Beyond Good and Evil

[Euphrosyne]

Oblique (intended?) reference to Anakin Skywalker towards the end, there, too: I believe Padme says someting to the effect of "Don't become the thing you're attacking" at some point...or is it Obi-Wan who says it?

It's a common enough sentiment that I didn't feel the need to highlight it as a specific reference. You can see the same thing in last chapter's Nietzsche headline quote, too. In Blade of Tyshalle, Stover plays with it a bit, saying that the danger is not that one might become a monster, but rather that one might discover the monster that was always within. So yeah, it's pretty much everywhere. Good spot, though.

Edited June 15, 2013 by Euphrosyne

[AquaticAncestral]

GREAT story. Looking forward to reading more. Sorry I didn't comment with more, but great story regardless.

[Zandilar]

Continuing to enjoy the story! I am really enjoying the style, and how the relationship between Aly and Jaesa is developing. You've also nailed the characterisation of other companion characters quite well. I also like the notes you're providing with each chapter, as it gives a lot of insight into your approach to writing this story (it's very scholarly compared to my usual slap a story together by the seat of my pants method!).

 

Just one niggle, I am always jolted out of a story set in a non-modern Earth setting when the writer appropriates lyrics from a modern Earth song for whatever purpose, especially if I recognize the lyrics. It is always better to try to come up with something original. If you simply must use lyrics to a real song, at least credit it.

[Euphrosyne]

GREAT story. Looking forward to reading more. Sorry I didn't comment with more, but great story regardless.

Thanks!

Continuing to enjoy the story! I am really enjoying the style, and how the relationship between Aly and Jaesa is developing. You've also nailed the characterisation of other companion characters quite well. I also like the notes you're providing with each chapter, as it gives a lot of insight into your approach to writing this story (it's very scholarly compared to my usual slap a story together by the seat of my pants method!).

 

Just one niggle, I am always jolted out of a story set in a non-modern Earth setting when the writer appropriates lyrics from a modern Earth song for whatever purpose, especially if I recognize the lyrics. It is always better to try to come up with something original. If you simply must use lyrics to a real song, at least credit it.

Oh, believe me, this feels very slapped-together as I write it, too. No matter how much I end up thinking about the way things end up connecting beforehand, I end up actually writing mostly by the seat of my pants. (Personal impression, not necessarily reality.)

 

I agree that it feels a bit weird to directly reference meatworld things in a Star Wars story. With "All You Wanted", though, I felt like the song fit so darn well that I just had to bring it up. And I did credit the reference in the notes when it came up in Chapters III and IX. Like I said before, my notes are more about citing sources and keeping the "lines of attribution" clear than anything else, whether it's a direct reference like "All You Wanted" and Vergere, or an indirect reference like cookies for the Social Police and Vegetius.

 

---

 

Fair warning: next chapter is gonna be a little dry. I let the historian in me come out for a bit to try to make sense of the kind of haphazard way the war comes together in the actual game.

[Euphrosyne]

Plan Zero

 

“I fight for peace. That’s what I’m up here for.”

“While you’re up here ‘fighting for peace’, tons of blood is being shed on the ground. Some ‘peace’, kid.”

“And I’m here to put an end to that.”

“You think you can stop bloodshed by shedding more blood? Flying with all those ideals swimming around in your head is going to get you killed.”

-Patrick James “PJ” Beckett (Crow 3) and Larry “Pixy” Foulke (Galm 2), during Operation Battleaxe, Ace Combat Zero

 

 

“Ah, apprentice,” boomed Darth Baras. “Once again, you have provided sterling service to the Empire. With the Foundry under control, we can return to our original task: the dismemberment of the Future Planning Committee.”

 

Aly folded her arms as she gazed at the holoprojector. “I take it that means you’ve found your leads?”

 

“Indeed. Your capture of the Foundry caused considerable turmoil in the Republic’s ranks. My agents were able to snap up large portions of their network. We have determined that Revan’s plot was indeed part and parcel of the War Trust’s grand offensive.”

 

He continued to natter on about the links his agents had found without ever mentioning specifics, so I felt my mind wandering. Aly and I had guessed most of this already.

 

We’d come out of hyperspace at the great entrepôt planet of Lantillies, on the Perlemian Trade Route, to do a course correction and hook ourselves into the HoloNet. Aly’s priorities had made me laugh – she’d been more worried about apologizing to Cipher Nine and Lady Sakaria about leaving without saying goodbye back in Lannik space, than she had been about contacting her Master. But eventually she had to send that holomessage to Baras, so here we were.

 

It took several minutes of inane nattering before he finally bit down to the gristle. “But on to your actual targets. The War Trust has six members. There are two I must still locate: Admiral Monk, of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and Jedi Knight Xerender, the Council’s liaison, who commands an elite squad of commandos. However, the other four targets, all generals with the Strategic High Command, have been found: they are confirmed to be on the planet Taris.”

 

Quinn furrowed his brow and frowned thoughtfully, while Aly raised her eyebrow-ridge. “Taris? What could the Republic possibly want with that mudball?”

 

“That remains unclear. Whatever it is, though, it must be a considerable undertaking, if all four War Trust generals have gone there. I have appended a packet of the raw data my agents have collected with regards to the Republic’s Tarisian operations. They are providing me with their own analysis, but Captain Quinn’s assistance in sifting through the information would not go unappreciated.

 

“The War Trust generals’ agenda, however, is of secondary relevance at best. What is most important is that they be crushed, and quickly, while they are all in the same place. It is the individuals, not their plans, which must be stopped. And they are not to be taken lightly. Generals Faraire, Minst, Durant, and Frellka are no doubt protected by their elite guards, but they also have the entirety of the Republic’s forces on Taris at their disposal.”

 

“You want me to take on an entire Republic army by myself?”

 

Baras’ face broke into a sinister chuckle. “Not by yourself, no, although at this point I would not be overly doubtful of your success. As it happens, there are already Sith and Imperial forces on the planet. Some weeks ago, a collection of forces under the command of Darth Gravus landed on the planet to crush the nascent Republic settler colony there. Their goal was to wipe out all civilization on the planet, much as Darth Malak did three centuries ago. But now that the War Trust generals are there, the situation has changed.”

 

“Not to mention,” Aly murmured, “whatever it is that they’re doing there.”

 

“Yes, yes.” He waved this off. “Gravus is something of a fool, however. He has repeatedly bungled the campaign, and from the last reports, his forces appeared to be in full retreat. The war on Taris must be salvaged, so that the War Trust generals can be wiped out. Darth Vengean, as head of the Sphere of Military Offense, has given me the full authority to strip Gravus of his command. I now vest that power in you.

 

“Go to Vaiken Spacedock, and link up with Grand Moff Regus’ Task Force Seventy-Seven there. You will take command of this fleet, and the provisional field army it is transporting. Break the Republic’s iron ring around the planet, land those reinforcements, take control of the ground forces, and lead them in wiping out the War Trust.”

 

The dark lord’s words filled me with trepidation. Abstractly, I could feel that this was a step forward for Aly. She was gaining more power, clawing her way up through the Sith hierarchy, a few steps closer to a position where she could really do some good for people. I supposed that that meant I should be happy for her. But the reality of it was that the position she was in was predicated on doing a lot of bad for people. If the Taris colony played host to a military base that would fuel the Republic’s genocide campaign, then it had to be destroyed in order to save the civilians of the Empire. But destroying the Taris colony meant the deaths of Republic civilians instead.

 

Talk about being on the horns of a dilemma. Either choice looked evil. Not making a choice seemed impossible.

 

It took me an eternity to submerge that trepidation and helplessness, but I finally managed it. I trusted Aly. She – we could come up with a way to make this work somehow. We had to.

 

Aly barely reacted at all to the news. Instead, she was all business. “On Taris, will I have any key contact points? Who’s been handling the hunt for the War Trust generals there?”

 

Baras settled back. “Ah, yes. One of the Imperial leaders under Gravus’ command, Moff Hurdenn, has also been reporting directly to me. Hurdenn is under orders to assist you in whatever way he can. He has already provided me with some of the intelligence in that data packet, and he assures me that he has a dedicated unit set up to locate the generals individually.”

 

“That,” she said, “should make things simpler.”

 

“Indeed. Now, go to Vaiken with all haste, and rendezvous with Regus. Time is of the essence. We must not waste the opportunity that beckons to us on Taris.”

 

He closed the connection, and Aly sagged back onto the acceleration couch.

 

Quinn was the first to speak. “Congratulations on your assignment, milady. If I might presume to say so, it is most gratifying to see one of the Empire’s finest military minds finally rewarded with a command of her own.”

 

“Yeah, boss,” Vette seconded, “this sounds like a pretty big deal.”

 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Master?” I asked.

 

She massaged her temples and smiled weakly. “Sort of. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.”

 

There was a short, awkward pause, and then Quinn spoke up hesitantly. “Milady, pending your approval, I’ll go and sort through that data now.”

 

“Right. Yeah.” Her expression cleared up. “Get on that, and be ready to brief us – and Regus’ team, I guess – when we get to Vaiken. Don’t worry about astrogation, I’ll lay in the course. And please remember to get some sleep, I don’t want you looking like a zombie wired on nothing but stims and caf.”

 

He stiffened in that weird Imperial faux-salute. “Milady.”

 

“Vette?”

 

The Twi’lek looked up from fiddling with her nails. “Oh, sorry. Yeah?”

 

“Start working the angles. The usual stuff – medical supply arbitrage and the like – and where to get that stuff done in the immediate vicinity of Taris. Make yourself, and us, some more seed money, and get the equipment we need to keep ourselves in stims and medpacs.”

 

She smirked. “I do like making money.”

 

“That’s what I thought. And Jaesa?”

 

“Master?”

 

“More unarmed combat training. You’re on point with me on Taris, and I’ll be severely disappointed in myself if we have problems with anything we find there.”

 

I yawned and stretched my arms up over my head. “No rest for the wicked, huh?”

 

She trudged toward the cockpit slowly; the metaphoric weight of command had already settled onto her shoulders. I tagged along. As she punched in the course and let the navicomputer sift through the data, she turned to me.

 

“I could see you were thinking about this, too. How the blazes do we get out of this one?”

 

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t see it. If you airlock the campaign, the Republic wins, and innocent people die, and your whole plan to fix the Empire gets aborted for good. If you lead the Empire to victory, different innocent people die. If you try to back out, we’re right back to square one again with the plan, and innocent people still die one way or the other.”

 

“So I guess I have to play it like my last assignment,” she said.

 

“How’s that?”

 

“My last assignment was you, silly. Baras wanted me to kill you and everybody who’d ever been close to you. The Jedi kept trying to kill me, too. But we made it work, right?”

 

“We did,” I smiled back. But then my voice got a lot heavier. “Still, though. That’s it? Just hope that ‘something will turn up’?”

 

She spread her hands. “What other choice do we have?”

 

I didn’t have an answer for her.

 

A day and a half later, we dropped out of hyperspace next to Vaiken Spacedock, and I finally got that glimpse of the awe-inspiring Imperial fleet that I’d been waiting for.

 

I could count fifty ships in view as the Fury slewed around toward Regus’ flagship, and that was only the ships close enough to the massive space station to be visible – those hovering around waiting for drydock repairs, or receiving supplies and troop transfers, or whatever. Phennir’s fleet at Dorajan had boasted only one of the kilometer-long dreadnoughts; at Vaiken, I saw seven. And between them, destroyers, picket ships, starfighter carriers, pocket cruisers, and all manner of other vessels buzzed around with the impression of frenetic activity.

 

It wasn’t hard to see here what Malgus had alluded to on Dromund Kaas two weeks before: the Empire was gearing up for war.

 

Quinn brought us into the docking bay of Regus’ dreadnought, the Audacious, to the by-now customarily waiting honor guard. Unlike Phennir, the Grand Moff greeted us personally instead of sending a flunky, so I got a chance to size him up pretty early on as we walked to the briefing room.

 

Grand Moff Ilyan Regus certainly looked the part of an Imperial career officer. His chiseled, craggy face, framed by gray hair, a gray beard, and an impressive goatee, added palpable evidence of the battles he’d fought to the weight of his years. But if his face made him seem old, his movements belied that: he was quick and energetic, yet precise at the same time. And his piercing gaze gave the unmistakable impression of calculating intelligence.

 

Having him on the other side of the war from the Republic made me more than a little uncomfortable.

 

Aly had told me that Regus had been the subordinate of Rycus Kilran, the former Fifth Fleet commander who’d been killed by the Republic strike team that rescued Revan from the Maelstrom. Regus had ridden his boss’ coattails, and his own native abilities, to command of the Fifth’s battle line, but then Malgus had poached him instead, putting him in charge of TF-77, one of the Expeditionary Fleet’s primary striking arms. That had ended up being lucky for Regus in more ways than one: he’d gotten onto the fast track to independent command, and he’d avoided the calamity that hit the rest of the Fifth in the Maelstrom. His presence, and that of his forces, was concrete evidence of Malgus holding up his end of the bargain he’d made with my Master.

 

There were rumors, apparently, that Malgus and Regus didn’t totally get along with each other, either, one of the reasons that TF-77 had been detached from the Expeditionary Fleet as opposed to one of the other units. According to Aly, nobody was quite sure what the bones of the dispute were. Maybe the two men just didn’t mesh well.

 

Eventually, we got ourselves situated in the Audacious’ briefing room with a gaggle of army officers and men in naval uniforms. Quinn stiffly walked to the front of the room, loaded a memory card into the base of the holoprojector, and stood at attention. I was impressed: he actually had followed up on Aly’s orders, and looked remarkably well-rested…well, more rested than I felt, anyway.

 

“Gentlemen; miladies. I’m Captain Malavai Quinn, and I have the honor of briefing you on the current state of the Tarisian campaign.”

 

He hit a key on the holoprojector, which displayed a view of the galactic “north”, showing the Trans-Hydian, the Tingel Arm, the heart of the Empire, and Taris itself. “Taris sits on the Hydian Way hyperlane, just inside the edge of the Outer Rim in the Ojoster sector. Its strategic location as a gateway to the spinward quadrant of the galaxy made it a key point and a focus of major battles in the Mandalorian War and the Jedi Civil War. At the end of the latter conflict, Darth Malak’s fleet bombarded the planet, destroying its former ecumenopolis and reducing the surface to swampy rubble.

 

“The Republic did not resettle the planet for three hundred years after that conflict. Only in the last two years has colonization activity picked up, largely as a pet project of the Twi’lek politician Leontyne Saresh, who became the planetary governor. The Republic has since poured millions of credits, sizable military occupation forces, and thousands of colonists into the Tarisian resettlement project.”

 

Quinn’s holoprojector view shifted from the galactic map to a picture of Taris itself, then zoomed in on a view of a stretch of land in what looked like a jungle. “Republic recolonization efforts have focused on a small area on the equatorial shores of the Tarisian Panthalassic Ocean. They have established one city, with both blue-water port and spaceport facilities, dubbed Olaris. Olaris and its hinterland, an area of about five hundred square kilometers, contain approximately ninety-five percent of the Republic civilian population and the entirety of its military occupation forces.

 

“Recolonization has been costly for the Republic in terms of both credits and lives. For one thing, the terrain is poor: part impenetrable jungle, and part ancient urban ruin. For another, Taris formerly played host to pirates, and although groups like the Death’s Claw have been largely eradicated or co-opted by now, they took their own toll on the Republic’s military and civilian contingents.

 

“Most important, however, is the planet’s biological hazard. Taris had played host to a small endemic population of rakghouls, a group of bloodthirsty mutants carrying an eponymous virus that could infect sentient beings and transform them into mindless rakghouls, as well. Following Malak’s bombardment, the rakghouls emerged from the Tarisian undercity and became the dominant form of life on the planet. In the Olaris region alone, Republic occupation forces estimate that there are nearly five million rakghouls, with no appreciable drop in population since colonization began. While not particularly difficult to kill, their sheer numbers and the extreme danger associated with rakghoul-related injuries have made their attacks a persistent and serious threat to the Olaris settlers and the Republic military forces there.”

 

A general I didn’t recognize raised his hand. “If that’s the case, Captain, why would the Republic settle there at all? Even the Senate isn’t stupid enough to throw that much good money after bad.”

 

“General Bourom. Yes, the Tarisian reconstruction project has run into considerable Senate opposition, for precisely that reason. Yet Saresh has been able to continue to push through her project for a few reasons. First, she is an expert at political theater. Saresh has portrayed the Tarisian recolonization project as a sort of ‘peaceful’ victory over the Empire, and a demonstration of Republic resurgence following the Treaty of Coruscant. Saresh’s Taris bills have therefore gained support in the Senate both from revanchist senators and from those interested in the development of infrastructure.

 

“Second, Saresh has enjoyed the backing of key positions in the Republic military hierarchy. Although several of the Republic’s higher field commanders, such as Generals Aves, Garza, and Rans, are either apathetic about or openly hostile to the project, the general staff, more specifically the Future Planning Committee of the Republic’s Strategic High Command, has given the project its wholehearted backing.”

 

“Why is that?” asked Bourom.

 

“That’s unclear, sir, but there are some interesting and suggestive indications.” Quinn tapped on the holoprojector’s controls and highlighted an area deep in the jungle, at the edge of Olaris’ hinterland. “There are reports – both confirmed and unconfirmed – from Imperial forces currently on Taris to the effect that the Republic is focusing prodigious construction efforts in this region, the Tularan Marsh, an area with a relatively small civilian population. Furthermore, this area plays host to a large Republic garrison of three divisions, a full third of the forces allotted to the planet.

 

“Analyses of Taris appropriations bills and military funding strongly indicate that many of these monies are being siphoned away from the reconstruction project, and the Tularan Marsh is the most obvious potential recipient. Finally, evidence uncovered by Lord Baras’ espionage network highlights the Tularan Marsh, not Olaris itself, as the recipient of the greater quantity of extermination droid shipments from the Foundry, the Republic factory recently captured by Moff Phennir’s task force.”

 

“Even if,” said Bourom skeptically, “this Tularan Marsh played host to a major Republic military facility, the obvious question is why. Why Taris, and not some place that doesn’t have huge populations of mindless, ferocious beasts? Not that I don’t enjoy a good suicide mission, but there’s hopeless and then there’s hopeless…”

 

The view on the holoprojector shifted to the galactic map again. “Because of that prime location, sir. We are getting into speculation at this point, but Taris is ideally placed to serve as the base for any Republic strike down the Hydian Way into the heart of the Empire. The Republic military required a staging point for its invasion plans; Saresh required a bit of political theater and symbolism to fuel her political rise. The two worked together synergistically.”

