Calamari System, 25 ABY
Mon Eron, Council Chamber
Following the Battle of Calamari, Dragon-Coalition War

The special session of the Mon Eron Council had been called in record time, the present threat great enough to move a whole nation to action. When the Rogue Empire attacked Dac, Mon Eron remained silent; the Mon Calamari Fleet's aggressive, expansionist policies had made them a fair target of like-minded nations. When Grand Admiral Thrawn struck at the world, again Mon Eron did not raise a hand to defend them; such was the path the Dac people had set themselves upon. The Chiss Empire, The New Order (on more than one occasion), none of Dac's historic enemies were ever Mon Eron's concern. The people of that world had chosen their path through the galaxy, had chosen their allies and therefore their enemies, and it was their responsibility to deal with the consequences.

Such was not the case with the Black Dragon Imperium. They claimed the entire region of the galaxy, decreed all within it to be subjects of their God's will. The Dragons were coming, and when they arrived, not one among the Council dared hope they would stop with Mon Calamari. The Coalition was leaving, the whole world was being emptied, and if something wasn't done soon, the people of Mon Eron would be the only ones left to greet the Dragons upon their return.

“Order, order,” the head of the Council called, quieting the chamber in an instant. The tension was palpable, the fear weighing on the room like humid air in the heat of summer. The seated representatives filling the bottom half of the Chamber turned their heads upward in unison, regarding the domed skylight at the top of the sphere. The view of the night sky seemed to ripple and warp, until a new image altogether took form, revealing the “window” to be a viewscreen. The world of Dac now hung overhead, its face obscured by the swarms of starships clustered around it.

“The decision set before us is clear,” the leader began, eyes sweeping across the collection of Mon Calamari and Quarren representatives. “To stay is to subject ourselves wholly to the dominion of the Black Dragon Empire. Resistance would be bloody, brief, and futile. If we wish our people to live, to be free, then we must leave. We must evacuate, as Dac is evacuating. If we move now, if we mobilize everything within our power and petition the Coalition with all haste, they may yet be willing to escort us beyond the borders of Black Dragon Space. Where we will go, what will become of us, none of us can know, but to stay is to accept a fate worse than death. To stay is to become slaves of the Dragon Imperium's machine lord, to be remade into unspeakable abominations. We will go. We will, finally, entrust our fates to foreign powers and alien governments.”

The votes were cast and tallied with no further ceremony. The outcome was unquestionable. After decades of isolation, neutrality, and the security they had brought, the people of Mon Eron were leaving home behind.


* * *


Teth System, 25 ABY
Teth, Refugee Zone 27
Following the Evacuation of Dac, Dragon-Coalition War

When she signed up for the Eastern Coalition Provincials, Private Rebecca Cormier had never dreamed she'd be spending her time backhanding fishy refugees.

“Move along, move along!” The rough voice of Sergeant Ishmael was an odd sort of welcome relief in this dreary place. “The water's clean in this bay, no Phage presence for a thousand miles, but we've got plenty more of your friends and families to look after, so move along, wash up, but don't take more than your fair share of time. We're on a schedule, people. On a schedule!”

Sarge was waving the line ahead, the rest of the squad spread out in the surrounding area to give some small sense of order to the chaos going on around them. Military drop ships were still landing within sight, disgorging hundreds of thousands more refugees, the differences between the Mon Calamarians and Mon Eronians evaporating as the basic biological need for ocean water against their drying skin pushed everyone forward.

In the distance, bobbing on the water like giant corks, were the converted tanker ships that had brought the Whaladons and Moappa. The water they'd siphoned from Mon Calamari before leaving was going bad, the cobbled-together environmental processors not nearly powerful enough for their needs. The only option available was to dump the aquatic creatures right into the ocean. Out beyond them, the faintest pinpricks floating atop the water, were the sensor buoys, monitoring the seas for any sign of Phage intrusion.

It was a nightmare, logistical and otherwise, and Rebecca and her squad were not equipped to deal with it, but these people were depending on them, so they'd man their stations, give their reassuring nods, and hope beyond hope that someone, somewhere up the chain of command, had some idea of what to do here.

A distinct sound rang out across the crowded shore, a sound that soldiers knew all too well, one for which they were trained to respond. One that didn't belong anywhere near a refugee center. Screams and shouts issued from a cluster of refugees off to Rebecca's right, others diving to the ground or covering their heads with their flippered hands as if their arms would protect them from another blaster bolt.

Rebecca scrambled over, hoisting her blaster into position, heart pounding with the fear and excitement of the moment. She pushed a Quarren aside, broke into an opening, caught sight of a Cooperative Defense Force trooper on the ground, a smoking scorch mark on the side of his armor. His blaster was . . . it was . . .

It was in the hands of a Mon Calamari child, no more than ten years old, waving it wildly at the rest of the Cooperative trooper's squad.

There was a good deal of shouting, most of it incoherent, but she definitely heard the word “stun” in there somewhere among the troopers' chatter.

“No!” she shouted at them, holding both arms out, blaster gripped by the barrel in one hand. Her appearance drew the child's attention, who turned the stolen blaster in her direction. “It's okay, it's okay,” she said, trying to sound calm and reassuring, but the adrenaline and tension of the moment making that all but impossible.

The child's attention (and weapon) swung back to the Cooperative troopers as they shifted forward, intending to take advantage of the distraction Rebecca had provided.

“Wait!” she pleaded with the unfamiliar troopers, glancing to her side as the hulking form of Rud, an Azguardian from her squad, appeared. “Hold this,” she said decisively, pushing her blaster into his hands. She unstrapped her helmet. “And this.”

