Thus Goes The Hidden Hyperlane (Closed Attn SWG)

[New Dornalia]

OOC: The following was crafted with extensive assistance with Huntaer and Asfaltum. Viewer discretion advised, I guess.

IC:

Greater Javin Sector

The alien slaves could be seen working, hammering, sawing, lasering, doing what they could to fill their work quotas. You’d expect to hear a work song among this bunch. However, the last guy who started a work song… Well, he wasn’t here today. He’d been taken for a “little chat” with the Task Master. The Clones haven't even bothered to get rid of the hanging corpse that resulted. After all, like any good Huntarians, they believed in the old rule of “scare ‘em straight.” And so far, the slaves weren’t going to deviate anytime soon.

Now, the slaves worked in silence, the only available rhythm being the barks of overseers admonishing the slaves to work harder, or faster, usually both. Sweat rolled on their brows, furrowed with fear and silent resignation. After all, as far as their masters were concerned, they were expendable. Droids could do their jobs, after all, assuming there weren’t any slaves available to replace this current batch.

In stark contrast to the sad individual fates that surrounded the slaves, a family of Twi'leks, managed to keep themselves together. They were a traditional nuclear family which, were it not for the rags and bomb collars they sported, would have been a lovely family of two kids, Mom and Dad. By some twist of fate, they even were allowed to build their own hovel made of tin and waste wood to live inside of, whereas the others lived in tents or barracks. Such were the rewards for meeting your quotas quickly, and this family was normally one of the fastest families in the concentration camp. And thanks to this, the Task Master didn’t have problems from this group.

Well, usually. However, in recent weeks, an epidemic had ravaged the camp, due to a particularly nasty bug in the nerf stew--well, what passed for stew. The unsanitary conditions hadn’t helped much either. Sickness came to the slaves, and it wasn’t uncommon to see corpses being taken away for disposal as fresh replacements were led at gunpoint to their new job..

The sickness had affected the Twi’leks also, and the poor diet lead to the inevitable. Blurred vision. Exhaustion. And productivity which was very much below the required amounts--amounts no man even in good health could do. These Twi’leks were exhausted, so, they decided to pause for just a moment from their task of building whatever the Huntarians wanted them to make.

They leaned up against a wooden cabin and tried to catch their breath. The mother Twi'lek reached into her pouch and pulled out a rugged looking water bottle and tried to get her husband to drink, who was quite obviously exhausted. He collapsed onto the ground from extreme exhaustion and sickness. He was paler than usual. His wife tried to force him to drink, “Come on, Na'bana! You need to drink!” Pressing the bottle against his lips, she added, urgently, “Hurry! The Clones will be coming!"

Na’bana dismissively waved the canteen away, going back to his hammer wearily as his wife tried to make him drink.

Of course, this did not go unnoticed by the nearby Clone Task Master, the one that had been keeping tabs on the family since their arrival. He marched up to them and began barking with vicious glee, guards at his side, waving a large cane in the process menacingly.

"Woah, woah woah! WHO THE FUCK GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO STOP WORKING!?!"

The family of Twi'leks, as if on cue, collapsed on the ground. The children huddled around their parents in fear, terrified by the bark of the Task Master. The Task Master kicked the children to the side and grabbed the collapsed Twi'lek off the ground roughly by the forearm. The Task Master forced Na’bana up on his feet, which he was barely able to stand. The wife leapt up to her husband’s side, but the Task Master quickly pulled out a small remote which was dangling from a cord and held it for her to see.

"Now that’s a damn shame. You don’t have energy to follow orders, but you have the energy to help your hubby? How cute." His voice was much more clear now that he was closer to them--it was a clone patterned after some person named...Baldwin. He then barked to the clones, "That don't set right with me.” Turning to his other guards, he shouted, “Does it set right with you two boys?"

"No boss."

"Definitely not. Whatcha gonna do about it Sarge?"

The Task Master nodded, and then seized Na’bana by the throat and growled.

"I'm gonna ask you one more damn time. Why did you stop working?"

Na'bana gasped for air, trying to keep himself from fainting again. "Please… We need to rest. We have barely been able to eat, can't get sleep and this disease is killing us! We can’t meet your quotas if you don’t do something about this!"

The Clones laughed and howled at Na’bana’s begging, and a derisive snort could be heard from their ranks. The Task Master was however, less amused. Still, he smiled from within his helmet, and declared condescendingly, "Now, I ain’t a stupid man. I seem to recall that you lazy fucking ramans were already given plenty of medicine to help with those boo-boos and uh-ohs and tummyaches!”

"But… We are usually on top of everything! It's the disease…"

Releasing the man from his choking grip with some force, such that Na’bana stumbled back, the Task Master said, shaking his head and crossing his arms, "Unbelievable. C'mon now, you know you was given the meds a week ago, and now you're telling me you already used it up? That don't sit right with me at all. It doesn’t make much damn sense--hell, it tasks me." Looking at the clones, he asked, “Don’t that task you, gentlemen?”

“It does, sir" came the following unison of the other Clones. Na'bana's wife continued to stare at the clones, scared shitless of them, whilst Na’bana began to have a look of fear on his face.

The Task Master noticed them staring, and grinned. "I'll tell you what I'm gonna do for you. Maybe you do need some meds after all.” Shrugging, the Task Master added, “Maybe not.” He then knelt down, produced a crude slugthrower marked “Win or Lose,” and motioned for the troopers to grab Na’bana and his children and shove them down in front of his wife, whom he laid low with a strike to the back of the knees with his cane. Na’bana struggled, but was shoved down next to his wife. All were at blasterpoint now.

Na’bana asked fearfully, “Wa-what’s going on? What is this?”

The Taskmaster then let out a sadistic grin, forcing the crude slugthrower into the slave’s hand, as the clones aimed their blasters at the family. He then forced Na’bana’s hand to point the slugthrower at one of his children.

Na’bana let out a “No. NO!” before being slapped by the Task Master, who wrenched his grip around Na’bana’s forearm and pulled the trigger finger for him with an ominous “click,” before forcing him to point at his wife, to do the same thing again.

As this occurred, the Task Master growled.

“Don’t get so uppity. I’m helping you get some medicine. Now pull!”

The husband suddenly became angry, almost forgetting about the fact he was weakened and had clone troopers aiming blasters at his head. "No! NO! I’ll do anything! I need the medicine--just don’t kill my family!"

"In good time, little Raman, in good time. Now, pull the damn trigger.”

“Please!”

The Task Master then punched Na’bana in the temple, and to his horror, Na’bana could hear a sound of armor falling to the ground before he put the left hand on his shoulder..

“It’s either this, or the Number Six Special. Now pull the trigger!”

Na’bana’s Wife then shouted, “No! NO!”

---

At the same time, off in the distance, a company of armed men surrounded the complex. They looked like smugglers and wore items that covered their faces--masks, bandannas, so on--but their weapons and organization--plus their use and abuse of hand signals--betrayed something a bit more professional in scope.

At the head of the platoon stood a woman with a gas mask and a DL-44 blaster pistol. Taking up position behind a tree, she radioed the others.

“All units, this is Turtle 1-1 actual. Report.”

A crackle over her radio then emerged.

"Turtle 1-1 Actual, this is Turtle 2-1. We’ve got multiple hostiles in our sights. We count two guards per tower and at least a dozen in the communications tower right in the camp's center. Plus another company's worth in the barracks and rec centers."

The man next to the woman shook his head.

“Rec centers for clones. Now I’ve seen everything.”

A voice over the radio crackled, and said, “Believe it, Turtle 1-2, you haven’t seen it all yet.”

The woman then scanned the horizon, and spotted the Task Master below, playing his game. She turned a dial on her binoculars, and the amplifiers within picked up the sounds of the sadism below.

"It’s either this or the Number Six Special!” The Task Master shouted from the muddy ground, and the woman shook her head at the fact the Task Master' was in his boxers.

“Gross.”

A voice then rattled through her comms.

"SHIT! Turtle 1-1 Actual, Isn't that our contact?"

The woman said simply, keeping calm, "Yeah, looks like it." Pausing, she then said, “Sniper teams--take the shot. Execute play ‘darling picky.’ Now.”

The figures began to move into position...as the woman could see the man below being forced to play a game...

----
“NO! STOP! I WON’T SHOOT!”

Na’bana began to resist now, with what little strength he had left. Eventually, the gun went off, but because of the struggle, it jerked wildly to the left as it fired, wildly missing and striking another slave instead. As Na’bana looked at what had happened with horror, he then felt himself being tossed to the ground. His wife tried to grab him as he fell. crying loudly as she felt his body grow limp.

The guards got up from the muddy ground and sprinted towards her as she slowly tried to get him standing up, and interrupted her attempts to do so with blaster butts, doing the same to the children who were tossed into a mudpit. Na’bana was quickly overtaken by the Task Master, who swung with great force at his head, sending him to the ground.

The Clone Task Master held out the remote again, pointing at Na’bana and shaking his head. That was of course, the last thing Na’bana saw as his bomb collar was activated, sending a cloud of gore all over everyone present, to the joyous hooting and hollering of the clones.

"FUCK!"

"DADDY!"

"NA'BANNA!" His wife cried loudly and collapsed onto the floor, coddling the corpse of what was once her loving husband. The Task Master then hit her with the cane, forcing her sprawled out onto the dirt as he growled with annoyance, “I hate it when you ramans make me do this. I tried to be nice, but you made me waste a bullet. I HATE WASTING BULLETS!”

The wife shouted, “Please! Don’t! I’ll do anything! ANYTHING!”

The Task Master then began to stride over menacingly, declaring, “That’s what you ramans always say. Well, here’s what I say to that.” He raised his remote, and was about to push the plunger...

Just then, a shot flew and blew the Task Master’s hand off, causing him to stumble back in shock. Then, the Task Master stopped as the clones wondered audibly what was going on as a series of what sounded like loud thunderclaps could be heard, along with gunfire. As the clones moved to respond, the Task Master noticed a red dot aimed where his boxers were.

Then, as Na’bana’s wife watched, she saw three shots whizz by her head. Two of the shots detonated the heads of a pair of clones, causing the rest to spin around as they were rushed by men with lightsabers slicing them to pieces. The third shot, meanwhile, caused nothing less than an explosion of gore in his nether regions as he collapsed to the ground, screaming bloody murder.

A woman in smuggler’s clothes and a gasmask appeared in a flash of light near the Task Master, and quietly offered a hand to Na’bana’s Wife, uttering the immortal words:

“Come with me if you want to live.”

Na’bana’s Wife took the offer, and the two children could be seen riding piggy back on a couple of the men, who deposited them near her mother. As the three hugged tearfully, the woman offered Na’bana’s Wife a blaster and gestured with her head to the Task Master.

“You get the honors, ma’am.”

As shots and explosions continued to ring out throughout the complex, Na’bana’s wife noticed the Task Master writhing on the ground. As the Task Master could be heard cussing under his breath, the Wife aimed the blaster at the Task Master and said, mockingly, “That’s what you clones always say. This is what I have to say about that.”

The woman watched as the Task Master’s head was torn apart, ending his existence.

Pausing for a minute, she was interrupted by The Woman, who went, “Good. Now, go on, go--there’s a transport waiting to take you to safety. GO!”

As the Woman then ran off, ducking behind a pile of wood and tossing a thermal detonator at a group of clones, Na’bana’s Wife and the children saw the familiar form of a Yt-1300 landing in the middle of the construction site. It did crush their hovel, but when the ramp opened up to show a smiling black man greeting them and waving for them to come aboard, Na’bana’s Wife didn’t think too much of getting onboard--as did several other slaves.

[Asfaltum]

There’s a saying: “May you live in interesting times.”

To begin, it’s a curse. “Interesting” in this case uniformly means “Oh god, death is raining down upon us and we shall all perish wailing and possibly on fire.” If someone wanted to say something nice to you, they wouldn’t tell you to live in “interesting” times. They would say something like, “I wish you eternal happiness” or “May you have peace” or “Live long and prosper” and so on. They wouldn’t say “Live in interesting times.” If someone is telling you to live in interesting times, they are basically telling you they want you to die horribly, and to suffer terribly before you do.

Seriously, they are not your friend. This is a tip I am giving you for free.

Second, the curse is almost always ascribed to the Chinese, which is a flat-out lie. As far as anyone can tell it appeared in English first but was ascribed to the Chinese, probably due to a combination of casual racism and because someone wanted to be a shithole of a human being but didn’t want it to be marked down against them personally. A sort of “Hey, I’m not saying this, those terrible Chinese are saying it, I’m just telling you what they said” maneuver.

So not only are they not your friend, they may be also a bigot and passive-aggressive.

That said, the Chinese do have a saying from which it is alleged that the bigoted passive-aggressive curse may have been derived: "宁为太平犬, 莫做乱世人," which, roughly translated, means “It’s better to be a dog in peace, than a man in war.” Which is a maxim which is neither bigoted, nor passive-aggressive, and about which I find a lot to agree with.

The point is… I’ve been a man in war for a very long time now. I think it would be preferable to be a dog in peace. I’ve been working toward that for a while.