 

Bourom settled back into his chair. “All right, son. You seem to have this well worked out. So how about the military situation?”

 

“Yes, sir. Fifteen standard days ago, an expeditionary force under the overall command of Darth Gravus attacked Taris. Much like the Republic’s decision to recolonize Taris may have been the result of compromise between various different parties, Gravus’ attack on the place has been motivated largely by aggregating forces pursuing slightly different objectives. Gravus’ personal Imperial forces, along with a collection of hired Mandalorians and a contingent of Sith led by Lord Shaythin, have joined him on the planet, ostensibly out of a desire to finish what Malak started and destroy the settlement at Olaris.

 

“But he also assembled a motley group of Imperial and Sith forces who are more interested in other things. For instance, Lord Vago, the commander of the elite Seventy-Fifth Legion, is avowedly there out of concern for whatever’s in the Tularan Marsh. Melkor Dinn, another Sith Lord, claims to be primarily interested in biological experiments with the rakghouls. The commanders are all on divergent aims, and it appears as though Gravus has been unable to keep control of them.”

 

I thought back to that first military history lesson with Aly, about unity of command. At the time, I hadn’t thought that it would have much practical application. I was sure wrong about that. This Darth Gravus seems like he’d have benefited a lot from a few sessions with her.

 

Quinn highlighted an island in a lake about halfway between the Tularan Marsh and the gates of Olaris. “Darth Gravus chose this complex on the shore of the Brell Sediment as his staging point, and successfully occupied it at the outset of his campaign. The Republic’s ground forces were concentrated around Olaris and in the Tularan Marsh initially, and were out of position to respond in time to halt the attack. Therefore, beginning ten days ago, Gravus pushed on with his personal ground forces to attack this hill to the north, the site of the wreckage of a crashed Republic cruiser from the Jedi Civil War. Dubbed ‘the 203-Meter Hill’, it provides one of the only viable positions for artillery bombardment of Olaris’ defenses, due to the remains of Tarisian skyscrapers blocking most other lines of sight.

 

“The attacks on the 203-Meter Hill have been disasters. By last report, two standard days ago, Gravus’ forces had fallen back in disarray, suffering twenty percent casualties. Imperial forces were unable to surmount the difficulties of the terrain, but according to Moff Hurdenn, overall commander of the Ninth Army, unexpectedly ferocious resistance from local armed settler populations and the destruction of Imperial supply lines by partisan forces was what finally put paid to the assault.

 

“Gravus’ forces are therefore in serious danger of being annihilated. They have been encircled in their position around the Brell Sediment, and are probably under siege at this point. Isolated outposts, such as Vago’s Seventy-Fifth Legion headquarters on the fringe of the Tularan Marsh, have been cut off. The Republic has also brought a small flotilla into orbit, comprised of two Valor-class cruisers and fifteen other cruisers and corvettes. This flotilla has not yet hazarded an attack on the Imperial space station established as a depot in geosynchronous orbit over the Brell base, but the potential exists for them to do so, and if that depot is destroyed, Gravus’ forces will be completely enveloped.”

 

Grand Moff Regus folded his arms. “What about respective force strengths?”

 

“Sir. Gravus’ forces were poorly accounted for when they were assembled, and since then casualties have thinned their numbers even further, along with jungle diseases and rakghoul attacks. By best accounting, he brought the equivalent of five legions with him in his personal coterie, including some fifteen Sith of varying rank. Lord Vago’s Seventy-Fifth Legion, while somewhat understrength, is generally regarded as a high-quality outfit and the equal of any full-strength unit. Melkor Dinn brought along another ten Sith, along with Imperial retainers in what appears to have been battalion strength.

 

“The line strengths of these units by now can only be estimated, but extrapolating from previous attrition rates, barring a further calamity, Gravus may be down to as few as forty percent effectives by now. In terms of naval assets, Gravus possesses the aforementioned depot in orbit, along with seven Terminus-class destroyers. Orbital bombardment has, however, been of extremely limited utility due to the broken terrain and the presence of the ruined Tarisian cityscape.

 

“As for the Republic, at the outset of the campaign they possessed eight Regular Army divisions, with detached units comprising a further division equivalent. Since then, however, Lord Baras’ agents report that they have been reinforced with an outsized corps, bringing the total to thirteen divisions. They are also now commanded by members of the Republic’s Future Planning Committee, the so-called War Trust.

 

“There are also some fifteen thousand settlers, primarily Cathar and humans, on the planet, about half of which are concentrated inside Olaris and the relatively rakghoul-free Republic Resettlement Zone, or RRZ, with another third concentrated in the New Tarisian Dawn settlements near the 203-Meter Hill. It is not clear how many of these settlers are armed and participating in partisan fighting against Imperial forces. There may also be as many as a hundred Jedi on the planet, although estimates vary wildly, as many Sith are known to inflate their kill counts.”

 

I saw Aly give him a sidelong glance and a smirk, but she said nothing.

 

Bourom spoke up again. “And there’s nothing to care about outside of the Olaris hinterland?”

 

“No, sir. There is a small weather station on the other side of the Panthalassic Ocean with no military garrison, and a kelp-farming settlement floating in the middle of the ocean with about five hundred inhabitants. Neither position has any military value, and extremely limited civilian value.”

 

He looked around the room. “If there are no further questions, I’ll hand the briefing over to the overall commander, Sith Lady Alypia, for closing remarks.”

 

There was a general murmur of assent among the seated officers, so Aly stood up and walked to the front.

 

“It’s clear to me,” she began, “that the Tarisian settlement poses a clear and present danger to the people of the Empire. It’s a blaster pointed at your families. Your way of life.

 

“By now, you’ve all heard what we stopped from happening on the Foundry: genocide.” She hooked a thumb toward the holoprojector. “Taris is more of the same. Those are the stakes. If we let Gravus and his troops get wiped out, we won’t be able to defeat the Republic on Taris. If we can’t defeat the Republic here, we get to fight them on the streets of Kaas City instead, with the civilians of the Empire sitting in the line of fire.

 

“So I’m not going to let that happen,” she growled, baring her teeth in an animalistic grin. “We’re not going to let that happen. First, we’re going to clean up Gravus’ mess. And then we’ll finish what he started. We’ll tear down the Republic base, down to the last duracrete brick. We’ll kick their vaunted new model army in the teeth, just like we did to the old one in the last war. And we’ll boot their settlers back into the Core where they belong.”

 

[Euphrosyne]

Notes to Chapter XI

 

This time, the quote is from a completely unconnected videogame. I always liked the Ace Combat games, so. Anyway, Pixy there does a decent job of showing up the moral problems associated with "fighting for peace", and touches on the same dilemma that Aly and Jaesa begin to grapple with there in the cockpit off Lantillies. Ironically, Pixy himself would become disillusioned with the war, and eventually turned traitor, fighting with a terrorist group whose goal was to shock the warring powers into laying down their arms and creating "a world with no boundaries". And when he's shot down by the player character, Cipher (ha!), in one of the most intense boss battles in any video game ever (

is the music to it), he's going on and on about those ideals - he should've taken his own advice. (He doesn't die, but he does shoot down PJ, and the game strongly implies that PJ died.) Oh, and PJ's voice actor? Johnny Yong Bosch, who among many other things did the voice for Torian Cadera. Who is recruited on Taris. I'm glad I'm here.

 

Yeah, it's a little ridiculous for Monk - you know, Baras' spy - to be in place in freaking OPNAV (or the Republic's equivalent), but since either way Baras has an agent in place in the Republic's high command, it's not as though putting Monk in OPNAV really makes things any more crazy than they already are.

 

In the actual game, the Warrior is, of course, not given full control of the armies on Taris, and only receives full command of even Moff Hurdenn's forces - here designated as Ninth Army - immediately prior to the Siege of Olaris. In reality? I have a hard time believing that the notoriously capricious Sith would be okay with Gravus completely screwing up the war. And since the very first Imp planet quest on Taris is saving the Brell base from Republic artillery that's threatening to wipe it off the map, it's impossible to argue that Gravus didn't completely screw up the war. Also, the command aspect adds an interesting dynamic that I'm going to enjoy exploring.

 

Task Force 77 is, in US Navy lore, the main striking arm of the Seventh Fleet, which ran the war in the Southwest Pacific from 1943 onward, facilitated the liberation of the Philippines, and then became the main American force in WestPac from the end of the war to the present day. The two task groups of TF-77 fought most of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in world history.

 

I am aware that Regus does not actually enter the game's story until Ilum. Unfortunately, there isn't exactly a long list of Imp fleet commanders for me to pick and choose from, and this role seems reasonably plausible for him anyway. That disagreement between him and Malgus, of course, ballooned into what we eventually saw on display during the Imp side version of the Ilum campaign.

 

"Something will turn up" is the famous catchphrase of Wilkins Micawber, from Dickens' David Copperfield. Hopeful optimism, that's the ticket. I could've inserted Ulysses Everett McGill's speech about Delmar and "paradigms of hope" from O Brother Where Art Thou instead, but I figured we were at about max capacity for Coen Brothers references in this fanfic.

 

It's never made particularly clear in the game what role Saresh has in the Imperial campaign for Taris. During the siege of Olaris, Imp players can freely fight their way into her former office, which is listed as "evacuated", but it's not clear if Saresh was the governor who evacuated or if she moved on to bigger and better things in the Senate before the Empire's campaign kicked off - and a different governor was left to run Taris and evacuate as the Imps closed in. I tend to assume it was the latter; it'd be a pretty big black eye for her if Taris was lost on her watch, enough of one that it's hard to see her becoming the Supreme Chancellor after Janarus' murder/resignation. But I left it ambiguous, just because.

 

Panthalassa is Greek for "all-ocean", and it's the name of the ocean that surrounded Pangaea several hundred million years ago. Little geology reference there.

 

General Bourom is the questgiver for the Imperial heroic-4 mission "Enclave Raid" on Taris, and is also mentioned in the terminal-given quest "Tainted Water". He is portrayed as being somewhat laid-back, with a certain ironic fondness for "suicide missions" (although not to the degree of loonies like Lieutenant Rutau from the Okara droid factory on Balmorra).

 

Elin Garza is, of course, the main authority figure from the Trooper class quests, and the head of the Republic's special forces, who also makes an appearance during the Republic's miniature council of war during the climactic stages of the Ilum campaign. I tend to call her "General War Crimes" in chat, because it seems like that's all she's interested in. She comes off as being somewhat cool about the whole Taris venture in the holo conversation immediately before the Trooper's class mission on Taris begins.

 

General Aves - named in an obvious reference to one of Talon Karrde's smuggler associates from the Thrawn trilogy - is the main Republic commander during the Battle of Corellia, and is generally portrayed as being a sane and intelligent leader, so I depicted him as being skeptical about the merits of the Taris project as well. Supreme Commander Rans, the main Republic questgiver for the Ilum campaign, is not depicted as being that sane or intelligent, but I'll give him a pass, too.

 

Quinn's analysis of the Tularan Marsh and its role as a base for the Republic is the theme of the Imperial Bonus Series on Taris; Lord Vago and his staff come to basically the same conclusion as Quinn does. I saw an opportunity to tie that base's construction into both the War Trust's grand offensive and Revan's genocide plan. And so the final story arc of this little fanfic was born.

 

Vago, as mentioned, is the 75th Legion's commander and plays a role in the Bonus Series. Shaythin is a Sith of indeterminate rank who operates as Gravus' local subordinate in the RRZ and who orchestrates the Siege of Olaris. Melkor Dinn is the questgiver for the series of rakghoul quests that take place on the edge of the Tularan Marsh. And those Mandalorians are Vorten Fett's troops, who play a role in the Bounty Hunter class quest on Taris.

 

In the Manchurian War of 1904-1905, the Japanese besieged a Russian naval base at Port Arthur on the Liaodong Peninsula. The key position during this siege was a bit of ground known only as "the 203-Meter Hill" because it rose 666 ft (203 m) above sea level. Since the high ground around the Republic's Aurek Base/Dynamet General Hospital ruins has gone unnamed - and referring to an obvious plateau as "the Sinking City" seems ridiculous - I named it after that hill. The Japanese commander Nogi Maresuke wasted many lives battering fruitlessly against the fortifications on 203 Meter Hill, much like Gravus did.

 

Anyway. This is what the second half of my story is about: the war for Taris. Welcome to the jungle.

 

[Adwynyth]

More SQUEE. I like how you're tweaking the class and planet stories a bit.

[Euphrosyne]

Planetfall

 

“Der Krieg ist also ein Akt der Gewalt um den Gegner zur Erfüllung unseres Willen zu zwingen.”

-Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, I.1.ii

 

 

I didn’t get to see Aly or Quinn very much over the next few days. Coming up with deployment and campaign plans for a naval task force and a field army on the fly was apparently a lot harder than it looked.

 

Not that either of them was trying to do it all on their own, although I’m sure Quinn would’ve liked to. For all her emphasis on unity of command and whatnot, Aly always tried to impress on me the need to avoid micromanagement, too. No commander could hope to control all aspects of a given battle or campaign, and, according to her, even trying would have adverse effects. Subordinates weren’t just mindless tools, after all. And virtually all of them could do their jobs much better than their commander could.

 

That still left a lot of oversight and planning work for her, though.

 

We still managed to steal a fair amount of time together: a couple of sparring sessions, a meal here or there, an hour or so before we went to sleep – uh, just to cuddle, and chat, and stuff, not anything, um, untoward. And when I was on my own, I spent a lot of time doing conditioning exercises or lightsaber velocities. Saberstaff work was one thing that Aly wasn’t much good with; she preferred the single blade, and the raw kinetic power of Djem So. She tried to help me how she could, but I was mostly stuck on self-study there. Not that that was a huge impediment.

 

It still distressed me that I was basically being turned – turning myself – into a war machine. I’d heard people describe Jedi and Sith as organic weapons of mass destruction before, but I hadn’t really seen things that way as Master Karr’s Padawan. The few times I’d seen Aly in combat, whether on a recording, in a vision, side-by-side, or in the cargo hold, were the first times I’d really grasped the potential for destruction a single Force user possessed.

 

Graduating from that to understanding the kind of damage I could do – let alone accepting the damage I could do – was an entirely different thing.

 

I didn’t really want to confront her with my unease about this, or with the way I felt about attacking a Republic colony world. We hadn’t said anything more to each other about how we would handle the civilians on Taris since that first conversation in the cockpit days before. She was under a lot of stress from the endless meetings, inspections, wargames, and so on. Whether that was a justification for my shyness or a justification of my shyness wasn’t totally clear to me.

 

Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Aly brought it up anyway.

 

We were sitting alone at a table in the Audacious’ wardroom, munching on something that vaguely resembled lunch, when she asked me: “Am I missing anything?”

 

“Mmmmph?”

 

“Okay, maybe I should’ve waited until you didn’t have noodles in your mouth,” she laughed.

 

I hurriedly swallowed. “Um. Sorry, Master. Missing what?”

 

“A solution. We have a better idea about what we’re up against, but I still haven’t got any idea about how to handle the colonists.”

 

I brought my head up from my plate and really looked at her for the first time in days. Her red eyes had dulled from lack of sleep, and it looked as though she’d had to put on more makeup than usual, too, just to hide the dark, tired rings and the worry lines that had to be there. She’d been rubbing her temples so often that it’d become an unconscious habit. Even her appetite had shrunk: my bowl was practically empty, despite the semi-unappetizing food, but she’d barely touched hers.

 

As nonchalantly as I could, I swallowed another bite of noodle. “I guess they can’t stay on the planet.”

 

“Well, we sure as hell can’t move them. And even if we could, I doubt Malgus or Regus or anybody else would go for it. So we have to rely on the Pubs being smart enough to pull the colonists out. And honestly, do you think the War Trust is going to abandon fifteen thousand potential partisan warriors when it starts to need them the most?”

 

It was tricky. But then I thought back to that first military riddle she’d posed, a few weeks ago. How I’d suggested splitting that “tinpot dictatorship” from the populace…

 

“What if,” I asked hesitantly, “it’s not the Republic’s decision?”

 

Aly furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

 

“Well, the colonists aren’t going to want to fight to the death, right?”

 

“Hopefully, yeah,” she said ruefully.

 

“So we don’t need to convince the Republic to pull them off the planet. We just need to convince the colonists.”

 

“How’re we going to do that without killing a lot of them?” she asked pointedly. “And how are they going to be able to leave without the Republic’s help?” But even though she was poking holes at my theory, I could see her eyes start to spark and come to life again.

 

“Well, about the first one, I don’t know. We don’t know what the situation on the ground is like. But they’ve got to have community leaders, right? Maybe we just have to convince – uh, intimidate – them. I don’t think we’ll have to kill loads of colonists to do that.

 

“And about the second one, well. If you start to win the battle part, they’re going to need to ship in reinforcements, right? To keep everything from going to pot. Those ships are going to be going back home a lot emptier than they came in. The colonists could just leave on those.”

 

“We’ll see,” Aly said as she chewed on her lip. “They’re going to have to evac some wounded, too. With Olaris, though, they’ll probably be able to treat most of those on-planet. And they’ll want to, as well, so they can rotate them back into the fighting quickly. It’s certainly an interesting idea. But it still relies on the other side to make moves we want them to make.”

 

“Yeah, but these are moves they should want to make, too.”

 

She smirked. “Never bet on an enemy’s competence. You saw what I ended up having to do to Zylixx.”

 

My face fell. “Yeah…”

 

“And the fact of the matter is, if the colonists don’t just up and leave, we can’t deal with them. There are enough of them to be a spoiler in the field army-against-field army fight, so we can’t leave them as they are, armed and dangerous. Plus they’d die in droves anyway, especially if the campaign dragged on. We can’t force them into rakghoul territory, because that’s just as bad as killing them outright. Actually, it’d be worse, because we’d have to deal with fifteen thousand new rakghoul friends within a few days. And we can’t intern them in camps, because making and garrisoning those would be cost-prohibitive and we haven’t got the manpower. We’d just end up losing the battle, and the Pubs would get to keep their genocide base.”

 

“So pretty much every chance of preventing this from being a humanitarian disaster rests on us convincing the colonists to leave and hoping the Republic lets them.” I scowled.