“Sarge isn't going to like this,” Rud warned.

“Then Sarge can eat bildog poodo,” Rebecca proclaimed, stepping forward. Rud was right, though; Sarge would not like what she was about to do.

“It's the uniforms!” she shouted at the Cooperative troopers, unbuttoning the clasps of her own shirt. “He doesn't understand!” The kid had just seen his homeworld blasted to hell by soldiers, of course he was jumpy!

“What the hell are you doing, soldier!” came Sarge's gravelly, Calamari voice, right on cue.

Rebecca tied the sleeves of her uniform around her waist, her plain, sleeveless undershirt making her look instantly un-soldiery. “Sarge, if you think -”

The imposing figure of a Calamarian White Knight appeared suddenly from the crowd, putting a hand on Sargent Ishmae'ls shoulder. “Let her be,” he said decisively, turning his head to regard Rebecca and giving her a nod.

She advanced slowly, crouching down to be closer to the child's height, arms held out, palms open, in front of herself. “Hey, hey hey, look at me,” she said when she caught the child's attention. “Don't worry about them,” she added, waving for the Cooperative troopers to back off. “They're on your side, promise. You just spooked them, that's all.”

She risked a glance at where the fallen trooper had been, was glad to see he'd dragged himself out of sight. “We're here to help,” she reassured, stretching a hand out further. “The bad guys can't get you here, but I need you to give me the blaster, okay? I need you . . . I need you to trust me, okay?”

Her blood pressure was so high she could feel her pulse in her fingertips. The child was frightened, clearly, and confused. Dangerous, certainly, but this wasn't what they were about. She was not about to let a scared child get shot by a squad of foreigners who couldn't even keep their blasters out of a kid's hands!

“Please,” she pleaded, shuffling closer.

Tears were streaming down the child's face. He clearly hadn't meant to get himself in this situation.

“It's okay,” she said again. Maybe if she said it enough, she'd start believing. “It's okay. It's okay.” The blaster slid out of his hands under her gentle guidance, and she tossed it immediately to another soldier, Risha, who'd been moving in along the edge of the refugee onlookers. She took the child in her arms before the Cooperative troopers could move in, picking him up off the ground and running back toward her squad, who had assembled around Rud.

“Good job,” Risha said approvingly, patting Rebecca on the back.

“I learned from the best,” she said to the Chalactan woman, offering an appreciative smile. “But I wouldn't have had the chance if that White Knight . . .” she trailed off as she scanned the area but couldn't find the Mon Calamari Knight who'd stayed Sarge's wrath.

No matter, she had more pressing matters to attend to. Kneeling down, she set the young Mon Calamari back on the ground. “Now, what are we going to do with you?” she asked in the cheeriest voice she could muster, trying not to spook the child further. “Where are your parents at, hmm?”

He wouldn't meet her gaze. “They're dead.” It was the hollowest sound she'd ever heard.

Rebecca sank back on her feet, no words coming to her.

“There's got to be some kind of orphanage program or something, right?” Flim, the Duros of the bunch, asked, trying his best to be helpful.

“The Teth government has a trauma center set up on the far side of that hill,” Risha said, pointing to a mound of sand half a kilometer away. “They'll know what to do.”

Rebecca glanced to Sarge, who still wasn't looking happy about the whole situation. “Oh, alright, Private. Take the kid . . . but put your uniform back on, for heaven's sake!” Storming off back to his place monitoring the line, he added: “You kids are gonna get me demoted if you keep this up!”


* * *


Rebecca had been assured that the child would be taken care of, but she was dubious. The Cooperative trooper, it turned out, was fine. He'd gotten a bit of a light toasting that a healthy dab of bacta cream would take care of, and the day or two of recovery would give him plenty of time to think about what he'd done. Letting a child nab his gun, of all things!

“Did you hear the news?” Risha asked over the hum of repulsor engines. “Teth's going all-in on the Mon Cal refugees, devoting everything they've got to reintegrating them. Sounds like they're letting Mon Eron's people establish a government-in-exile. I hear they've even asked the Cooperative for more help.”

Rebecca huffed. “Yeah, a lot help they'll be.”

“Hey, be nice. One mistake doesn't decide the worth of a whole organization. From what I hear, those CDF folks are making quite the name for themselves overall. Reports of violence are down in their sectors of the refugee centers; they must be doing something right.”

“Yeah? Then why not send them here?” Rebecca asked as the ramp dropped on their troop transport, and the roars of angry protesting refugees spilled in.

“Because they got assigned to one of the other thousand hot spots around the planet!” Risha shouted in response, heading down the ramp after Sergeant Ishmael.

“Alright troops,” Ishmael started, “keep tight, watch each other's backs, and for all that's holy, don't let one of them snatch your weapon!”

Despite their best efforts, the Phage had gotten into the general population. It spread quickly once containment was lost, and unfortunately, Panacea's troubles fighting Phage wasn't a matter of software. A research lab on Kubindi had discovered a cure of sorts, but Panacea was physically incapable of replicating the particular biomolecular interaction that made the Kubindi cold a Phage-killer. It meant everyone would have to be given injections of the cold, wait a safe incubation period, and then receive a Panacea treatment to purge the virus from their bodies.

