoat to take their own lives back. It made me remember why I had been fighting in the first place"

He paused, and wiped away a few tears.

"There are millions of stories just like mine- and many even worse. Many of us want to hold them inside- pretend they never happen and go on. Others want to lash out at those who have taken over the mantle of government. Let me say this- the Galactic Coalition is not the perpatrator of those atrocities. However- tha does not mean that they can make things right again. Only we"

He expanded his arms in a large inclusive gesture. and then brought them together in a large fist.

"The people of Anoat can make things right again. The Coalition may mean well- they may say all the right things. But they can never understand, because they did not expereince the Breaking. The best thing they could do for the people of Anoat, is let us choose our own future."

He paused, and then slowly said.

"We cannot live in the future, until we reconcile our own past. No one can change the past, but only alone can we make sure we have a future devoid of what we all went through.

Thank you for listening. I hope you have a pleasant rest of the evening."

The feed went to blackness for a minute, to allow people to reflect, then switched to normal programing.

Graiel sat at the desk for a moment, then let his head drop to the desk and cried. After a few minutes, he wiped his eyes and got up. There was no doubt in his mind what the response would be. Hopefully the Coaliton would see it just as clearly...