My problem is, I live in interesting times.

- Recovered fragment, The End Of All Things

"You should really learn to knock." Morgan Filby said, coming out of the bathroom and finding Clint Monroe in his quarters. It had become something of a ritual; they'd meet up after the day's briefing and grab a bite at the "secret" burger place in Storage Bay 10. The one that the officers pretended not to know about."You should really learn to not leave your door unlocked." "Well, it's not like there's anything here worth… stealing. Speaking of which, what are you drinking?" Clint looked down at the teacup he was holding. "Tea. Found it behind the desk. Tastes like whiskey." "You know, if you're going to waltz in here and steal my booze, the least you could do is pour me a cup." "Booze? I have no idea what you're referring to. We're on a diplomatic tour. There's a no-alcohol policy throughout the ship. Now, if you're looking for tea, I might have just the thing…"

They sipped from white teacups in amicable silence, exhausted from the day's conference, until the jingle from Morgan's PDA broke the quiet. Clint sighed. "Well, that was bound to happen. Don't put her on the- Good evening, Ms Stern." The scowling redhead that was Ambassador Stern appeared on one of the walls, her right eyebrow inching higher as she took in the sight of Morgan in his bathrobe, Clint in his uniform, slumped on opposite sides of the couch and quietly drinking from teacups. Clint thanked his lucky star for the presence of mind to return the whiskey bottle to its hiding place. "You're drinking tea." Ambassador Stern stated, leveling an accusation. She preferred coffee, black. "Well," Clint replied casually, "it was either that, or an evening at the theater." Morgan grew invisibly paler (being black has its advantages), mostly because they were aboard a warship and sarcasm didn't go over well with Ambassador Stern, but also because he hadn't been to a theater in ages and really didn't want to be reminded of that fact. "What kind of tea?" Stern asked. "The best kind." Clint smiled. The Ambassador remained unimpressed. "I'm sending you a file." she said, and Morgan's PDA pinged again. Clint didn't have a PDA; such crude devices were unnecessary for military personnel. Instead, his BUD* flickered to life, and he let the report scroll across his vision. The SANTA* in his head, standard for all CoDeC* operatives, had absorbed the information in the time it took Morgan to skim through the first paragraph.

"Conference at Kashyyyk. Discussing the future of the Hidden Hyperlane. Fancy. But why us? Seems a little close to the action. We've spent the last months negotiating planetary defense contracts with scared government officials across half the galaxy. I can barely remember the last time I actually shot something. I'm practically Sales. Why would they suddenly give us an assignment that's, you know, important?" Stern seemed even less humorless than usual. "Officially, the fact that your new pet was rescued by the Hyperlane gives our team a certain familiarity with its operations that may be beneficial to the proceedings." Clint sighed. "One; he's my assistant, and the name's Clovis. Two; the Asfaltum Consortium is financing half the show, they can send whoever they want. So, charming story, but nobody's buying it." "I'm buying it." Morgan interjected, still looking at his PDA. "He's a giant fluffy rabbit with a predilection for weapons, explosives and fast ships. The Dornies will go crazy for him. Negotiations will be a breeze." They both ignored him. "Seems to me," Clint continued, "sending in the B-team has the added benefit that if something were to go wrong, it'd be easy to pin the blame." "Off the record, I might agree with you. Off the record, if you ever again refer to us as the B-team, I'll make sure your next posting is somewhere cold and miserable." Presently, Morgan gave up his attempts at reading and graced the two of them with an exasperated glare. "Well." Clint said, "Thank you for filling us in, Ms Stern. If you excuse us, I think we're going to have some more of that tea..."


__________
BUD = Brains-Up Display
SANTA = Semi-Autonomous NeuroTactical Augmentation
CoDeC= Consortium Defense Corporation

[Godular]

Though long since faded, the screams echoed in her mind, and still she could not bear to turn away. Ilia's gaze lay frozen upon the tableau before her, as yet more of her people were ushered into the vast chamber, marching in lockstep while those who survived the latest round of infusions assisted their Fellow Servants in removing the bodies of those whose infusion had proven unsatisfactory. Only a mere twenty dead this time, out of a total of four hundred. Their bodies were brought out with care, but she knew it was not out of respect for the dead.

The Mistress had no respect for inanimate objects. She cared only for what could be learned from their bodies, in order to ensure that fewer died on the next round, or the round after that.

There was a terrible sense to the sentiment, which aided nothing in consoling her distress. She saw the same terror in the eyes of those administering the infusion process, their green glowing eyes riddled with emotional self-flagellation borne of knowing the kind of agony they were even now preparing to inflict upon another half-thousand Chiss soldiers. It was almost enough to see this terror for those about to undergo the procedure to feel some sense of kinship with their brethren-in-bondage.

The sound of approaching footsteps went ignored until a sense of well-being and euphoria began to well from within her mind, and she froze. "Do not," she said with a tear in one red eye, despite her enormous self-discipline. "Some pain should not be suppressed."

The feeling subsided, and the footsteps approached closer. "Of course, my dear. I apologize for the presumption."

She turned to her counterpart, the Godulan Kal'Shazzar. Glowing red eyes locked with glowing green irises, and words were shared between them even though neither spoke or opened a connection. She hunted for any sign that he enjoyed what was being inflicted upon her people, and he allowed her to see the truth of him. Finally, with a sigh of grief, she broke the silence by speaking a single word:

"Why?"

He shook his head. "You know the reason. We all do." He indicated the blue-skinned soldiers even now being divested of their tunics, placed onto massive metal slabs, and held fast by cushioned metal restraints. "As do they. The Mistress is nothing if not transparent in her reasoning. It is simply more efficient."

"You used to subject your own to this. Why us and us alone?"

Kal'Shazzar stepped forward and looked down upon the proceedings before them. "There is not enough of us left. The infusion requires an organic body. Our bodies would not attract the symbiote."

"This is not symbiosis!" She raged, slamming a hand on the window and drawing a surprised look from her counterpart. "You said it yourself, those things try to take their mind and body. Whether they're strong enough to complete the possession is irrelevant! No matter what, somebody dies!"

"I know, my dear," Kal'Shazzar replied with a calming gesture, reaching for her. "Believe me, I know. We left it behind so long ago because of that exact moral blemish. But we cannot stand against the pragmatic brutality of the Mistress' plans."

He took her hand in his, and though Ilia turned an angry glare upon him, she did not shy from the contact. She opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced by a shout from below. The procedure was commencing once again.

Outside, canisters trailing smoking black mist were lowered upon the bare chest of each Chiss. Most stared directly forward, shining examples of self-discipline in the face of unknown terror. A select few moved their lips in silent catechisms and mantras, concentrating and warding themselves against what they knew to be the most harrowing moment of their lives descending upon them.

At another shout, the canisters clamped into place, and the process began. The Chiss immediately began to spasm and writhe as their eyes began to issue forth a sickly black mist. It could take anywhere from several minutes to an hour for the clash of wills to cease, when they would know whether it was the Chiss or the M'Lekk'Torr that won out. The screaming, however, began immediately.

To her credit, Ilia only shed one more tear while refusing to look away from the plight of her people. Kal'Shazzar was less strong, unable to look upon the tortured souls below.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TASKING KAL'SHAZZAR: REPORT.

Three thousand, six hundred and fifty nine more Chiss have completed the infusion successfully this day. Out of a total of four thousand, that is a failure percentage of less than ten percent. Our most highly-trained personnel had a failure rate of twenty-five percent with weaker infusion stock. The Chiss are possessed of... singular fortitude.

I REQUIRE YOUR ANALYSIS, NOT YOUR PLATITUDES. REPORT FAILURE ANALYSIS.

Post-mortem analysis indicates that the Chiss-Godulan failure differential stems from subtle physical differences more so than any form of mental discipline. With an additional race to compare with the Godulan baseline, we have been able to determine that it is indeed a physical delineation, and not cognitive as conventional theory suggested.

INHERITANCE?

Nothing direct, but several genetic proclivities can be accounted for that would aid in reducing failure rate in the future without affecting any other trait sets. However, this will reduce the failure rate by two to three percent at best.

ACKNOWLEDGED. RESUME INFUSION.

Mistress! I wish to make a request!

ANOTHER? YOU STEP UPON THE CLIFF'S EDGE, SERVANT.

Allow me to find you an alternate stock for infusion! The deciding factor is physical fortitude, and I think I know a species that would prove eminently fitting.

REQUEST ACCEPTED. RETASKING KAZ'RAMAEL TO EXECUTION OF NEW PROTOCOL.

I do not understand.

YOU PRESUME.

I do not ask for clarification.

YOU WILL RECEIVE NONE. RETURN TO YOUR RESEARCH, TRUTHFINDER. THIS IS MY COMMAND.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kal'Shazzar held Ilia in his arms, having finally cried herself to sleep. That she had held out as long as she'd done was a testament to her iron will, but even so she was bound to crack eventually. Not having a choice in the matter did little to allay the guilt of inflicting such torture upon one's own people, a fact that Kal'Shazzar had eminent experience with. He wished to remove this hurt from her, however, but he worried if mayhap he had worsened the situation.

Could she bear the thought of consigning another race to such torture in order to save her own from such treatment?

What did the Mistress know that made her so ready to accept his proposal? She did not even ask what race he had in mind, but he suspected she had already accounted for it. Such was her staggering intellect that not only did she see it coming, she already had plans in motion.

Wookiee hosts for the M'Lekk'Torr.

The poor bastards.

[Godular]

"How's it looking out there?"

Jeram jumped, woken from his reverie by the voice coming from over his shoulder. "All clear sir," he replied while taking the time it took him to complete his sentence to scan the readouts. "Imperial patrols through the region have not deviated from their routes in any significant fashion for the last six hours." He looked over his shoulder, if only to see if his momentary lapse had been noted.

Station Commander Skorrg was smirking at him knowingly. Crap. "Any sign of drawdown? It's been two weeks."

"No sir," Jeram replied. "Fleet numbers remain reinforced, but we still haven't seen any sign of a recon mission after the incident."

"Damnation. It's like they're trying to protect against another attack, but they're afraid of reaching out. What I would not give to know what happened to the Vigilant task force."

Two weeks before, a patrol force led by the Star Destroyer Vigilant was in the process of conducting a sortie through the region when something struck with overwhelming force. This 'something' was undetectable by the long-range scanners the smugglers used to keep track of the patrols, but they saw enough to know two things: one, it had been a single attacker, and two, it had not even left ship debris behind. The star destroyer had not even had time to complete its distress signal. The ships dispatched to aid the destroyer showed up an hour later and left within minutes at what could only be described as a dead run.

Another voice behind Jeram spoke: "We can't keep up the lockdown much longer, Skorrg. We don't have room for more than ten thousand in these facilities and the last arrival put us at nine. I know you don't want to lose a vessel to whatever wiped out the Vigilant, but we've not seen anything out of the ordinary since then. I think it's gone, whatever it was."

Skorrg turned to the owner of the third voice, his smirk gone. "Mark, I wish I shared your confidence. We couldn't see what was attacking the Vigilant even during the attack. It could still be out there, and it might not be friendly."

"It has had two weeks of free reign in this area. Do you think if it were hostile it would not already have located and destroyed us?" Mark placed a hand on Skorrg's shoulder. "We're all worried, Skorrg. But we simply cannot afford to hold off any longer. The other captains are agreed, we have to risk it."

A moment stretched on for hours as Skorrg considered his options. Finally, he nodded. "Fine, but we do this by the numbers, Mark. We get an opening and you shoot it. If I see any vessel just vanish like Vigilant did, I pull the plug."

The two commanders started haggling over departure schedules, and Jeram turned back to his station, realizing he was eavesdropping. What he saw on the screen instantly puzzled him. He turned to the man handling communications. "Hey Jaeger... you getting anything strange on your end?"

"I was just about to ask. Everything's gone silent."

Skorrg and Mark stopped their conversation to look at both of them. "What do you mean? We've had a communications lockdown for the past two weeks as well."

"But the patrols haven't," Jaeger replied. "I hear the static of their encrypted signals all the time, and there's always hissing and sputtering of signals everywhere else. But I'm getting nothing but dead air now. Nothing outside of internal comms. Not even a crackle."

"And my readout's gone blind, sir." Jeram replied.

Skorrg turned to Jeram's station and looked over his shoulder again, then cursed and ran out of the room. "Call general quarters! To arms! It's come for us!"

Jeram heard Mark's footsteps following the commander out of the room just as quickly, calling into his own communicator. "Relay to all ships. We're under attack. I want the escorts in the air and ready to fight in thirty seconds flat or I'll have their hides on my wall!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waystation Bravo was a tightly-operated facility as such things go, independently operated but with strong connections to the recently established 'Hidden Hyperlane' (Skorrg thought such a name to be rather high-handed. Give something a name and you make it a target). The smugglers established at the Waystation had already been in the business of relocating refugees from slavery to their freedom elsewhere in the galaxy. In one direction went refugees and various bits of information, and on return they came laden with weapons and war materiel for the wide variety of resistance groups already working to liberate their countrybeings from chains and bring them to safe haven far away from those who would seek to use them as cheap and expendable labor.