It also meant that the emergency clinic just ahead, which had just received a shipment of the injections, was the natural target of a fearful, sick population. If something wasn't done soon, the press of refugees would break through the barricades, make off with the injections, and a whole new series of cascading catastrophes would be on their way. Without tracking patients properly, Teth would lose track of who had and hadn't been treated for Phage exposure. The people who took the injections would die of the Kubindi cold, a virulent disease that was even more dangerous to many non-native species. The people who didn't would die of the Phage, not only forfeiting their own lives but serving as reservoirs for the techno-organic virus, allowing the chance for it to spread throughout the newly cured population again.

It was a lot of pressure for a Provincial volunteer with nothing to her name but a philosophy degree and a glorified grocer of a husband. Rebecca and her squad pushed their way through the crowd, sliding in between barricades to reinforce the line.

It wouldn't be enough.

The crowd surged, and Rebecca leaned into the barricade, trying to hold it against the press of desperate bodies. Rud grabbed one end, anchoring it firmly, and two other squad mates ran over to help Rebecca. Together, the four of them seemed to be holding the line, but the barricades to either side started sliding back. The Azguardian tried shifting his feet a little to catch the corner of his neighboring barricade, but his end started giving way. There were just too many of them!

And then, suddenly, it stopped.

Rebecca and company looked around, dumbstruck. What had happened? What had changed?

“My people,” an amplified voice began, one Rebecca recognized immediately. She spun around, searching behind them, searching the stacks of medical supplies and pitched tents.

“I know that you are weary. I know that you are afraid. This world is not our world. These people are not our kin.”

There he was! Standing atop a makeshift platform, commlink in hand, the White Knight who'd backed up Rebecca earlier was addressing the crowd.

“The night is dark and full of doubts. We don't know if the Dragons will pursue us further, if Mon Calamari was the end or only the beginning of our struggle. But this is what I do know: Teth, this world, it's people . . . this rock, the Rock of the East, it stands. It stands with us. It stands against our enemies. Now, we have crates of medicine here, and no, it's not enough, it's not, but more is on the way. And more will keep coming until it is enough, because that's where we are, that's where we've found ourselves. Not among friends, not among family, not among allies, but among a Coalition of our peers . . . A Coalition of the compassionate, who will not leave us to our fates.”

She didn't know who he was, but the people seemed to respect him. The war had gained the White Knights a lot of respect in the East, sure, but this seemed more than that. Glancing over to Sarge, she saw something in him that confirmed her suspicions.

“Sarge? Who is that guy?”

Calamari System, 27 ABY
Interplanetary Space, Stealth Intruder Flitnat
Dragon Imperium Scouting Mission, Year of Cataclysm

The crew weren't fans of the mission. Either that, or they weren't fans of their commander. While the Stealth Intruder was designed as a single-operator stealth ship, this particular vessel and its sister ships currently scouring the domain of the Black Dragon Empire had been refit with extensive sensor and data recording systems, requiring a small crew to operate all systems effectively.

The crew was out of the West, part of their token assistance in light of the Reaver menace that had come pouring out of Imperium Space. The captain, however, was a local, a Mon Calamari. The White Knights had earned a lot of respect in the Coalition-Dragon War, but that was mostly an Eastern thing, which meant kark-all to these Westerners.

They'd already buzzed Mon Eron, one creepy ghost town of a planet. Everything was still there, intact and untouched, just as the locals had left it when they bugged out on the Coalition's coattails. They were probably regretting their decision right about now, huh?

The System, though. The system was empty. No ships, no survey satellites . . . heck even that DragoNet thingie the Eastern Fleet had spotted on the edge of the system as they were pulling out was gone now. As they drew into the inner solar system, though, a clearer picture of Mon Calamari – Dac, as the locals said – was beginning to form. It was the first Coalition presence in the system since the evacuation, and everyone present, even these Western punks who liked to pretend they were above it all, could feel the magnitude of this moment.

When remote sensing showed nothing anomalous, the commander ordered the ship into extreme orbit. When direct scanning raised no flags, he ordered them into low orbit. When low-orbit scans returned only positive results . . .

“Helm, take us to the surface.”

The Advozse pilot looked over his shoulder at the White Knight. “Uhh, sir? We're not authorized to make planetfall.”

The Knight did not look happy with the response. “I'm adapting to the circumstances at hand. It's something commanders do on the battlefield.”

“This is a scouting mission,” the sensor operator said, “not a battle.”

The Mon Calamari knight turned a withering stare on the human. “If you have a problem with my commands, make a note of it in your report, when we're back on base. Otherwise, step in line before I pitch you out an airlock. Don't test a White Knight, kid.”

Once the sensor tech had shrunk sufficiently under the Knight's gaze, he returned his attention to the pilot. “Now take us down.”


* * *


Teth System, 27 ABY
Teth, “Mudtown”
Central Administrative Building, Year of Cataclysm

“You know it's a nickname, right? You can change it if you want.”

The Quarren official matched Erek's stare for a long moment, his alien features unreadable. “It reminds us what this place was before we remade it.”

Erek Joron understood immediately. Mudtown wasn't much to look at, but it was a far cry from what it had been in the early days of the Mon Calamari Exodus. The pumps and pipes and holding tanks that had been hastily erected by an overtaxed planetary government who was desperate to help but clueless as to how had turned the whole stretch of the continent into a quagmire. It had been the Ryn showing up and coordinating with Mon Cal and Quarren engineers who had turned the seaside refugee center into something resembling an actual city.