 

“Humanitarian? I’m not human,” she said playfully. “But yeah. Pretty much. That has to be Priority Two, right behind ‘keep the Pubs from annihilating our beachhead’, if they haven’t done so already.”

 

I laughed nervously. “What, are you and I going to have to do that personally, too?”

 

“Four legions of the Empire’s finest would have something to say about that,” she said with a grin. “But hey, are you worried you can’t hack it?”

 

“Actually,” I said, “I’m worried that I can.”

 

She started to raise her eyebrow-ridge, but caught herself and just gazed at me impassively. “Uh-huh.”

 

“No, I’m serious, Master. I mean, I’m not a very good fighter. I know that. And I still scare myself with how strong I am. People shouldn’t be able to inflict this kind of damage on other people.”

 

Aly made a face, pretending to be insulted. “Well, if you’re not a very good fighter by now, I must be a pretty terrible teacher.”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“Okay. But you know what? That’s why I feel safe that you have that power, Jaesa. Because you don’t want it. All these Sith jerks, throwing around lightning bolts and choking people to death just for kicks and giggles, they’re the kinds of people who want power.”

 

“That doesn’t do me a whole lot of good, Master,” I said miserably.

 

“Well, you’re Force-sensitive. And you’re on a quixotic mission to save the galaxy from the genocidal loons that run the Republic and the Empire. It is what it is. For what it’s worth, you know, you’re the most responsible person I’ve ever met.”

 

“Not exactly big praise from a Sith Lady who’s lived her whole life in the Empire and made a living fighting corrupt Jedi,” I murmured. “I don’t want to sound like a whiner, but you’re still not very good at reassuring me.”

 

“That,” she said gently, “is not what reassuring sounds like. Reassuring sounds like this: I will do everything I can to help and support you in using your power the right way. Whenever you feel like you’re about to stumble, or make a mistake, I will be there for you.”

 

I could see Quinn and a few other officers hovering across the wardroom, trying to catch Aly’s eye: looked like another staff meeting. Our time was up. I grimaced, turned back to Aly, and gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t make a promise you know you can’t keep.”

 

She squeezed back and threw me a lopsided smile, and I just melted. “Watch me, sweetie.”

 

I kept sitting there with a goofy little grin on my face, feeling all warm and gooey, as she reluctantly let go, stood up, and walked over to go be a field marshal again. It took me a few seconds to wipe the weird look off my face and get back to finishing my noodles.

 

The day after that, I went to war.

 

A few thousandths of a light-year away from Taris’s star, just outside the heliopause, Task Force 77 decanted from hyperspace and reunited for one last series of checks. A few recon probes made microjumps into the system while everybody else finalized their manic preparations and tensely awaited the word to start the battle.

 

Quinn had mentioned two days before, over a hastily-eaten lunch with me, Aly, and Vette, that he disapproved of the rendezvous. Apparently there were concerns about the ability of the fleet’s astrogators to make precision jumps without missing their targets by several billion kilometers. And dispatching recon probes into the system, while it would update the fleet’s intelligence in important ways, would also potentially alert the Republic to our presence.

 

He’d been right to be concerned about the first thing. One of the battle squadrons had indeed miscalculated its jump. I watched Regus and the Audacious bridge crew spend a tense minute and a half waiting for them to correct their mistake and rejoin the rest of the task force. Aly’d recognized the danger, too. But, she had said, any mistake would, in all probability, be trivial to correct. The likelihood of a crew overshooting into the Taris system was vanishingly small. And the crews could use experience and seasoning in precision hyperspatial navigation.

 

There was, after all, a war on.

 

Aly – speaking with Regus’ considerable authority behind her as well – had dismissed the second concern too. Task Force 77 was larger than the Republic force in orbit over Taris, so surprise, while useful, would not be totally necessary. According to her, a clear picture of enemy forces would be much more valuable, especially if they’d managed to reinforce in the past few days.

 

It was easy for me to see that she enjoyed this repartee with Quinn over military tactics and theory. Not necessarily because she was a show-off, although she totally was, but more because the back-and-forth was a dialectic: both of them got something out of the exchanges. Besides, it was fun for its own sake.

 

Actually applying those principles was something else entirely, though.

 

Aly was going to leave the fleet battle, if there was going to be one, in Regus’ hands. Her mission – our mission – was to make contact, first with Imperial forces aboard the space station, assuming it was still out of Republic hands, and then with the troops in the Brell Sediment. After gaining a personal understanding of the situation, she’d be able to make the decisions about troop deployment and such.

 

So we didn’t stay on the bridge for that last microjump: we went down to the Fury, and got ready to leave the hangar as soon as Audacious emerged in the Taris system. This time, I didn’t bother to look out the viewport, ready to watch the battle. I’d be drowning in war for the foreseeable future. There wasn’t any need to go looking for it when it would find me soon enough.

 

The magic of inertial compensators and internal gravity meant that I didn’t feel much of anything as the Fury darted out of the hangar bay toward Taris. I could hear Aly and Quinn talking to each other up in the cockpit – apparently the space station was still in Imperial hands, and the Republic fleet, which had been skirmishing with Gravus’ remaining destroyers, was hastily pulling back as TF-77 lumbered into action. They took a few potshots in our general direction, and one turbolaser blast got close enough to give us a jolt, but otherwise the flight was uneventful.

 

I didn’t pay much attention to the docking sequence and Quinn’s heated argument with the space station’s traffic controller. As Aly left the ship and wended her way through the station toward the shuttle bay, I sort of followed along in a daze.

 

Dromund Kaas had been pretty bad, in terms of omnipresent dread and suffering. Taris was worse.

 

I’d done some reading on Taris’ history back when I was still in the Jedi Order, as part of general education. And then I’d read some more over the last few days, to get background for what we were about to do here. I’d had a premonition that something like this could happen. I had tried to mentally harden myself against the sort of feelings my empathy would show me.

 

Three hundred years before, six billion people had lived on Taris. Malak’s bombardment had killed a lot of them. Nobody knew exactly how many, of course, but probably something like several million people had died. His fleet hadn’t been there nearly long enough to destroy everything. He’d only targeted the major government and military centers – his own military centers, because Taris had been a Sith-occupied world – resource depots, spaceports, hospitals, markets, industrial centers, any place that might have been useful to Revan and his companions, any place where they might have been hiding.

 

Most of the city was still intact after the Sith fleet had left. Most of those six billion people were still alive. But with the spaceports in ruins, they were stranded, although a few million people were able to fit onto private transports and flee as refugees into Republic space. With the basis of their economy destroyed, the planet-city started to crumble from lack of maintenance, and those people that were left were reduced to subsistence. With the public health system in disarray, they soon began to sicken and die at alarming rates. And with the military annihilated, one disease in particular took the worst toll: the rakghoul plague.

 

It’s not totally clear how quickly the rakghouls propagated throughout the ecumenopolis. Most of the records were lost or destroyed, or never created in the first place. I remembered that it had been a big deal, six months ago, when somebody discovered holorecordings left behind by a group of survivors that lasted for generations, hiding in the remains of the original Taris colony down near the surface of the planet.

 

Most of those six billion people didn’t last a fraction of that time.

 

By the troubled Republic’s lights, Taris was somebody else’s problem. At the time of the bombardment, the Sith were still on the offensive, pushing back the Republic’s forces in disarray. Taris was deep in Malak’s territory. The Republic simply didn’t have the troops, ships, supplies, or relief workers to go take care of one of the biggest humanitarian crises in galactic history. And after Malak was defeated, the Sith Triumvirate and other factions of his ruined empire remained at large in the Outer Rim. The Republic was hard pressed to rebuild Telos, let alone the monumental undertaking a Taris project would’ve been.

 

It took decades for the Senate to send people to Taris, to try to find out what was left of the place. All they found were ghouls, Mandalorians, and pirates – well, since “Mandalorians” is kind of redundant there, just ghouls and pirates. The planet city itself was already crumbling.

 

Six billion people vanished into history as though they’d never even existed.

 

I couldn’t even begin to imagine how awful it would’ve been to feel that at the time. Sentient lives slowly extinguished, one by one, across the whole planet. You couldn’t even sit there and take it as one unimaginably huge wave of suffering and death that would at least be over soon. You’d have to feel every single one of the lamps go out all over Taris, never to be lit again.

 

What I actually felt…the legacy of that horror, diluted by the passage of centuries…was child’s play compared to that. And the dust and ashes were still enough to drive me to my knees.

 

The station was strangely empty. Most of the soldiers onboard had probably been sent down to the surface, with just a skeleton crew maintaining the defenses and relaying what supplies they had. From the looks of things, they hadn’t been getting in many supplies at all – probably the Republic had been able to destroy or chase off all of the convoys coming in. Aly and I passed through the station without being acknowledged once…all the way up until we got to the shuttle bay.

 

A single soldier was lounging near the entrance, with some maintenance crew scattered throughout the hangar. He hurriedly snapped to attention as we approached, identifying himself as “Lieutenant Rankin, milady. Ees.”

 

Aly’s right eye twitched. “At ease.”

 

“Headed to Taris, milady?”

 

We just stared at him. The silence was deafening.

 

Rankin slowly recovered. “Ah. Yes. Well. Let me clear a shuttle for you.” He waved to some of the maintenance staff, who scurried off toward the front of the hangar. “Please, milady, forgive the delay. We haven’t been able to sortie or launch supply missions for a few days now.”

 

“I suppose that means you haven’t got the Republic on the defensive yet,” she said heavily.

 

“Not that I’m aware, milady. Things have gotten pretty bad down there in the last several days. By now, with attrition, I’m the ranking officer aboard this station. We couldn’t be happier to see the fleet come in to save us.”

 

“Hah. ‘Save you’. We’re not pulling back, Lieutenant.”

 

The lieutenant did a double take. “Milady?”

 

“This fleet,” she said airily, “is here to land an army. My army. We’re here to win, Lieutenant, not go scuttling back to the Stygian Caldera with our tails between our legs.”

 

He gulped nervously. “Um. As you say, m-milady.”

 

“So I’ll want to talk to Lord Gravus as soon as possible. Is there a direct communications link on board this station?”

 

“Ah, no, milady. Well, uh, there was, but the Republic damaged it three days ago, and we, mmm, we haven’t been able to repair it yet.”

 

Aly sighed. “That’s annoying. Where’s his headquarters, then?”

 

The poor guy was going weak in the knees. “I, ah, I’m afraid I don’t know where to get ahold of him. Captain H-helid’s on his staff, though. Um. If he’s still alive, anyway. He usually tends to handle supply situations and, uh, that sort of thing.”

 

“So,” she said, leaning in, “let me get this straight. I’m leading a fleet, and a field army, to this planet. I currently command the largest aggregation of armed force in the entire sector, and I have a direct writ from the head of the Sphere of Military Offense. I want to talk to the commanding general. Instead, you send me to a random staff officer who might not even be alive. Is that about right?”

 

Rankin looked like he was about to cry. “I-I-I’m afraid that’s all, ah, all I can do, m-milady. We really don’t know what’s going on down there.”

 

“Relax,” Aly said. She rocked back on her heels. “I get it. Not your fault. No big deal. I can see that things haven’t exactly been normal here.” She clapped him on the shoulder, and he flinched involuntarily. “Fortunately your job’s about to get a lot more routine.”

 

“Yes, m-milady. Thank you, milady,” he stammered.

 

“So, how about that shuttle?”

 

“Ah. Of course. Right this way, milady.”

 

As the shuttle curved out of the docking bay, with the two of us ensconced within, I caught a glimpse of the lumpen, bloated transport ships hovering around the station, offloading troops and supplies preparatory to a trip down into Taris’ atmosphere. A few flights of interceptors cruised by on patrol. I couldn’t see the fleet – it was too far away, probably keeping a watchful eye on the Republic ships.

 

When we finally cleared a cloud formation and I got my first good glimpse of the Taris battlefield, the feeling of dread and despair and death started to come back even stronger. I had to grab Aly’s hand to steady myself. She looked at me with some concern, then gave me a return squeeze and what I guess was supposed to be a encouraging smile.

 

“This planet,” I whispered, “has really got me on edge. It’s unnerving, Aly. There’s so much suffering here.”

 

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here,” she responded.

 

I swallowed hard, blinked a few times, and looked out the viewport again.

 

It was local night in the Olaris hinterland, an inky blackness only intermittently punctuated with hyphens of brilliant, blinding blaster fire. The shuttle dropped below the tops of the tallest remaining skyscrapers and began to wend its way through a maze of smaller ones – whether smaller by design or by wreckage. Further down, I could see treetops, with some open ground, ranging from normal grassy hillocks to the strange, geometric shapes of half-buried road surfaces or wrecked buildings.

 

From what few terrain features I recognized in the ruined city, we were approaching the Brell Sediment from the south, to avoid most of Republic-controlled territory. The lake there was in fact not full of water at all, but of chemicals leaked from the ruined factories that ringed it. In Taris’ former life, the sediment had been the heart of one of Taris’ largest industrial complexes; now it was just poison. The Republic had established military checkpoints in the area and tried to clean up the old factories, but it was long, difficult, thankless work, and from the looks of it they’d barely made any progress at all.

 

That military presence, though, meant that when the shuttle finally burst into the clear over the old ChemWorks, it was greeted with a fusillade of blaster fire. Our pilot managed to avoid most of the flak; it was haphazard, undirected. The Republic hadn’t been expecting us any time soon. But we still took a few hits, and the shuttle shook dangerously with each impact.

 

We zipped around another ruined skyscraper and left the ChemWorks flak behind, but what greeted us was much worse: the front lines. Republic artillery and walkers ringed the lake and constantly poured energy blasts into the Imperial base’s shields. They had their own concentration of antiair guns, and these ones were ready for us. Our pilot tried to dive below the fire, to swing close enough to the ground that the Republic turbolasers couldn’t depress far enough, but we kept getting hit anyway, and with a sickening thud one of the repulsorlift coils gave out.

 

Wobbling drunkenly, the shuttle managed to clear the last rise before the lake itself, finally safe from the turbolaser fire. We sailed over the lake on sublight engines, the pilot unwilling to risk the damaged repulsors until the very last second. Then we finally slid in under the Imperial shield, cut the engines, and skidded unceremoniously to a stop in the open ground in front of the base.

 

The “island” – which wasn’t, technically, an island, but it was cut off from land on one side by the impenetrable wreckage of a skyscraper – was mostly flat ground, much of it paved, connected to the Brell shore by a single Imperial military pontoon bridge. But in the interior, a sizable cliff – part of the larger 203 Meter Hill – rose to dominate the terrain. It was on this cliff that the skyscraper wreckage rested; beyond it lay the ruined skeleton of a Republic cruiser. The Imps had built a massive bunker into the side of the cliff that served as their main base. But with most of Gravus’ field army driven back onto the island, the bunker had begun to overflow. Wounded soldiers, field tents, stacks of munitions and supplies, and a few badly damaged walkers all lay scattered outside the bunker’s blast doors.

 

I’d expected a ground war to be more…untidy than the fleet battle I’d witnessed at the Foundry, and I knew that things would get even more disorganized with the mauling the Imps had taken here, but this was ridiculous. This wasn’t just a field army in retreat; this was a field army that had been beaten.

 

The soldiers on the ground outside had strained to see us, eager for a glimpse of, I don’t know, a platoon of rescuers or something. Two random women emerging from a badly damaged shuttle didn’t really qualify, but they gawked all the same.

 

Even with all the crowding, it wasn’t too hard to find Captain Helid. He was huddled in one of those field tents, fiddling with some damaged sensor machines and scanning some holographic battle readouts with a worried look on his face, but he perked up as soon as he saw us.

 

“Welcome to Taris, milady. I’m Captain Helid, Ninth Army staff. I can’t say your arrival was expected, but it’s certainly most appreciated. Did you…need to see me for something?”

 

“Thanks,” Aly grunted. “Yeah, I’m here to see your boss.”

 

“Lord Gravus? I’m sure he’d be most interested to speak with you, milady. I’ll call him right now.”

 

Helid hurried over to a holoprojector in the corner and tapped on its controls. Within a few seconds, an ancient scarred visage swam into view. “Report.”

 

“Darth Gravus, this is Captain Helid, presenting the new arrival, Lady…”

 

“Alypia,” she supplied.

 

“…and her apprentice.”

 

Gravus turned his gaze on us. He…he creeped me out. He didn’t have the quiet menace of Darth Baras, or the palpable, confident, invincible power of Darth Malgus. Yeah, you could tell that he was a powerful man in his own way, menacing and evil. But his wizened face was crisscrossed with implants, a strange fusion of man and machine, as though parts of his body had withered away and he had to use these devices to keep himself going. Actually, forget the "as though", that was probably what really happened.

 

“I sensed your presence,” he breathed. “Such mastery of the Force is rare…and impressive. Are you here to lend your lightsaber to Taris’ destruction?”

 

I mentally braced for the biting, witty remark she’d use to depose him and take control for herself…and for the rage it was sure to cause. Maybe he’d try to fight her over it. I uncomfortably drummed my fingers on my saberstaff’s hilt.

 

“After a fashion,” Aly said. “I’ve brought…”

 

“Excellent,” he interrupted. “We can discuss these things in greater detail later, but for now, you must swat down the Republic artillery firing on our base.”

 

She stood there, rigid as a statue, and her eyes tightened.

 

“They seized those positions four hours ago, and I haven’t enough Sith left to drive them off. If they keep up that fire, the shield will fail.” An unexpectedly loud blast on the base perimeter punctuated his words.

 

I could feel her preparing to tell him precisely what he could do with that order. But she managed to unclench her jaw and relax her posture. “There won’t be a single gun left standing.”

 

Gravus smiled crookedly. “I remember when I burned with such passion. Seek me out once the Republic artillery is in pieces, and we can discuss your role in the greater conflict.”

 

He cut the feed, and Aly growled quietly, “Yeah. And your role, too.”

 

I tapped her on the shoulder. “Master?”

 

“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Taking out that arty is more important. We can settle this business after that’s done.” She turned to Helid. “Thank you, Captain. See you in a few.”

 

He bowed stiffly. “Milady.”

 

She abruptly turned on her heel and jogged toward the pontoon bridge, and I hurried to follow, dodging milling soldiers and field ambulances. More artillery rounds burst against the shield, and each time it gave a sickly yellow flicker. It seemed as though the thing was going to collapse at any moment.