The arrangement meant both that the waystation typically played host to a significant number of refugees waiting both for the ships carrying them to refuel and restock while also waiting for a workable gap to appear in the patrols of the variety of Imperial forces roaming the immediate area, as well as maintained a significant and well-armed defense force.

The sudden communications and sensor blackout had stirred the waystation up like a hornets' nest, drawing out no less than one-hundred and thirty fighter craft and fourty-five heavily armed corvettes into a defensive cordon around the small planetoid that served as the platform for the waystation. They had to rely on VFR for their sensors and Line-Of-Sight communications, due to whatever was preventing everything else from functioning, but their discipline was top notch and their formations held tight.

But they knew they had the disadvantage. Whoever was coming had blocked them from being able to identify which direction they were coming from and from calling for assistance. Now, a full forty-five minutes after the general quarters had been sounded with nary a sign of the invader, the strain was beginning to take its toll.

"Close up, you lunks!" came the call from Gamma Wing Leader Nostromo. "They're sweating us and I won't have our wing crack first!"

A chorus of Rogers accompanied Nostromo's scan of the vicinity. The asteroid field they were located within was sparse as such free-floating fields go, with only three major asteroids within immediate view and some forty other smaller objects presenting the merest of moving glints amongst the vibrant starfield background.

He'd kept his eyes focused on these moving glints, marveling at the majestic view they presented, when something drew his attention from the edge of his vision. He turned directly towards what had drawn him, but saw nothing.

"Eyes open guys, I think we have incoming."

Another chorus of rogers. One shout of "Movement 315 by 40 relative!"

"I don't see it!"

"It's there!"

Nostromo kept his eyes glued to the spot, the same as where he'd thought he'd seen something. Finally, he spotted it... one of the stars vanished for a fraction of a second. Then another... and another... spaced far enough apart that they could not have been produced by one vessel.

"Confirm contact! Multiple incoming! By the gods, they're black as midnight!"

"Bravo to all units, we're detecting three power signatures on approach vector. Painting them now."

Nostromo's fighter shuddered as six pulses of brilliant blue light lanced out into the darkness, detonating in a massive display of brilliant blue light. They all saw the attackers then, and immediately turned towards their opposition and opened fire, supported by the massive batteries of the waystation.

Three vessels in a triangle formation on direct approach, arrowhead-shaped and visible only by virtue of the blasts behind them. They moved slowly, almost languorously, on a path that gave little ambiguity on the nature of their target. They were coming directly for the station. The massive barrage of blaster fire went completely ignored by the approaching vessels, the sheer volume of fire seeming to pass through without effect.

"It's like they don't exist! Our shots are going right through 'em! Switch to missiles! Unload everything!"

"They're ramming!"

Nostromo realized the last speaker was right. The approaching vessels had not even made an attempt to engage the defending fighters and corvettes, and even their slow speed was far too fast for them to simply intend a boarding maneuver. Missiles and blaster-fire leapt out at them, and served only to illustrate their final maneuver as they closed on the waystation. They went from a triangle formation to single-file, and one after another, plowed into the station in a cloud of black mist.

His comms erupted in exclamations of surprise. They thought for certain the move would have been sufficient to destroy the base and shatter the planetoid, yet the vessels simply disappeared into the planetoid, leaving the waystation apparently unscathed.

"They're coming out the other side! Oh gods--"

Static. He turned his fighter towards the enemy vessels, having erupted from the opposite side of the planetoid and finally acknowledging the fighters and corvettes that had been shooting at them with a strobe of sickly blue pulses of light that bloomed into fireballs of destruction the instant they came into contact the defending ships.

"They're going right through our shields! They're go--"

The enemy vessels' fire was precise and withering, one pulse being sufficient to extinguish a fightercraft and several pulses reaching the corvettes at the same time from multiple directions. One of those pulses came straight at Nostromo, and he didn't even have time to turn before it didn't matter anymore.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"By the Force..." Jeram gasped, having watched the destruction on his readouts. "That was less than a minute... Jeram to Skorrg, the enemy ships have cleaned us out."

The vessels had passed through the station seemingly without effect, leaving nothing more than confusion and an oddly pervasive black mist in their wake. Everything seemed oddly muted in the mist, and Jeram's words felt hollow as he spoke them. "The vessels are now taking up a formation above the station."

Jaeger called out. "Commander! We're receiving a signal from the enemy vessels."

Skorrg's voice responded on the intercom, as he'd been working to shore up the barricades blocking off the access points. "Let's hear it."

Jaeger placed the message on all channels and listened. The voice that came through sounded like a sword on a grindstone, rasping and metallic. "Waystation Bravo, we very politely request your surrender. We do not wish to harm your people, but we will if such is necessary. We would prefer to avoid further bloodshed."

"No deal," came Skorrg's reply. "We will defend our charges with our lives if we must."

"Then rejoice!" exclaimed the other. "Your defense is already failed. What point in laying down your lives for a cause lost before you can act?"

"Sir!" another voice shouted before Skorrg could reply, blaster fire in the background. "Enemy contacts coming out of the hab area!"

"How... no... the ram... the fog!" To his credit, Skorrg's confusion only lasted a moment. "All units, converge on the hab area! Kill anything and everything that gets in your way!"

All of the defenders had been focusing their efforts to barricade against anybody approaching from the docking areas. An attack from within was something not accounted for because it had never before happened under such circumstances. The enemy had managed to turn an offensive boarding action into a mopping up operation before a single blaster shot had been fired.

"Such a disappointment," the other voice said. "Hope springs eternal, and fails twice as often."

Jeram cut off the signal from the enemy vessel in disgust, locked out his computer, then picked up his own blaster and joined Jaeger in bolting out of the room to support their comrades.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They ran down corridor after corridor, the pervasive silence proving as disturbing as the cloying mist still clinging here and there. Their seeming isolation in these halls served only to magnify the sense of wrongness hanging over them like a pall. Jeram wasn't sure he had any more adrenaline left in him after he nearly soiled himself in the face of the black ships coming right at him. His heart had damn near cracked a rib, it had been beating so hard.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of silence interrupted only by their running footsteps, the sounds of weapons fire could finally be heard in the distance. There was the blaster fire of their own fighters, but also a strange stuttering buzz would interpose itself amongst the weapons fire, followed by screams.

Just before Jeram thought he was about to reach a group of defending fighters, movement stopped him. A hand reached out and stayed Jaeger, who looked on with open jaw.

A blue-skinned hand had reached out of the wall, near the floor, and deposited a small spherical object on the floor. Before they could react, it started to spin of its own volition and wheeled around the corner to the right. Seconds later, a flash of light erupted from the corridor, followed by several confused screams. Jeram ran forward to assist his fellow fighters, noting only peripherally that the confused screams were very swiftly being silenced.

Rounding the corner, he brought his blaster to bear and immediately started firing down the corridor at the things he saw before him. Three humanoid armored skeletons appeared to be rampaging through a squad of fighters fifteen meters down the corridor, taking advantage of the confusion created by the flash-bang grenade. Stutter-buzzes of their weapons sent strobes of green light towards the fighters, dropping them to the ground in a mass of seizures. The bolts from his own blaster struck two of the skeletons, and they recoiled slightly before turning their faces upon him, featureless aside from a glowing green dot in the exact center of their facade. One bolt also struck the arm of a blue-skinned man in sleek but functional body-armor, gouging a hole in his arm but seeming not to faze him in the slightest, aside from a scathing glare. Aside from this, all three of the skeletons showed no signs of harm from his blaster fire.

Jeram could only stare in shock at the notion of seeing Chiss before him, but this one's glare didn't glow red, but possessed eyes of pure blackness, issuing forth a black mist very much like that of the mist pervading the corridors. As he watched, the hole mended itself, and the Chiss descended into the floor. The three skeletons, however, charged him with a hiss.

He barely had a chance to fall back around the corner before they were on top of him, so fast did they move. The first one vaulted upwards upon approach to the intersection, then bounded off the opposite corners before driving an elbow into his sternum with a force much like driving a sledgehammer into his ribs. The impact threw him back against another wall, giving him the opportunity to see a disarmed and spasming Jaeger being pulled into the wall by more blue-skinned hands.

The three skeletons brought up their hands, and a stutter-buzz punctuated his descent into darkness.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeram awoke in his bed some time later. He got up, got dressed, and headed up to the command center. Skorrg and Jaeger were already there, among others, conversing amongst themselves and planning the upcoming departure schedule and lifting the lockdown.

No words were spoken.

He nodded at the man standing in the exact center of the room, who had turned at his arrival with a welcoming smile and eyes with glowing green irises. Two women, blue-skinned with black misting eyes, strolled around the command center in what could only be described as the strut of prison guards.

Good morning, Kaz'Ramael. He said without speaking.

Good morning, Jeram. We have much to accomplish this day.

[Skaugra]

The stocky form of a dwarf stood dangling in the center of a dark room, a solitary light fixture illuminating his location in the room. Chains kept him upright, locked tightly around his bleeding wrists. His feet hovered a half foot off the ground. His blood dripped unceremoniously from his toes, rivulets dripping from the open wounds carved into his flesh. "Skazi grong." Anvil thief.

"Hit 'im again."

The sound of a whip cracked, followed shortly by the thief's moans of agony. A second dwarf stepped into the light, adorned in ceremonial battle regalia. "Now I'll ask you again, skaz. Who bought it off ya?"

The thief croaked a response, his parched throat cutting his words short. The second dwarf stepped forward, cupping his hand to his right ear and leaning toward the tortured thief. "Wuzzat? Speak up, skaz?" The hand clenched into a fist and smashed the thief across the jaw. The thief's blood spattered across the floor, a small wail echoing from his mouth.

"I SOLD IT TO A HUTT!" The thief's cracked shouting echoed inside the room.

The second dwarf clasped the thief's jaw, pulling him forward. "WHICH HUTT?!"

"I don't know! By Grimnir's beard, I don't know!" The thief sobbed loudly, earning him another fist across the jaw. He shut up quick.

"YOU DO NOT TAKE OUR ANCESTOR GOD'S NAME IN VAIN, SKAZ!" The second dwarf spit on the thief's face, which was then followed up by a second punch to the gut. The thief coughed, spitting up more blood. "Who was the broker?!"

"Twas an umgi," the thief gasped. "And a twi'lek."

The second dwarf brought around his other fist, smashing across the thief's jaw again, followed by another hook. Blood spattered across his massive, gauntlet'd fists. The thief was out, his head hanging against his chest. The second dwarf stepped back, reaching his hand into the darkness to retrieve a full bucket of ice water. He splashed it across the thief's head, earning him a gasp from the thief as he regained consciousness from the shock. The thief's gasping cries echoed through the room again.

"I don't know what disgusts me more, skaz," the second dwarf mused. "The fact that you stole from your own kin, or the fact that you sold such a priceless artifact to a fething Hutt for what amounts to a coin purse full of copper."

Before he could continue his thought, a red light flashed over the entryway to the chamber. He muttered an oath, walking toward the door. "Keep beating him until I say otherwise."

As he exited the chamber, the cries of the thief could be heard in response to continued whippings. The second dwarf shut the door behind him, muffling to sound, and his eyes were greeted by the presence of a slim-framed, silver-haired girl barely a half head taller than him. Her grinning demeanor caused him a level of disgust and discomfort. "What do you want, Ilya?"

"I see you're hard it work, Master Maddox," Ilya replied, beaming at him.

"Forestall the pleasantries, child," Maddox spit. "What has the Rose found for me?"

Ilya giggled, procuring a holopad from behind her back. She handed the device to Maddox. "You'll be happy to know that our agent has found the purveyors of our little thief's goods and is currently embedded with them at this very moment."

Maddox gave Ilya a scoff, running his bloodied finger across the touch screen of the holopad. His eyebrow quirked as his eyes scanned across a particular name in the document. "Ya sent that lass?"

Ilya curtsied, bowing her head. "But of course, Master Maddox. As she was once your loyal servant before my mother took her from you, I felt it appropriate that she be the one to return what was yours."

Maddox snorted, handing the holopad back to Ilya. "As always, you overstep your authority, child."

Ilya pouted, but was interrupted before she could respond by Maddox' guttural chuckling. "Bazett Fraga McRemitz, eh?"

"Indeed," Ilya replied, the pout still on her face from the reprimand she'd received.

Maddox eyes lit up, and a wild grin played across his face. "If it's her, I'm fairly well sure they won't know what him 'em."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some time later, aboard the Bulk Freighter Joyless Debauchery...

Bazett sat in the galley quietly, picking through her dinner. She grimaced as she found yet another wriggling maggot in her food, and she pushed the tray away from herself to the Rodian sitting next to her. He gave her a quizzical look, and she responding with a curt, "Not hungry," before stalking off. It was the second week of her tenure aboard the ship, and she'd so far managed to blend in well with the crew. There'd been a few complications at the start. Some zabrak had fancied himself as a ladies man and had tried to force himself on her. He'd learned that it was a poor decision to mess with her, but not after she'd busted his balls with her heel and busted in the faces of a half dozen of his friends. They'd kept their distance since, the unfortunate zabrak needing a medical drop off on their last stop. That hadn't meant Bazett didn't need to keep a low profile, and she'd done as such since.