Even so, Mudtown was ill-fit for its species of citizen, and overpopulated as well. The Mon Calamari were getting by alright, but the Quarren were only at home in the ocean deep. While the Coalition's mass resettlement efforts had moved billions of Quarren off-world to more appropriate permanent residences on worlds like Chad, Varn, Ketaris, Ando, and now Minntooine, these Quarren here were given no such accommodations.

Because these Quarren were Mon Eronians.

They weren't Coalition citizens, so they weren't eligible for those programs. They might have qualified for “special considerations” and thus been transferred out of General Services, except it was hard to argue one's considerations were special when they applied to literally billions of scarcely distinguishable individuals. Oh, plus Teth had agreed to negotiate with the Mon Eron Council as a sovereign entity, meaning these Quarren were still subjects of that government, restricting Teth's ability to pawn them off on the Coalition's Refugee Service.

It was a nightmare, to be sure, and it looked like that nightmare was about to get much, much worse. “Shall we begin, then?” Erek asked after a moment of silence. He had expected the Quarren to invite him into a conference room instead of leaving him standing in the middle of the small reception area, but he supposed this building was properly Tethan property anyway, so he might as well move things along.

“We must wait for Representative Tima,” the Quarren said.

“Well, can we wait in there?” Erek asked, pointing at the door to an adjacent room.

The Quarren seemed to consider the question for a moment before finally nodding and leading the way. “Very well.”

These people were almost uncomfortably concerned with equal representation, among their two species at least. The crisis of the diaspora had forced the two species to work closely together, and finally the crisis was so big, so fundamental to their identity, that neither could question the other's motives. It wasn't ideal, but it was effective, and it might just pave the way to something truly splendid . . .

Of course, that didn't much matter, either, because these people weren't even in the Coalition! Erek had, grudgingly, come to respect his world's devotion to its refugee population, even as that population morphed from freedom-seekers fleeing the borders of Black Dragon Space into horrified families struggling to survive the rise of the Reavers. But the Mon Eronians had been here through all of that, from the end of major conflict with the Dragons.

Their familial bonds with the Coalition refugees from Mon Calamari had earned them a sort of unofficial special status, and though most of the Mon Calamarians had moved on now, Teth hadn't abandoned its commitments to this displaced nation.

“Sorry I'm late,” a Mon Calamari female said from the doorway. Erek had never been very good at discerning the age of the species' fishy members. “I've been fighting with that blasted Sneevel procurement officer for the better part of four hours!”

“What about?” Erek asked, intrigued.

“Getting the fleet back,” she said, walking around the edge of the room to her Quarren companion's side. “We're going home, Ambassador Joron, and if the Coalition won't help us, we'll do it ourselves.”

“I see,” Erek said, pensive. The top secret survey of Mon Calamari was an open secret now, only weeks after the crew's return to the East. The Mon Eronians, it seemed, were wasting no time dreaming big dreams.

The Mon Eron government had seized their world's corporate assets in the evacuation, pressing every ship in orbit into service. It hadn't been enough to pack up the entire planet, requiring Coalition and other assistance from those who had answered the call to empty Mon Calamari. Once safely at Teth, however, the government had entered into an agreement with the Coalition's federal authorities, granting the use of their vessels to the Refugee and Evacuation Service. Mon Eron's loaned ships had been passed around from one project to the next for the better part of two years now; they were so thoroughly integrated with the Coalition's broader humanitarian efforts now that trying to extract them would be an organizational nightmare.

“We've seen the report, Ambassador,” the Quarren spoke up. “Mon Eron is safe, untouched by either the Dragons or the Reavers. We dragged our people from their homes to this world, where they have languished in a half-life of uncertainty and fear. We owe them this return, a chance to rebuild their lives.”

Erek held the alien's uncomfortable stare for a long moment. “Alright, then: Teth is with you. We've got pull in the Refugee Service, and I know how to lean on the Sneevel. With or without the Calamari Council's or Coalition government's support, we'll back your push to go home.”

He could tell he'd caught them off-guard. It brought a genuine smile with maybe just a hint of maniacal glee to his face.


* * *


Minntooine System, 27 ABY
Minntooine, Dac Council
Special Session, Year of Cataclysm

The admission of Minntooine into the Coalition Western Province and its formal incorporation into the government of the Mon Calamari and Quarren people meant that the Dac refugees, at least formally, were no longer homeless. Of course, by this time the Coalition's substantial emergency response and social welfare apparatuses, greatly bolstered by the Cooperative's continued commitment to those services, had relocated billions of refugees off of Teth and to other accommodating Coalition worlds. Many of them saw Minntooine as no better an alternative than their new homes; for them, the only thing that interested them more than building what life they could wherever they found it, was the real thing.

Dac. Mon Calamari. Home.

That dream, the Dac Council had failed to conceal, was no longer impossible. Natives had been returning for months now, almost as soon as the official report had been filed with the Eastern Government on Teth. Without any sort of authorization or backing, millions who could scrape together the means had set out for home. The Black Dragon Imperium was gone, the Reavers were busy elsewhere in the galaxy, and the Cree'Ar didn't seem particularly interested in this stretch of space. For the daring and the hopeful, it was the obvious course.

For the leaders of the fractured Dac people, it was a nightmare. They were still trying to put together their diaspora government, working out special status and treaty acknowledgments from host worlds, tweaking ancient representative protocols to preserve as much of Dac's old government as possible given the vast distances now involved, and for what? So millions of Mon Calamari and Quarren could bolt at the first sign that return was possible, without a plan for themselves or concern for the billions who were in no position to follow in their wake?