 

About twenty Imps were holding a barricade in front of the bridge, with a couple more out on the bridge itself, hiding behind makeshift pieces of cover and taking the odd potshot at the Republic troops working their way across. A Sith Lord with a dark purple lightsaber was busily hacking away in the midst of the white-armored Pubs, but as we neared the barricade I saw him take a blaster bolt in the shoulder that spun him around and dumped him on the ground. But he was still alive. I watched as he twitched to his knees and started crawling back to the Imp fortifications. With a shout equal parts dismay and vengeance, the Imperial soldiers laid down a swathe of covering fire and kept the Pubs’ heads down long enough for the wounded Sith to limp to safety.

 

Aly didn’t stop at the bridge, though. Instead, she made for the perimeter of the base. Most of the shoreline was surrounded by high ramparts, the remnants of a skyscraper wall that had been repurposed as field fortifications, but there was still some actual shore left, and we hurried toward it, wending our way around errant blaster bolts and ducking reflexively as another artillery barrage rolled in.

 

A soldier there was mounting his speeder bike, doing a last minute gear check, when we walked up. Aly got his attention and jerked her thumb. “Screw off.”

 

“Yes, milady,” he stammered. “Of course, milady.”

 

Then she turned to me, and grunted, “Come on, you goofball, get on. We haven’t got all night.”

 

I shook the cobwebs out of my head and blinked my eyes to life. “Uh. Oops. Sorry.” Then I sat down, and she got on behind me.

 

“Um…Aly? What do I do?”

 

“Start driving?”

 

I fidgeted. “I don’t, uh, actually know how to drive one of these. Or, um, anything, really.”

 

She goggled at me. “What.”

 

“When would I have learned to drive?” I said defensively.

 

“Isn’t that the sort of thing the Jedi would teach you? Or do they focus on the meditation nonsense and ignore useful skills from the real galaxy?”

 

“Look, I wasn’t Master Karr’s Padawan for very long, and when I was a servant, we didn’t have our own vehicle…”

 

“Okay, you and I are going to discuss this later. Not gonna deal with it now. Switch seats.”

 

To my chagrin, I found that there wasn’t crash webbing for two people; when I got behind Aly, I had to hug her pretty tightly to keep from falling off. Of course, I’d started holding onto her before I found there wasn’t any crash webbing there…

 

Heh.

 

She engaged the repulsorlift and fired up the turbine with a high-pitched whine. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

 

The bike zipped across the lakefront, past platoons of Imperial troops hastily building field fortifications, awaiting the inevitable Republic amphibious attack when the shield came down. Then it leapt over the lake itself, with sickeningly green chemical waste bubbling only a meter away from my dangling feet. Aly put in a few bobs and weaves to avoid the blaster fire tracking toward us from the Republic soldiers on the bridge, but we were moving too fast for them to get a proper bead on us anyway, and the little green and red hyphens of death passed harmlessly behind us.

 

In less than a minute we were at the steep embankment on the other shore. Since we were in enemy territory, Aly cut the painfully loud turbine and proceeded solely on the relatively silent repulsors. She guided the bike past random piles of skyscraper debris and odd, stunted little bushes with mean-looking little thorns. A few hundred meters away through the underbrush, I could see one of the Republic artillery sites, four massive cannons hammering away with a gaggle of soldiers around them, loading rounds, calculating firing solutions, and passing various messages.

 

She found a particularly dense stand of trees and bushes and shut down the repulsors, letting the bike settle to the ground. Then she rolled off and quietly darted into the jungle. I awkwardly followed as best I could, making more than enough noise for the both of us.

 

Soon we’d managed to sneak back in sight of the Republic battery, well-lit in comparison to the surrounding jungle. It didn’t seem as though the soldiers had any idea we were there. I slithered up behind Aly, uncomfortably aware of the oppressively hot and humid climate and the multitudes of bugs and gross…slimy things all around me.

 

“So, how are we gonna do this?” I whispered.

 

All I could see of her face was her bright red, almost glowing eyes. They narrowed a bit as she surveyed the Republic position. “We don’t have much time. They probably have thermals, active sensors, something. They’ll know we’re here soon, and they’ll lay down an FPF pattern that’s going to be hell to get through. We have to hit hard…”

 

My brow furrowed. “Shouldn’t we give them a chance to surrender?”

 

“What?” Aly turned back to me, audibly confused.

 

“We can’t just kill them without letting them give up,” I said firmly.

 

She groaned. “Jaesa, this is war.”

 

“And I’m not a murderer.”

 

“It’s not going to work and we don’t have time.”

 

I started to inch forward anyway. “I’m still going to see what I can do.”

 

Aly’s eyes narrowed again, and she made a few odd noises of helplessness and frustration. Then, she growled, “Fine. You…fine.”

 

I ignored her, and kept crawling through the underbrush. Every few seconds, I’d raise my head to check and make sure the soldiers were still oblivious. More than once, I had to stop and flatten myself against the muddy ground as one of them turned and idly scanned the area. But within a minute, I was within ten meters of the edge of their little clearing, and came back up to my knees.

 

Showtime.

 

And then I stepped on what had to be the one dry branch in the entire sopping wet jungle.

 

The milling soldiers immediately dove for cover and pointed their weapons into the underbrush. Even the artillerymen drew pistols and vibroblades as they crouched closer to their guns.

 

Oops.

 

One of the soldiers called out a challenge. “Tide!”

 

For about five seconds, I tried to figure out a plausible countersign to try to bluff my way in. Then I gave up.

 

Just do it.

 

“Hey, um…I really don’t want to have to hurt you guys, so could you…”

 

They cut me off with a brief burst of unaimed blaster fire. None of it got very close, but I still froze.

 

So much for that scheme.

 

One of the soldiers closer to me stood up and tried to peer into the woods with his helmet. I guess he was turning on his thermal filter or something, because soon he was looking right at me. He shouted something unintelligible and raised his rifle to fire.

 

A little streak of silver whizzed past me through the woods and slammed into his chest with a meaty thok, then bounced off and flew back into the trees. He toppled over like a falling tree.

 

Well, that was weird.

 

Then my eyes finally registered the flash of bright purple, and noticed the smoking hole in his armor where he’d been hit.

 

It all happened so fast…

 

The other soldiers recovered quickly, laying down a deadly pattern of blaster fire that slashed through the trees and turned my hiding place into splinters. But they were already too late.

 

Somehow, she’d jumped thirty meters and landed in the middle of the haphazardly firing troops, her lightsaber already back in her hand. She brought her other fist down on the ground and hammered it with such force – such Force – that several of the soldiers near her lost their footing and dropped unceremoniously to the ground. They tried to stumble back to their feet, but she was already slashing away.

 

Well, time for me to do something helpful.

 

With the soldiers’ attention belatedly focused on Aly, I rolled out from behind what was left of the tree I’d used as a hiding place and lit my own lightsaber, racing the last few meters to the edge of the clearing. One of the soldiers heard me coming and turned to try to shoot me, but I brought up my saber, caught the first few shots and deflected them away, then covered the last few steps to reach him and slashed at his rifle. He jerked back and managed to avoid the blow, firing down toward my legs to try to get a few hits in away from my saberstaff. I swung the blade down and caught his shots, but that brought the other half of my lightsaber up into range. With an almost negligent twitch, the green bar of light slashed through his right hand, and the rifle fell uselessly to the dirt.

 

Cho mai is another one of those “honorable” marks of lightsaber contact. Cutting off the weapon hand without killing is supposed to be a sign of a practiced warrior, a sort of ideal to strive for in terms of ending a combat without taking a life.

 

So I was off to a good start. By that standard. Hooray, I maimed somebody.

 

The soldier was still staring at the stump where his hand used to be as I kicked him to the ground and turned toward the artillerymen. Two of them were hurriedly trying to winch some of the guns into a position to fire over open sights, but that would be worse than useless at the range we were at. The others had a better idea: they had their sidearms out and were angling for open shots at me and Aly.

 

I sprang toward some of the ones pumping out pistol rounds in Aly’s general direction. They adjusted their fire, trying to catch me at a distance, but only managed to trigger a few badly aimed shots that passed harmlessly into the jungle behind me. A few of them were closer, but I raised my lightsaber blade and deflected them back into the shooters. One of them went down twitching, but two others were still standing. They discarded their pistols and drew wicked-looking vibroblades.

 

As they chopped toward my head, I dove for the ground, not even trying to block both strikes at once, making sure to close down my lightsaber so I wouldn’t, you know, gouge out my own leg or take a big chunk out of the ground or something. The dive turned into a shoulder-roll, and I jumped to my feet right between the two artillerymen. Their blades were hopelessly out of position. Mine weren’t. I held my saberstaff out with each activator plate pointing to one of the soldiers, and thumbed it on, spearing them both in the gut.

 

They tumbled to the ground on either side of me, and I turned to check on Aly. I needn’t have worried. There had been seven men around her; now there were two. And those two probably didn’t have long for this world.

 

So instead I bounded around the side of the nearest cannon, heading for the last few artillerymen and soldiers. One of the gunners was fumbling with a rifle he’d picked up from the ground. He didn’t get a chance to use it, because I disarmed him – metaphorically at first, with a slice through the rifle’s power pack, then literally, as the power pack overloaded and blew up, turning his right arm into a shattered, bloody mess and putting him very much out of the fight.

 

A soldier came up behind him, forgoing his rifle for a vibroblade. I didn’t have the chance to strike at him before he was on me, and for a few seconds it was all I could do to direct his overhand chops slanting away with the edge of my saberstaff. He had plenty of raw strength, but the technique just wasn’t there; his attacks were poorly directed, and it was all too easy to bring his blade out of line with his center. Finally, with the left-hand blade on my saberstaff, I knocked his vibroblade far enough away that he was completely vulnerable. Then the right-hand blade came up and jabbed him through the chest.

 

Shades of the fight on Nar Shaddaa. Only this time, thankfully, the poor guy was dead before he hit the ground.

 

I made my way back around the massive gun to Aly just as she finished dispatching the last of her own opponents. She wasn’t even breathing hard. I mean, I wasn’t, either, but I figured that as soon as the adrenalin wore off I was going to crash. She looked like she could do this all night.

 

Her head came up and she caught my eye, flashing that wonderful lopsided smile, and for a second I forgot that I was on a battlefield standing in the midst of a pile of corpses, because we’d both come through it alive…

 

But then her face twisted angrily. Before I could even react, she thumbed her lightsaber back on, brought it up behind her head, and flipped it past me. The lavender blade twirled only a few centimeters from my face as it went past, and I could feel the non-heat of its passage. Then I heard it slam into something, and a soft, pained gasp. I was still so exhilarated by the fight that I didn’t even think to be shocked, I just turned around to see what she’d thrown it at.

 

It was the man I’d disarmed at the start of the fight. He’d collapsed onto the ground, but still managed to grab a pistol from one of the dead artillerymen and had been aiming it at my back with his remaining hand. Aly’d noticed just in time. I guess I’d been too pumped up on the fight to even pay attention to Force premonitions of danger.

 

The dying soldier let go of the pistol and rolled over onto his back. Aly called her lightsaber back to her hand, closed it down, and strode over, her face still wearing that implacable, determined combat look. She knelt down in front of him and just glowered for a few seconds.

 

Then she grit her teeth and snarled menacingly, “Nobody tries to hurt my girlfriend. Nobody.”

 

It shocked me back to reality. Part of me felt indescribably warm and happy and loved at the reminder of how Aly felt about me…not that I needed proof, or anything, but still. But another part of me finally remembered where we were, why we were there, what we’d just been doing, and a sort of heavy feeling settled in my chest. I took a deep breath.

 

The soldier let out a wheezing rattle and went still. And then it was just Aly and me again.

 

All I could do was repeat there is no death, only the Force over and over in my head like a mantra that would ward off the worst feelings of humiliation and despair.

 

She stood back up, then turned toward me with a start. “Hey, I’m sorry. Are you okay? Did you get injured at all?”

 

“No,” I said heavily, “I’m fine.” I grimaced. “It still feels terrible even when they don’t take the chance to surrender.”

 

“There’s only so much we can do, sweetie,” she said sympathetically. “And you made sure we did more than anybody could reasonably expect.”

 

Another deep breath. “Yeah.”

 

Aly turned back toward the artillery. “Now let’s blow this junk up and get on to the next ones. We need to save this base.”

 

“And then we’re going to deal with the Gravus situation?”

 

She nodded. “And then we’re going to deal with the Gravus situation.”

 

[Euphrosyne]

Notes to Chapter XII

 

Clausewitz is awesome. The quote: "War is therefore an act of violence done to an enemy in order to compel him to do our will." It has more than a little bearing on that little conversation Aly and Jaesa have on the Audacious, because not only have they adopted "destroy the Republic base" as their mission, but they are also trying to compel the colonists to quit Taris without slaughtering them all. Somehow. They're feeling their way toward the solution, but they're not there yet.

 

The description of Force users as "organic weapons of mass destruction" comes, I think, from the most recent Story and Lore thread on the Jedi Order's prohibition of romantic attachment. I liked the turn of phrase and thought it'd be appropriate for a Jaesa who's definitely not comfortable with her powers.

 

TF-77's stop outside of the Taris system comes from Heir to the Empire, as does the justification for it, with Aly and Regus playing the role of Thrawn and Quinn playing the role of Pellaeon.

 

It's always seemed slightly ridiculous that Malak's little fleet with the small amount of time shown in KotOR was able to destroy an entire planet. During the Galactic Civil War, the Imps required a lot of ships with vastly more powerful weapons to execute a Base Delta Zero attack. So I scaled the damage done by Malak's bombardment back to a level I felt was more commensurate with the length of time it took - millions of deaths still being no bagatelle - and laid most of the blame for the crumbling city at the destruction of infrastructure and the encroachment of rakghouls. This is what happens when you let history people touch Star Wars. (Also, this.)

 

I picked up a bit of imagery from Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, who stated on 3 August of that year, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." The irony there, of course, is that the war was in significant part Grey's own damn fault. Incompetent idiot. Basically the antithesis of this genius in every way.

 

The conversation with Lieutenant Rankin doesn't quite go that way. But under the circumstances of the slightly altered story, and with the personality of Aly involved, I figured that this was a natural direction to take given his first few fairly inane remarks, which have been preserved.

 

When the Warrior and Jaesa first step off the transport on Taris' surface, she says "...I sense such suffering here." Kinda twisted it a bit to get it to fit our Jaesa, but the homage is there.

 

The last part of this chapter is dedicated to the Imperial main planet quest "Barrage".

 

It took me forever to learn how to drive, and since Jaesa is kind of an author avatar here, she inherited that defect. But since Aly is also sort of an author avatar, and since I'm embarrassingly hypocritical, she inherited my vague sense of disdain for people who don't know how to drive.

 

Jaesa's attempt to get the Pubs to surrender is drawn mostly from "You really aren't going to surrender, are you?", another one of the lines she says in battle. I always felt it was weird for her to say that when virtually none of the enemies in the game ever have a chance to surrender. So I had her give them one. And it turned out pretty much exactly how you'd expect. Her "so much for that scheme" actually comes from the final cutscene of the game Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2, and is uttered by General Plastro. In my defense, that was the only PlayStation 2 game I owned for, like, a year after I first got it.

 

Oh, and I did promise epic fight scenes.

.

 

[NgeneR]

*applause

[Caernos]

I haven't commented before but I did want to step in and say that I am enjoying this very much Euphrosyne, please keep writing and keep up the great work.

[Adwynyth]

*applause

*joins in, passes popcorn*

[MishraArtificer]

*joins in, passes popcorn*

*Continues passing popcorn, sticks with the party trays and Dr. Pepper I brought in earlier.*

 

Also, you missed a partial reference to a line you had Jaesa say...

 

"Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it." - Cortana, UNSC AI, Halo 2.

[Euphrosyne]

Thanks again, everybody. Sorry this is a bit later than I usually update - went on a trip this past weekend, and got kinda neurotic about editing after that. Also, I filled in the wrong chapter title in the table of contents, so that'll be fixed.

Also, you missed a partial reference to a line you had Jaesa say...

 

"Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it." - Cortana, UNSC AI, Halo 2.

Come to think of it, that probably was in the back of my mind when I wrote that line. Good catch.

[Euphrosyne]

The Province of Uncertainty

 

“Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j’attaque.”

-Ferdinand Foch, message to Joseph Joffre, 8 September 1914, during the Battle of the Marne

 

 

One of the hidden benefits of my new – and outré – Sith apprentice garb was that I was much better prepared to spend time in the hot, humid jungle. My old Jedi robes, even as comfortable as they usually were, were still bulky enough that they would’ve left me soaking in my own sweat within a few minutes, even without the exertion of fighting. But with these clothes, I didn’t feel nearly so gross.

 

These are the sorts of things you fixate on when you’re trying to ignore the fact that you’re in the middle of a war zone and you’ve just killed what feels like several dozen people.

 

I guess the air conditioning in the Imperial command bunker had broken down during the artillery bombardment or something, because finally going inside felt just as hellish as being outside. More so, even. The bunker was crammed full to bursting with people – soldiers, Sith, even the odd sutler. A lot of those people were probably there to hide from the bombardment that had only just ended. There just wasn’t enough room on the “island” for all these people – the wreckage of an entire army.

 

Being Sith meant that even in the middle of that huge mass of humanity, Aly and I got a wide berth. I wasn’t about to complain. The strange combination of fear and reverence that the average Imperial subject or soldier felt about Sith would never be something that I could get used to, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy at least some of the ancillary benefits. At least the more benign ones, anyway.

 

Darth Gravus’ “office” as the overall commander wasn’t so opulently furnished that his rank was obvious to the outside observer. What made it obvious was the amount of uncluttered, unoccupied space he possessed. Everybody steered very clear of Gravus’ room. As we passed through the throng, I sensed fear from the people I passed. But there was also something else there, too: contempt. That distance he had from his underlings wasn’t just the mark of respect: it was the mark of people trying their best to get distance between themselves and a doomed man.

 

He didn’t look very different from a few hours ago, except for extra sleep lines that crowded around his eyes. It must’ve been past his bedtime. As we approached, he turned to meet us, but didn’t say anything before Aly plunged in.

 

To my surprise, she didn’t start by ripping into him and excoriating his command failures. “The Republic artillery has been destroyed, Lord Gravus.”

 

“I hope you enjoyed yourself,” he said, in a surprisingly measured voice. Either he was preternaturally calm, or he was disconnected from the immense danger his army had been in. “This Republic infestation has been an…unusual amount of trouble to exterminate. Any more Sith here, especially those with your power, are most welcome. How much do you know about the situation?”

