I'll admit it: the familiar routine of holding the line dulled my vigilance—first and foremost, mine. If I hadn't been so blinded by the urge to sit in dead-still defense until reinforcements arrived, perhaps the Second Regiment would still have had some combat value.
Ever since the militia joined our ranks, Ptar and I had been arguing without pause about transferring a second—reserve—ray shield generator to us. The guard captain refused, saying the valley could be left without protection if the main generator failed.
I needed the ray shield to carry out my attack on Loathsom's beachhead. In the cartoon, it was the Separatist general who expanded the ray shield until it covered the Republic positions. I wanted to pull the same trick, only in reverse—to cover Loathsom's positions while we steamrolled the captured ground with artillery and tanks. The ray shield would let me bring my forces up to Loathsom's forward lines without risking losing them in the open stretch between the city and the enemy beachhead.
In the end, Jo caved. The massive bowl on the triangular pedestal—the ray shield emitter—made it to us. And so did three and a half thousand militia. I could throw a regiment or two into battle without much fear, but who knew what the enemy had prepared for us. More people wouldn't hurt. Besides, the militia needed a baptism by fire.
The rational part of my mind whispered that the more blaster bolts the militia caught, the more of my clones would survive. And the more clones survived, the more impressive my victory would look.
And the victory was planned to be grand. Ptar—who was only let in on part of the plan—kept saying with a smirk that I was the best friend Christophsis had had in the last five hundred years. The ship scheme pleased him so much that the captain of the guard practically melted.
We met one-on-one to discuss the upcoming assault on Loathsom's fortifications. And it just so happened that bottles of hard liquor appeared on the table—Jo suggested we celebrate the coming victory with a drink or two. Having heard about Christophsis's tradition of celebrating anticipated success, I leaned into it. After all, a drunk sentient is a pliable sentient.
The engineers promised they'd have the ray shield generator wired in within a few hours, so I had nearly all the time in the galaxy to get my counterpart drunk and plant the thoughts I needed in his head.
"Your people will sing your praises, Ptar," I poured balm onto the blossoming flower of the guardsman's vanity. "A people that took care of ending its own occupation."
"Aim higher, my friend," the conversation happened shortly before the scheduled strike on the droids' beachhead. While clones and militia were assembling the shield generator, Ptar and I sat in my office with a bottle of local wine that burned my stomach and made my cheekbones cramp. Ptar resisted at first, but a tiny touch of the Force helped him find answers to every question.
At the bottom of the bottle.
I myself, even though I drank no less, filtered my body using one of the techniques Exar Kun had used. Manipulation is a delicate tool. And you always need a sober head.
"They'll name me the Hero of Christophsis!" the guardsman declared.
"Why aim so small?" I smirked. Spinning intrigues, nudging a commander's tiny mind, was simple work—but fussy. I had to push his thoughts carefully toward the ideas I needed. "Take the system under your rule. The liberator-hero. The people will gladly rally behind such a candidate for leadership…"
"Exactly!" the commander's eyes burned with emotion and alcohol. "We'll throw the Seps out. And I'll rule the system…"
"Ahem," I cleared my throat. Jo, tearing himself away from the drink, spread into a grin.
"My friend," he reached those huge paws toward me. "I won't forget you. Let the Republic go to hell—I'll give you any resources you might want, whatever you decide to do. I'll give you so much Nergon-14 you'll be able to blow up planets…"
"Just don't forget about the ships," I reminded the braggart.
"Don't worry," he winked at me, filling his empty glass with fresh swill. "When they ask, I'll say everything the way we agreed."
"Wonderful!" I clinked my glass against his. "Your people are in position?"
Ptar glanced at his chrono and nodded.
"Two regiments are already in position in the eastern part of the city," he said. "As soon as we tune the generator, my people will be the first to rush in and liberate the last districts of the capital occupied by General Loathsom. Today we free the capital, and tomorrow—the whole planet!" The guardsman raised his glass in a ceremonial salute. Then, a little more cheerfully, he added, "And for now, let them feast. It's tradition—before a big battle, celebrate its successful end."
"Just so, my friend!" I took a sip of the vile drink. Out of the corner of my eye I checked the tiny datapad fixed to the inner surface of my armored bracer. Vizla was asking whether she could open a comm channel. I tapped the keys, giving permission.
At that same moment, a message from one of the captured scout droids flew into Loathsom's headquarters: a shield activation was being prepared…
The idea was as simple as the world.
Put the militia in the line of fire, inflict the maximum possible losses on them, and then—walking over the backs of the dead and the living—become a hero. Of course the clones would suffer too, but all means are good for victory. I needed to lure Loathsom out of his shelters so the next part of the plan would work…
Thousands of droid bombers from the orbital blockade ships burst out of their metal nests and dove down in an unprecedented strike on the capital of Christophsis.
After the fact, nobody would be able to pin anything on us. Our scanners were disabled or blinded by droid reconnaissance—the very same recon that informed the enemy of our "purchase."
We reacted too late. In practice, defensive formations began to take shape only once the enemy was in direct visual range.
Our air-defense forces took catastrophic losses. By the time the fight for the eastern part of the city ended—three days after it began—only 10 of our 36 SPHAs were still operational. The others either lost mobility or were destroyed. Luckily for us, the enemy started the bombing from the eastern part of the city. Unluckily for the militia, most of the deadly payload fell on their heads. The clones—better prepared for the hardships of war—partly managed to save themselves and preserve most of the equipment.
The moment the CIS ships dropped their murderous load, the eastern part of the city—clearly not built for carpet bombing—changed beyond recognition. Most of the high-rises, once giant colossi adorning the city, were destroyed. Under bomb impacts, buildings crumbled and shattered, and crystal fragments, turning into shrapnel, rained down in a deadly storm onto the positions of the Second Regiment and nearly three thousand militia. In half an hour of airstrike, we lost about thirty snipers, five hundred troopers of the Second Regiment, up to fifteen hundred militia, and up to four hundred engineers, medics, and "heavies."