It was despicable. At least, that's what Wanda thought, but then, what did she know about the intricacies of Mon Calamari/Quarren politics? And weren't there other intelligent species on Mon Calamari? Why didn't they have seats on the Council too, even if they couldn't actually sit?

And there she went, bringing her own politics into the mission again. You see, dear reader, Wanda wasn't “just Wanda”, she was Wanda the Ryn, and her fancy name badge marked her as an Emissary of the Cooperative. So what was Wanda doing on Minntooine anyway, sitting with other “foreigners” in a special section to observe this Special Session of the Dac Council? Well, she wanted to know that too.

And all of this because someone couldn't keep their secrets to themselves! She glanced to her right, past the small Western delegation and the Mon Calamari/Quarren pair from Mon Eron, to the White Knight standing at the far end of the booth. It was hard to make out even his rough Calamarian features from this angle, but Wanda had read the report already and recognized him from the section on the Dac survey.

“It was me,” the man sitting behind and to the right of her said. Wanda turned further to look up at the middle-aged human seated a row behind her. “I leaked the report to the Council.”

“How did you . . .” Wanda began, truly shocked that the man had picked up on her suspicion. Had he read her mind?

“Ambassador Athan has made me intimately familiar with that look, young miss, and now as then, if anyone deserves it, it's certainly me.”

“You know Athan?” she asked, warming up to the man just from the name drop. She'd noticed the brown-skinned human in extravagant dress when he entered, of course, but hadn't given much thought to why he was here or who he represented.

Smiling, he said, “Erek Joron, Ambassador from Teth,” then offered his hand.

“Oh,” she managed, shaking it awkwardly given their relative seating positions.

“Only some of the horrible things you've heard about me are true,” he said lightly, then paused before asking, “may I?” He gestured to the seat beside her.

“Uhh, yeah, okay,” she said. What else could she say?

“So . . . why'd you do it,” she asked as the human made his way out of his row and into hers.

“It seemed like the right thing, at the time,” he said as he maneuvered carefully around her and took the empty seat. “I've spent a lot of time working with the Ryn on the Mon Calamari relocation program, and it's . . . well, this is their home, you know? They deserved to know.” He shrugged, his attention drifting to the goings-on of the Dac Council, plainly visible through the open window ahead. “I guess I should have known it wouldn't have stayed quiet, even if the Council wanted it to.”

Wanda glanced back at the White Knight. “Umm, shouldn't you two be seated together?”

Erek glanced to her, followed her eye line to the Mon Calamari. “The Eastern Parliament and the Provincial military aren't exactly getting along right now. Teth's been pushing hard to ramp up our refugee services, and the rest of the Province is pretty well following along, but all the military command can see of the situation is that we're spending manpower and resources we could be using to bolster the Eastern Fleet on swelling the population that fleet has to protect.”

“I thought you would agree with them,” Wanda admitted, trying not to sound adversarial. This Erek Joron fellow didn't seem to be living up to his reputation.

The human ambassador shrugged. “It's more about the politics of the situation than anything the two of us might personally feel about the situation, but I have to admit: the work I've done with the Ryn has made me . . . reevaluate . . . much of my own beliefs about how the Coalition should operate.”

“Well,” Wanda said with a sense of finality, “it looks like they're about ready to start.”

Indeed, the general murmur of the Dac Council's representatives was dying down, and it seemed like they were all waiting in anticipation for the meeting to be called to order.

In the brief silence before the Special Session began, Wanda wondered at her unexpected companion. His last words seemed to be as close as he could bring himself to acknowledging his reputation in the Ryn Fleet as an obstinate, racist jackass. Had he really changed? Could he really change?


* * *


Teth System, 27 ABY
Teth Orbit, Golan Defense Platform Ironsides
Executive Quarters, Year of Cataclysm

Well, there was the good news, and then there was everything else. The good news was that “Old Ironsides” was up and running, a gift from the Squibs who'd salvaged it from . . . somewhere.

The rest? Admiral Panacka brought his hand up to cover his mouth, shaking his head in a mix of too much, and all of it terrible.

How could they have let it come to this? After all the East had been through, after the terrors of the Dragon War, after the Phaging of the East, the slaughter of the Chandaarians, the evacuation of Mon Calamari . . . after the rise of the Reavers, godsdammit!

Salvation had sure as hell come to the East, alright. It had come like a case of Knytix Pox and it had dug in like a scalp tick. Teth – Teth, of all places! – had adapted the damned thing to run their refugee services, then went on expanding the system to incorporate system-wide traffic control and local policing services.

There were the assurances, of course. Always the assurances. The Cooperative promised it was safe, promised the safeguards were up to the task, compartmentalization this and backup protocols that. All Panacka knew, though, was that the last nation he'd encountered that leaned this heavily on droid AI's and data crunching networks, turned into the Dragons, and all but swallowed the East whole.

Oh sure, it was pretty. It was fancy. Hells, it was even effective, but the one thing it wasn't, the one thing it couldn't possibly be, was secure. And that was Panacka's first and only concern: security.

So why wouldn't the Eastern Parliament give him the funding he needed! They just kept pouring more and more money into their social programs, more refugee processing centers, more trade schools and retraining programs, more socialization programs and “city farms” sprouting up all across the East.

Couldn't they see it? Wasn't it obvious? Every mouth they found a way to feed, every refugee they resettled into a comfy, cozy life, every new city they built, every new school they opened . . . it just swelled the numbers who would die when the Eastern Fleet broke beneath the weight of the next invasion.