Reaching her quarters, Bazett opened the door to be greeted with the sight of a naked, blue-haired man, his ass pointed toward her. The man glanced behind him curiously, and he smirked upon seeing her. "You enjoy your food, Master?"

Bazett heaved a sigh. "What do you think, Lancer?" She stepped past his nude form, pulling her own shirt over her head and dumping it on the bed on top of his clothing, leaving her with only her coveralls and a sports bra on. She then plopped herself in the easy chair in front of her desk, reaching for an already open, unfinished bottle of Bugman's Finest. Lancer settled himself on the arm of her chair, snatching the bottle from her hand as she went to take a swig. She swiped for it, missing cleanly. "HEY!"

"Did you find out anything today?" he asked, ignoring her protestations as he took a swig. Bazett grumbled, reaching over his lap to pull out another bottle from the wall-embedded mini-fridge and popped it open with her bare thumb, taking a swig.

"Kashyyyk," she replied with a huff, still miffed at him for stealing her brew.

"Kashyyyk?" he echoed.

"Aye, they're doing a hand off there." Bazett reached down her side, pulling a remote for the screen in front of her. She clicked it on, and her eyes were greeted by some Dornalian magical girl show. "There weren't any specifics, but we'll need to jump ship there if we're going to find out which Hutt bought the anvil."

Lancer heaved a sigh, obviously displeased but still grinning. "Man. When am I ever going to get to cut loose?"

"When I give you permission," Bazett barked, annoyed with his tone.

"Now now," he chided. "The only reason why I'm like this is because you wouldn't let me handle the ruffian from before."

"And if I had, our cover would have been blown," she quipped back. Bazett sighed, reaching over to pull Lancer flat onto the seat of the chair. She lifted herself up to lay crosswise atop him, her legs dangling over the arm he'd been sitting on before, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Just be patient, my love," she whispered sweetly, laying kisses against his jaw...

[Orthodox Gnosticism]

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

New Coruscant

A large alien sphere held position over the northern hemisphere of the blue star. Metallic, artificial, the abomination stood still over blue star of the Teranoir System. It’s outer skin shined bright, not with the gray of durasteel, but with millions of minor holographic projectors, illuminating the night with the flag of the Galactic Imperium.
Grand Admiral Soros gently swirled his warm glass of chianti wine, as he stared out into the beauty and raw power of the blue star before him. Millions of miles away, he couldn’t help to marvel at it’s beauty, it’s raw power, as the white lines streaked across the massive star’s surface.

Taking the swirling wine, he pressed it to his lips, and enjoyed the dry flavor of the wine. He was so engrossed in the moment, that he was almost startled, as a female’s pale hand gently touched his back, gently pressing against his spine.

The sudden touch jolted him back to reality, as he turned his head to be greated by the pale skin Miralukian woman dressed in black and red. Looking down, at his glass first to see if a single drop of his wine had spilled, then down to his uniform to make sure it was still clean and proper, he turned his head towards his violator.

“Lady Descova” he said trying to hold back his surprise. “I was not aware that her Majesty sent a Sith to the station.” Descova’s smile was all that he could see, as the red cowl that she wore covered most of her face above her nose. “If the White Lady wanted you to know if I was coming, then you would have been told.” The dark figure said as she turned her head out to the star. “It is beautiful isn’t it?” she asked him.

He wondered how she could see, or tell if it was beautiful, without eyes. “It is, but today is too important to be lost to such sentimentality.” Descova ignored his comment a she stared out of the view port window. “Yes but beauty is something we should appreciate, especially when it’s life is about to be snuffed out. Tell me, what do you think about this test?”

Soros was a bit taken back by the Sith’s question. It wasn’t often that a Sith seemed to take such personal interest in him. In fact it has never occurred. “My lady, it is an honour to be chosen to be the commander of the Congresses, and her majesty’s military base.”

“I didn’t ask for formality or for a well rehearsed speech, I asked what do you think of this test? She said, her voice devoid of any anger. Soros didn’t know what to say, but he knew that if we was to give a wrong answer to an Inquisitor, that it could have life altering consequences. How much worse was it that he had the attention of the Inquistion’s betters, a Sith?

“To be honest, I believe this station, like the others, are a great instrument of peace. Once we test this station’s capabilities, it will let the worlds of the galaxy know that we hold the ultimate power in the universe.”

Descova laughed, “You know I was there at Atola, where my master inacted her terrible ritual. I watched through the force, as a planet simply faded from the force itself, leaving only a blank hole in the force itself. It was terrible and beautiful to behold. I do not expect the first Super Death Star to match the violent void that surrounded that city world.”

Soros stood quietly, as the Mirlukian continued her musings, “I still expect the aftermath of this station to be beautiful, even if it is lesser.”

Soros finally summoned the courage to continue, “I don’t claim to know about your mystic ways, my lady, but I do know that our more rebellious elements, as well as our adversaries will be held back by the fear that this station, and the more powerful Byss Class Super Death Stars. Descova laughed a bit longer at that. “Grand Admiral, do you not know, this galaxy is always mired in war. Even if they don’t directly oppose us like the Dornie governments, individuals will always seek to topple the powerful, to bring about the chaos that their inferior self rule would bring.”

“Chaos is not the infidels that attacked Coruscant and Alderaan, but chaos is the heart of the unenlightened individual. These barbaric Raman believe in folly that their self rule will promote them. They reject the advances of civilization that only the Imperium provides. These barbarians don’t understand fear, much less the higher functions of society. This is why we must remain vigilant, and why will have to use this station, and the other weapons, to force the barbarians into compliance. This is not a weapon to insure peace, but a weapon to protect us from the false sense of freedom and chaos that rebellion breeds.”

Soros stood out looking at the star, as a young male in an Imperial uniform walked behind him, “Sir we are ready to begin out test.”

“Very well.” Soros said, turning to the sith, “With your permission my lady, we shall begin.”

Dathomir

Valentine had not been on the world for more than two months, yet she had grown to despise the world. The blood red sky, with trees that grew out of the ground that more resembled thorns than any tree she knew. In the last two months, she learned very quickly that Dathomir was not a world for the weak, not a world that enjoyed the freedom of earth, but was the very essence of all the evil that existed in the universe.

Women with pale silver skin ruled the men with absolute authority like goddesses amongst piss ants, and it was this attitude that the Bonk despised more than anything. She remembered when she first came here, and was in marvel of the monsters, the Rancors the largest predators on the world, or the Vine snakes, which possessed a venom that would make the Black Mamba look like a glass of whiskey in comparison.

During Valentine’s time here though she learned that the true monsters were not those birthed by the dark nature of this world, but those who were birthed by the dark magics. Here in a world allied with the Huntarians and the Congressionals, was a world entrenched in social hierarchy, where women ruled, and men were less than cattle.
Valentine knew she had to tread carefully, as she approached, with three of her Sisters of the Revered Knights, a small order here on Dathomir who were tasked to free the slaves of the world. It was always a task, trying to break into the slave pens, even with the stealth suits. Rancors, monster slaves of the witches patrolled the area and even through the suit their keen sense of smell could always pick up the knights as they approached.

Valentine laid on her belly as she looked out through a pair of binoculars towards her objective. She pulled out her rifle and took aim at the creature. Taking a deep breath, she slowly exhaled, til all breath left her lungs. Holding the rifle steady, she gently squeezed the rifle. A loud sound of rushing air pushed out of the rifle, as a canister 1 meter long launched out of the barrel hurling towards the rancor at high speed. Less than a second later, the canister slammed against the beast’s thick skin, shattering upon impact.

The Rancor looked towards them as a large yellow cloud appeared near it’s nostril. The monster took in a deep breath as the fumes were sucked into its giant lungs, and exhaled as if it were nothing more than a drag off a cigarette.
“Shit.” She thought as the monster turned towards them. Each step thudded like that damn T-rex out of Jurassic Park, as it ran towards them. “Fire!” she yelled out in panic, as her other three sisters fired their own Canisters towards the beast’s open maw.

The Rancor let out a deep roar, as it continued its run towards the four bonks, with a yellow mist surrounding the beasts face with the three additional impact. “I don’t think it’s doing any good comrade.” One of her sisters spoke, with a thick Ukraine accent, but that didn’t deter valentine much. “Get ready, Weapons Free.!” She was about to yell, as her heart pounded louder than the foot steps of the rancor. She grabbed her gauss AK-47, not knowing how well the rifle would do against the thick hide of the rancor. Silently she prayed, “My lord in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” the bonk thought the silent prayer to herself. “Please forgive us our trespasses, and forgive the trespasses of those who stand against us. Please guide our actions and out bullets to your righteous outcome, and show these pagans your divine fury as we unleash the hell of the Kalashnikov upon them. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.” As she finished the Dornie prayer, Valentine turned to her sisters.

“Ok, time to bring this monster down!” she yelled out. Standing up to defy the fates and goddesses of this world, the Bonk took her rifle and took aim. Just then, she noticed the Rancor started to stumble, taking one step like a drunkard, then another, before finally falling to the ground.
“We’ll I’ll be a flying monkey’s uncle.” One bonk said in a thick Scottish accent. “Looks like those bastards at Luxemburg finally made a tranquilizer that could knock out one of those things!” Valentine shook her said, “Don’t mention such abominations on this world. Lord knows that such evil witches as these could very well have a flying monkey army somewhere around here. Let’s go!”

Together they rushed the slave pit. Wire cutter’s in hand, they sliced at the fence, cutting the wires with ease.

New Coruscant

New Coruscant was the second largest Class of Death Star in the Galactic Imperium. Outclassed only by the New Byss, and the soon to be completed New Alderaan Class, the New Coruscant’s massive 21,344 kilometer Circumference was nothing more than a meet dot against the backdrop of the massive Blue Star.

Silently it sat, as a large red beam began to grow from the South Eastern Hemisphere of the artificial world, growing larger and brighter, until it unleashed it’s fury and hell upon the powerful Blue Star. The red beam within a second slammed through the corona of the star, breaching deeper until it hit the core.

There the sun’s mass began to ripple with dark energy for a moment, as the sun’s surface began to shift into a vibrant array of colors before the core exploded.
Stellar debris launched in every direction ripping apart everything in its wake.

Soros stood by, watching, as he saw the sun start to expand. “Test is complete, and the Infinity Gate is on stand by, Admiral. Stellar debris will hit our position in less than one minute.”

Soros nodded, satisfied by the result. “Contact Dathomir, and have them open the gate to Tapani Base, and let the crew know that they will get double the wine ration tonight. Good job”

The blue stellar debris field grew wider, as the sun began to super nova.

“We should get going.” Soros said calmly, as the Sith stood in silence to his left. A Dark rift opened and on the other side he could clearly see a warm tropic world on the other side of the infinity gate opening. A moment later the ring surrounded the station and it was safely in the New Tapani’s Solar system.

[Huntaer]

Onboard the HMS Durance...

The other officers in the room stood silent, afraid to speak their minds until one of them pulled out a holographic projector which showed the map of the local Anoat Sector. “Captain Boehner... We have found a pattern to the Raider attacks. So far they have liberated the camps at Allyven, Isis and Tokmia. We think they’re going to hit Ione soon.”

“I’ve already figured that.” Captain Boehner spoke. She was tall, slender and heavy chested. Her long hair was curled up in a ball as per regulations with the Huntarian Military. Her black fascist uniform was neatly ironed and her lightning bolt rank insignia glittered in the room’s light. “I’ve ordered Colonel Kale to double their reinforcements at Burnin Konn, it’s along the path to Ione. He will bring the Raiders under control.”

The officers in the room looked at each other nervously. “Umm... Captain...” One of them handed her a datapad. “Kale... Couldn’t mobilize enough men. He wasn’t able to repel the Raider’s attacks on Burnin Konn. There’s other news---” The Captain motioned for the officer to stop talking.

The room fell silent as the Captain put on her reading glasses and looked at the report on the datapad. She then slowly took off her glasses, her eyes were filled with rage as she attempted to control her body. She let her hair loose, it fell beyond her shoulders. She didn’t really care about regulations right now as she was more concerned about the level of incompetence of the men under her. “I want the following Officers to stay here: Norton, Darand, Rene and Brenko.” The other officers didn’t wait for her to order them out and quickly scurried out of her office.

“I gave him an order! Kale’s defense of the system was a fucking ORDER! Who the fuck do you think you are to disobey an order from me!? So this is what it has come to... The military, the officers, even the Empress has been lying to me. Our Clones are just a bunch of contemptible, disloyal cowards!”

Colonel Norton had remained silent until this moment during the meeting. He was older than she was, balding hair line. He had a face that looked like it saw a thousand battles. He stood up from his seat and glared right at her, “I will not permit you to insult my forces like that... Captain.”