The enemy brought down its orbital "Hammer" on us.
Despite the lull after the strike—which let us pull out the few surviving vehicles and the survivors from the rubble—we still couldn't enact our protective measures. The blasted shield generator we'd pinned all our hopes on was also damaged by the raid, and a team of engineers was frantically tuning it while our forward units tried to regain their senses.
Then the ground "Anvil" came down.
More than a hundred AAT tanks, fifty Octuptarras, uncountable spider droids… and endless streams of B1 battle droids and B2 super battle droids—all that mechanical ugliness surged into the breach in our defenses, finishing off the survivors and crushing the militia's timid attempts to hold the line and the disoriented clones of the Second Regiment.
And as if that weren't enough, Trench decided to take part in our public beating one more time. Landing barges dumped trouble onto the Northern Arterial, tying down the First Regiment in combat, while a small but heavily armed armored fist advancing on our southern positions from the enemy beachhead pinned the Third Regiment in place. The western direction, though relatively quiet, also couldn't spare too many troops.
Everything I could throw against Loathsom's monstrous armored fist—paratroopers, flametroopers, engineers, even medics—every last one of them rushed into the counterattack.
Ignoring Ptar getting in the way underfoot, I smashed my office window out with a Force shove and vaulted with a clean, practiced jump into the middle of the panicked reserve clones.
"Deploy the artillery!" I grabbed the nearest clone gunner and pointed him toward the breach. "Sustained fire on the forward positions."
"Sir, but our men are there!" Fett's twin protested.
There was no time to bow and scrape—Vizla was reporting that the enemy had broken past the second defensive line. Which, to put it mildly, was not supposed to happen. We didn't leak the plans for breaches in the eastern part of the city so the enemy could take the whole thing.
"Son," I grabbed the clone by the chest plate. "If you don't open fire on the forward positions right now, pretty soon there won't be any of ours left here either. Do it!" I gave the clone a Force-assisted shove, sprang onto the nearest speeder bike, and tore off toward the breach.
Jet troopers, snipers, and AV-7 fire were churning the advancing units into the ground until the main forces could arrive, but the pressure didn't ease. Our minefields managed to slow—and even partly stop—the enemy tank units, but we couldn't break the offensive. There were too many tin cans eager to taste our blood. The infantry droids, ignoring losses, marched forward over the bodies of their fallen comrades, obeying electronic orders and backed by the fire of heavy tank guns.
The first to reach the breached positions were the paratroopers led by Commando Berserker. They took the full force of Loathsom's strike on themselves. Without fear or reproach, Berserker's clones—like Berserker himself—went to their deaths, fighting to the last magazine and the last grenade. The militia, driven mad, died by the hundreds—torn apart by shrapnel, cut down by droid weapons…
Pure hell. There was no other name for it. I raced toward the front, passing militia forces fleeing alone or in clusters. The clones, seeing their commander charging toward the enemy, surged forward in a single impulse toward the enemy that had overextended.
A lead trio of LAAT/i gunships screamed overhead, raking the enemy with fire. I was with one of the two remaining battalions of the Second Regiment, covered by half of our remaining strike craft. Dei and his men stayed behind to maintain the appearance of a flimsy defense in the west, while four dozen strike craft were smashing the enemy to the north and south.
At the spearpoint of the counterattack, drawing the clones after me, I recalled with a smirk how I used to criticize those Jedi on Geonosis who walked in front of the clones. I remembered my criticism. And tried on their fate. It tasted bitter. It's easy to criticize others when you watch from the outside.
At full speed, I dodged a shot from an Octuptarra. Launching upward, I sent the speeder into free flight—ending in an explosion amid a block of B1s. With a quick burst, I slipped off the street and hid around the corner of a massive building.
"Berserker!" I shouted into the comlink. "How bad is it?"
"More than half the paratroopers are dead or wounded," the clone answered. "We cut off the main body of tanks from you. For now we're holding them with heavy weapons."
"Hold on. We're a couple hundred meters from you!"
It sounded encouraging, sure.
But that was two or three hundred meters across ground carpeted with enemy infantry.
A huge chunk blew off the corner of the building I was hiding behind. Then the permacrete at my feet began to get stung by red blaster streaks. When I dove into cover, only a few dozen meters separated me from the enemy. Looks like the buffer zone was gone.
I closed my eyes and focused. Drawing the Force currents into me, I raised Force shields around my body. The Force whispered the enemy disposition to me.
First, dozens of ranks of B1 battle droids. Then B2 super battle droids. And behind the infantry, Octuptarras, pouring fire into our troops lying in the folds of terrain about ten meters behind me. The sky was getting crowded with gunships spewing fire onto the enemy reinforcements.
But enough sitting.
The blade that once belonged to Valkorion's most adequate son leapt into my hand all on its own.
"All right," I tried to hype myself up, "let's go, you trash cans."
Bursting out of cover, I slammed a wide Force strike into the B1 ranks that had drawn level with me, mowing down several dozen droids. Their mangled bodies became kinetic projectiles, showering the "budget Terminators" behind them with improvised shrapnel.
My blade traced an arc, ricocheting several blaster bolts meant for my body into the ground. Jump. Dodge. Another Force push. Again the droids flew like bowling pins.
But there were too many of them.
Parrying shots with my dazzling yellow blade, I tried to send them back into the enemy, but it didn't always work. Thank the Force, I managed to avoid a couple of shots from the nearest Octuptarra. With my own eyes I could tell that in total we were facing about a thousand droids supported by only three squid-like walkers.
Knocking back the nearest droids, I darted under the protection of an improvised barricade on the opposite edge of the street from where I'd hidden earlier.
"Sir," a clone voice sounded in my helmet. "This is Flint, jet trooper commander. We're striking the enemy walkers!"