And Teth! “The Rock of the East,” bah! They should know best of all, yet here they were, selling their souls for a pipe dream, a hellish bloodbath just waiting to happen! He kept pushing for funding, kept begging the Parliament to ramp up military spending, kept warning them of the clear and present dangers, but did they listen?

Of course they didn't listen! The Cooperative had gotten their claws into Teth, and as Teth goes, so goes the East.

The Cooperative and their “Salvation”.

The Cooperative and their droid-king “Smarts”.

The Cooperative and their . . . their “Guardian”.

Because turning the whole of the East's social services over to a foreign-built data management system that nobody even understood wasn't bad enough. No, they had to hand their military over to the one automated network capable of out-droiding even that!

The crazy thing, the absolutely bat-shit crazy thing was that they actually had the hulls they needed! After repairs to the standing fleet and the completion of the last run in the shipyards, the East had more warships than they could use. What they needed, what they had to have to protect themselves, were crews. Trained, skilled, educated and tested crews. The Dragon War had cost them too many good soldiers. The refugee crisis had swallowed up too many of the despondent survivors. The push for social programs had siphoned off too many to civilian work.

They had the hulls, the ships. What they needed were the crews.

And they needed them for free.

Panacka's hand closed around the open bottle, thumped its bottom against his desk, then gulped down more than was a good idea.

“Damn it all,” he whispered, then grabbed his commlink and said it before he could stop himself. “Get me a line to the Cooperative's Council of Defense. Tell them I want to discuss terms for Guardian's expansion into the East.”

If the East was going to rot itself to the core with this droid-loving treason, that was on them. What it would not do, what it could not do, was fall to outside aggressors. Because that would be on him.

And he was Commanding Admiral Panacka, for fuck's sake! If they wanted to see him bleed, they'd see it when he split his knuckles against their jaws!

(Edit: fixed a misnamed character)

Teth System, 28 ABY
Extra-orbital Planetary Approach, Diplomatic Shuttle
Present Time

“Greetigs, traveler. You have entered the jurisdiction of the Eastern Provincial Salvation Network. Be advised: the Eastern Bureau of Reaver Management has classified the Teth System as a Low-Risk Area. You are authorized to engage in intra-systems communications without interference; however, all hyper-communications must be routed through official channels to ensure the security of signal destinations.”

Rosh the Bimm was . . . mesmerized. He hadn't been to Teth since . . . well for quite a while, anyway. He had leaned so far over the copilot's shoulder trying to get a read on her instruments that the pilot finally asked: “Would you like the seat, Ambassador?”

“Hmm? Oh, I simply couldn't!” he exclaimed while tapping the copilot on her shoulder and signaling for her to move aside. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” he professed while sliding into the vacated seat. “It's just I didn't expect the planet to be so alive!”

The pilot, a human woman in an Eastern Navy uniform, smirked at the comment. “Cinn, care to show the Ambassador around?”

“Sure thing!” the other woman exclaimed from the passenger row, sliding a datapad out of a pouch on the back of the pilot's chair. “If you'll direct your attention to the copilot's readouts . . .” she began, fiddling with the datapad's controls.

“Along the far edge of the system, we have multiple quarantine zones for processing ships coming out of Reaver Space.” A live feed from a Guardian scout ship showed a civilian transport undergoing inspection. “A joint Refugee Service/Guardian Medical Fleet provides emergency medical assistance to any infected crew or passengers, and a new generation of custom-built Hive Ships use wide-beam irradiators to sterilize any contaminated hardware. Mark III Panacea's kicking some serious ass around here, and all the data gets fed out West to Emanon for analysis. With any luck the lab folks on the Uniform will have Mark IV cooked up in no time flat!”

Rosh was eating it up, but he'd noticed a hole in the shell of quarantine zones and fiddled with his own controls until he managed to zoom in on the icons present.

“Err, uhh, you're going off-script a little there, but no problem! I've got this!” Cinn started typing on her pad, but Rosh had it figured out before she could find the proper summary.

“It's the trade route,” he said, noting the assortment of ships present. The route ran through Bimmisaari's system, of course, but through-traffic didn't typically revert to realspace; they just continued on toward Charros or Kegan, depending on the direction of travel. These people, though, they seemed to be . . . “They're using the system periphery as a nav point?”

“Right you are!” Cinn exclaimed, either finding her place in the summary or familiar enough with the topic to proceed with confidence. “All through-traffic skirts the edge of the system, staying out of local trade, refugee, and military traffic lanes. A joint Eastern/Federal task force patrols the area, ensuring the safety of anyone passing through. All of the benefits of a friendly planet, with none of the hassle!”

“Well if that's what through-traffic looks like, what about local traffic?”

“You're getting ahead of me again there, Ambassador, but . . .”

“Heads up,” the pilot cut in. “Inspection time.”

Rosh looked up to stare out of the cockpit's viewport. “What kind of inspection?”

“Guardian custom's picket,” the pilot said, stealing some of Cinn's thunder.

“That's right!” But not nearly all of it. “It'll scan us, check our credentials to ensure nothing's awry, then approve us for orbital insertion.”

“So . . .” Rosh dragged it out, giving his mind the time it needed to dive down that rabbit hole. “What would happen if, say, I flipped one of these fancy weapons-control switches and powered up one of the shuttle's hefty murderizers?”

“If you did it while the picket was scanning us,” the pilot said, “it'd hit us with enough ion power to set your fillings singing.”

“I don't have any fillings,” Cinn piped up.

“Me neither,” Rosh said.

“Well of course you don't; we live in the future! The point is: you wouldn't last long.”