“THESE CLONES ARE FUCKING COWARDS, TRAITORS AND IDIOTS! I want this entire batch EXTERMINATED!” Shouted the HMS Durance’s Captain.

Colonel Norton stood there, cold and emotionless but obviously determined to reach through the raging Captain. “Captain Boehner, this is outrageous! Only a Grand Admiral has that kind of authority. You most certainly do not.”

“The fucking Grand Admirals are the scum of the Huntarian Empire! They no loner even believe in our cause... And I doubt they ever have. They dare to call themselves Admirals, years at a military academy in the middle of some backshit high class society assholes just to learn which end is their ass and their mouth! For years the military has hindered the Humanists plans for galactic domination and wiping out the Raman menace! They sit back in their fancy super dreadnoughts and expect me to hold an entire Sector with barely any real resources to maintain our control! I should’ve liquidated all of the high ranking officers under my control as our ancestors would have! I don’t have their resources, yet I’m barely able to hold onto the Anoat Sector without their fleets of ships and resources!”

“You’ve been given the amount of resources the Empire deemed necessary to contain the Raman threat, Captain. You will stop your rampage right now.”

“We’ve been betrayed and deceived from the very beginning! This is a monstrous betrayal from the Huntarian Empire! They will all pay though in the end after I’m done with the Anoat Sector. I’ll make them pay with their blood! They think these people aren’t a security risk and deny that their camps have even been eliminated... But they have! I’ll shove their reports right up their tight asses! The movement has lost!”

Norton slapped Boehner across the face, “we have not lost yet, Captain and you will calm down.”

“HOW DARE YOU! I’LL HAVE YOU EXECUTED!”

Norton smiled and held out a special insignia, “I think not Captain. We might hold the same officer powers in the military but...” He pulls up his arm sleeve and shows her a tattoo. “I am a special representative of the Empress herself. You know what this insignia means right?” The Captain nodded, slightly more cautious but still filled with rage, “you are competent when it comes to command, but your skills in controlling your rage leaves much to be desired. Hence why they sent me in to deal with you until you do. Now... As to your resource problem...” He sat back down in his chair and folded his arms, “that’s why I’m here.”

The Captain scoffed, “you? You’re shitting me.” The Colonel nodded, “is this a joke?”

He smiled, “lets just say that the contacts I have are the resources you need to get something of this magnitude done. You want to find out why our camps are being taken over so easily and you blame it on the Clone’s incompetence correct?” The Captain nodded, wondering where this conversation was heading. “You’d only be partially correct. If you were truly smart and paid attention to the report you were just handed you’d realize something was off with the way the attacks were carried out.”

“Huh? How?” Now the Captain was intrigued. The Colonel smiled and scrolled down and highlighted a paragraph, pointing out a key bit of information. “We have a spy?”

The Colonel clapped, “bra--vo!” He said sarcastically. “So was that rant really necessary if you had actually bothered to thoroughly read your report? Probably not. If you stopped paying attention to your feminine issues with emotions and start thinking things through logically, you’ll actually see the whole picture and not just the tiny parts that are smudging it up.”
The Captain sighed, “all right, fine, I’ll try to control myself in the future.”

“There’s a good girl!”

The Captain continued to study the datapad now that she was calmer and had a clearer mind, “so who do you think we should contact? We need someone to track down the escaped slaves and to take a look at our mole problem.”

“I’ll plus one that for you. I’ll get in touch with an Inquisitor.”

The Captain paused and looked up from her datapad with a look of fear in her eyes, “... An Inquisitor?”

The Colonel smiled, “come come my dear Captain, surely you don’t think we are going to release an Inquisitor on the mole and then have you disciplined now do you?” He said trying to reassure her. Then he leaned back, studying her look, “not unless you’re trying to hide something from the Empire... Are you?”

She smiled, shaking off the unpleasant idea of meeting an Inquisitor. “Of course not! I’ve just heard some disturbing rumors about them from the grapevine.”

The Colonel nodded, believing she isn’t telling him the whole truth, “well not to worry Ivanna, whatever it is you’re hiding the Inquisitor will likely not be interested. After all we are more interested in finding out this mole of yours who helped our slaves escape. OH! And the other person I can get in touch with to help us find our missing bodies. A Bounty Hunter.”

The Captain snorted loudly, “Bounty Hunters? We don’t need that scum!”

“On the contrary my dear Captain, this particular Bounty Hunter is of a person of most importance to the Empire. I’m of course, talking about Cassandra Nord.”

[Godular]

That is our target.

How can you be sure?

Skorrg asked the question without turning or speaking. The command center was quiet despite the frenetic bustle of activity, silent save for the occasional footsteps of the blue-skinned Sentinels and green-eyed Engineers as they made their way from place to place, installing or overseeing. In the midst of it all, Kaz'Ramael stood with a quirky and indecipherable smile.

Only the Dornalians would so merrily mock such a prominent piece of galactic history. Such temerity is ingrained in their culture.

You seem to know them well.

We had... common ground. Allow them to board.

Jaeger opened the channel once again and spoke. "Waystation Bravo to Aluminum Pigeon, you have clearance to land. Please proceed to Berth 13-Charlie. Welcome aboard."

The reply was almost immediate: "Aluminum Pigeon to Waystation Bravo, we're outta hooch. Flight went longer than expected and Nelson had a birthday party. We are in DIRE need of resupply." The voice sounded desperate.

Hooch?

Roll with it. Send them to Maskar.

"Ah, Waystation Bravo to Aluminum Pigeon, you will be directed to the station quartermaster-bartender once you have disembarked. He will see to your... supplies."

"BEST KIND OF QUARTERMASTER... err, acknowledged, Waystation Bravo."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The YT-1300 freighter landed without incident, though its roughshod appearance drew eyebrows, particularly in contrast to the guns mounted top and bottom alongside the surreptitious armor enhancements and the surprising agility of its movements. Once it had landed and the boarding ramp had extended, a terrifying music-like racket filled the docking area and sent several techs scurrying.

Two men confidently strode down the ramp, one bopping his head in time with the rhythm of the music that sounded like raucous banthas mating with their riders cursing at them to get back in line. They wore matching outfits that seemed civilian at first glance but quickly made their military functionality apparent once one started a closer inspection. Both beamed knowing smiles at the head tech as he walked up with his ears covered and visibly wincing under the acoustic onslaught.

"By the Force... what IS that?" He asked the newcomers.

The head-bopper flashed some kind of hand sign. "FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, BITCH!"

"Is that a band, or a threat?"

"YES."

This gave the head tech pause, but he shook his head and pressed on. "Could you turn it down? It is difficult for the refuel crew to concentrate."

"Hell. Fuckin' pussies. Awright." The non-head-bopper pulled out a radio. "Nelson. Nelson! NELSON! CUT IT OFF!"

Cursing erupted from the radio, but the music shut off five seconds later. Both of the Dornalians looked at the head tech with a combination of hatred and expectation. The head-bopper seemed particularly affronted that he no longer had a beat to step to.

"Our apologies for the inconvenience," The head tech began, "I have been told to direct you to sector 4-Gamma to coordinate with Quartermaster Maskar on your resupply. Will you be needing accomodations?"

"Yeah," The non-head-bopper replied. "We're gonna be here a couple days. Caught some flak on the way from Ord Mantell and we're gonna need to do some field repairs. Got anywhere for the fugees to crash? They're getting a little stir-crazy."

"We do have a holding area for refugees to stay." The tech gave them directions in a way that suggested he knew exactly WHY they were stir-crazy. The rest of the refuel crew finally made their way out to the ship as he did so, sporting sound-cancelling headphones.

"Coo. We'll have Nelson send 'em over. If you'll excuse us, we gotta to go get drunk."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey Daniel," Butcher elbowed his companion in the ribs once they were out of the docking bay. "Did you see those guns?"

"Hard not to. Big sons of bitches. You ever seen pieces like those before?"

"Hell no," Butcher replied. "Damn things don't match anything in our files, Impy or not. No fighter patrols either. Damn suspicious if ya ask me."

"Doesn't seem like there's been a change in command, same crew as last time," Daniel commented, recalling their initial contact with the denizens of Waystation Bravo, though it had a different name back then. They'd recognized Jaeger's voice immediately. "Should we ask around?"

"Maybe," Butcher replied, tapping his chin in thought. "Can't hurt to have a chat with some bargoers while I'm getting things settled with Maskar, at least."

They stepped into the Sector 4 bar/supply office and looked around. Nobody seemed to take any notice of them, though the typical assortment of smugglers seemed to have thinned somewhat, replaced in large part by groups of station staff and squads of engineers Butcher hadn't seen on his last trip through. Several of the engineers had stuck a few tables together and were in the process of playing beer pong. Actual beer pong. He hadn't seen that game played anywhere in the galaxy before. A shout of 'FLOOR!' erupted to the other side and he saw two engineers pointing at the ground along with several station staff... except for one who wasn't fast enough and immediately had to drain his glass amidst a storm of laughter. Most of the other tables were engaged in games of sabacc or other strange card games.

Daniel went off towards a table in the back.

"HEY! BUTCHER!"

The shout turned his attention to Maskar, who waved him over from behind the bar. Relieved to see a familiar face, he hurried as nonchalantly as he could towards the bar. The quartermaster immediately placed a small glass of some strange red drink before him.

"No charge, courtesy of Commander Skorrg. Careful, it might taste fruity but you take more'n one drink in 5 minutes, this stuff will put you to the floor."

"Fast acting, huh?" Butcher said, eyeing the liquid while he swirled the glass around. "What is it?"

"Crimson Dawn or something like that. The new guys brought it with 'em and were eager to share." He nodded to the engineers playing beer pong. "Strange folks, but hard workers, I'll give 'em that much. Only two days since we released the lockdown and installation of the new armament is almost done."

Butcher downed the drink in one gulp and considered the empty glass while smacking his lips. "I... don't know what to think of this. I didn't think cherries fermented well." The closest he could come to the feeling the drink instilled in him was something along the lines of being wrapped up in the coziest blanket in the universe along with a small swarm of sleeping kittens purring all around him. He always was a cat person.

"Oh, is that what it is? I thought it was familiar, but I couldn't place it." Maskar gave the room a quick scan to make sure nothing was getting out of hand.

"Yeah," he replied. "Cherries. I can't tell if I like it or not... and its like I have this odd desire to try another glass if only to see if the next will make it more clear."

"My thoughts exactly!" Maskar bellowed, slapping the bar counter. "And believe me, it just gets more intense as you go along." He ran a cloth over the counter. "And you might not feel it, but this stuff is strong."

Butcher leaned in and placed a datapad with a list of necessary supplies on it. Maskar skimmed through it and smiled. "Gotcha covered, bud. You're welcome to snag a few bottles of this stuff if ya want. If y'all need anything to keep you occupied, you just ask. Careful with those engineers tho, the girls are pretty damn feisty."

The Dornalian snorted. "I grew up on a world populated by a swarm of homicidally randy cat-girls that were equally likely to rip your skin off, fuck you, or some combination thereof. Don't talk to me about feisty."

Maskar quirked an eyebrow at him, gauging him. "Wow... you're actually not exaggerating. Yike."

Butcher took the opportunity of his host's gobsmacked expression to change the subject. "So. Those guns you mentioned earlier. Ain't seen anything like 'em."

Maskar shrugged. "Ain't got a clue how they work, m'self. Only know the damn things are extremely efficient and can shoot around obstacles, so we don't much need fighter crews anymore. Sent 'em all off with the smugglers as escorts. Got new shields and stealth devices too, to keep our ships from being spotted as easily. New power plant too. Damn thing's smaller but produces so much more power and I can't spot how."

"Those are pretty hardcore upgrades. Who do we thank?"

"They don't talk much about that. They like to keep their identity a secret or something. They just call themselves 'interested parties'. Strange bunch. Another drink?"

Butcher nodded. "Strange indeed," he said, turning to look around the bar again.

Daniel was now playing beer pong.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Butcher hadn't felt like 'socializing' when he entered his room. The warm'n'fuzzies presently swaddling him courtesy of that strange red drink made him want to just curl up and hibernate. Daniel hadn't been able to glean anything meaningful from the engineers other than they weren't galaxy natives either. As if that were in any doubt.

He flopped onto the bed and fell asleep immediately.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Such strange dreams.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He awoke, much as he was when he had fallen asleep. He stood up with a yawn and stepped into the washroom. Washing his face in ice-cold water, he dried off and looked into the mirror.

Green eyes stared back at him.

"Hmm. Can't have that now, can we?" He said to no-one in particular. His eyes returned to their normal hue. With a nod to himself, he turned and left.

[Asfaltum]

Clint could never quite bring himself to like Colonel Gene Archer. He seemed like a nice guy, fairly easy to get along with, but the man had too many secrets. As far as Clint knew, Colonel Archer didn't even have an official title or position to go along with his rank. He was just That Guy in CoDeC. That guy that had been everywhere, had seen everything, had advised everyone, and always knew what was going on - especially when you didn't. If you wanted to cripple CoDeC, and by extension the Consortium, all you had to do was make sure Colonel Archer went missing. Clint suspected there were entire departments of the Consortium administration that would grind to a halt simply because no one would know who to talk to without Archer passing on instructions. Officially, Archer was just another lean mean typing machine. A retired soldier turned bureaucrat. Unofficially, he was the guy who made sure that whenever a thing needed doing, whatever that thing was, it got done. And if his facial expression was anything to go by, there was a thing that needed doing.