At that same moment, dozens of white figures flashed between buildings, leaving faint jet trails. A heartbeat—and tiny rockets, packed with powerful explosives, left their mounts in the troopers' packs and streaked toward the towering enemies.
The first Octuptarra took four rockets into its massive spherical body. With a monstrous roar, yellow-blue flame erupted from the creature's "head." The giant listed, froze for a moment, then crashed onto the street with a thunderous impact.
Confusion rippled through the droids' front ranks. The brainless tinheads started turning their heads in every direction, dying under the fire of the relentless clones. Taking advantage of the enemy hesitation, a white avalanche surged forward, crossing the gap between them and the droids in an instant.
Just as clones and droids clashed hand-to-hand, the second Octuptarra exploded and fell. Like the first, it hit the street with its "head" destroyed.
A Separatist carbine barrel appeared above my cover.
Slipping out, I skewered a hesitating B1 with my blade, then tore it off the lightsaber with the Force and hurled it deep into the B2 ranks.
"Comms with Berserker are down!" Alpha—who the hell knows how he got there—shouted in my ear. "His men aren't responding!"
"Tanks!!!" came a shriek.
Glancing over the cover, I saw familiar AAT hulls moving toward us.
"They're all dead, sir," Alpha said, shocked. "Otherwise the tanks wouldn't have gotten through."
"They have to be stopped!" I slapped the clone's shoulder. "Otherwise Berserker's sacrifice is pointless. And now—" I stood to full height, deflecting a couple of shots with my blade, "get up and cover me!"
It took a couple of seconds for Alpha's words to really sink in.
So all my paratroopers were dead?
Kriff.
Rage woke up inside me.
My ARC trooper was dead.
Thoughts mixed with strikes.
Here I am—one slash, and a droid is cut from waist to shoulder.
One of my three ARC troopers.
Two more B1s get crushed by the Force the moment I focus on them.
And with him, that means all the paratroopers too!
I lunged aside, stepping out of the B2's line of fire, then snapped back the other way, cut my blade across the B2's barrel-like torso, and shoved it away with the Force. The next one, on the contrary, I pulled toward me and drove the blade into the Confederacy droid's head area.
They bought us time!
With a blade flick, I sheared an arm and the upper torso off the nearest droid. Before it could fall, I jumped onto it and used the fallen enemy body as a springboard, launching upward while drawing the Force into me.
Like a ballistic shell, I slammed down, channeling everything I'd gathered into the palm of my left hand. The moment it touched the street's permacrete, the Force burst outward.
Twisting the smooth hexagonal tiles, the Force surged ahead, ripping up the pavement, making enemy droids stumble and topple. Sure, I'm no Starkiller, but within a good twenty-meter radius the droids fell like pins. Flailing awkwardly, trying to get back up, they became easy targets for the rolling wave of clones.
We broke into the paratroopers' position only after half an hour of fighting. We had to pull in heavy weapons for the tanks. As soon as several dozen "boxes" from the forward units went up in flames, the enemy fell back. The droids retreated clumsily under the fire of the pressing clones, clogging the street with their own bodies.
After we shoved the enemy off the forward line, sent Loathsom's equipment and infantry running, I checked the status on the other directions. With minor losses, the First and Third Regiments held.
But the Second Regiment was in far worse shape. In fact, a battalion or two remained alive—and only those who had stayed on the western direction. On the eastern front there were only mountains of corpses.
A little more than fifty paratroopers survived. Unbroken and combat-capable—no more than ten.
Staring at the battlefield littered with bodies in white armor and the husks of vehicles, I couldn't shake the thought that my own death had been wandering somewhere among those droids too.
"Forward!" Ptar's drunken voice rang out somewhere very close. The huge guard captain flashed a few meters away, mounted on a speeder. Behind him, like a pack of hounds, a hundred more speeder bikes with militia riders tore after him.
"Stop, you idiots!" Alpha yelled at the top of his lungs. "The shield isn't up!"
But the militia didn't listen. They crossed the city line, rushing in pursuit of the retreating tanks of that kerkoidean.
The very enemy I had deliberately dragged into the city, counting on pulling him into a fight with the militia, cutting him off from reinforcements with the ray shield, and crushing him like a flea. Honor, respect from the clones, blind worship in the eyes of the surviving militia. And Ptar's drunk mug, having contributed not a single meaningful effort to the victory.
Only I hadn't counted on this outcome.
A third of my forces was gone as if it had been licked off by a cow. Losses were still being counted, but: up to fifteen hundred clones of the Second Regiment—along with their commander, Dei; up to five hundred clone engineers; almost all the paratroopers. Twenty-six SPHAs, four walkers, a dozen gunships—this looked more like a Pyrrhic victory.
Watching from the roof of the Second Regiment's operations headquarters as the militia, exhilarated by victory, blew themselves up on mines and got cut down by Loathsom's tank units, I didn't feel like my plan had worked. I'd lost too many of my men.
I miscalculated.
"Your idea lacks only the final touches, apprentice," the Emperor's ghost appeared to my left. The ancient Sith admired the smoking ruins and piles of bodies, twisted hulks of equipment. A smile played on his lips.
"I weakened my flank," I reminded him. "Heavy losses in equipment, manpower…"
"Who cares about losses when you can make their sacrifice a beacon of hope?" the Emperor asked. "These little people," he jabbed a finger toward the dozen tiny figures of militia running from the tank blaster fire, "are filth."
Loathsom had lured the militia beyond our artillery's coverage. His trap—an anti-personnel minefield—cut down huge numbers of "freedom fighters." Just as they fled in terror from droids at the start of the attack, now they were trying to crawl back under the cover of city structures.
