Sorry about the delay, this one was a bit on the tricky side to write. The actual violence was simplicity itself, it was the verbal portion of the catfight that took time.
IP, damn, you caught on. It's secretly an ego management technique to prevent me getting so many readers my head swells up...
Seriously, it's painfully obvious that typesetting is not my favourite thing, and I'm embarrasingly capable of not noticing that I've made a mistake. Where needs fixing?
36c
As the squadron manoeuvred to form a firing line and the ion cannon ships turned briefly away to form up, Lennart could almost feel the mood change- on
Admonisher.
No, he could, it was just that he shouldn’t be able to- but their decision processes seemed to shift from trying to fight their way clear, and engage targets chosen for them by that, to doing as much damage to the Imperial ships as possible.
As
Dynamic jumped in, she was met by a ripple of half broadsides before the viewscreens had cleared, started to evade in a clumsy lurch- it looked as if one of the main engines was in local control- not well enough.
The red bolt clusters converged quickly on target, ripped into the already battered destroyer’s bow and starboard side, tearing compartments open, knocking out one hyperdrive node , both starboard secondary engines, and ripping open a set of fuel cells-
and drawing a phased, timed return shot that blasted
Admonisher’s portside forward group of turrets wide open, they exploded and kicked the heavy destroyer down and to it’s starboard, turning it broadside on to
Dynamic.
Dordd declined to take advantage of the opportunity, instead turning and accelerating away as best he could, inflicting further damage on his ship as shot up compensator nodes failed and the already-damaged structure they were supposed to support was crushed.
Better than hanging around waiting for it to be done for them by turbolaser fire.
Dynamic was allowed to accelerate clear, and
Admonisher, the bear- the shark- at bay, declined to pursue- not as if she actually could, but her fire could follow the light destroyer; chose not to, turned away from the burning
Dynamic towards
Fist.
Tevar made the same mistake, if it could be called that- by doctrine, she was right. By pragmatic consideration, she was taking a hazard that could not possibly be worth it. She curved back to bring
Admonisher into her alpha arc, head on and bows down; opened fire.
Admonisher was slow to roll back on target, and limping from the loss of one more battery group; but her tired gun crews could still come up to the mark, they put a line of battery salvos along
Fist’s line of flight.
The Imperial destroyer scored first, but on sequential fire; damage the areas where the shield had been peeled back, certainly, but not the still functioning, still shielded compartments, hits there would ablate and abrade, but they wouldn’t stop the big renegade firing on her, not fast enough.
One group from
Admonisher’s third sequence of fire hit the bridge tower. Already pounded, it was largely empty, but there was still one main long range scan dome there. At tactical combat range the “big ear”’s secondary function was to analyse and deconstruct enemy EW, they couldn’t afford to lose it.
The dome disintegrated, then the salvo gutted Fist’s bridge module, flaring out forward and aft blasting away all the soft tissue and leaving only part of the hard outer walls and sparring of the module.
‘Emergency dive.’ Tevar snapped; put the bow down, change from the plan view exposing her turrets to a narrow stern-on tangent, on the theory that
Admonisher would expect
Fist to be ballistic now and make a prediction based on that.
She was right that time, the wreckage of the bridge module tore off as
Fist accelerated into the turn, ducking under the full converged sheaf that
Admonisher lobbed- the renegade’s fire caught the wreckage of the bridge tower and evaporated it, but missed the main hull.
Lennart weighed up the possibilities of doing the same. On one hand, evidence- but did that really matter now, wasn’t it time to just blow them up and let forensics do what they could?
It would make the fight a lot easier if
Admonisher was decapitated, would save Imperial lives- and an effective end of the fight before the actual end would suit his political purposes too.
Admonisher couldn’t evade everyone at once, what would have been a difficult and unlikely shot earlier was now just about possible.
There was no good reason not to, and besides,
Admonisher had realised that
Fist was being conned from a position in her main hull, and was making a determined effort to finish her off. Tevar was likely to give them more chances than they deserved.
What she had left to prove, Lennart didn’t know; after catching and killing
Reiver, not much, he would have said, but there were a whole complex of reasons in there.
Sector fleet seeking to redeem itself, sector aristocracy seeking to assert itself, and a woman.
Was there any real difference, Lennart wondered, between a misogynistic, xenophobic organisation and an organisation full of misogynistic xenophobes?
For the tactics of survival within the organisation, for change and reform, a lot- but from the viewpoint of the individual on the receiving end, not much.
That and personal pride, which might be the deadliest component of the lot. Fist should be running clear, and he should be trying to distract
Admonisher.
Distract like a sledgehammer to the forehead. ‘Guns, group up converged sheaf, point target, bridge module. Roll to present the starboard side immediately after. On my mark-‘
He waited for the roll, was interrupted by a pit technician ‘Containment breach in the bridge tower, they’re out.’
Deal with that in a moment. ‘Shoot.’