"I've sent you a file, Lieutenant Monroe." Archer was saying, from the wallscreen. "It's a recording. I'd like you to have a look at it." Clint sighed. People were getting in the habit of handing him files. As far as military careers go, never a promising development. "How's the life of a CoDeC diplomatic liaison?" Archer continued. "Do you get to practice that winning smile of yours?" Clint, of course, rarely smiled. That was probably the only thing he had in common with Ambassador Stern. "Well, it's certainly a new experience, Colonel." he replied. "Traveling the galaxy, seeing new places, meeting new people, talking to them instead of shooting them…"
"I wouldn't get too comfortable with that if I were you, Lieutenant."
Clint shrugged and let the SANTA in his head play the recording across his field of vision. A few moments later he looked down at his teacup, wondering if the whiskey had been unusually strong this time, or if he really had just watched three ghost ships stomp out a decently sized smuggler outpost in a matter of minutes.

He reached for the first idea that came to him. "Someone else has Phase tech?"
"Possibly, or something similar to it. But more importantly, we don't know who." the Colonel mused. "Those ships don't match Imperial designs, or anyone else we've encountered. And that's not even the interesting part."
"Clearly we don't share the same definition of interesting."
"24 hours after the attack, that outpost was back in business."
"Apparently we also don't share the same definition of business…"
Archer ignored him. "Refugees and personnel from that station have made their way along the Dornie Hyperlane, magically unscathed, and without a single mention of any incident more memorable than a bar fight."

There was a moment of silence as the Colonel let that sink in. Clint scratched his chin.
"Hivemind?"
"There are theories."
"There are also procedures for this kind of situation."
"It's not quite that simple."
"Speaking of theories, two questions come to mind. You said Dornie Hyperlane."
"Yes."
"I was under the impression the Hidden Hyperlane was a joint venture."
"It is." Archer said, slightly uncomfortable. Clint looked unconvinced.
"Unless it isn't, of course."
"It is a joint venture, Lieutenant. That being said, there may be a certain amount of… compartmentalization. So to speak. We provide most of the funding, and the Dornalians organize most of the day-to-day activities."
"And presumably are the first ones to be reached by any kind of retaliation. Because we all know how much the Consortium loves the Paranoia Olympics. I'm guessing there's another insulated layer of operations within the Hidden Hyperlane, that is run strictly under CoDeC supervision only. So to speak."
Archer was scowling now. "That information is above your pay grade, lieutenant."
"Which brings me to question number two; what does all this have to do with little me?"
"Well, as of right now, it's no longer above your pay grade. You're temporarily being promoted to the acting rank of Brigadier General."
"Beg your pardon?" Clint scrutinized his empty teacup.
"You're a smart man, General. I'll give you a minute to fit the pieces together."

Clint was indeed a smart man, but momentarily preoccupied with getting a refill. Unfortunately, reaching under the desk to retrieve the bottle he had hastily stashed away before accepting the transmission might not be good manners for a newly minted general. Archer was smiling benevolently from the screen.
"Why don't you have some more whiskey, General?" Smug bastard. Clint poured himself another cup. "Honestly, I don't know why you bother drinking the stuff. It's not like the augmentation allows you to get drunk."
"Old habits die hard. I like the taste. Also, I'm not sure having your consciousness ripped out and then parked in a semi-biological Picasso painting made from DNA patchwork qualifies as, you know, Augmentation. In the literal sense."
"Hm, guess you're right. Call it an Upgrade then."
"I was thinking Incarceration, but that works too…"
"Now then. You were making unfounded allegations about Consortium paranoia and subterfuge."
"Right."
"Do continue with the exercise, and I'll fill in the blanks, if any."
Clint sipped from his cup to buy himself some time.

"Well, first things first. Presumably at some point in time the Consortium becomes aware of clandestine Dornalian operations involving freed slaves, smuggling, intelligence gathering, other nice stuff."
"Presumably."
"Since they're lacking government sanction, we graciously step in, offer to pay for the party and fund future expansion."
"Possibly."
"We fold some of our own covert operations into the existing organization. Because why not. The misdirection is lovely; our ships don't actually utilize the Hyperlane routes. If anything goes wrong, the Dornies get all the blame and we get to remain anonymous. No one is going to look for another shady organization underneath the one they just uncovered."
"Somewhat optimistic, but do continue."

"So all is well, until you realize someone else is riding piggyback on your Hidden Hyperlane. Quite an impressive level of paranoia by the way, putting Dornie operations under surveillance."
The Colonel smiled, clearly taking it as a compliment. "Technically that outpost belonged to third-party contractors, and the surveillance was just standard operational prudence." he said, deciding to go for modesty.
"If you say so. I'm still wondering how we got any intel at all, considering the amount of jamming. I mean, the entire place got turned into a deadzone during the attack."
"Oh that's easy. It's the fallacy of all high-tech species. They ignore the efficiency of lower orders of technology. Simple things like background radiation, passive sensors and long-range optics parked halfway across the system. Cheap, efficient, and virtually invisible, unless you know exactly what to look for and where to look for it. But you were saying?"

Clint sipped his whiskey. "Well, now you know there's a third player, but you don't know for how long they've been playing. Maybe this attack was just the beginning. Or maybe you just stumbled across something that's been going on for some time now."
"Maybe." Colonel Archer looked somewhat depressed, as if admitting a personal failure. Maybe he was. Clint would never know.
"You don't know how much of the Dornalian organization is compromised, so you can't really warn them without the risk of alerting our mysterious friends. Heck, even trying to get a personnel list or cargo manifest from that outpost might raise flags."
"If done through official channels, yes. Luckily we happen to know that the Dornalians have a secondary data bank at Kashyyyk that tracks all personnel and cargo movements."
"I see. So because you don't know who's watching, and anything other than routine activity may cause suspicion, you replaced the diplomatic team for the long-awaited Kashyyyk conference with one that happens to have a CoDeC liaison. Me."
"Something like that. I have a file containing more detailed instructions."
"Of course you do."

[Orthodox Gnosticism]

Dance with the Devil

Valentines’ legs ached like they had never ached before. Thirty two hours, she and her team ran without stopping. Her power armor was depleted to ten percent, her ammo was almost gone. It was as if this entire world were hunting her, and the survivors.

She stopped to take a breath, a simple breath. Valentine had lost too many people already. One was too many to the hero’s mind, but she had lost eight of the twenty three original rescues. Taking in a deep breath, the Bonk’s ears heard a small rustle of leaves. She pulled out her pistol, and pointed in the direction. She wanted to squeeze off a few rounds, scare or kill whatever it was that was stalking them, but she knew better. Valentine had too much discipline, to shoot blindly at something she didn’t know what it was. Besides it would waste one of the few bullets she had left.

All she wanted was to be a hero. One of the greats, like Christopher Markum from that hit show on Earth, or Mr.T from the A Team. Mr. T never lost anyone, and the A-team always saved the day. Instead she lost eight. Guilt wracked her, as a younger woman cried out, “I need to stop!” she said, her face flush as she gasped the words out trying to catch her breath.

“You can rest when you’re dead. If we don’t keep moving, we will be!” Valentine ordered the survivors. Some of them begrudgingly got up. It wasn’t their fault, and Valentine knew it. They didn’t have the luxury of her power armor to help carry her, and she used the last of her stims about two hours ago. She could see the ribs in the women, malnourished, and punished for some sin against her witch master. The men were in better shape, being forced in to labor, but kept healthy enough for breeding stock.

“Lord.” Valentine stopped and said a quick prayer. “Please help us through this!” She was about to continue, until the snap of a twig, and more leaves rustling around them silenced her. “My God, my God, why does the Colonial Author have to make it so damn hard to be a hero?”

One of her sisters in arms, pointed, “You have to be fucking kidding me, Hell Hounds!” she yelled. Valentine couldn’t see anything, but the leaves moved as if a large paw pushed the leaves away. Valentine stopped, and took off her helmet. Without the filters in the Power Armor, she could smell it. The thick musk of the hounds, which reminded her a bit of sulfur mixed with the pungent smell of swamp gas.

“Pulling her rifle up, she checked the magazine. Twenty three rounds left, and four left in her side arm. That was it. She wanted to curse not bringing enough ammo, but she knew she did. There were a lot of shots, and she killed enough wild life on this trip that she knew the EPA and Wildlife Gaming Commission back home would have her thrown in jail for twenty to life.

She levied her rifle at the sound, and the source of the smell. Gently taking in a deep breath, she slowly exhaled. “I’m the biggest bitch on this planet, you sons of bitches!” she yelled out in a final moment, and squeezed the trigger.

Pop, pop, pop, three rounds from the burst fire went down range and hit the target. Black Blood shot out into the air. Twenty rounds.

Valentine heard screams to her left, as the leg of one of the survivors ripped open, spraying blood all over the ground. Valentine turned her rifle quickly, and aimed about five inches above the torn leg of the man who was being pulled into the wood line by an unseen force. Pulling the trigger again, pop, pop, pop. Seventeen rounds!
“Get a move on!” she yelled to the rest of the pack, as she fired again, this time twards more leaves that were being disturbed by an unseen animal. “Just fucking great, invisible dogs!” she thought to herself as she reached down towards the man with the torn leg.

“Valentine, we got to go!” Sarah, one of her squad mates yelled.

Valentine shook her head, “Get them out of here, I’ll get him.”

“Leave him, we got to go!” Sarah yelled but Valentine would have non of it. “We don’t leave anyone fucking behind. NO ONE, now go!”

Sarah nodded as she put the visor down on her helmet. Screams from some of the slaves ahead pushing Valentine harder, she reached down and grabbed the man with the leg. “Come on, we’re going to get out of here!” she told him. With the power armor, he was lighter, but the extra weight was depleting the power cell faster. 8%

Paint it Black

Grabbing the guy, she lifted the rifle and aimed it in front of her. Firing again, Fourteen, she pulled him along. “Sam, mind if I call you Sam?” she asked as she kept the dornie cheerful demeanor that persisted across the race in combat. “My name is Zaria.” The man grumbled in pain, but Valentine didn’t stop, “Alright Sam” she said. “Were going.” She paused only to fire once more down towards what she thought was a target. “To make it. You hear me. God won’t let us die here, and if we do die in hell, we’re going to take as many of these demons with us as we can. You hear me!” she said, as she gave him the pistol.

Turning around a tree, she saw something, large, brown. It had dark eyes and kind of a weird mixture of a dog, or was it a bear nose? She raised the rifle til she noticed what it was. A wookie? Valentine let out a laugh, the Consortum was here. Finally something was happening that was good. “Come on” she yelled to the wookie, “We need your help!” But the Wookie didn’t rush to aid her, it glared with it’s angry eyes. Or it could be normal eyes, after all Wookies always looked angry. Suddenly large black wings unfolded from behind the wookie, and it let loose a blood curtling roar.

“What the SHIT!” Valentine yelled. Raising her rifle, she pointed it at him. “You better be here to help, or else I’m going to light your ass up, furball!”
Valentine suddenly found herself thrown to the floor. Her side hurt, as the metal of her suit bent into her left kidney. She gasped for air as she slammed into the ground. Her lights in her suit were all in the red. 1%. Then the lights died.

Valentine could barely move her head up, as she looked towards the wookie. A small child walked out from behind the creature, a young girl, no more than eleven years old, with coal black hair, and skin as silver as the light of the moon.

“Just great, just when you thought this world couldn’t get any more cliché!” Valentine said, as blood dripped out from her mouth. Vines began to grown around her body, wrapping itself around her broken ribs, and around her arms and legs. The vines wrapped themselves around her neck, her face, as she began to sink into the ground.
“I’m being pulled into my own grave!” Valentine thought to herself as she fought against all hope that she could get free, but it was of no use. “I hate Flying Monkeys!”

Earth Angel

The smells of roses and lilacs awoke Valentine, as she felt the warmth of a yellow sun. Where was she? She stood up, and much to her surprise the pain in her side was gone. The tears on her legs, gone, and the red sky of Dathomir was replaced by a blue Earth like sky.

“What happened?” she said to herself. The warm breeze gently flowed through the fur of her wolf like tail, as the Bonk stood up. Power armor was replaced by a white and yellow sun dress, and her bare feet could feel the soft green grass beneath her.

“Ok, who is trying to mind fuck me!” Valentine yelled out, but no response came. Only the chirping of canaries, and the warmth of the sun answered her. “Ok…..” she thought to herself, “Am I in heaven?” she asked.

“Now that is the question, and no my dear you’re in Camp Thirteen!” a gruff and stern male voice said from behind her.