“What if the picket had already moved on?” Rosh asked.

The pilot sighed. “Well, this far out, depending on your timing, you'd have as much as two and a half seconds before an area sensor sweep detected the power buildup and the Teth Planetary Defense Guardian tasked a long-range scanner to investigate. It would pull a nearby picket ship for priority assignment, buzz you while not-shouting in that disarming fashion it has that you need to power down before you get powered down, and then it would deploy a security force of whatever capacity it deemed necessary to . . . neutralize the threat, should it persist.”

“And it'd inform Traffic Control to clear the surrounding space!” Cinn chimed in again.

“So the whole thing's automated?” Rosh asked, not loving the idea.

“More like . . . auto-assisted,” Cinn said.

It didn't put Rosh at ease. He started fiddling with the copilot's controls, and before either of the Eastern Navy pilots could stop him, he heard a chipper “Teth Planetary Traffic Control, how may I assist you?” from the comm system.

“Are you a real, live, flesh-and-blood person?” Rosh asked immediately.

“Well, uhh, I can't guarantee all traffic control operators have blood, per se, but yes, I am. Absolutely. How may I assist you?”

Rosh furrowed his brow, considering the situation. “This is Ambassador Rosh from Bimmisaari; I'm conducting an unscheduled inspection.”

“Hold please,” the voice said politely.

“Can you do that?” Cinn asked. “Is that even a thing you can do?” She wasn't sounding so happy anymore.

“Identity confirmed,” the traffic control operator said. “How may I help you, Ambassador Rosh?”

“Apparently so,” Rosh said to Cinn, covering the comm unit's microphone. Uncovering it, he said “What happens if the Eastern Salvation Network goes down?”

“'Down', Sir? How do you mean?”

“Down down, what do you think I mean? What if it breaks? What if it's compromised? What if somebody forgot to carry a two somewhere in the coding, and the whole thing implodes tomorrow? What happens if it goes down!?”

“Well, Ambassador, Salvation isn't a singular unit like that, you see. The Network is a collection of compatible -”

“Stop,” Rosh demanded. “Four seconds ago, your terminal went blank. The terminals of the operators to your left and right went blank. The Big Screen at the front of your bank of stations went blank. Teth Traffic Control is down, because . . . who knows why? The Network's down. Someone unplugged your plug. The rest of the Coalition was swallowed by a wormhole and Teth's the only planet left in the Galaxy. It doesn't matter! What do you do, Teth Traffic Control operator? What happens in second number five?”

“Well, I push the backup button, of course.”

Rosh's head sunk. “the backup button?”

“Yes, Sir. I initiate Teth Traffic Control Redundancy Number One and switch over to local-network backups.”

He perked back up. “So the planet doesn't fall apart?”

The man on the other side of the line laughed. “No, sir. Admiral Panacka's spent the better part of two years now saber rattling and going on about the example the Dragons set. He stopped blocking the Eastern Parliament's droid and IT pushes, but only after making everybody who's anybody swear an oath in blood to pack in enough backup redundancies to make Thrawn proud. If Salvation Traffic Control is compromised or otherwise incapacitated, Ambassador, rest assured that men, women, and other weird critters like me will be here to answer your calls, route your ships, and avoid all sorts of horrifying collisions all the while.”

“Yeah?” Rosh asked, another worry creeping in. “And how long have you and the 'weird critters' actually been traffic control operators?”

The man chuckled again. “Well, me? I've been doing this the better part of fifteen years, Sir. Minus that little hiatus I took about a year and a half ago, of course.”

“Hiatus?” Rosh asked, his brain catching up almost immediately. “Oh! You were a refugee!”

“That's right, Sir. The Resettlement and Integration Service placed me a while back, and I've been a busy bee ever since.”

Busy bee? Was this guy some kind of bee? Nah, it was probably just another weird expression from some planet or another now in Reaver Space. “Alright, well, I shouldn't keep wasting your time. Thanks, Teth Traffic Control.”

“You're quite welcome, Ambassador Rosh. Have a nice day, and enjoy your stay at Teth.”

The line closed and Rosh looked out the viewscreen again. He didn't know how long the Guardian customs picket had been gone, but Teth was growing rapidly in the viewport.

“I'm sorry I ruined your virtual tour,” Rosh said to Cinn, frowning to show his contrition. “But what's all of this?” He waved vaguely at the viewport and the distinct lines of traffic moving to and from Teth's low orbit.

“Traffic routing protocols are well-established now; Teth's still a major refugee hub, even though most of them don't stay here long now. Microjump ferries bring refugees from the quarantine zone in-system; other ships arriving from 'safe vectors' are sorted by destination and funneled into the proper corridors. Refugees are given a brief stop-over on-planet, some as few as a couple days, others as long as a few weeks, but anyone that can be placed is moved off-world.

“Some of the refugee zones were eaten up by resettlement programs, shiny new cities built to house existing or new Coalition citizens and permanent residents. Most of them, though, have been furnished with new, modular city-complexes purpose-built for refugee needs. Teth processes them, issues them Coalition ID cards and the like as needed, gives them full medical exams and screens for basic psychological needs, then ships them off to Fwillsving, Delaya, Bimmisaari, and so on, which ever program best fits their needs.

“We're a well-oiled machine, Teth. Does a sister proud . . .”

“Oh, you're Tethan?” Rosh had no idea.

Cinn smiled back at him. “By adoption. I came out of Dragon Space with my family four years ago, right into the Coalition's waiting arms. I signed up as soon as I was of age,” she tapped the Coalition insignia on her shoulder. “Service was the least I could do, after all the Coalition's done for me and mine.