"But," the Emperor continued, "if you save even a few of them now, they'll praise you as their savior for the rest of their lives. Not their commanders—you. The hero of Christophsis who saved the militia from annihilation. Your plan is good. Bring it to its logical end…"
"Sir," Baldy stepped onto the roof through the Teacher's fading figure. "The tanks turned around and are shooting the militia. Those idiots even chased the Seps on foot."
"Launch the strike craft," I ordered. "Gather the survivors and deliver them to the magistrate."
"But, sir," the ARC trooper protested, "we've already lost too many."
"No need to lose even more, Baldy," I said, teaching him a lesson. "If the militia gets wiped out, who's going to supply us with food?"
The clone froze, tilting his head slightly to the left as he studied me. Then he silently saluted and left the roof.
"Wonderful, my apprentice," the Emperor's ghost praised. "You won't have to wait much longer…"
As if to confirm his words, I suddenly heard a low engine hum. In the soot and smoke of the pre-sunset twilight, the shadow of the Fury flickered over the city.
***
"General Dougan," the holorecording wavered, "you are demonstrating a very rare example of endurance and command spirit. Your smuggler assistants have delivered the latest reconnaissance and operational data to me. I believe you have enough forces to hold out under siege for the next month. Many Jedi have fallen in this time, many clones have died," the speaker pretended to grieve. "We are in a difficult situation and lack almost everything. Unfortunately, although 'Iron Spear' is currently fighting only a small number of critically important battles, we do not have sufficient forces to lift the blockade of Christophsis. We simply lack ships. Our previous attempt ended with the loss of the reinforcements sent to you…"
I rolled my eyes with a groan. Meanwhile the recording kept aggravating me.
"The Jedi Council also sends you its approval. High Command has a plan to lift the blockade of Christophsis next month, so you must hold out…"
I didn't listen any further. A short lightning burst fried the portable transmitter, shutting Bailur up. The device, obeying the laws of physics, flew off the table and shattered against the wall.
With a bit of surprise, I noted that I'd learned to throw much nastier lightning.
"Technically, there was still more information there," Kira remarked, watching the transmitter's flight.
She was sitting on the couch in my office. Short dark-chestnut hair, a light jacket with armor plates sewn in, trousers made of some beast's hide, blasters on thigh and belt… not the slightest hint of belonging to the Order. She was playing yet another role and kept up her smuggler image.
"Don't care," I snapped, staring into the commanders' reports for the day.
Kira, really, had nothing to do with it.
It wasn't her fault I was stuck here. No communications, no reinforcements, no support.
The bitterness of loss left its mark.
A strange thing. I know how the Clone Wars end. I know what the clones are needed for. And yet I still try to keep them alive. I worry about losses.
And I used to have a completely different philosophy.
Different principles—back when I lived on Earth. So what broke in me?
"So many bodies," Nadia said, watching through my office's restored window as clone remains were hauled to the former university building a couple of blocks away. The building had long been looted, but its vast gardens—where all trees had burned out—were perfect for what I had planned.
Unlike Carsen, the late consul's former aide wore a light tunic, with a light chestplate over it and a small blaster fixed on it. A fabric-armor cloak protected her from shots in the back, and her legs were carefully protected by fabric-armor leggings with camouflaged armor elements attached over them. A blaster rifle with a modified optical sight hung behind her.
"Yeah," I said. "We've had our share of fighting."
Vette and Atroxa had departed and were supposed to send only Kira to me. Why Grell had flown in together with the former companion of the Hero of Tython, I didn't yet know. But nothing was stopping me from finding out.
"How did your assignments go?" I asked casually, looking over both former Jedi.
The girls exchanged glances.
"Usually," Kira began, "the Hands reported on their missions individually."
"That is the Emperor's rule," the second one echoed.
Looking at their innocent faces, I gestured for Nadia to leave. Her mission interested me most, so I saved it for last.
"I'll stay on comms," Nadia bowed and left my office.
Watching her go, I returned my attention to the Child of the Emperor.
"Talk."
***
He didn't evoke steady disgust or superstitious terror. She didn't feel excessive darkness in him, or the monstrous intentions his Teacher pursued.
Why this boy—seen from the height of her years spent in carbonite, she couldn't look at the Jedi sitting before her any other way than a mother looks at a child… Since they met, one question hammered in her head: why did this Jedi betray the Order and bow before Vitiate's teaching?
Back then, on the station, waking her from sleep, Harth had said with a smirk that she would become a nanny for the Emperor's new apprentice. A fallen Jedi in the Emperor's service. With all the strength of her Jedi soul, she despised that self-satisfied type. For almost a thousand years he had served the Emperor. Knowing the secret of transferring consciousness into a new body, he had long ago destroyed his original body with Sith sorcery, climbing into the flesh of his own clone. Harth didn't reveal his secrets—how he gained access to the technique of cloning a Jedi body. He barely spoke at all.
For some reason, the Emperor's faithful servant left the station before the new apprentice arrived. Was he afraid of him? Unlikely. In a thousand years he had accumulated enough knowledge and tricks not to fear any of the Hands.
"You will teach him, as you were taught in your time," her vision hadn't returned yet, but the Emperor's voice—a low, guttural bass that sounded as if it came from several throats—was burned into her memory forever. "He is my apprentice. You will obey him as you obey me. You will protect him as you protect me. Teach him to control his abilities, and he will bring peace and calm to our galaxy. He will finish what your beloved could not…"
She listened to the Emperor, drank in every word. Long ago she had stopped crying for her slain beloved. The tears dried with the years. Her heart hardened over centuries. Only the desire to reunite with the one once called the Hero of Tython—only that kept her serving the Emperor.
No matter what monster he was, only the Emperor could return Kira's murdered beloved to life. And if that was what it took—she would serve his apprentice. Only so that her beloved would be reborn. And the moment it happened—the Emperor's plans would end.
"Talk," Jedi Dougan said.
With a simple exercise, Kira calmed her heart, which had started pounding harder at the mere mention of her dead love.