 

Aly’s response, whatever it was going to be, was abruptly cut off as somebody ostentatiously bumped into her from behind. She turned to glare at the newcomer, who strutted in like she owned the place.

 

“I’m back, Gravus,” the new woman purred. “I slaughtered every one of them, then crushed their artillery.”

 

I had to fight to keep my anger under control. We did that – me and Aly. And not only was she blithely taking credit for what we did, she was making light of it. People died out there, and to this woman it was all some sort of grotesque game.

 

I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to get along with this person at all.

 

Gravus, at least, knew what was up. “A fascinating story. Unfortunately, the true destroyer of the Republic artillery stands before you. Thana Vesh, meet Lady Alypia, the latest addition to my circle.”

 

“Charmed,” bit out Aly between gritted teeth.

 

“Hunt in my territory again,” snarled Thana, “and you’re dead.” On the surface, she seemed like a lot of other young Sith, both real and stereotypical: skin so pale it practically glowed, fiery red hair, menacing Sith tattoo patterns, close-fitting garb done up in blacks and grays. I saw no particular reason to modify that assessment, but that meant we were still left with a typical bloodthirsty Sith.

 

So I bit my lip, and tried to keep things calm. “Aren’t we all friends of the Empire here?”

 

“Don’t lecture me.”

 

Darth Gravus chose that moment to get involved again. “It is well that you are angry, Thana. This woman did your job. But use that anger against the Republic instead. Don’t waste it in pointless squabbles.”

 

“Actually,” said Aly precisely, “I’m doing your job, too.”

 

His eyes narrowed. “Have a care, young lady. I am supreme on this world.”

 

“Not anymore. As of three days ago, I’ve been granted authority directly from Darth Vengean to unseat you and take control of the Taris theater myself. I have a task force in orbit and four legions ready to land. And I just saved this base. Personally.”

 

Ah. And there it was.

 

“Whatever,” said Thana with a pretentious eye-roll. “Gravus, let’s just kill her and take her army, then finish this.”

 

Aly glowered at Thana for a few seconds, then turned her attention back to the impassive Dark Lord. “I’d love to see you try. Jaesa and I could win this easily, even after fighting the Republic Army. We would smoke your implanted butt like a cheap cigarra. And don’t think your soldiers wouldn’t be happy to see me do it, either.”

 

Thana goggled at us. “What?”

 

“In case you haven’t noticed,” my Master lectured, “you broke your army. You wasted it in stupid, unimaginative, pointless, brutal attacks. Then you failed to stop the Republic from rolling you back and trapping you on this island with no way out. You made a bunch of little decisions, but no big ones. You failed to impose your will on the battle, except in a very bad way. And your soldiers aren’t stupid. They saw all of this as it was happening, and they know precisely who to blame.”

 

I could see the coronal discharge of Force lightning build up around Gravus’ hands. The man had to be completely enraged at us. I tensed, thinking there was a fight in the offing.

 

But he got the better of his emotions. His hands went back to normal. Instead, he asked quietly, “Why you?”

 

Aly smirked. “Because I can win.”

 

“Perhaps,” he allowed, far more graciously than I was expecting. He had to be plotting something. “But why do you care? Why do Vengean and Baras care? What has made Taris a matter of such importance to the Dark Council?”

 

I saw her weighing whether to answer him or not. Eventually, she did. “A little over a week ago, we found out about a Republic plan to use an ancient Rakata foundry to pump out billions of extermination war droids, for the purpose of committing genocide against the population of the Empire. We destroyed the Foundry, but there’s a lot of droids left, and from what we can tell most of them went here. Taris is the Republic High Command’s forward base for snuffing out the Empire. So instead of letting you spin your wheels in the mud and waste men and matériel to no point or purpose, we’re making an all-out push to win.”

 

Thana had been pacing around the main holodisplay, fuming as Aly made her little The Reason You Suck speech. Finally, she burst out, “You worm. I don’t have to take this anymore from the likes of you!”

 

“You will,” Aly said darkly, “or I will kill you.”

 

Or? That meant that not killing them was on the table. But why? What was the point of leaving two extremely dangerous sociopaths, and possibly a lot of their followers, alive to wreak havoc on the warring armies and the more or less innocent Republic civilians?

 

What was Aly doing there?

 

Gravus was still calculating, and came to a similar conclusion. “You said ‘or’. What is it that you plan to do otherwise, little Sith?”

 

Aly smiled. “Keep you in charge.”

 

Huh?

 

“Look, I don’t need you dead. You don’t need you dead. And there’s no way you’re completely useless,” she continued, firing off backhanded comments like she was trying to goad the two Sith into a fight anyway. “Never throw away a potential asset if you don’t absolutely have to.

 

“So why not? You could stay in charge, and I could be your, ah, ‘chief of staff’. I’d run the show, of course. Give the actual orders, do the actual planning, fight the actual battles. But hey, you’d be the figurehead, and you’d get the credit as far as the Dark Council was concerned. Everybody important, like Vengean and Baras, would know what’s what, but this way you keep your head, you aren’t responsible for anything, and you get your name written into the history books in a good way instead of a bad one.”

 

“And to reap these great rewards,” he said suspiciously, “all I need do is…nothing. Stay out of your way. Fail to exercise my prerogatives as commander.”

 

“Prerogatives you don’t actually have anymore, because I can kick you out anytime I like,” she corrected.

 

“Hmm.” Gravus waved this off. “It seems a fool’s bargain for you, if you really do think you can defeat me so easily. What do you get out of such a deal?”

 

“I,” Aly said, “get to win.”

 

It didn’t make any sense. Did she really think that she could handle commanding an army and riding herd on these Sith at the same time? As nervous as I was about killing people – and as uncertain that it was a good solution to much of anything – if any people merited that sort of solution, Thana and Gravus did. And Aly even had a built-in excuse ready. But she’d just thrown that away.

 

Or rather, she could be throwing that away. Because they might still have decided to try conclusions with us anyway.

 

He regarded us for a few seconds, his arms folded, with one hand coming up to stroke his chin. I surreptitiously slid my hand down to my saberstaff. The adrenalin from the previous fights out in the swamp had worn off, but I was ready for another battle, if necessary.

 

I looked over at Aly, who remained remarkably still. Her posture was loose and relaxed, but she gave off this impression of readiness, too, of being totally aware of her surroundings and able to shift into fight mode at no notice at all.

 

Thana, too, was still. She’d stopped her pacing a minute or so ago, but I could see the animalistic fury practically overflowing within her. Where Aly’s stillness was relaxed, Thana’s was tense – she was so rigid it was almost like she was shivering. Her thin lips were drawn back in a scowl, and above her high cheekbones and classical nose, her eyes were slitted, her tattooed brow furrowed in rage. If she let those tensions keep boiling inside her, she might start a fight whether Gravus wanted to or not.

 

But I guess Gravus decided not to look a gift traladon in the mouth too closely. He quietly nodded his assent, and everybody – except Aly – visibly relaxed. Even Thana.

 

Instead, Aly ran her tongue over her teeth and grinned. “Do you have, say, some sort of conference room I can use? I want to get the staff and the key commanders together in about fifteen.”

 

“Yes,” Gravus mumbled, “at the end of that hall. Why fifteen minutes…?”

 

“Because I’d like to have Captain Immaculate…er, Brevet Major Immaculate, with me for this little meeting,” she said. Then she turned to Thana. “Oh, hey, uh, Aleema Keto, or whatever your name was. Would you mind telling me…”

 

Thana folded her arms. “You may command the armies here, but that doesn’t mean I’m at your beck and call.”

 

“Hey, all I wanted to know was where the little girls’ room was.”

 

She was too nonplussed to continue her rant. “We…um…refresher’s over there…”

 

“Sweet. See you.”

 

I wasn’t too interested in being left alone with two homicidal Sith, at least one of which looked like she was going to kill somebody out of her anger with Aly. So I hurried after her.

 

“Brevet Major Immaculate?” I whispered.

 

“Yeah, well, he needs to be at least field-grade or they’ll completely ignore him. This way, they’ll only ignore him some of the time.”

 

“But then he won’t be Captain Quinn…”

 

She didn’t even break stride as we headed toward the refresher. “What?”

 

“Nobody cares about a major. And ‘brevet’ just sounds goofy. But Captain, that’s, that’s got an almost mystical something to it.”

 

We got to the door. She put her hand on it, but instead of pushing it open, she stopped and stared at me quizzically. “That’s all you can think about right now?”

 

“It’s a coping mechanism.”

 

And there was the lopsided smile I was shooting for. “You mynock. Did you follow me all the way over here just to say that?”

 

“Well,” I admitted, “I also wanted to get away from the Homicidal Psycho Jungle Girl. And we need to talk about what in space that was about. But I really do need to pee.”

 

She sighed. “All right, come on.”

 

When we got to the meeting room, several minutes later, it had already started to fill up. Most of the people were Imperial military, although I did notice a few Sith. Gravus was there, but Thana had apparently decided to make herself scarce. She was probably off indulging herself in a killing spree somewhere, which didn’t make me feel any better about leaving her unattended. Or leaving her anywhere but a cell, really.

 

Quinn found us pretty quickly. Despite what had to have been a rough flight in, and despite the fact that he was in a crowded bunker with faulty climate control, he looked pretty much the same as he always did, which was, well, immaculate.

 

Minus, of course, the glamour of having the title Captain.

 

It still astonished me how somebody like that, who was such an able and assiduous servant of the Empire, could have such a nonexistent personality. Even droids develop a sort of consciousness and demonstrate feelings after going for a long time without a memory wipe; if anything, Quinn was even more robotic than an actual robot, right down to his unchanging appearance.

 

Sometimes I wanted to try to see what was in that mind of his and tease out the threads of identity that just had to be there. But using my powers for something so petty…I could never follow through and make myself do it. Not to somebody who was almost a friend.

 

Eventually, the room quieted down. Gravus introduced Aly, emphasizing her role as “chief of staff”, then withdrew into the background. He had to be trying to disassociate himself from this whole thing. Probably preparatory to an attempt at sabotage.

 

I hadn’t even been in the Empire that long and I was already starting to be as suspicious as any veteran Sith Lord.

 

Aly folded her hands. “All right, gentlemen. I’ve got four legions and a hell of a task force in orbit. We’re going to relieve the pressure on this base, then push out and reestablish connections with all of the other forces in the area. Does that sound reasonable enough?”

 

She got a few nods, but a fair number of dissenting opinions, as well. One officer seemed horrified. “Milady, we couldn’t crack the Republic’s defenses with our full strength. Some units are down to forty percent effectives now. We’ve got no chance.”

 

“Well,” she said, “you’ve had your defensive stand. Has that worked all that well?”

 

“No, milady, but…we need to evacuate. Those four legions would be best served covering our retreat.”

 

Aly shook her head. “Can’t do that. Number one reason is because there’s almost certainly a base out there in the Tularan Marsh, and if we leave it there we’ll be fighting these Pubs in the jungles of Dromund Kaas instead of the jungles of Taris. Number two reason is that I think that your analysis is overly pessimistic, although I’m willing to have my mind changed by hard facts.”

 

Another officer with what looked like general’s insignia and an expertly trimmed beard stepped in. “Milady, there are excellent reasons for supposing that this siege has stretched the Republic’s logistical capacities and dispersed their forces.”

 

“General…Farvin, isn’t it? Cool. What’ve you got?”

 

He nodded. “Due to the presence of rakghouls, the Republic is incapable of drawing down their garrisons in other areas in any real way. In order to mount this siege, with what we believe is a corps of four divisions, they’ve had to rely on the settler population to maintain security in some areas of the front.”

 

“Yeah, we’ve seen supply convoys going out with minimal guard, and settler militias covering big chunks of territory away from the front lines,” added a Mandalorian. He made a face. “Haven’t had the manpower to do much other than annoy them, though.”

 

“Interesting,” said Aly. “And you are…?”

 

“Commander Vorten Fett, ma’am. I run Lord Gravus’ mercenary contingent.”

 

“Thank you. So with the raks taking up their attention, where have the Pubs been sticking the rest of their army? It’s a little disappointing that we only rate a third of the planetary garrison.”

 

Fett chuckled. “They’ve got about half of it up on Hill 203 at Aurek Base, managing the Cathar settlers in the New Tarisian Dawn, clearing out raks throughout the sinking city, and keeping control of the medical facilities up at the old Dynamet General place. The rest of it’s either in Olaris or the Tularan Marsh.”

 

“Really,” she breathed. “So if we only had the manpower, this would be the perfect opportunity to defeat them in detail…hmm. What sort of tube strength does this Republic corps possess? The one opposite us here in the Brell Sediment.”

 

Farvin chewed his lip and gestured to a nearby staff officer, who passed him a datapad. “The majority of Republic artillery not positioned on Hill 203, I think.” He scanned the reading, and nodded. “Yes, they’ve had most of what we’ve found outside of the Aurek Base fortifications. Our bombers were doing a number on them, though, before they moved up their AA and we started to take losses. There could be as few as four or five batteries still remaining on the front lines.”

 

Aly smiled fiercely. “One or two, now. They moved their guns up too far.”

 

He looked impressed. “If the Republic artillery is that badly attrited, then…”

 

“…then we have an advantage,” finished Aly. “Can the Aurek fortifications support this corps opposing us here?”

 

“They have the range, milady, but there are too many wrecked buildings in the way,” said a major across the table.

 

“Then it’s just us until they figure out what happened to their guns and move some more up,” she continued. “What else do we know about this corps?”

 

“It’s the Twelfth, commanded by General Kom Orda,” said one of the Sith around the table. “He is reputed to be an…unusually tenacious opponent.”

 

“That’s nice, Lord Shaythin,” grunted Aly, “but he’s not a line soldier. We’re not fighting him, we’re fighting his troops. I was thinking more about equipment, mobility, strength, patterns we’ve seen…”

 

“For awhile, the Pubs were doing a three-up one-back division configuration,” said Fett. “Last day or so, though, they switched it up on us and started pushing with everything. We’ve got prisoners from all four units now. Pressure’s intensifying.”

 

“No reserve,” mused Farvin, “means that they can’t deal with a threat from an unexpected direction.”

 

“We might try doing an air assault with one of our legions in their rear areas to dislocate things. Quinn, have we got enough transports and escorts for that?”

 

“Yes, milady,” he replied. “The Eighty-Ninth Legion has trained extensively in air assault operations, and is fully kitted out.”

 

General Farvin blanched. “A single legion in the attack?”

 

“Yeah, I know,” conceded Aly. “The old adage: kick, don’t tickle. So that’s Wave One. The Eighty-Ninth secures a landing zone, and then we bring in two of the three remaining legions in shuttles, sort of glorified glider infantry. Would that work?”

 

“Tentatively, yes, milady,” said Quinn. “There is enough space in the ChemWorks area to deploy three legions, albeit in a tightly packed manner. And since the site is currently serving as a Republic depot at the moment, it should suffice as an Imperial depot as well.”

 

“All right. What about equipment? Other than the artillery, are they short of anything else?”

 

“The Pubs haven’t been able to keep their walkers going for very long,” smirked Fett. “Something about sabotage.” He turned more serious. “That, and the conditions. They can’t keep anything running in these swamps. So they have to stay on the main roads. And what’s weird is that they’re using them to guard convoys.”

 

Aly’s eyebrow-ridge went up. “Keeping heavy equipment off the front lines…either their commander is very stupid, or he’s pathologically protective of whatever’s in those convoys. Do we have any word on what they’re carrying?”

 

“That’s Lieutenant Pierce’s bailiwick, milady,” said a reed-thin Imperial, half-hidden in the crowd. “He’s out in the field at the moment, but should be back soon.”

 

“Moff Hurdenn, right? Well, I guess you and I can talk about that in private after this meeting’s over. Anything else?

 

“Okay. So the way I see it, Twelfth Corps has three weak links. Link One is those convoys, and Hurdenn and I have that covered. Link Two is their rear area, which seems to be lightly guarded. Fett, I want your recon guys to liaise with Brevet Major Quinn and the staff aboard TF-77 and figure out the proper ellzee for the Eighty-Ninth and the follow-on force. Bring Ninth Army into the loop, too. Link Three is those settler militias. Any ideas for hurting them?”

 

“We could,” murmured one of the Sith, “attack them outright. Slaughter those vile aliens just as they so badly deserve.”

 

She shook her head. “Yeah, no. That’s more trouble than it’s worth. We haven’t got the manpower to try to kill all of the settlers, and trying to intimidate them with blood will just make them angrier. Anything else?”

 

Fett pursed his lips. “Scouts have identified a few central distribution points for weapons and power packs that the Republic is using to arm this Cathar militia. You could just, ah, defang them.”

 

“Nice,” Aly chortled. “Okay, draw up the locations of all the probables. We ought to try to steal as much of these weapons as we can, to relieve the supply shortage. Plus, that means we can capture ammunition and whatnot as we proceed with our offensive. If we can’t, though, blow em the hell up. We have any black ops types that we can assign to this?”

 

“Lieutenant Pierce’s unit would work, milady,” said Hurdenn, “but they’re otherwise occupied.”

 

“Hm. We’ll keep it in our back pocket, I guess. As for the rest of Ninth Army…well, reorganize as much as you can, try to get your units back into fighting shape. There’s no way we can reopen a general offensive with the troops we have here, but keep troops on the line and make sure the Pubs stay honest. Be ready to join the attack when the Eighty-Ninth drops in. Then we can smash Twelfth Corps and free ourselves up for dealing with the Tularan Marsh and Hill 203. I don’t suppose there’s enough room here at Brell Lake to bring in that last legion from orbit?”

 

Farvin shook his head. “No, milady, we’re jam packed here as it is.”

 

“Oh, well, it was worth a shot. Finally, about the daytime/nighttime thing…”

 

Fett shrugged. “We have better nightfighting gear than the Pubs do. At least, my boys do.”

 

“We’ve found,” said Hurdenn, “that major daytime operations in this heat unnecessarily tax the troops. They were discontinued during the Battle of Hill 203.”

 

“Hmp. Pretty weak. What about the Pubs?”

 

Farvin fielded that one. “They maintain pressure. They tried an all-out assault against our lines two days ago in the early afternoon. When that failed, they brought up their artillery. We believe, however, that the tyranny of sleep schedules keeps most of their army inactive during the day. Nighttime is when the rakghouls come out, so the majority of their soldiers are required to be on the lines after sundown, to keep the settler population safe. But that’s mostly in other areas of the theater.”