“'Coalition of the Compassionate'; that's what Pa always says.”

Cinn was getting misty-eyed. Rosh the Bimm had to admit a bit of a sniffle, himself.


* * *


Calamari System, 28 ABY
Mon Eron, Council Chamber
Present Time

It was a momentous occasion. It was the first formal session of the Mon Eron Council to be called on its homeworld in almost three years. It marked the end of their people's exile, the full return of its citizenry and government to their rightful home. Even with the great efforts that first the Dac Council, then the Eastern Province, and finally the whole of Prime Minister Moon's administration had expended, not even Dac itself could yet make such a claim.

Mon Eron was restored, and these gathered here held the consequences of that restoration in their collective grasp. This was a new generation of Mon Eron leadership, tempered by the trials of the past, enlightened by the compassion of the Coalition's East. Their task now was to turn their people once again toward the future, toward a hope renewed and dreams as of yet unimagined.

It was not a small task. Fortunately, they all knew where to begin.

Overhead, a true-to-life image of Dac as seen from orbit stretched across the domed viewscreen, the light of its day side cast down upon the assembled Council. The newly elected head of the Council called the session to order, just as her predecessor had the last time this room had hosted the august body, three years ago. The new Council, as its predecessor had, turned its attention to the world overhead. This time, however, the choice set before them was not one of desperation, of fear. It was not a choice to flee.

This time, the choice would be to stay. The measure was raised, the votes were cast and tallied, and finally the head of the Council announced the result:

Dac, Mon Calamari, the birthplace of their two species, was not alone; it would never again stand alone. After years of struggle and uncertainty as refugees of the Coalition's East, the citizens of Mon Eron who clung to their identities beyond all reason, who dared dream of a future return to their adopted home, would now repay the East with their friendship and devotion.

Mon Eron had joined the Coalition, yes, but more importantly: Mon Eron had joined the Dac Council.

As the overhead image of Dac melted away to reveal a live feed of the newly convened Dac Council, now safely returned to its ancestral home, the Mon Calamari and Quarren representatives of Mon Eron looked on the diverse faces of these new representatives, and finally knew that their place among its ranks was welcome without reservation.


* * *




The armor of a White Knight is more than a uniform, more than a simple fusion of the need for protection and the requirement to be identifiable. It was a symbol, of the Coalition's power and devotion, of the best it had to offer, of both its great capacity for martial power, and its great depths of compassion for its own and even its enemies.

That was why the White Knight had left it, tied up, in a bag back at the lodge. He'd had a chance, a year and a half ago, to set foot on these sands, when he'd ordered his Stealth Intruder to land and its crew to take samples. But he didn't; he didn't leave the ship. He couldn't.

As he had watched the aliens from the other side of the galaxy sample the air, water, and soil to ensure no trace of the Phage could be found on the world, as he'd watched them step gingerly around the machine corpses of the Dragon assault force that had made the Exodus a necessity, he couldn't help but be overwhelmed by one, undeniable truth.

He was unworthy of his station.

He'd seen the East – Teth in particular – leap to the aid of his people, tend their wounds and guard their fears as he no longer had the power to do. He had watched as simple, ordinary people with no great skill or office fought, tooth and nail, against the desperation that threatened to swallow his people whole.

These were his people, his people, and he'd lost the strength to protect them, either at home or away, in war or peace.

He had fought to stop the folly of this return, this blind madness that would see the ruin of his race and their brothers, the Quarren. Desperately, he had tried to contain the commitment of the Tethan people, the fervor of the Mon Eronians, the steady march of Prime Minister Moon's administration. Returning to Dac would destroy his people; he knew that. The Dragon War had taught him that.

And he had been wrong.

In the twilight of the setting sun, the Mon Calamari White Knight let his gaze fall to the corpses littered at his feet, the Dragon refuse washed ashore by the waves of his ancient home. The Capital island had been hit the hardest in the battle, he knew. He remembered.

When they'd fled, his people feared that the damage inflicted by the Dragon siege would kill the world, its ecology had been so devastated by the cold. But the survey, his survey, had found a world at peace, recovering from its wounds without care for the galactic Cataclysm raging around it. The Dac Return had concerned itself with preserving that recovery, and so the Capital had been left untouched until only recently, when the Council decided to reoccupy its chamber.

This stretch of shore was still untouched by the restoration efforts, a morbid shrine to all his people had lost, only to muster the strength to crawl back home.

But they didn't crawl; he'd been wrong about that too.

The Dac Council was convening only kilometers away, its membership more diverse and the power it represented now greater than ever before. The children of Dac had not survived, but instead conquered their darkest day, and he had failed them at every opportunity along the way.

Dac was saved. His people were strong again. Their enemies were nowhere to be found, and their allies more committed than ever.

Yet here he was, a White Knight in name only, surrounded by the rot and ruin of his past failures.

He fell to his knees, webbed hands sliding into the wet sands of the beach, clenching tight around the grains he'd once fought so hard to keep for his people. From deep within him spilled forth a bone-shaking wail, carried across the living face of the ocean to the floating cities dotting the horizon. Great, salty tears splashed onto his forearms, and he raised his hands, coated in the damp, stuck-on sands so stained by his continued failures.

The shrill chirp of a commlink pierced his self-loathing solitude, and like a good soldier, the White Knight once more bundled it all up, and set himself aside for the task at hand.

“Ruuvan here, go ahead.”