"You sent me to the Rendili shipyards to oversee the repair and modernization of our ships," she reminded him. From a hidden pocket on her belt she produced a data crystal. "The company leadership was satisfied with our order and fulfilled it on time. The crystal contains reports from all the Hands, encrypted for your review."
She handed the crystal to the Jedi. Drawing it to himself with the Force, the man inserted it into a datapad, unlocking the encrypted entries with his fingerprint.
But he didn't start reading the report.
"Tell me about your success, Kira," he asked.
Asked. Not ordered.
To her surprise, she felt a wave of attention and goodwill coming from him.
"Every single Hammerhead and Tranta had its weapons, defenses, power, and propulsion systems updated," she continued. "New comm systems were installed, advanced nav systems. Partial upgrades freed part of the crew and reduced it to 250. The hangar deck also gained space—now it can hold up to two squadrons of Aurek- or Claw-type fighters."
"'Wanderer,' 'Valiant,' 'Daring,' 'Republic's Call,' 'Forefather,' 'Vanguard,' 'Coruscant's Radiance,' 'Veltraa,' 'Voice of Katarra,' 'Taris's Revenge,' 'Tython's Triumph,' 'Brave,' 'Praetorian,' 'Defender,' 'Seeker,' 'Majestic,' 'Warrior,' 'Guardian,' 'Restorer,' 'Peacemaker,' 'Nebula,' 'Fortitude,' 'Inexorable,' 'Iron Sun,' 'Blue Star,' 'Fearless,' 'Booster'…" the Jedi began reading the ancient ship names aloud from her report. "The very cream of the Old Republic."
Kira let the barbed remark pass.
"The company left seven heavy turbolasers on the 'head'—three turreted and one gun—adding four twin turret mounts on the 'wings': two on each wing, with two on the upper surface. The number of paired twin medium turbolasers has been brought up to five: two in the lower wing sections and one in the aft, as originally arranged. The anti-air battery consists of two dozen quad laser cannons concentrated on the ship's 'spine' and 'belly.' Point-defense laser AA is concentrated on the bridge and stern: two dozen guns."
"With that armament, our cruisers don't fall short of Venators," the man smirked. "I'm satisfied. But as I understand it, we can't equip all our Hammerheads with Aurek fighters?"
Kira nodded.
"Only 15 cruisers out of 27. The fighters underwent major overhaul and modernization. The company is ready to manufacture new batches if we're willing to pay 70,000 credits per unit."
"Twice the original price," Rik smiled. "No choice—we'll buy. What about the frigates?"
"All 32 Trantas underwent full modernization. Six paired heavy turbolaser guns—three turrets on each side of the 'hammerhead' bridge. Twelve laser turrets across the hull are arranged so that nine turrets cover each hemisphere at once. Two ion cannons per side. Eight strike missile tubes. Air wing: twenty-four Claw-type fighters."
"We have enough of those?" the man asked, checking his notes.
"More than enough. In place of the missing Aureks, the remaining dozen Hammerheads carry sixteen Claw fighters each. These fighters are also modified. Their price when ordered at Rendili: 100,000 credits."
"Interesting," the man praised.
"The company is ready to produce as many Hammerheads and Trantas as we need from their design," Kira moved to the final part of her mission. "The sums in our Rendili accounts would allow us to build up to a thousand ships of each type—and still have enough left to build hundreds of thousands of fighters."
"How very interesting," the man smirked. "And the dreadnoughts? I hope you didn't fall short there either."
Kira felt his open attention. Not the attention of master to slave that the Emperor or Harth showed. The attention of a man to a woman.
Affection, covered by a mask of posing and polish, seeped through his mental defenses. Maybe someone else wouldn't have noticed it—but not her. Not with her life experience.
She cursed silently. The last thing she needed was him dragging her into bed like Atroxa. Sure, the Lethan wouldn't mind—that was her nature. But Kira was not that kind of bird.
Let him think whatever he wanted.
"Thanks to our extensive spending, we have a personal VIP manager," she explained. "I outlined what we need. The company is willing to take the job and guarantees project secrecy, but only on condition there is no conflict with the Republic government. For additional hassle and confidentiality they ask an additional ten billion. I didn't mention the Katana Fleet directly. Only implied these were ships lost by the Republic and found by our search parties."
The man laughed. There was no malice or triumph in it—just ordinary amusement, simple and light, as if this wasn't the man steering the galaxy's fate while trying to enact yet another horrifying plan of his Teacher's.
For a moment, Kira wondered if he could be a tool against Vitiate. Or if his faith in the Emperor was unbreakable.
"Capitalists won't miss a chance to make money," he said, chuckling it off. "As soon as we're done on Christophsis, you'll go to Rendili and sign a contract with them for the repair of the Dark Force."
"As you command," Kira bowed in deference.
"If that's all, you're dismissed," the man leaned back in his chair, lifting the datapad with the reports toward his eyes.
"My lord," Kira rose from the couch.
Meeting the Emperor's apprentice's gaze, she asked, "Do you truly believe only war can bring peace back to the galaxy?"
Rik ran a hand across his face, as if wiping away tension. He was silent for a moment, then said, "What's happening can't be left to run on its own. The Sith will annihilate the Jedi—and with them, trillions of innocents. Only because they waited so long for revenge. And it won't stop: from birth to death, this galaxy will suffer, torn apart by ideological contradictions. In the end, it will lead the galaxy to the extermination of thousands of worlds. It's time to end it. Here and now. Jedi and Sith must wake up. The Force is One. And if someone wants to keep dividing it into the light and dark sides, they can do it somewhere on the backwater fringe, without harming peaceful sentients."
"Can't this be brought to the Order peacefully?" she asked, surprised.