 

“Makes sense. Okay then. Let’s see what we can work out along these lines. I doubt we’ll get anything done before sunup, so I guess we’ll convene again at midday to check up on progress and finalize preparations for tomorrow night. Hurdenn, Jaesa, you’re with me.”

 

She grabbed the Moff by the arm and not-so-gently guided him out into the corridor as Quinn and the other officers started talking behind us. He grumbled briefly in protest before remembering who he was with and what he was doing.

 

“Where’s your office?” she asked in a pleasant voice that contrasted pretty sharply with how tightly she was squeezing his arm.

 

“This way, milady,” he said as we started down the hall. “And may I say that I have never had cause to assist you or your master before, but I have long been an admirer of your work…”

 

“I doubt she came all this way to be fawned on,” came a deep growl from up ahead.

 

I looked over and saw an enormous man in standard Imperial armor, leaning against an open door into what must’ve been Hurdenn’s office. His face had been darkened by the suns of what could’ve been dozens of worlds. Quinn probably would’ve disapproved of his hair – a goatee and cornrows, kept at what was probably just sliiightly over military regulation length. This was the sort of man people talked about when they referred to a ‘grizzled veteran’. And then there was his slouch. That stance, of relaxed readiness, reminded me of Aly: of someone who was extremely dangerous.

 

“Ah, Lieutenant. We were just expecting you,” babbled Hurdenn. I noticed that he didn’t get all uptight about Pierce’s lack of a “sir”.

 

We filed into the office as Hurdenn kept talking. “Milady, may I introduce Lieutenant Pierce, on loan from one of our notorious black ops divisions. He is, hands down, my finest officer. I give you exclusive reign of him while you’re on Taris.”

 

Aly rolled her eyes. “I’m your boss, Hurdenn. I have ‘exclusive reign’ over all of Ninth Army. If all you want to give me is a solitary officer – no matter how good he is – we’re going to have problems.”

 

“Ah, no, milady. Pierce is beyond capable, but his entire squad is also at your disposal.”

 

“So the hunt for the War Trust, the commanders of this army, the architects of the Republic’s genocide plan…the elimination of which would cripple the Republic and leave their army headless…this has been entrusted to one squad of special forces?” hissed Aly. “If that’s your so-called ‘dedicated unit’, I’m beginning to see why this army is in as bad of a position as it is.”

 

“Milady, with Pierce and his men on the case, there’s no need for other troops,” whined Hurdenn.

 

“I don’t care how good they are, if you throw them at whatever the War Trust has got for personal bodyguards, they’ll all die. Get me more men.”

 

“I’ll, ah, I’ll try to make more available to you soon…” he mumbled.

 

Aly just glared.

 

“…and I will get right on that while you two get acquainted.” He scurried off down the hall.

 

Pierce turned toward us. “Haven’t been on the trail of the War Trust for very long, but I did my homework. Fully prepped for whatever you need me to do.”

 

“Good to hear,” she replied. “Competence is so refreshing. Bring me up to speed. The staff mentioned something about convoys…?”

 

“All four of the War Trust generals are here on Taris, which means something big,” he started. “But they never show their faces. Weren’t even sure they were commanding until yesterday.”

 

“But you have found something out.”

 

He nodded. “Got my hands on a Republic scout a few hours ago. Leaned on him. Hard. He’d been setting up supply routes from General Frellka, the War Trust’s junior member.”

 

“You mean torture,” sighed Aly. “Don’t do that.” I shot her a significant glance and she continued. “Uh, because otherwise the Republic won’t agree to any more prisoner exchanges.”

 

Pierce kept his expression neutral. “Noted.”

 

“So what about this scout?”

 

“Was just out scoping the area the scout described. The Reps run their supply caravans through the area, using carefully staggered routes. Not a lot of ground for them to take, though, because for whatever reason, they’re using walkers to guard these things, and they can’t go off the main roads without getting stuck.”

 

Aly nodded. “Commander Fett mentioned something about that. They’ve been taking their walkers off the front lines to escort the transports.”

 

“Yeah. But it makes the convoys slow-moving and easy to hit if you know what’s there. Couple dozen soldiers could do the trick. Then we could pull their transponders. There’s equipment here that can triangulate their destination. My squad could do it, but Moff’s using em for something.”

 

“What could he possibly need them for that’s neither this op nor the Cathar supply depot one?” mused Aly.

 

“Dunno.” He shrugged equably. “Unavailable is unavailable.”

 

She stretched idly. “Whatever. Jaesa and I are easily the match of a dozen foot soldiers.”

 

“Then I guess I’m runnin’ the tech,” he said with the tiniest bit of disappointment. “Here are the coordinates. Caravans run throughout the night and day, but they vary the timing. You should come upon them eventually, though. Hit enough and nab the transponders, I’ll figure out where they’re going, and we can zero in on General Frellka.”

 

“Good work. Might as well try to get that in before first light. We’ll be in touch,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder.

 

He just inclined his head. None of that saluting business, like with Quinn. Special forces really did have a sort of different mentality, different norms, than the rest of the military.

 

Aly and I left him in Hurdenn’s office and made our way toward the bunker’s door.

 

“No rest for the wicked,” I mumbled. It had started to become a sort of mantra for me. “This place is seriously messing with my internal clock.”

 

She caught it and smiled. “Welcome to the war zone, sweetie.”

 

“Okay. So what’s up with the whole leaving Thana and Gravus around?”

 

Aly frowned. “You disapprove.”

 

“Well, obviously I don’t want us to kill anybody we don’t really really really have to kill,” I said, “but come on, do you seriously think that you can run the battle for an entire planet and keep these Sith under control at the same time? They’re going to kill people. A lot of people.”

 

“It’ll be difficult,” she agreed. “But I’m pretty sure I can handle them. I dunno, I just felt…I didn’t exactly walk into the bunker with a plan, but I was operating on instinct when we had that little confrontation, and that’s where instinct led me.”

 

“You mean, the Force.”

 

She bobbed her head from side to side noncommittally. “I guess.”

 

“Aly, I feel it, really strongly, that this is going to come back to bite us in the butt.”

 

“Hey, what’s done is done. Can’t back down now. So from here on out we just have to wait, and be ready.”

 

“All right. Switch gears. The convoys: what’s our plan of attack?” I asked.

 

“That is my plan.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Aly grinned toothily. “Attack.” And that was when I remembered: as dangerous as the jungle predators on Taris were, as menacing as the various Sith seemed, something still ate all of them. There was only one apex predator on Taris, and she was walking right next to me.

 

[Euphrosyne]

Notes to Chapter XIII

 

In his excellent, Tannenberg, Dennis Showalter, one of our greatest living historians, wrote of the eponymous battle in three phases: the province of uncertainty, the province of chance, and the province of victory. At this point in the Taris campaign, war is still very much the province of uncertainty. The Empire's forces are badly outnumbered, the Republic has most of them bottled up, and even the destruction of their artillery isn't about to slow them down. This, however, is about to change.

 

Continuing with the First World War theme, Foch's quote comes from a battle that was happening at about the same time as Tannenberg. Translated into English, it is usually rendered thus: "my center falls back, my right gives way; situation normal, I am attacking". That insouciance and imperviousness to casualty lists served Foch and the rest of the French commanders well at the Marne: they managed to force the Germans back, but at the cost of frightful numbers of dead and wounded. The Imperial situation is more or less as dire, and Aly's response to it is rather Fochian, but the insane death rolls of 1914 aren't about to be repeated on Taris. At least, not on the Empire's side.

 

Hey, it's Thana Vesh! This won't become apparent for a few chapters, but one of my main goals with this story was to make Thana much much much more intimidating than she actually was in the game. The real Thana was an embarrassing and incompetent failure who "compensated" for it by being an annoying blowhard. Painting her as a rival was a joke. But we do need a rival, and we do need somebody that is legitimately scary, and we need to do justice to a good idea improperly executed. This will all become more apparent when we actually see Thana in action. For now, she's going to be just as impotent as she was in the game. Unfortunately.

 

Aly's efforts to be the power behind the throne here, as it were, parallel Erich Ludendorff's personal understanding of his relationship with his commander, Paul von Hindenburg. That team, the so-called Third OHL, was first created at Tannenberg and eventually went on to lead Germany's entire war effort from late 1916 onward. Ludendorff tended to exaggerate his relationship in that partnership, but I used a version more or less faithful to his memoirs to structure Aly's thought process.

 

Aleema Keto was a similarly semicompetent villain in Tales of the Jedi's account of the Great Sith War. After an initial flirt with actually leading the Krath, she settled into a role of virtual henchwoman to Ulic Qel-Droma, then, once Exar Kun got involved, became mere eye candy until Kun got her out of the way by blowing her up in the Cron Cluster. As far as female villains in Star Wars go, let's just say she's not a very flattering comparison for Thana. (Then again, who else is there? Isard? Daala? Maybe Kreia?)

 

I am pretty sure that that "captain" bit came from this thing on bright_ephemera's tumblr. Brevets used in the fashion in which I deployed them here are basically confined to the US military during the American Civil War, when a brevet grade was a sort of combination award and authorization for higher levels of command. The other reference there, "field grade officer", is an officer senior to one of company rank (up to and including captain) and below a general officer. These are the people in staff appointments and commanding battalions. There's a pretty big gulf between captain and major.

 

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Girl goes back to Calvin and freaking Hobbes.

 

Even though Quinn's barely a supporting character in this story, and even though I swore that I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole, I can't resist foreshadowing the Quinncident. This is because I'm an idiot.

 

General Farvin's the questgiver for the Imp main planet quest missions in the Sinking City. They have to do with some Cathar who will totally not show up later in the story. Not at all. Anyway, he seems more or less sane, apart from the blatant racism, and thinks that Thana's crazy. So, another standard typical more or less competent Imperial officer. And Vorten Fett acts as a questgiver for the Bounty Hunter class quests on Taris, at least the early ones (before you meet Torian), and is pretty much the commander of the Mandalorian contingent on Taris.

 

"Kick, don't tickle" is, of course, a German reference. Heinz Guderian is the most famous person to articulate it, although it was a rule of thumb in the German Army before Germany actually existed. Guderian said, "Nicht kleckern sonder klotzen!", although "kleckern" is more of a timid knock than a tickle and you get the idea.

 

I tried to explain why the Pubs get to operate in daytime in their Taris quests and why the Imps only do things at night. From a non-in-universe perspective, it's easy: the darkness falling on Taris is supposed to be both literal and metaphoric. Here, though...well.

 

Pierce is all right. I'm not really going to do him justice in this story, unfortunately. It's a shame that the Taris quests for the Warrior are so damn goofy, because that kind of impacted the way I thought about Pierce. That and his stunningly useless skill set; there's really no reason a melee dps or tank could possibly want to bring a ranged tank along anywhere.

 

That goofiness, by the way, is going to be a recurring theme. When replaying Taris for the purposes of this fanfic, I was repeatedly surprised by just how loony the Warrior's missions actually were. What ended up happening was a combination of "trying to make them make sense" and "poking fun at how silly the actual missions were". I guess we'll see how successful I was.

 

[Zandilar]

Yep, still good. Really finding this to be an enjoyable read, even the heavily expository bits.

 

As someone who has written game fanfiction quite a bit in the past, I tend to ignore any game mechanics related stupidity... like it always being night or day. I mean, if you're making LS Jaesa a LI for fem!LS!SW - which is certainly not in the game at all - there isn't any reason why you couldn't alter other details when it makes sense to do so. Err, that came out a bit more critical than I was intending. That's just how I do things, but your way is perfectly acceptable too.

[Syart]

Been away travelling for work, trying to catch up on everything now. Love what you're doing with Taris, I'm looking at it in a whole new light now. I've never enjoyed it as a planet, it's too depressing, and the rakghoul virus upsets me, it's so far beyond the bounds of possibility that it totally messes with my head ... anyway, apart from that, I shall take more consideration of it on my next time through

 

It still astonished me how somebody like that, who was such an able and assiduous servant of the Empire, could have such a nonexistent personality. Even droids develop a sort of consciousness and demonstrate feelings after going for a long time without a memory wipe; if anything, Quinn was even more robotic than an actual robot, right down to his unchanging appearance.

*snorts with laughter, spraying half-chewed popcorn over the keyboard*

[Euphrosyne]

Iron Dice

 

“We have grabbed the initiative.”

“Yeah, for maybe five minutes.”

“Well, life is just a succession of five minuteses.”

“Oh, great. Okay, so you’re Buddha, now, are you?”

“Yeah, if Buddha’d been on the cover of GQ magazine.”

-Malcolm Tucker and Nicola Murray MP, The Thick of It Season 3 Episode 8

 

 

There’s some old cliché that, for the infantryman, warfare is almost entirely comprised of long stretches of boredom, punctuated by a few moments of abject terror. That the main element of war is dust – or mud, depending on what planet you’re on. Things like that go to show just how much of a soldier’s time is taken up by stuff other than fighting.

 

I suppose that’s well and good for the average infantryman, but being a member of the Empire’s personal fire brigade meant that I got to experience a lot more terror, a lot less boredom, and infinitely less sleep. Not to minimize the experience of anybody else, of course. I’d much rather not have been at war at all. But compared to what I had to deal with, some of that boredom could’ve been really, really nice.

 

Our little convoy-raiding expedition in the extremely early morning turned into a multi-hour nightmare as we wandered around the jungle searching for the stupid things – and, depressingly, killing an awful lot of people who got in our way. At least the actual convoys themselves were largely guarded by combat droids. It was a lot easier to carve up a hunk of metal than it was a sentient being. With a droid, you never had to wonder if it could’ve, or would’ve, surrendered.

 

By the time we stumbled back into base with the transponder information, all Aly and I could do was hand our datacards off to Pierce and ask about quarters. Fortunately, Sith status meant that they’d cleared out rooms for us. And it also meant that nobody batted an eye when we decided that we only needed one room, not two. Quinn could have the other one.

 

When I woke up, sometime in the mid-afternoon, Aly had already left, gone to her staff meetings and planning sessions again. I could hear the dully loud crump of heavy artillery even deep within the command bunker – probably “ours”, considering what we’d done the night before. It took me awhile to finally pry my eyelids apart, roll them around, make sure I had all of the gunk out…

 

I wasn’t a caf drinker, but nights like the last one helped me understand why people guzzled the stuff.

 

With the Republic artillery no longer battering away at the shields, I guess some enterprising mechanic had managed to restore power to the air conditioning, because it finally felt sort of normal. And the water was running, too – although I was still pretty suspicious of the plumbing. Where were they actually getting the water on this forsaken, toxic rock?

 

I’d been too tired to shower that morning before I fell onto the pallet with my clothes still on. So I felt gross enough that I didn’t think a shower would even get me fully clean. Of course, showing up to a meeting or whatever smelling like pissed seaside bantha would be infinitely worse. Hazarding the refresher and its dubious water was the least-terrible alternative.

 

That was one thing I had that the average soldier didn’t, though: regular access to a mostly-working refresher. On second thought, I’d rather be on the fire brigade.

 

Once I’d been freshly cleaned and accoutered, I managed to find Aly in one of the conference rooms, going over the air assault plans for the evening with Quinn and some other officers. She acknowledged me, but otherwise stayed wrapped up in her task until she was satisfied that everything was more or less ready. Only then did she break away and steal some time with me in the bunker’s lounge.

 

“So,” she started, “how’re you feeling after last night?”

 

I laughed into my juice. “You’re ‘chief of staff’ of the whole army on Taris, you’ve got about a million problems to deal with, and Question One is about me.”

 

“You’re so cute when you’re embarrassed.”

 

“So, pretty much all the time, then?”

 

Aly barked out her own laugh. “Hah, more or less. But seriously, Jaesa: how’re you doing?”

 

“I’m fine, I guess. Not as much, um, moral turmoil as before,” I sighed. “Slept okay. Plumbing’s gross, but better than having none at all.”

 

“I imagine they weren’t exactly the sort of facilities you’re used to.”

 

I shook my head. “I haven’t spent very much time on backwater worlds. It took me awhile to figure out how to work everything.”

 

“So,” Aly continued with an evil little grin, “you could say that you had a sort of refresher course?”

 

“You’re awful,” I laughed. “What about you? How’s the war room nonsense going?”

 

She gave me a wan smile. “Oh, you know, the usual.”

 

“What’s on schedule for tonight?” I decided not to push her about her own haggard appearance.

 

“Pierce seems to have figured out the destination of those convoys. Fortunately, it’s in a section of the front we’re about to hammer into little tiny pieces with that air assault I’ve got laid on for this evening. We’ll have plenty of cover.”

 

“And the armed settlers?”

 

“I dunno about that just yet, Hurdenn’s being evasive as…” She perked up and turned slightly to look at something behind me. “Hey there, Blue!”

 

“Hello, Red. It’s good to see you again. You too, Jaesa,” came the response.

 

Cipher Nine didn’t look as though she’d changed much from a few weeks ago. She had a different combat suit this time around – one in the greens and browns of the Tarisian jungle, and festooned with underbrush similar to what I’d seen outside. Her rifle, slung over her back, was ghillied up too – all normal stuff you’d expect from a sniper. Her face still wore the same neutral expression – it even looked like she had more or less the same kind of makeup on as before.

 

What got me were her eyes. Chiss eyes are red, with no pupil or iris, and they’re really very striking, especially next to their blue skin. Back during the conversation on the White Nova, Cipher’s eyes seemed very…active, and engaging. When she got particularly excited, they actually glittered. Now, though, they were dull, and kind of dark. I didn’t know much about Chiss physiology, and whether this meant that she was sick, or depressed, or just tired, but whatever it was, there was something definitely off about her.

 

She didn’t show it by her conversation, though. “Chief of staff, huh? It seems like you’ve got an awful lot of work ahead of you to get this army going again.”

 

Aly shrugged. “We’re getting it done. What’re you doing here?”

 

“Some grunt work for Intelligence. I can’t say specifics, but there’s a cult around here that needs beheading.”

 

“Interesting,” she mused. “Because Jaesa and I were just talking…there’s something we need done to hit the Republic, and your intrusion skills would be just about perfect for it.”

 

Cipher smiled. “We’ve done so many favors for each other that keeping the account balanced would be an exercise in advanced mathematics. What do you need?”

 

We sketched out the basic idea behind depriving the local settler population of their arms, and its potential effects on Twelfth Corps, and all those other good military side effects. Aly really did most of the talking; I only made a few minor comments.