Valentine turned quickly as she looked at the intruder in to her own paradise. “Camp 13, this is where you send Dornies to die!” she yelled out. On the ground was a checkered red and white picnic blanket, and a man behind it, dressed in all black with the Imperium symbol on his right shoulder.

“To die?” he laughed hardily at the ignorance of his prisoner. “My dear, your Dornie Propaganda never ceases to amuse me. Why no, death is so pointless, and you would be much more useless dead than you are now. Please, let us enjoy a meal, as a sign of peace and respect. It is your favorite I believe, Swedish Meatballs.”

Valentine looked down at the basket and inside of it were in fact Swedish meatballs. She loved it, but she didn’t know what poisons were inside of it. “That’s just a good guess!” she told him as she gently sat cross legged with the plate in front of her. “Everybody knows that every intelligent species has some variation of this recipe. It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe.”

The man in black laughed, “I see you’re well versed in Babylon 5, although that is also a true. Please it is not poisoned.” And as if to prove the point he pulled up a plate of his own and took the first bite. “See, nothing nefarious about this meal.”

Valentine sat down and took a bite. It was the perfect blend of spices wrapped in some of the best Kobe beef meat balls she had ever eaten. “Wow!” she said as she took a bite, “This is amazing it’s just like my grandmother used to make back in Poland.”

The Inquisitor smiled, “I am glad you like it. We have some goose blood soup for you as well. Valentine nodded, as she poured herself a bowl of the polish stew. “So how does this go, are you going to question me after this, and torture me, or do worse once we’re done here? Cause if that is so, I’m going to let you know right now, I can eat a lot, and take a long time doing it!”

A slight chuckle erupted from the Inquisitors lips. “Nothing so dramatic or horrific my dear.” He said as he took his fork and pierced the pasta and twirled it around his fork. “You see, those old methods are so unreliable. Do you know what a biological creature is?”

The bonk looked at him in disbelief. “Please tell me you’re not going to use boredom as a form of torture to get me to speak. I don’t think I can handle it.”
The Inquisitor smiled, “No, my dear, you’ve already answered every question we’ve ever had. I must say though that I am quite amazed at the sophistication of your organization. You knew so little details about things that didn’t concern your mission. I am quite happy to see that you have made it a slight challenge.”

“Answer? Answer what, that I like Swedish Meatballs?”

The Inquisitor smiled once more. “My dear, none of this is real. You see, your brain is a computer. A biological one, which your memories are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemicals that fire at just the right time. This entire construct exists only inside of the Mind Prision!”

“The who, what?!?” the Dornie asked and the Inquisitor smiled. “When we recovered your body from Dathomir, we touched your hand to the mind prision. In short, we downloaded your entire consciousness. As we eat and dine, geeks at a computer console are scanning your memory, and though the Animus, they’re scanning the genetic memory of your ancestors. There is nothing about you that we don’t already know!”

Valentine found it hard to believe. “If that is true, then why are you talking to me? Why are you here?” The Inquisitor smiled, “You think I’m here, that is so cute. You see once your mind was downloaded, we used a simple creature that we mutated from Geonosis. Right now your body is controlled by what is basically a snake in the brain. If you were even going to get it removed, the snake would rip your brain apart, killing what is left of you. This is the last free part of your brain that you have. You should be happy.

Valentine stopped, “You can’t do this, and the Dornie government will demand that I am freed.” The inquisitor laughed. “Oh I’m sure the European Union and the Americas will send lots of angry messages to the Tzarzina in Moscow, and of the General Governor of Canada, but in the end your fate is the same as those we captured in the civil war.

“Don’t worry, when we’re ready to free you totally, we’ll clone you a brand new body, and re-download your consciousness back into it. Personally I’d rather stay in here than suffer a huntclone body. It’s quite demeaning, don’t you agree.”

“You’re an asshole!”

He smiled at her, “No, I am your companion for the rest of eternity!”

[Godular]

So this one is compromised?

Yes. She leads them to you. They will demand information from you, and you will oblige their inquisitiveness.

Fuck, you make it sound like they'll just ask nicely. With a box of chocolates and shit.

I have a predilection for circumlocution. It is a fault.

Love those twenty cred words, huh? Look, am I dead after this?

This is difficult to quantify. Your fate depends on their largesse.

Oh boy, I love how my life hangs on a mood swing!

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Butcher nursed his drink while keeping his peripheral vision on the entrance to the bar. As it was still before the evening rush, there were only four other patrons in the establishment, two groups of smugglers waiting for their ships to refuel if he heard their conversations correctly. The absence of smoke and chatter made the bar seem even smellier and fouler than would otherwise be expected of a dive like this.

He checked his watch: 17:30 local. Time to go check the mail.

Downing his drink, he left the bar and stepped into the street. Turning his collar up against the damp of the particularly shitty day, he made his way along until he came upon a small alley that would be difficult to spot unless one were looking specifically for it, so thin was the entrance. Traversing the narrow confines, he came to a small courtyard that marked the nexus of several other alleys, and contained several garbage dumpsters of differing colors. On one wall was a marked up poster with a dignified and un-scuffed stormtrooper in parade stance with a message of 'AN IMPERIUM OF ONE' in bright yellow words beneath it. It was also adorned with a wide variety of graffiti purportedly belonging to the various local gangs. He looked at the lower left corner. There had been a recent addition.

Skadgers. That meant the blue dumpster. He walked to it and opened the lid.

A human woman smiled at him. Valentine.

Before he could smirk and say "Wow, really? You just sat in there?" pretty pretty lights happened and he found himself in a sealed room. Approximately fifteen feet by ten, the only visible furnishings were a bare mattress on the ground and a toilet. A small red light illuminated the room, and ventilation came by what appeared to be a series of very small holes around the room. He guessed the only way in or out of the room was by teleportation.

"Hello!"

He didn't jump at the voice behind him, but he did turn to regard the individual now leaning on the opposite wall. Dressed all in black save for an imperial emblem on one shoulder, he stepped away from the wall and gave a curt bow towards Butcher. "I am known as Corr, and I am your host tonight. I hope you enjoy your stay!"

"You know," Butcher said with a smirk. "If you wanted to be really intimidating, you'd go with a Hawaiian shirt and flipflops with black socks. You'd be just as fashionable and a LOT more irritating."

"Duly noted," Corr replied. "I might even play some music for you! I hear wondrous things about this 'Barbi World' song." He snapped his fingers in revelation. "Spanish polka! That's the ticket!"

"Ooo... low blow man," Butcher replied with a cringe. "Low blow."

"I do my best!" Corr said with a smile that didn't go anywhere near his eyes. "So, you're probably wondering why I invited you up here--"

"Not really, no."

"--and the short answer is that you know something we don't, and we would like to ask nicely for you to tell us this information--"

"Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Kale, and Cabbage are all the same species of plant. Can I go now?"

"--and in order to get this information from you, we must regrettably employ certain methods of coercion--"

"Because 'please' isn't regrettable enough."

"--to ensure the veracity of the information you provide us."

Butcher stepped back feigning a sense of personal affront. "Aw, you don't trust me. Well the joke's on you, that bit about Kale and Broccoli was one hundred percent true!"

Corr continued without skipping a beat. "To facilitate this, we are presently travelling towards your home galaxy at 0.999c. If you do not provide us the information we require, you will be returned to your people in some... two hundred million years, give or take."

"Bullshit."

"Excuse me?"

"If we were traveling at 99.9 percent the speed of light, by the time you finished that long-as-fuck run-on sentence your empire would have crumbled to dust and the question you want answered would be moot." Butcher leaned against the far wall and turned a patronizing smile upon Corr. "Time compression, dude. And a holographic projection such as yours would have a very hard time conducting a conversation such as this."

"Hmm. Can't fool you, can I?" Corr bowed his head to Butcher in concession, but his smile did not fade. "Fine, ours is a more mundane process."

With a snap of Corr's fingers, one of the walls turned into a sensor display, the center of which was dominated by a vibrant blue star. The star was growing slowly larger.

"In order to facilitate an earnest exchange of information," Corr began with a wave towards the star, "we are going to present an extant aversive condition to you. This ship is going to take orbit around this star. The cell within which you find yourself is very black, in order to absorb radiant energy, and very conductive, in order to transfer that heat to you. The remainder of this ship is quite well equipped to handle close proximity to the star."

"So you're going to burn me alive? Not an efficient use of resources."

"Oh no, not at all!" Corr answered with a dismissive wave. "Perish the thought. We are not going to burn you. We are going to heat you. The systems on this ship are quite sufficient to regulate the temperature in this cell such that you will be kept both conscious and just shy of heat stroke. We don't want to damage that brain of yours, but we can still sweat you. We will also ask you for the information we seek every hour, on the hour, just to be annoying. We suspect that eventually you will be unable to restrain yourself."

"You haven't even asked me what you're looking for," Butcher replied with a cocked eyebrow.

"We haven't sweated you any yet," Corr replied with a more sincere smile, now that he had dropped the proverbial hammer. "I shall return in an hour with the first inquiry. Enjoy your stay! If you go unconscious, a medical droid will arrive with a small supply of nutrient enriched water."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Butcher allowed it to last four days, before he gave up the location of the meet. Kaz'Ramael's estimates and calculations showed that resistance to the torture would fail after two, but he allowed that Butcher was uncommonly durable in regards to torture. Thus six hours before the fifth day of the treatment was to commence, he let himself 'cave'.

"They're... they're gonna be on Kashyyyk. one week from now." He said to the hologram. "Please, turn on the fucking air conditioning."

"Ah, there we go! Finally you are forthcoming! I admit, you kept up with your falsehoods and misdirections for longer than I anticipated. Very well! You shall be sweatboxed no more and we shall not inquire further."

Butcher flopped over on the floor, already feeling the metal surface starting to cool.

"You won't be going anywhere though."

"That's fine. Right now I just want a good nap." Butcher immediately fell asleep.

---to be continued---

[Godular]

OOC: Doing this as a separate post because Butcher's situation and this interaction are largely unconnected.

Kaz'Ramael watched the newcomers on the security feed, following several as they sniffed about the station while the largest group of them remained within the confines of the recreation center. The only personnel presently in contact with the strange reptilians were the original station inhabitants. The executor had decided after Butcher's departure that the Godulans and Chiss detachments should remain within the hab area and utilize the facilities there while assisting the other recent arrival with his setup. They needed to keep the two groups as far apart as possible, and it helped to keep a lockdown in effect between the operations zone and the hab.

The Gata'Ja were rowdy, but had thus far refrained from violent exchanges with the station regulars. The locals mostly kept to themselves in order to minimize contact with the imposing creatures, their instincts for self-preservation going full-throttle in the face of creatures that looked like they had no issues with eating people either culturally or physically.

They were getting ornery though, and so Kaz'Ramael decided they had waited long enough. Three others, two Godulans and a Chiss, fell in behind him in response to unvoiced orders as he made his way out of the command center, whistling and twirling his Emerald Lion-headed cane.

He had developed a small entourage of curious Gata'Ja from among those sniffing their way about the station by the time he arrived at the recreation area. It was sufficient to draw the attention of what must have been the commander of the group as he had Maskar pinned against one wall, threatening to bite his face off with the exception of his eyes so the quartermaster could watch him chew and swallow.

"You come well recommended!" Kaz'Ramael said, his grindstone voice causing several of the saurians to wince and shake their heads. "It would be a pity to alienate potential employers for running out of your preferred spirits with your current antics." His voice took on a menacing tone. "Be so kind as to release the taskmaster." He quirked his eyebrow in recognition as something rose to his senses. He had not been exposed to the creatures personally yet, and so his more refined capabilities had not known to process the information.

The commander obliged him in releasing the quartermaster, tossing him away as the giant practically charged at him, bellowing. "I will not be spoken to by one such as you! You are prey!"

A very familiar presence tied itself to these creatures, and Kaz'Ramael understood immediately. The commander was barely ten feet from the Godulan when his hand snaked out and grabbed a nearby chair, moved it in the commander's path so that his attention was on it fully, and touched the lion-head of his cane to the chair. A great crack of electricity stopped the commander and caught the undivided attention of all in the recreation area, and the emerald color began to spread over the surface of the chair. Within a matter of seconds, the entire chair was green in color. He picked up the chair and with a flick of his wrist it turned into another lion-headed cane.

"Judging by your presence here," he said as the commander stepped back in a combination of confusion and disbelief, "your people did not turn down the offer presented by the Ta'Nar. You would be well advised to heed our words: our aims align."

"How can you possibly know of this thing?" The commander replied with a hiss.

"Come now, they must have demonstrated something similar to you. They were always more grandiose than we were, though. Uplifting races they took a fancy to invariably involved showing off in some way or form." Kaz'Ramael gestured to a nearby table. "May we discontinue this staredown, please?"

The commander suddenly seemed much more courteous and amenable to speaking. The two sat down at a table, facing each other.

"Let us begin," Kaz'Ramael said with a smile. "Not too long from now, a very... challenging target will present itself to our auspices. We wish to procure your services in capturing or destroying this target and will provide payment comparable to your... 'other employers' for a successful foray. Pray tell, are others of your kind in the vicinity?"