"More than once, great heroes of the past tried to return the Jedi to the original understanding of the Force," Rik said in a lecturing tone. "But the Jedi are blind in their dogmas. As," he hurried to add, "the Sith are, in theirs. Our task is to create a new Order that will absorb all the teachings of light and dark and direct them toward protecting this galaxy—establishing equality, freeing it from slavery, corruption, lawlessness… And if the galaxy refuses—even in the face of a great threat—to unite," in that same moment he carried Vitiate's icy resolve in his scent, "I will do it for them."
"You keep mentioning a danger to the galaxy," she recalled. "But who is it?"
For a moment he looked at her, as if deciding whether she could be trusted. Then he gestured for her to sit.
"The population of an entire galaxy is planning to invade the Celestial River," he said. "They know no mercy, they are insensitive to the Force, and they do not use machines. Their cult is war, pain, blood sacrifice. Many years will pass before they reach our galaxy—fifty, perhaps more—but the galaxy will not be ready. To stand against the population of an entire galaxy that seeks to exterminate us for their gods… They will conquer system after system, leaving behind mountains of corpses and sentients maimed and reshaped by their biotechnology—sentients for whom death will be the best release."
"Then why won't you tell the Council? The Chancellor? The Senate?" What she heard shook her. Even during the war with the Empire—when the galaxy faced extermination for the Emperor's plan—the situation hadn't felt so desperate.
"They don't care about the future," the man shrugged. "The Chancellor is a Sith, and the Senate is already in his pocket—if not entirely, then at least halfway. The Order is sunk in ignorance, weakened, grown fat. Palpatine knows about the threat from beyond the galaxy; his rise to power is one step in resisting the invaders. But his plan isn't fated to succeed either. The Jedi, in their narrowness, will destroy the strong militarized state the Sith create. And after that, the galaxy will be shaken by local wars for decades—each one catching the Republic and its successors unprepared."
"How do you know all this?" she asked suspiciously. She knew of Force visions, but even they weren't so detailed.
"It…" he seemed to stumble, cutting himself off in time. "It doesn't matter. Vitiate and I know the finale of this saga. And we don't like it. Is that all?" There were notes of impatience and demand in his voice.
Realizing she'd gotten answers to more questions than she wanted, she bowed silently and left the office.
***
Reports, reports, reports…
Now it's clear why the Republic has such a massive bureaucracy. It's simply impossible to handle this kind of information flood.
Kira's report was overflowing with numbers, estimates, charts… I didn't even bother diving into it.
I also set Grell's report aside for later. It would be more interesting to talk to the girl in person, now that she was here.
First of all, I was interested in Ashara's memo. In her lines she plainly hinted that the commandant's post weighed on her. Still, her successes couldn't be denied. Together with Malgus, she connected the power sources delivered from the station, cleared rubble, repaired damaged equipment, and hooked up new hardware. All the thankless work fell on the shoulders of ten thousand "Neboviks" the Sith had "generously" shared. The droids began clearing terrain, freeing living space for the planned construction of barracks, warehouses, hangars.
Reading her report further, I tensed when I saw Set Harth's name.
A Hand I hadn't known before slid across the galaxy like a shadow, delivering what was needed to Odessen. Equipment, weapons, supplies… Harth had his own people and connections everywhere. Thanks to him, the base started seeing scarce—but crucial—specialists: mercs, techs, pilots, former military. Zavros directly indicated that Set was ignoring her, claiming he was doing it for the good of the Empire.
That couldn't help but worry me. I don't like slick schemers in principle. And when the person scheming behind your back is someone who's supposed to obey you, it openly pisses you off.
Sure—I'm not against our little campaign acquiring valuable specialists. But why the hell is it happening without my approval? Who's whose boss? Me, or him?
The Force stirred, warning of a sudden intrusion.
The door to my office opened, letting a dead-drunk Ptar inside.
The guard commander sank heavily onto the couch, clutching in his muscular hand the same swill we'd been drinking before the attack.
"Two and a half thousand, Rik. Two and a half…"
"Total losses?"
"Almost," the guardsman took a pull from the bottle. "Maybe five hundred will crawl out, maybe not. Kriff, if only we had more bacta!"
"We have what we have," my wrist datapad chirped. Right—Alpha's message came in. Well then. Time to start. "I lost no less. And it nearly cost us everything."
"Their sacrifice will not be forgotten," Ptar said with pathos.
"There would've been no need for their sacrifice if your mechanics had gotten the shield working," I said. "But judging by the looks of it, they were seeing this generator for the first time in their lives."
"Well…" Jo stared at me, confused.
"Let's end this conversation," I cut him off. "A funeral procession is prepared. We must honor the fallen…"
"Now?!" Ptar stared at me with crazed eyes. He looked at his own appearance, his condition…
"I—I'm not ready," he mumbled. Then a thought flickered in his eyes, brought on by alcohol and the Force. "Say I'm out on assignment. Attend alone…"
The first part of the Christophsian ballet had ended.
***
The local university building was a battered but imposing structure, somewhat reminiscent of a Stalin-era Moscow State University high-rise. Except the central tower rose some seven hundred meters above the ground.
The grounds around the university once had luxurious gardens. From the front, the semicircular body of the university used to be surrounded by a beautiful grove of fruit trees. The trees were dead, and the ground had long been scarred by heavy equipment. But there was no other place.
From an improvised dais, I looked over the forces of the 204th Legion assembled before me.
Neat company blocks of clone infantry, engineers, medics… All clones off duty—and locals who joined the procession—lined up so that the mass grave stood centered between me and the ranks.
Behind me stood the regimental commanders: Phob, Fan, Rudy, Mimo. To the right, Shay, encased head-to-toe in Mandalorian armor, stood like a silent statue. To the left: Alpha and Baldy. The ARCs held the flagpoles, banners rolled up until the proper moment. The idea of making our own legion flags came to me long ago. But it only turned into reality just before we joined up with the militia.