 

By the time we’d – Aly’d – finished describing what the whole thing was about, we’d moved from the bar to a booth, and Cipher had started on a glass of something much too clear to be water. Not that I’d have trusted the water in the first place, of course. From there, we sort of segued into social chatting.

 

“So,” said Aly, “where’s your toyfriend? The two of you are doing fine, right?”

 

“Huh? Oh, Vector. Yes, we’re doing just fine. He’s off visiting a Killik nest somewhere in the Unknown Regions.” I could see a little of the old glitter in Cipher’s eyes as she talked about Vector, but it was only there briefly before it vanished again. “Kaliyo came with me instead.”

 

My Master snorted. “Bringing a hard-living terrorist into a war zone. Inspired choice. I’m surprised she’s not drinking some soldiers under the table over at the bar right now.”

 

“She said the menu here was pretty weak,” said the agent. “I think she pregamed on the Phantom, because she went wandering off to go arm-wrestle some Mandalorians or something.”

 

“Kaliyo’s tiny. I can’t imagine her lasting very long against some huge Mando,” said Aly with a note of surprise.

 

“Oh, you know Mandalorians. All bark and no bite. Besides, alcohol supercharges Kaliyo. I don’t remember the last time she fought somebody and wasn’t at least half in the bag.”

 

“Hah, fair enough.”

 

“So, um, Cipher,” I said. “It feels pretty awkward calling you ‘Cipher Nine’ all the time. What’s your, uh, real name?”

 

Aly squirmed uncomfortably, but the Chiss woman just laughed. “I wouldn’t be much of a secret agent if everybody knew my name, would I?”

 

“Oh.” I flushed. “That’s…um. Sorry. I guess I was thinking about holodrama spies more than real people.”

 

“To be fair,” Aly pointed out, “you’re probably the single most famous Chiss in the galaxy right now. Secrecy only gets you so far.”

 

“True, but…” She stared into her glass. “There’s something about having a real identity tucked away back there. It’s almost as though everything I do now is something Cipher Nine did, not her. Me. We’re not the same person.

 

“And when I’m done working for Intelligence, I can just go back to being me again.”

 

“Does anybody know who you really are, Cipher?” I asked.

 

She smiled ruefully. “I don’t think so. Least of all myself.”

 

Aly blinked. “Wow, this conversation got heavy in a hurry.”

 

“That seems to happen a lot when I’m involved,” I said guiltily.

 

Cipher drained the glass and coughed. “No, it’s definitely the alcohol.”

 

“You probably shouldn’t be drinking before a mission,” scolded Aly.

 

“So what’s in your glass, then? Juice?”

 

I laughed. “That’s what I have.”

 

Aly smirked. “Yeah, but you’re teetotal. This, I will inform you, is a traditional wheat beer of Argai, not filtered. And I have only had one.”

 

“It looks,” said the agent slowly, “like cloudy human pee.”

 

My Master drew back, scandalized. “How can you say such a thing about Tionese beer? The Despot himself patronized this brand! The cloudiness is because of the yeast, you barbarian.”

 

“I thought you were too smart to fall for that human mummery, Red. They just pee in the cask and close it up. You want good human alcohol, you go with whiskey.”

 

I raised an eyebrow. “Should I have been offended by that?”

 

Aly glared at Cipher, who had started laughing uncontrollably. “Yes.”

 

“Oh, lighten up, milady,” she giggled. “It’s all right that you can’t hold your alcohol and have to drink that weak stuff. We’re still friends.”

 

I guess she’d pushed one of Aly’s buttons, because my Master snarled, “I can so.”

 

“Fine, then, tomorrow night you can have a drinking contest with Kaliyo.”

 

“Oh, it is so on.”

 

Cipher kept laughing. “If that ends in anything other than a fight or a drunken makeout session on top of the bar, I’m dying my hair orange for the rest of the week.”

 

“Wait, drunken makeout session?” I said with what was probably too much alarm.

 

“Hey,” objected Aly, “I have never gotten that drunk before.”

 

“And that’s why you’ll lose,” said Cipher cheerfully. “Looks like Jaesa’s gonna exercise her girlfriend veto on this one.”

 

“Are we that obvious?” I sighed.

 

“Eh.” She shrugged. “I just sort of assume there’s something going on if a big-time Sith gets a cute young apprentice.”

 

“We’re pretty much the same age,” said Aly defensively. “And if you’re making some sort of gross insinuation about me and Baras, you’re out of your mind.”

 

“Whatever. But you know what I mean. Like with Darth Zash and Sakaria?”

 

Aly cocked her head. “That was just a rumor. Or, in Majnun’s case, a fantasy. There’s no way you took that seriously. Really, how’d you figure us out?”

 

“Well, actually, have you seen Saki over the past few weeks, ever since Zash died in that ritual accident? You can tell that she’s not all there, emotionally,” corrected Cipher.

 

“I know, but that’s…not for the reason you think. And it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, because she’s never all there emotionally. You’re stalling.”

 

“I’m stalling.” She lowered her eyes. “It’s just the way you’re acting, Aly. You practically get deferential next to Jaesa. It’s…very strange. Not ‘bad’ strange, because you seem happy – both of you – and that’s a good thing, but…you’re not the same you. If that makes sense.”

 

“I realize I don’t know you very well,” I said softly, “but you don’t seem like the same you either.”

 

Cipher looked up at me with a start. “No, it’s all fine,” she mumbled.

 

Her face’s expression was schooled into that relatively blank look I’d seen on her before, but I only barely needed to reach into the Force to sense the wave of confusion and anger rolling off of her.

 

“I’m sorry,” I said hurriedly. “I wasn’t trying to offend you.”

 

She bit her lip. “No…like I said, it’s fine.” Ostentatiously, she checked her chrono. “But I should be starting to head out now if you want me to be able to relieve the settlers of their weapons caches tonight.”

 

“All right, Blue. See you later. Be safe.”

 

“That wouldn’t be any fun, would it? Bye.”

 

As she left, Aly turned to me. I could read irritation on her face, but also some puzzlement. “What was all that about?”

 

“Aly, there’s something not normal going on with her. It feels wrong somehow.”

 

She furrowed her brow. “She said she was fine, Jaesa.”

 

“That’s not what I sensed. I wasn’t even trying to, not really. I didn’t mess with her mind or anything. But I could feel it. When she said it was all fine, she was angry.”

 

“Maybe she didn’t want you to pry. If there is something going on, she wants to deal with it on her own.”

 

“That’s what I thought, too,” I assured her. “That’s why I apologized. But there was something else there, too. She was confused. I don’t think she meant to say what she actually said.”

 

“That’s crazy,” she grumbled. “That’d be mind control or something, and I can’t imagine who would be doing that to her.” Then her expression softened. “But if you say you sensed it, I trust you. Do you have any idea what this could mean?”

 

I shook my head. “I got nothing, Aly. If I wanted to learn more, I think I’d have to join minds with her. And I don’t want to do that if she doesn’t want me to.”

 

Aly sighed. “Well, if you can’t figure more out, and she can’t or won’t tell us, I guess there’s not much we can do about it, then.”

 

“We can’t just leave her like that!”

 

“No, but we can’t rush in, trying to fix everything, without having any idea of what’s going on, either. We might make things even worse than they already are. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we need to learn more about this first.”

 

“I guess you’re right,” I mumbled.

 

“Besides,” she continued, “we’ve got to see about this Frellka stuff.” She gestured for me to stand up, and we started to make our way out of the lounge.

 

“You mentioned,” I said as we walked down the corridor, “that we know where the convoys are going.”

 

“Yep,” she said absently.

 

“So does that mean Frellka’s going to be there, or what?”

 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, though. I think that it’s just a facility that’s important to him or the War Trust. But it’s a lead, and we might get somewhere with it. Remember, Baras is the one that wants these genocidal freaks dead. I’m just trying to stop them…although I wouldn’t be too sorry to see them go, either. So if we wreck their poison gas factory or whatever this place is, then that’s a step in the right direction.”

 

Before we left the bunker, Aly checked in with Quinn, Generals Bourom and Farvin, and a few other officers that I didn’t recognize, making sure that everything was ready for the evening’s assault, making sure nothing had gone horribly wrong yet, and confirming that everybody had her comlink frequency to check in in the event of a major deviation from the stuff they’d planned, wargamed, or expected.

 

Then we plunged into the Tarisian jungle.

 

Slogging through the underbrush, I remembered that line about boredom and terror, about how I’d wished for some more boredom. Making our way through this hot, sticky, slimy, alive jungle as slowly as we were, painstakingly avoiding Republic patrols, waiting for night to fall…that all definitely qualified as boring. And I wasn’t having much fun doing it. The grass always, I guess, looks greener on the other side.

 

Our timing had to be pretty on the spot, too. According to Pierce – via Aly – the convoys were all bound for a cave network that used to belong to the Rasaaran scavengers. During the Empire’s initial sweeps through the Brell region almost two weeks prior, they’d not even bothered with the caves, considering the Republic defenses there too strong to do anything but blockade and starve out. So there clearly had to be something there. But a lot of other places around the Brell Sediment and the ChemWorks had been heavily defended, too, so the Imps hadn’t thought it was particularly remarkable. And then the Republic counteroffensive after the Battle of Hill 203 had pushed the Imps back to Brell Lake and made the whole situation moot.

 

We expected the caves to still be pretty heavily guarded, but the Eighty-Ninth air assault would probably pull at least some of those troops away. Which is why our timing had to be spot on: we had to make sure we were away from the forward edge of the battle area by the time the air assault kicked off, but we also had to make sure that we didn’t get to the caves too early, or else all the troops there would just spot us.

 

And, of course, I thought sourly to myself, we could just be wrong, and the Republic troops might not leave their posts at all, in which case we’d have a pretty big fight on our hands, and this purposely laborious jungle slog would be for nothing.

 

As we closed in on the ChemWorks area, where Pierce had said the cave was, the ground got worse. For one thing, it was more level: there were fewer swales and ditches for us to sneak through. The jungle cover itself was also less thick. And there were more building fragments in the way. “Fragments”, incidentally, wouldn’t do them justice. These were gigantic chunks of skyscrapers, sometimes large enough to still qualify as skyscrapers, abruptly rising up out of the ground at irregular intervals and in confusing ways. All the maps back at the base had taken account of these obstacles, but knowing where they were was one thing and negotiating them was entirely another.

 

But ultimately, we did manage to reach the cave entrance as night was beginning to fall, and settled in to wait for the air assault to begin. That wait lasted about four minutes, but it seemed like four hours.

 

With Taris’ skyline still more or less intact, and, of course, the inky blackness that was enveloping us, we didn’t actually see the Eighty-Ninth’s transports come in. Nor did we see Major Nost’s B-28 Extinction bombers forming up for their attack runs. We only had indirect ways to tell what was going on: the characteristic screaming sound of the Extinctions making their passes through atmosphere, the flash of Republic turbolasers firing at unseen targets, the staccato cough of small-arms fire.

 

And, most importantly, the clatter of about a platoon of soldiers hurriedly filing out of the caves to establish a perimeter outside.

 

They passed by our position, hidden in a muddy ditch, without noticing us at all. Of course, by their own lights, there was no reason for them to look. Aly’d guessed that they would have passive sensors set up, along with, potentially, antipersonnel mines; the former could be jammed reasonably easily, but the latter had to be searched out and deactivated individually. We’d managed to find three of them in the few minutes we had before the attack, and had laboriously removed them, making a neat path to the doorway.

 

So after the soldiers left the base, for a few seconds, at least, the cave door was unguarded. That’s all the time we needed to slip in through the opening and conceal ourselves inside.

 

The Republic had apparently turned the cave network into an enormous mining facility. I could see dozens of civilian workers and droids scurrying about between earthmovers and drills and all manner of heavy equipment. The odd soldier stood guard throughout the vast cavern, but most of these people were unarmored and unarmed.

 

Fortunately, the mining equipment and the mediocre lighting gave us ample opportunities to sneak by through the shadows. We passed, unnoticed, behind a massive stack of isocontainers, then waited for a group of miners to rush by before sliding across the lighted corridor behind a haphazardly thrown together pile of heavy laser drills.

 

We weren’t totally sure what we were looking for – well, Aly might’ve been, but I was, as usual, kinda clueless – so our movements were dictated more by the availability of cover and how thickly populated a given cavern was, rather than by any sense of innate direction. But at one crosstunnel, I felt a little tug, as though something were drawing me toward the right, even though the corridor there stretched and turned out of sight without much obvious cover at all. I caught Aly by the arm and gestured silently. She didn’t hesitate, just nodded and shifted direction.

 

At first glance, the cavern that that particular maneuver led us to didn’t seem all that out of the ordinary. It had more random equipment in it than any of the other ones we’d seen so far, almost all o which was stacked along the left side of the cave, and a few excavation droids busily and obliviously picking away at the other side. But then something caught my eye: on top of one of the stacks of crates, near the other side of the room, there was a glowing little yellow-orange box.

 

I could see Aly’s eyes light up when she caught sight of it. She immediately turned left and clambered up onto an earthmover, then hopped over onto a bit of scaffolding. Then she knelt down and beckoned, one of her patented lunatic grins painted across her face.

 

“Aly, what are you doing?” I hissed.

 

She cast her eyes over toward the box. “That’s a datacron, silly. Don’t you want to see it?”

 

“I can see it just fine from down here. Don’t we have a mission?”

 

“Can’t see what’s in the cron from down on the ground. Come on, that thing’s got Ancient Rakata Knowledge and you don’t want to look inside?” I could hear the capitalized letters in her voice. For whatever reason, she was pretty super excited about this box.

 

A few seconds later, I found my own reason to follow her up onto the scaffolding: the sound of several boots crunching through the dirt of the tunnel behind us.

 

“Sithspit,” I muttered under my breath. Then I started to climb up onto the earthmover.

 

I’d barely gotten up onto the scaffolding and out of sight by the time the column of soldiers burst into the cavern. Thankfully, they weren’t searching for anything in particular. They just kept marching past our hiding place to the other egress from the cavern, on the other side, where they started to take up guard posts.

 

Whatever was on the other side of the cavern had to be important, then. And it was worth checking out. But the only way over there for us now – unless we wanted to expose ourselves to everything in the cave – was sneaking along across the tops of these scaffolds and containers.

 

I sighed and turned to Aly, who was doing her best to stifle a laugh. “Sithspit?” she chortled. “That’s your best swear?”

 

“What?”

 

“I need to get Vette to teach you some better curses, because that was just goofy. You’re an Alderaanian, couldn’t you at least say ‘stang’ or something?”

 

“Yeah,” I said anxiously, “fine, whatever. Just so long as we finish up here, okay?”

 

“Hey, is that an order? Who’s the master and who’s the apprentice?” she joked.

 

“Sometimes I don’t even know. You’ll give me, like, a straight and sensible ethics discussion one minute and then do something insane or stupid the next. Is there a maturity switch in your head that you turn off and on just to troll me?”

 

She came up on her hands and knees and started to make her way along the scaffolding. “A Lady reserves the right to be inconsistent. You know I’ll make it up to you, anyway.”

 

I followed, mumbling, “There is no way one beer did this to you.”

 

We hopped from the scaffolding onto what looked like a cistern, then scrambled onto a stack of isocontainers. I had no idea how Aly did it, wearing that heavier armor and her long, black robe. My clothes were pretty light and flowed well, and I still had balance issues. She, on the other hand, bounced across the room like an acrobat, effortlessly making long jumps fifteen meters above the ground and bounding along narrow pipes with no sign of fatigue at all.

 

By some miracle of the Force, I managed to follow her without losing my own footing – probably more out of the fear of falling, embarrassing myself, starting a fight, and not being able to keep up with Aly than anything else – and we were soon ensconced on top of another pile of isocontainers, looking down on the crate where the datacron sat, glowing…and at the very nervous and very heavily armed soldiers at the mouth of a tunnel a few meters away.

 

“Aly,” I whispered to her, “what in the worlds is this sort of thing doing in the middle of a War Trust mine anyway? Couldn’t this be some kind of trap?”

 

“Nah, they probably just unearthed it and left it there or something,” she said idly.

 

“Who put it there, then, a Wookiee? Why on top of a crate you can’t reach from the ground?”

 

She brushed this off. “Less talk, more datacron.”

 

Carefully, Aly slithered over to the edge of our container, watching the soldiers below. I could see her trying to gauge when they would be least attentive toward our part of the room. Then her gaze fixed on the droids at the other side of the room, and her face lit up. Almost lazily, she pointed at one of the excavators, and a stalactite hanging over its head loosened and dropped directly onto it.

 

We didn’t bother to pay attention to what the soldiers or the droid did in response. Aly jumped first, and after a half-second of soul-searching, I followed, flattening myself on top of the crate as soon as I got there. She was already hard at work, intently manipulating the little protrusions on the side of the box. Finally, there was a flash, and impossibly, I could see a brief flow of colored light between the datacron and her forehead. And then it was over, as she woozily shook her head. I finally caught my breath and looked around to see if we’d been made.

 

Some of the soldiers had hurried over to the droid to see what had happened to it, but I guess they’d satisfied themselves that it was just a random fall. The droid was barely affected, and managed to shake off most of the debris on its own. Shrugging, the troops turned away from it and headed back toward the others.

 

And caught sight of me and Aly perching on top of the crate right next to the rest of their squad.

 

They were pretty fast, all right. The ones that could see us immediately shouted – albeit inarticulately – and started to unlimber their rifles. Their friends at the tunnel only took a few seconds to figure out what was what, but they, too, started to pick up their guns and draw a bead on the two of us.

 

But by then we were already on them.

 

Master Yonlach had said that I was pretty good at forming close bonds with people, and I’d had a fairly graphic display of that a few months ago when he sent me my vision. But with Aly…it was something I’d never experienced before. We were already so close that sometimes I could feel what she felt without even really trying; I guess she could do the same. And sometimes, there, it was like we weren’t even different people. We thought with the same mind.

 

So she didn’t even need to tell me to go right when she went left, or to duck that last blaster bolt, or anything. She thought it, and I felt it.

 

There were three soldiers in the group that had gone over to investigate that droid. One of them, the one that looked most alert, had nearly gotten his rifle up into firing position when I landed on his chest and drove him into the dirt. His right hand spasmed wildly, triggering a few errant blaster bolts that hit one of his compatriots and knocked him off balance. Without even turning to look, I sent a surge of Force power in his direction and accelerated his fall, and he, too, hit the ground several meters away with a crunch.