The conversation improved from there.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Your people are most curious," the First commented while tinkering with one of his weapons. "My senses do not quite know what to make of you. Are you organic? Are you mechanical? Are you some kind of granite? I find it quite perplexing."

"You must enjoy the novelty," Kaz'Ramael replied as he watched the other Godulans in the cavern as they retrofitted it to the First's specifications and their own. They would need to keep the First's presence on the station hidden to outside observers, while also allowing him some means to move materials back and forth without drawing suspicion.

The First turned an eye towards the Godulan expectantly. After several seconds, he muttered an oath. "Well?"

Kaz'Ramael turned towards the First with a smile. "Oh, you were expecting an answer?"

"When I encounter something I do not understand, that is typically how I respond."

"I daresay it is not germaine to your ongoing inquiries," Kaz'Ramael replied, turning back to watch the others. "We ask not why you avoid your kin, we would appreciate a similar courtesy in turn."

The First growled in response, likely annoyed at being spoken to in such a manner, but set back to tinkering with his weapon. "Maybe it is in my interest to know why it is that you see fit to deal with myself and my brethren. The risk is great in providing me with this facility. If the others learned of my presence, the results could be drastic to say the least."

"We all have our part to play," Kaz'Ramael replied, twirling his new walking stick while leaning on the old. "Your brethren will be valuable in force, and your contribution will be most effective on a micro scale. Multiple fronts with harrowing force. Shenryax demands no less."

The First jerked as if slapped, then turned a hard glare on the Godulan. "What was that?" he rasped, half enraged and half shocked.

Kaz'Ramael turned at the sudden change in tone and looked on the First, curious. "What was what?"

"That word. Say it again."

"Shenryax?"

"Where did you come by that word?"

"The Mistress considers it apropos for some reason or the other. You know of the word?"

"I have heard its like before, before I made my way to this galaxy."

Kaz'Ramael stepped forward, curious now. "Do tell."

The First's breathing slowed, and he went back to tinkering with his weapon. At first the Godulan thought the other was going to refuse to reply, but then the Gata'Ja mutant began to speak in hushed tones. "I am very old, and have seen many different things in my long life. I travel from place to place, expanding my knowledge and sometimes acquiring new powers. I spoke to you before of how I do this."

"Consumption of life-essence, yes."

"Not too long ago, I came to a world populated by humans and sought to conduct experiments on some of the locals. I had been drawn by rumors of a group of people that had demonstrated powers of which I had not previously heard the like. These people were members of some sort of anti-technology cult that claimed their rejection of technology allowed them to harness other powers some might call magic. They called their religion the 'True Way of the Will'.

"Through much effort, I acquired a low-level member of this cult, an 'initiate'. I experimented on this initiate, and culminated my explorations by consuming the subject. I daresay I gained more from questioning the boy than I did from devouring his spirit.

"Not one day later, my compound was attacked by this cult. A single human who would to you look almost infirm with age, but whose grace and strength I was hard-pressed to match. He breached my outer defenses with ease, as if practiced in the art of doing so, with naught but a sword as tall as he and sharp enough to cleave through steel bulkheads without showing signs of resistance. In order to preserve my other work, I engaged him directly, and though he did not use technology against me, he was perhaps one of my most harrowing foes.

"At some point in our fight, we happened across the remains of the initiate. With but a momentary glance, this old man who tested me so let loose a groundshaking cry."

The First leaned back and closed his eyes in recollection, and breathed the word almost reverently. "Shenryax. Shenryax. Shenryax.

"Within moments, my compound was beset by a veritable host of cultists, many of which looked human save for blue glowing eyes and feathered wings. In the face of overwhelming numbers, I retreated. They are dogged pursuers, however, and it was this incident that caused me to no longer see a purpose in testing my luck by hiding from the forces of my brethren. It was that incident I came here." The First set the weapon down and turned a glance at Kaz'Ramael. He was struck by the ashen look on the Godulan's face.

"They're... real..." Kaz'Ramael breathed. "I thought it was just a tale she wove to keep us in line. Astounding." Regaining his composure slightly, he bowed. "Well, my friend. I find myself boggled at the seeming convergence experienced this day. First your brethren are under the wing of an ancient ally of ours, and you have had firsthand contact with the very people we seek to armor this galaxy against. This... is most illuminating, thank you."

The First shrugged. "So long as my ends are achieved, I couldn't care less. Once the facilities are up and running, I'll start work on the Force-Hunters you desire. I know not how long it will be before I complete the project, but I have not missed a deadline before, and I'm not about to start."

[New Dornalia]

As Valentina and Butcher underwent their respective ordeals, the men and women of the Hyperlane did their part for the cause. The raid on the Huntarians had been dramatic, but even after getting the slaves to safety, they still had work to do. There were always more slaves to rescue, more operations to conduct, more raids to stage. The woman who stood in front of the holographic map of the galaxy knew that better than anyone. She was tall, with a crew cut, black, and wore an outfit that had once borne the symbols of the Dornalian Marine Corps. Now, it was just a pair of utilities with funny coloring.

She stared at the news intently. She didn’t like what she saw. Rumors from The Grapevine--the deeply encrypted rumor mill to which all Stationmasters anonymously contributed tips and tricks and hints--had flowed to her ship. Apparently, word had it that the SWC and their allies in the Huntarian Empire were having problems--like, “annex the other guy” problems. There wasn’t anything official yet. But what should have been comforting news, wasn’t. The Congressionals would somehow exploit these new turn of events and ensure that any effect this would have had on their systems would be as small as possible. The Hyperlane couldn’t celebrate.

The woman poked around, following up on other leads from the Grapevine. From Anoat, it seemed that the uprising was gaining momentum, with the New Terminus folks’s favorites coming on top. The woman nodded in acknowledgement. A small victory for the Hyperlane, for everyone on the Grapevine knew that “John Shaft”--not his real name, obviously, like all Hyperlane members’ names--had used his cell to aid the revolt. He was a hero, no doubt.

But it was one sector among many. The Hyperlane couldn’t celebrate.

The woman thumbed through her Grapevine messages, before she was interrupted by a question.

“Excuse me? General...Turner, was it?”

The woman turned and saw the Twi-lek she had liberated, and said, “No need to stand on ceremony. You can just call me Nat.” She then paused and asked, “You got a name?”

“Asha,” the Twi-lek said. “Asha….Sekulos.”

“Asha. Right.” Nat then added, “Among my people, it’s a custom that if you have a name, you will live long, fruitfully, and no harm will come to you. I’m not one to go quite that far, but it’s nice to know someone’s name if I’m going to be working with them.” Nat then walked to a table and pulled out a package of deathsticks, taking one out and indulging in it as she said, “Now, you wanted to ask something?”

“Yes...Nat.” The Twi’lek was getting used to the idea of using her human host’s first name. “I wanted to know something. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you come for us?” Asha said, confused. “I mean, I am grateful. Do-don’t get me wrong. But it’s just...well, I’ll be honest. The only humans we’ve come into contact with were more concerned about quotas and discipline than say, our well being.”

Nat nodded, leaning on the table as she puffed contemplatively on her deathstick before she spoke.

“Let me answer your question with a question. You have a name. You have a family. And you clearly have some intelligence and a capacity to learn--you’re sentient. By all rights, you should be raising your children in peace. Buying groceries for them, playing with them, and being generally a loving, family unit. You could have got on the transport with the others, fled to the Corporate Sector or even Coredia. And yet you’re here, on my ship, choosing to join a band of desperados who’ve got more ideals than sense. Why is that?”

Asha was initially shocked, then paused for a moment and said, “Well….because it’s safer, I guess?”

“Safer?” Nat frowned. “Define safer.”

“I mean, you’re not beating me up. And my kids and I had our first decent meal and medicine in a while. From that doctor of yours….Garrison was it? Yes, Garrison. He didn’t ask questions or demand favors. He just injected me and mine, and said, “Welcome aboard, ma’am.” And then, your crewman, Purser Shaw….he just gave me and mine something to eat and then smiled at me. He didn’t seem annoyed about having to feed me.” Pausing, Asha said raising her eyebrow and prompted by Nat’s silence, “I mean, he called me ma’am. I’ve had to call other people ma’am, and so have my children and Na’bana. But not here. People call me ma’am.”

Nat nodded.

Asha then wondered what else would get an answer out of Nat. She then added, “Well, and also, I guess I’ve seen one or two other ramens here. And yet you don’t order them around with whips and blasters like they did. They work in peace, including the one Ewok you have. My masters would have eaten him by now. I mean, I had to ask around for work, and I only managed to work with Purser Shaw in the arms locker. He taught me how to use a blaster.”

Nat nodded, and then held her hand up.

“So then, Asha, tell me. What do you think that all means? You’ve lived this long and your speech is fluid, coherent--surprisingly well learned for someone I rescued from a construction site. I’d bet that means you’re a smart woman, someone who may not have been a slave once, or someone who was the benefit of an education, perhaps covertly. You must have some feelings about the significance of all this.”

Asha replied hesitantly.

“I think that it means...I am accepted as an equal here. Or at least someone who has the abilities you want, and thus you wish to treat me well to curry my favor. You’re not slavers, you would have sold me and the other aliens already. It means that also, you come from a place where ramens aren’t forced to work and cater to the whims of masters, but where they co-exist in peace. And, because you shot at the masters and then freed me and the others, you likely disagree with what they do. Perhaps even see it as immoral, or so outside your experience that you feel it is a mistake to be corrected.”

Nat smiled faintly, and said, puffing her deathstick, “You’ve passed the test.” Nat said, getting up. “I’ll admit, I don’t usually put newcomers through that much self-examination. However, you seemed to stand out, plus Purser Shaw says you’re one of the best apprentices he’s taken on. A fast learner.”

Walking back to the holomap, Nat said, “You were right about much of that, although I’ll discount the more cynical explanations. We at the Hyperlane find the slavery and racist policies practiced by the Huntarians and SWC to be immoral and violative of the natural order. Sentients were not meant to hold such power over other sentients as to buy and sell them like cattle or work them to death like some rusted machine. Sentients were also not meant to deny other sentients the right to live their lives according to their own potentials and ambitions, simply because one cannot understand what the other is saying.” Nat continued, “There was a great war fought in a distant land long ago, where I come from, which involved slavery. One of the soldiers within it, writing home, said simply, ‘Mother do you know I asked myself this question. What right have I simply because I am white to be the master race, while this man knowing more than I, should be a slave because he is black?’ No sentient should be the absolute master of another.”

A buzzer from the holomap interrupted her discourse, and Nat said “Excuse me.”

Walking up to the map, a mysterious figure concealed in darkness appeared, speaking in a deep voice.

“Hello, General.”

Nat turned to Asha and motioned for her to exit the room, as she turned to the figure.

“Hyperlane One. What brings you here?”

“A topic of utmost importance.”

A dialogue screen popped up, and revealed a map of the galaxy, before focusing on Kashyykk, as the figure continued to speak.

“I’ll get to the point, General. Our allies and supporters, the Consortium, have requested a meeting with members of the Hyperlane, for the purposes of strategic planning. As my role prevents me from being there in person, I have had to locate other suitable individuals to represent our organization.”

Nat nodded.

“I take it you mean me.”

“And one other Cell. Given the highly sensitive and strategic nature of this meeting, I have asked John Brown and his colleagues to join you.”

Nat raised her eyebrow at that, and was quite skeptical.

“Brown. You’re bringing in John Brown.”

Hyperlane One nodded, and continued to speak, unfazed.

“I recognize he has….a reputation within our organization. One which is not necessarily welcome by some of its membership. However, given recent developments involving the Congressionals and some of our personnel, it behooves us to task Mr. Brown and his colleagues to join your group at this meeting. Particularly if this meeting is discovered.”

Nat shook her head and mirroring her Consortium counterparts, wondered out loud why they had been chosen.

“All fine and good, Hyperlane One, considering the rumors I’ve heard about the Dathomir job. But wouldn’t it be better to send a diplomat, such as Wilberforce? Or even Douglass? Douglass is usually good at winning over hearts and minds.”

Hyperlane One’s reply was simple, and to the point.

“As I have mentioned, recent developments have justified the deployment of more...militant assets to this meeting. The incident you have mentioned may yet be indications of further, more aggressive Congressional activity. Given your abilities and Brown’s capabilities, the organization feels it is best if you came.”

Nat nodded, resigned.

“As you wish, Hyperlane One. Where do we meet Brown?”

“Brown will meet you at Kashyykk. He will discuss his side of the operation with you there. Good luck, General.”

The map returned to normal, and Nat pushed a few buttons. A voice said, “Yes, General?”

“Mr. Robeson, instruct the Pinta and the Santa Maria to follow us to Kashyyk. We have a meeting to attend. Tell them also….”

Turner sighed as she said this.

“...that John Brown’s coming.”

A pause, and then:

“You’re kidding. JOHN BROWN?”

Nat annoyingly cut off Robeson and said, “Just go with it, Hyperlane One figures we need the security. Now, let’s move.”

With that, they’d get a move on...