Looking at the enormous pit—about a hundred meters across and deep enough to make your head spin—I saw hundreds of identical faces and bodies laid in neat rows atop each other. The militia buried their dead elsewhere, mistrusting our suggestion of a joint burial in a mass grave. Fine. Kriff them. They still came to gawk—behind the clones' backs I could make out several hundred militia, presumably those who survived the day's slaughter.
Scanning the ranks of silent soldiers in Phase I armor, I noted with some detachment how the white gear gave them away in the dark. Making a mental note to repaint the armor, I activated the comlink built into my bracer. Pre-tuned to the shared channel for the entire contingent, it was meant to be heard by everyone: not only those gathered, but also sentries, patrols, scouts… Thanks to our specialists' interference, my voice would also reach local civilians.
I hadn't prepared a speech. I didn't rehearse. It would've been good to polish it, sure, but the moment I sat down to write, demagogues from my world rose before my eyes—and such disgust rolled over me…
No. If I want my men to hear me, if I want to get the meaning across, I have to speak in my own words. Without lofty speeches. Without pomp. As an equal among equals.
"This is General Rik Dougan speaking," I said calmly.
Instantly I felt the gaze of tens of thousands of focused eyes. The attention poured onto me nearly buckled my knees. Powerful stuff.
"You were not asked whether you wanted to fight for the Republic—a country you have never seen. You were sent into battle under my command. I swear by the Force, I have done, and I am doing, everything so that you will never regret that you served and serve under my command."
A few moments of silence. A faint disorientation in the ranks was clearly traced through the Force.
"Today we took heavy losses. Our brothers, our friends gave their lives for the cause of our victory. Sparing themselves nothing, they fired to the last magazine, the last detonator—fighting for the peace and prosperity of our state. All of us on this planet, cut off from the comforts of civilization, surrounded but unbroken, besieged but not surrendered, are fighting for those we will likely never see. For hundreds of trillions who will lose freedom if we fall. Our brothers and friends fell in glorious battle, giving their lives to free the galaxy from injustice and tyranny. I promise you their sacrifice will not be forgotten. Every soldier who dies in this war deserves to be remembered, and it does not matter what contribution he made to our common victory. Together—me and you—we will break the chains of slavery and oppression hanging over this galaxy. What we do now will echo in eternity. The glory of our deeds will enter history books. Future generations will admire our heroism and valor. History is written by the victors. And may I be damned if the fighters of my glorious legion do not set things right on this planet, in this sector, in this galaxy!"
Tomb silence. The pressure of the gathered attention only increased, squeezing my head almost unbearably. Emotions crashed over the ranks like waves.
Maybe it wasn't the most fiery speech. Maybe it wasn't even the best of what should have been said in that moment.
But it reflected my personal attitude.
I believed in every one of those under my command.
And I believed my own words.
But deep in my soul, where darkness coiled with calculation and pragmatism, demons rubbed their hands in satisfaction.
Of course the dead had to be buried—nothing human is foreign to us. But the real reason lay elsewhere.
I was laying straw to soften the fall when, if and when, Order 66 happened.
Operation Knightfall, in the history I knew, was carried out ambiguously. On the one hand, the clones simply followed an order—the one given by the ruler of the state. And they followed it well, as loyal and obedient soldiers should. They were made for that. Orders and obedience—the foundation of their lives.
That the Jedi turned out to be incompetent commanders and threw the enemy down under tons of clone corpses is also a fact you can't ignore. Expendable material that doesn't even have a name.
But on the other hand, for example, the same Scalolaz—a clone commando—did not carry out Order 66 and let Jedi Shryke escape. Was that a one-off? I don't think so. The law of large numbers says otherwise.
And on the third hand, The Clone Wars series plainly stated: clones have a bio-chip in their brains that compels them and forces them to kill the Force-sensitive.
What do you believe? The story about clones forming attachments to Jedi? Or the newer version with chips?
Lama Su didn't give direct answers. The Kaminoan was quite open about clone production and the deal with Tyranus. But he'd never heard of chips before. Unfortunately, he only knew the production technology superficially, so he couldn't guarantee the presence or absence of those extra kriffing things. He promised to look into everything. Fine—soon Atroxa would pay him a visit and check on the deal we'd made.
As they say: expect the worst and you won't be surprised.
And those same people say: don't miss an opportunity.
"I'm proud of you. You—everyone under my command, and everyone out there among the stars"—in the heat of it I threw my hand up and pointed at the sky—"are the best people I've met in my entire life. Don't forget those you fought shoulder to shoulder with. Those who saved your lives and risked themselves alongside you. We can lower our hands and drown our grief in alcohol. But is that what the fallen wanted? Only with weapons in our hands and vengeance burning in our chests will we remind the enemy of our losses. And repay them a hundredfold! Let the fallen rest in peace. And let the living never forget them!"
On command, the legion removed their helmets. One by one, each clone stepped forward, took a clod of earth in an armored glove, and dropped it into the mass grave. Then the clone put the helmet back on and returned to formation.
Yes, the procession was time-consuming.
But it was worth it.
I felt the clones' emotions shift into grim, cold resolve—resolve that cemented them together, turning a mismatched mass of fighters into a single front. I felt that the soldiers repeated the rite as one, not because it was an order passed down by commanders. My words found a response in them. The echo of their souls in the Force resonated with my own emotional push. I felt waves of a certain approval directed at me.
Progress.
Unexpectedly, through the stream of white armor flowing from the ranks to the grave and back, I first noticed a few lone militia—and then more and more—repeating the earth ritual. There were no clashes, no resentment between clones and locals. One after another they stepped forward to pay respect to the fallen.
"Sir," Alpha came up to me, "have you noticed how many locals are arriving?"
He was right.
Through the Force I sensed an endless stream of locals moving from Central Station, where the exit from the underground transport network was located. Children, women, old people… it felt like the entire valley had come to see off the fallen heroes.