 

With two of them already down, I turned to the third, who already had his rifle up. But my saberstaff was already clear of my belt and in my hand. I didn’t even really feel as though I thumbed the switch; the Force did that for me, and with the familiar snap-hiss the double green blade extended, slicing through the soldier’s rifle and turning it into so much useless metal and polymer.

 

He dropped it as though scalded – and since my lightsaber had totally melted his gun, he probably had been – and grabbed at his belt for a grenade. Still perched on the first soldier’s chest, I flicked a finger and the belt clip opened, dropping his grenade onto the ground instead, where I could kick it safely away. But by the time I could turn my attention back to him, he’d already started to pull a vibroshiv. Outwardly, I just set my teeth resolutely and stabbed him in the gut. Inwardly, I felt sick and hypocritical.

 

There was no sense in continuing to beat myself up about all the deaths I was causing, but something would be horribly, horribly wrong if it ever got easy for me to kill people.

 

As the trooper dropped his shiv and fell back, mortally wounded, I turned my attention back to the other two soldiers – or started to. Because only a fraction of a second after I finished that stab, I could feel a warning tingle from the Force and threw myself into a frantic backroll just ahead of another grenade blast.

 

My ears were ringing and I felt like all the air had been knocked out of me, but I still shot a quick glance over at the soldiers I’d been fighting. I needn’t have bothered. The two I’d incapacitated – had thought I’d incapacitated – had been practically vaporized. They’d committed suicide just for a shot at hurting me. That was…more than a little horrifying.

 

Still, that meant the board was clear. And Aly, too, had finished up. She sent me a nudge through the Force – time to go see what these guys were guarding before more get here – but I was already on my feet and moving for the tunnel.

 

The room we found at the other end was still full of random heavy equipment and the detritus of drilling operations – along with several men in civilian dress. One of them, a big human wearing coveralls with VARL stenciled over the breast pocket in Aurebesh, held up his hands and hurried over toward us.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You got all the soldiers. We aren’t fighters, just miners…contracted miners at that.”

 

We closed down our lightsabers. “What is this place?” Aly asked.

 

The expression of pleading in his eyes turned to puzzlement. “Um, it’s a mine. What does it look like?”

 

Aly rolled her eyes. “What are you mining?”

 

“We’re…not really sure,” Varl stammered. “Mostly this strange ore around the destruction layer. It doesn’t look that different from normal siliciclastic rock, maybe got an unusual amount of feldspars in it, but nothing worth the expense…”

 

She waved him off irritably. “Never mind. Are there any military brass around the mine right now, and if so, where would they be? Do they keep part of the mine closed off or anything?”

 

“Nothing’s closed off – they don’t process on-site, they ship everything over to the Tularan Marsh or back to Olaris,” the foreman said.

 

One of the other miners spoke up from the back. “Hey, boss, what about…”

 

Varl tried to shush him, but Aly’s interest was piqued. “What about what?”

 

The foreman sighed. “Couple hours ago, General Frellka, the guy who set all this stuff up, came in for a surprise inspection. He’s probably still around here somewhere.”

 

“You don’t say,” she said, smirking superciliously. “And if he were still here, where might he be?”

 

He bit his lip and frowned, obviously unhappy that he had to talk. But eventually, he did. “Makes no real never-mind to me what you do with him. The Republic don’t pay me enough to get in your way. The offices are over by Osk Shaft, two caverns down that way.” He jerked his thumb to the right, down a side passage.

 

“Don’t you have some kind of silent alarm that could get him over here?” I asked.

 

“What, a general responding to some miners’ alarm?” he snorted. “Gimme a break. He doesn’t do grunt work like that crap. I’m surprised he’s even here at all. General types usually don’t like getting down in the dirt with real people.”

 

Aly grinned wolfishly. “Only some of them, foreman. Only some of them.”

 

“Look, I told you want you wanted to know. Can me and my boys get out of here already?”

 

“Fine by us,” I put in.

 

Aly yawned. “If I wanted you dead, you would be.”

 

His shoulders relaxed in obvious relief. “All right, boys, pack it up. This job’s over.”

 

We didn’t bother to give them a second look. Instead, Aly took off at a dead run down the passage Varl had indicated, and I hurried right on her heels.

 

There were a couple of soldiers in the next room, probably hurrying to see what had set off the grenade. Aly didn’t even bother to stop running, but in a single fluid motion ignited her lightsaber and flicked it spinning across the room. Guided by the Force, it slashed through both men and returned to her hand within a few seconds. They slowly toppled to the ground as we darted in between them, already dead. It was…a fairly sobering reminder of just how powerful the woman I was with actually was.

 

The “office” cavern was almost empty. There were a few banks of large computer terminals against the wall, a few desks, three soldiers, and an older man in general’s insignia that had to be Frellka himself. One of the soldiers brought up his blaster and triggered a few badly aimed bolts in Aly’s direction; her lightsaber, still on, flashed upright and deflected them straight back into his chest. He went down with a painful gurgling sound.

 

To my right, one of the remaining two soldiers was also unholstering a blaster pistol. Without thinking, I thrust my arm out toward him and pushed, sending him flying off his feet. He hit one of the desks at a speed approaching terminal velocity with a sickening crack, and his head bent at an angle that no living person could ever mimic. I felt like throwing up.

 

With a meaty thud, Aly’s other opponent hit the ground, sporting a deep lightsaber cut in his torso. Only Frellka was left. He was quicker than his age would’ve made me think. His blaster was already out, but he didn’t shoot at either of us. Instead, he blasted the datapad in front of him, turning it into a smoking mess. Then, he turned his blaster on the computer terminals around the room, trying to wipe out all the data here before we could extract it. But Aly was too quick for him: after only a few shots the blaster went flying out of his hand.

 

His gaze flicked around the room, but there were no more weapons in easy grasp. After a few seconds, he turned over to Aly and held her gaze levelly, his stony countenance revealing nothing.

 

“Jaesa, watch the door,” she murmured, but I’d already turned myself to keep both Frellka and the exit tunnel in view. Then she turned to the general and said silkily, “General Frellka, I presume.”

 

Frellka glared. “Elaxis Frellka, Major General. Four-seven-two-five-four-four-one.”

 

I looked at him quizzically. “What in the worlds does that mean?”

 

“Oh, he’s just playing up the ‘I’m a warrior’ angle,” said Aly evenly. “The Pubs think that their officers are entitled to humane treatment as prisoners of war and don’t have to give up any information but name, rank, and serial number.”

 

She sent me a little nudge through the Force as she said that. Frellka, it seemed, wasn’t the only one who was indulging in a bit of posturing.

 

Then she turned her attention back to the general. “You really ought to have invested in more guards for your mineral sources,” she said conversationally.

 

“Elaxis Frellka, Major General. Four-seven…”

 

“So,” she continued, still not betraying the slightest hint of irritation, “what exactly are you mining here in the first place? And what does it have to do with your genocide plans?”

 

His eyes narrowed, then he barked a laugh. “You really don’t know? All that effort into a galaxy-spanning spy net, but Imperial Intelligence, Darth Baras, and all the rest haven’t got a clue about what we’re doing here?

 

“We take all these security precautions, we assume you listen in on our transmissions, we build in redundancies, false trails, fake facilities, and the truth is you barely even know Project Siantide even exists?”

 

Aly’s eyes narrowed. “Funny behavior from the man on the wrong end of the lightsaber.”

 

Frellka got his laugh under control and just smiled. “Hilarious, yes. The funniest part is…” He trailed off, and his eyes fixed something impossibly far away. Then he crumpled to the ground, and what looked like a credit chit tumbled out of his hand.

 

“Kark,” she swore. “Jaesa, don’t touch that. Idiot probably put a poison needle or something into one of the edges.”

 

I stared at his corpse sadly. “He really wasn’t going to surrender, was he?”

 

“Kark,” she repeated, more forcefully. “I almost would’ve liked to let that crazy redhead interrogate him.”

 

“Thana?” I asked. “I’m not sure I’d wish that on anybody.”

 

“Yeah, well, I said ‘almost’. But if anybody deserved it, General War Crimes here did.”

 

“Fair enough,” I commented.

 

“Maybe he’d at least have given up some of these stupid secrets. I hate this detective garbage. Was this dumb plan really worth your life, scumbag?” she snarled rhetorically at Frellka’s corpse.

 

He didn’t answer, of course.

 

She shook her head angrily, then composed herself and pulled out her comlink. “Pierce?”

 

His voice came back distorted, probably by jamming and the cave, but I could still understand him well enough. “Fivers, milady.”

 

“Frellka’s dead. The mine isn’t secured yet, but we should have it cleared out in a few minutes. There’s some computer terminals here that might have good data to mine, but the idiot damaged a few of them in the fight, so get a data recovery team up here when the fighting cools down.”

 

“Great news,” he said. “I’ve got some, too. We caught a couple of transmissions that mentioned General Durant by name just after your big attack started. The signals boys are working on a trace.”

 

“That is good news,” she said approvingly. “Nice work. Keep me posted on that and on the slicer team.”

 

“Will do. Pierce out.”

 

Aly shut off the comlink and turned to me. “You gonna be okay defending this room while I make sure everybody else is cleared out of the other caverns? We can’t afford to lose any more of this data.”

 

I gave her what I hoped was a confident smile. “Aly, I can hold this tunnel for a long time.”

 

“You know, Jaesa,” she said thoughtfully, “it does make a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can thoroughly rely.” Then she leaned over and drew me close, and our lips met for what was the briefest of moments and forever at the same time.

 

Then she pulled back, reluctantly, reversing her steps and keeping her eyes on me as long as she could. But then she finally turned away. As she started to head back down the tunnel, I called out, “Good luck, Aly…and may the Force be with you.”

 

She stopped, turning back toward me and flashing a casual lopsided smile that belied the roiling emotion I could sense through our Force bond. “You too, sweetie,” she said unsteadily. “You too.”

 

Then she rushed down the tunnel and was lost to view.

 

[Euphrosyne]

Notes to Chapter XIV

 

Rolling the iron dice, risking the lottery of battle, placing one's fate in the hands of Bellona...all that means that the fighting's starting.

 

Like the embattled Labour Party of The Thick of It, Aly's Imps have grabbed the initiative with this assault. Whether that'll actually turn into something meaningful remains to be seen, of course - a sentiment expressed by Nicola in the quote.

 

"Pissed seaside bantha" comes from

of a very funny movie called In the Loop, featuring the late James Gandolfini, Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Anna Chlumsky...it's a real film, Jack.

 

The "refresher course" joke is Aaron Allston material. Starfighters of Adumar, ladies and gentlemen.

 

Writing Aly/Cipher repartee is probably my favorite part of any story. Actually, Aly/anybody verbal sparring is my favorite. Aly, for what it's worth, is basically drinking a hefe Weißbier; the Despot she refers to is the Tionese warlord Xim, one of the most famous conquerors in galactic history and a contemporary of the Rakata. And that weird bit at the end is as much of the Agent's Chapter 2 plot as I feel I can reasonably spoil here; if anybody could help the Agent out with the so-called "mind trap", it'd be Jaesa, right?

 

It bugs me that the big containers you see all over SWTOR aren't as standardized as real-world isocontainers. It's a big galaxy, yeah, but still.

 

That's a Cunning datacron, by the way. I felt that it cast too much of a shadow over the setting to totally ignore. Plus, it gave me the opportunity for lulzy dialogue.

 

It's completely ridiculous that you catch these generals out on the front lines with barely any troops between them. Only Faraire's position, holed up for a last stand in Olaris, makes sense. But why would Frellka be a glorified mine inspector and enforcer? Why would Minst be anywhere near the reactor when it blew? Why would Durant only have a single battalion in tow (even though going by the number of people there and the number of dead you see, his troops barely massed an understrength company)? Aaargh. So I decided to highlight the ludicrousness of some of this stuff and change around the circumstances surrounding Frellka's death.

 

Why, yes, Frellka's last words do borrow a bit from Mr. White's conversation with Bond and M at the beginning of Quantum of Solace. Whyever do you ask?

 

I'm still trying to sneak Jaesa lines into the story. "You're not going to surrender, are you?" sounds ridiculous in the middle of a firefight, so I recontextualized it.

 

"Fivers" = "I read you five by five" = signal is optimal, low distortion and good pitch.

 

One of my proofreaders compared Aly to Sherlock Holmes at one point, so I figured I'd pay homage to the great detective by using a line of his from "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" - a line that was transplanted into the 2009 RDJ/Jude Law flick.

 

[NgeneR]

*pokes Adwynyth

 

Where's my sammich? And here, just made Knock-you-naked margaritas--have one. Malavai just had his.

Edited July 1, 2013 by NgeneR

[Adwynyth]

*pokes Adwynyth

 

Where's my sammich? And here, just made Knock-you-naked margaritas--have one. Malavai just had his.

Here you go. One regulation sammich. And thankee.

 

*continues reading*

[MishraArtificer]

So...I just picked up Jaesa Wilsaam...and I'm going to be on my way to Taris in a bit...

 

...should I stop and wait for you? I really don't want to spoil the ending for myself (yes, I'm rating your storytelling above the in-game story for the presentation. I like print, too.)...

[Saelinne]

So...I just picked up Jaesa Wilsaam...and I'm going to be on my way to Taris in a bit...

 

My advice is to continue with your game and dont worry about spoilers....the story is very interesting in regard that it...hmm...combines the planet stories with the class ones. And what's more much more coments from our dear Jaesa:)

As for the story - its very good and getting better all the time and please give us lots and lots(and some more) to read:P

 

PS: Oh and I was wondering if you were planning to bring it to the end and its dramatic events....it will be nice to 'see' how Jaesa reacts.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Saelinne

[Euphrosyne]

Yep, still good. Really finding this to be an enjoyable read, even the heavily expository bits.

 

As someone who has written game fanfiction quite a bit in the past, I tend to ignore any game mechanics related stupidity... like it always being night or day. I mean, if you're making LS Jaesa a LI for fem!LS!SW - which is certainly not in the game at all - there isn't any reason why you couldn't alter other details when it makes sense to do so. Err, that came out a bit more critical than I was intending. That's just how I do things, but your way is perfectly acceptable too.

Yeah, the stuff I'm okay with keeping in, the stuff I feel like I have to explain, and the stuff I deliberately cut out isn't really very consistently chosen. It tends to be more on the basis of whether I feel I can make it work in the context of the story. So, for example, I figure that the nightfighting thing is something fairly harmless, so it can stay in - but just to show I know how borderline silly it is, I kinda throw a conspicuous wink to the audience at the same time.

 

And some things are extremely ridiculous to the extent that my mind rebels at the thought of having to keep them in, but there's no way around them without turning this story into an AU story - things like the rakghoul virus.

 

Earlier on, I was much less sure about what I could and couldn't explain properly or rewrite entirely, so I kept a lot of the story more or less as it was. I hope the contrast isn't too stark.

Been away travelling for work, trying to catch up on everything now. Love what you're doing with Taris, I'm looking at it in a whole new light now. I've never enjoyed it as a planet, it's too depressing, and the rakghoul virus upsets me, it's so far beyond the bounds of possibility that it totally messes with my head ... anyway, apart from that, I shall take more consideration of it on my next time through

 

 

*snorts with laughter, spraying half-chewed popcorn over the keyboard*

Oh, Taris is extremely depressing to me, too. Pub Taris, in my opinion, is the single most boring planet in the game; Imp Taris is better, but only slightly. I consider them both to be something of a slog.

 

What strikes me most about Imp Taris is how it's a planet of missed opportunities from a storytelling perspective. Thana Vesh, for instance, is an extremely popular NPC as she is, but I believe she's painfully misused and could've been a legitimate rival to the player character if written better. The Agent and Bounty Hunter class quests are solid, but the Warrior's is absurd, while the Inquisitor's was generally decent but spotty and badly needed exposition. And most of the 'light side' options were the usual grab bag of inconsistent and even mutually contradictory silliness that Imp LS choices tend to be.

So...I just picked up Jaesa Wilsaam...and I'm going to be on my way to Taris in a bit...

 

...should I stop and wait for you? I really don't want to spoil the ending for myself (yes, I'm rating your storytelling above the in-game story for the presentation. I like print, too.)...

Well, at this point, I've slowed down considerably - having almost exhausted my reserve of pre-written chapters - and I'll only be doing a chapter a week or so from here on out. So that's slightly more than a month before you get to finish Taris, and that'd be exceedingly unfair. Like Saelinne, I say go for it. Besides, the way things are going, I won't be spoiling much; the Warrior's class story there is considerably less interesting to me than the Imperial planet quest is, and the remaining chapters will focus more on Jaesa/Aly stuff and on the Taris war than on the War Trust and their Project Siantide. Not that I'll be ignoring the questline, or anything, but it's only going to be central to, ah, one remaining chapter; the others mostly have to do with other stuff.

 

But I do really appreciate that you rate my storytelling so highly.

My advice is to continue with your game and dont worry about spoilers....the story is very interesting in regard that it...hmm...combines the planet stories with the class ones. And what's more much more coments from our dear Jaesa:)

As for the story - its very good and getting better all the time and please give us lots and lots(and some more) to read:P

 

PS: Oh and I was wondering if you were planning to bring it to the end and its dramatic events....it will be nice to 'see' how Jaesa reacts.

The end of Taris or the end of the Warrior's story?

 

As things stand right now, I've got twenty chapters outlined (including the fourteen already posted), with the last few matching up with the end of the Taris planet quest and then a sort of wrapup chapter. There's plenty more story fodder in the Warrior questlines, of course, but this particular story is mostly about how Jaesa finally figured out what she wanted to do with her life and found clarity in the Force, and how she and Aly got together. There's no real way to extend the momentum of that story through Quesh and Hoth, much less all the way up to the final duel on Korriban.

 

Besides, there are significant chunks of the Warrior's story that I really don't want to have to try to explain. Like, uh, that one thing that happens between Voss and Corellia. Not touching that.

 

I do think I'll make something of a Cliffs Notes version of the stories of all the Imp characters in the Alyverse, just to keep everything straight. Maybe the Pubs, too (Marade, her sister Marelia, her best friend Tizarre, and the immortal Skani). Conveniently, there's a blank reserved post up on the front page that could be put to exactly that use...

 

And, of course, I periodically write Alyverse stories in the Short Fic thread.

Edited July 5, 2013 by Euphrosyne