Only in the pre-dawn twilight did the burial end. For almost six hours, the legion, the locals, the commanders, and the ARCs stayed on site. The heavy equipment meant to fill the grave was left unused. All the earth brought up to the surface was returned by human hands.
A burial mound several meters high now rose in the middle of the garden. In the workshops, engineers were finishing monuments: metal plates that would be set along the central alley leading from the transport arterial to the university doors. Each would bear the ID numbers of the 204th Legion clones who had died during the campaign.
The east was lit by the first rays of the Christoph system's sun. Yellow-orange glare fell in absurd strokes on the clones' white armor, casting ridiculous shadows onto the permacrete.
"Every unit," I said, "once, in the past, had its own distinguishing banners."
Again I felt the gathered attention and nearly groaned from the energy directed at me. It was hard to call it blind adoration. No—more like faith, hope, expectations… a dense lump of positive emotion poured over me. Hundreds of times stronger than at the beginning of the ceremony.
Thousands of locals joined us, filled the university's empty floors, clustered in groups behind the troopers, watched us from nearby rooftops…
"I'm proud that today, in the dawn light of a new day, I present you with banners," Baldy and Alpha stepped forward, moving around me from both sides, removing the covers from the tops of the flagpoles as they went. "The battle banners of our 204th Legion!"
As if on command, both commandos secured the metal poles into sockets on the dais. Black banners hung on them, still folded. With a light click, the side holders at the top sprang open, and the five-pointed banners unfolded in full.
A wave of surprise went through the crowd, then turned into delight.
I'd been thinking about what the banner of my future Empire would look like. Sorting through the symbols of every polity of this galaxy I knew, I finally settled on the five-pointed standard used by the Revanite Order. At first, I wanted to keep it black, as I'd seen in my visions.
But then I remembered an episode from The Hunger Games with the burning dress. We didn't have anything like that, but still… a bit of tinkering with paint, a bit of chemistry—and we had a matte-black composition that faded under ultraviolet.
It was the transformation of the black banners that triggered such a storm of applause.
Now, as soon as the coating burned off in sunlight, anyone could see a five-pointed standard with a black base and silver edging. At the top, in silver against the black background, there was a hexagon borrowed from Vitiate's Empire, and inside it sat a just-as-white Republic eight-pointed star. At the bottom remained a massive silver circle fastened by four bands of the same color, with the number "204" at its center.
"From this day forward, forever," I said, "this banner will bring terror to our enemies and joy to the hearts of our friends and allies! Hoorah!"
Automatically I threw my hand up and struck my fist to the center of my chestplate, then raised it into the air.
A second later, the air shook with the roar of a thousand throats chanting "hoorah!" in a hundred voices and raising their arms in a new gesture of martial salute.
***
By noon, the Knowledge Square was empty of gawkers. The clones returned to the barracks, and the locals—after making holorecordings with the liberator warriors—went back to the valley.
Though not all of them.
Leaving the magistrate in the morning, he saw with mute surprise hundreds and thousands of people—men, children, women—crowding the clone commanders, asking to be enlisted and issued weapons. A little farther off stood those with black armbands bearing a silver emblem: the new militia of Christophsis.
And to his horror, he saw nearly all of his fighters in the ranks of the new militia. Meeting their eyes, he saw only condemnation and contempt—something he couldn't understand until someone advised him to go to the square in front of the University of Exact Sciences.
Letting the sun warm his body, reeking of sweat and alcohol spilled on his shirt, he sat slumped against the back of a bench in the square, squinting at the lines of clone ID numbers.
Thanks to sleep and sobering chemicals, he was on his feet in the morning, but it turned out much had gone wrong.
The militia engineers swore they had packed every required part of the shield generator. But during assembly, several focusing lenses were missing. Clone engineers only spread their hands, looking for replacements in wrecked CIS machinery. Unfortunately, the lenses were found only by the final stage of the battle: the Mandalorian Shay Vizla delivered them, having discovered the lens kit simply forgotten in a cargo car.
Simple forgetfulness had cost him most of the militia.
He wanted a drink. Indolence and the pull of alcohol in moments of emotional turmoil had always been a trait of Christophsian aristocracy—and Ptar belonged to it. Only the fact that he wasn't the legitimate son of one of the planet's oligarchs was why he'd gone into the guard. Twenty years of exemplary service, and he could earn his own name, start his own genetic line of aristocracy…
His gaze fell on a wine bottle standing not far from him. Smiling, the captain grabbed it in his huge hands and immediately drank from the neck.
They were everywhere, actually. Even if ordinary residents didn't have a strong tendency to drink, they still had traditions. Successes and failures always came with alcohol. Tradition…
"Sir, put the bottle down," a young, cracking voice said clearly and loudly.
Ptar, tearing himself away from the booze that ran through his veins like molten lava, saw a pair of teenagers standing in front of him. Awkward, dressed in hand-me-downs, the kids looked at him with a hint of condemnation. Beside them hovered a small repulsor platform with waste containers.
"Get lost," Ptar snapped.
"Curfew is in effect, sir," the boy squeaked again. "We don't drink alcohol. We honor the fallen differently!"
"If I have to repeat that one more time," Ptar threatened, "I'll spank you…"
Nearby, a blaster's safety clicked with a dry snap. A familiar E-5 blaster carbine.
Turning his head slowly, he saw a militiaman in light armor aiming a captured Separatist carbine at his chest, but he couldn't remember the trooper's name…
"Set the bottle on the bench, step away from the kids, and come with us," the militiaman ordered crisply.
"I am Captain of the Internal Guard Jo Ptar!" the giant snarled. "I am your commander!"
"Not since this morning, sir," the militiaman cut him off. "Comply with the order, or I will be forced to take you to the commandant's office."
Ptar gave a short laugh.
"Go on, then," he said, anticipating some fun, taking a fighting stance.
A sharp pain in the back of his head and the sound of shattering glass cut short the internal guard captain's improvisation.