The six remaining octuples and the three heavy axials crashed out together, at the same moment give or take five milliseconds that
Admonisher also lobbed a full converged sheaf, from her remaining turrets, at
Fist’s predicted turning arc.
They expected
Fist to avoid pivoting in place, to continue to accelerate and attempt to turn to bear, prolonging the move into a wide sweeping bank, and they were right.
Admonisher was no longer firing ninety-six gun full salvos; she had been reduced to seventy-two, which made it slightly more survivable.
A full almost seven petaton salvo from a Shockwave was perfectly capable of pushing enough energy through the shields of a light destroyer to burn through from one end of the ship to the other;
but with two turret complexes blown apart, the big ship could only manage five, and Imperators were substantially better shielded and a lot tougher on the inside.
Which helped, a little. The full set of bolts crashed into the skid-turning Imperial destroyer over
Fist’s portside turret line, shearing through and angling in towards the initial acceleration grid of the port main ion engine.
There was a scintillation of colour- the white flare of shield interaction and the green wash of bursting tracer wave, the fiery incendiarism of vapourising durasteel, a violet-white flare of a rupturing capacitor and the thin, electric blue wash of a rupturing engine spewing ionizates- a symphony of luminous horror.
Between the impact and the loss of an engine, Fist tumbled out of control; at least there was still something left- still mostly there, gaping, molten hole in the hull, the port aft vertex hanging on and who knew how, but not destroyed. Maimed, but not destroyed.
Admonisher’s command crew had less than a heartbeat to appreciate their efforts, because
Black Prince managed to land her own full time on target salvo. The shields and the front of the bridge module under them seemed to melt and ripple as the thirty-twos hit, and the three huge axial cannon finished it by tearing the command tower apart.
‘Brenn, take over. You know what I want done.’ Lennart said, and turned and bolted for his day cabin before the navigator could put two and two together.
Crap, Brenn thought, but didn’t have time to do more than that, to wonder what Lennart was playing at.
Two decisions to be made- where were the fighters to go?
Clear the area around the deepest hole in
Admonisher’s hull specifically. Two ships of the squadron severely damaged- who to send to render assistance?
‘Com-scan, record for transmission; “Ion division commence fire; all ships, once the target shields are fully depleted main guns stand down, LTL aim for enemy point defence. Fighter elements, same target category, clear the skin around their dorsal midships battery cluster.
Comarre Meridian, proceed to assist
Fist,
Guillemot proceed to assist
Dynamic. All ships, as your shuttles and transports return, load them with boarding troops, send them out to join the attack stream, reporting to Air Commodore Olleyri.” Right, send all that lot and-‘
The door hissed open again and Lennart came out from his day cabin, looking worried- he had thrown some water over his face, and collected his lightsabre.
‘Ah. Skipper, you-‘ That explained a lot, and Brenn had been about to ask ‘are you sure about this?’ Looking at Lennart’s face, the answer was obviously no. On the other hand, what else was there to do?
‘-Need a hand?’ Brenn actually said.
‘I’m leaving the professional side of this to you to finish off, and your taking that load off my mind is help, believe me.’ Lennart said.
‘And thanks, but I have to do this, deal with Kor Alric in person, and somebody has to do that,’ he waved at the tactical map, ‘you’re the best candidate. Cover my back by making sure nothing goes wrong here, yes?’
Mixed feelings; on one hand- and the rRasfenoni had five- Brenn could think of many things to go wrong, one of them being the presence of said aliens.
He didn’t particularly want more command time, especially not unofficial command time as it was likely this would be. Taking the conn in the middle of a squadron scale operation, while the captain went off to do something exceptionally shady, was not Brenn’s idea of a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon.
Then again, what could he actually do? Refuse? That would let Adannan run wild- not an option. Who else could be left in charge? There were several of his own juniors and probably either Gunnery or com-Scan department heads who could be handed the job- but that would be just cowardice to leave it to them.
‘You can count on me.’ Brenn actually said.
‘I know.’ Lennart said, ‘and thank you again for that, too.’ He left the bridge, the blast door slamming shut and shimmering slightly as the tensors and internal ray shields locked it in place.
He had carefully not raised the possibility in Brenn’s mind that Adannan might be heading for the command bridge. Possible- more than probable- but he hoped to lure the dark jedi away.
There were two contradictory logics at work; the bridge was Lennart’s sanctum, his place of power- so in theory, it would make good emotional sense to face Adannan on his own command deck.
On the other hand, it was full of people and systems he didn’t want damaged in the crossfire. Also, and I really am thinking magically now, he chided himself, he didn’t want them to see him like this, deliberately reaching for the force.
That was possibly a suicidally bad decision, he might need to draw strength from them, but he was hoping the force was sufficiently nonlocal that he didn’t need to put them directly in the firing line to achieve that.
Now all I need to do, he thought, is think of some way to avoid putting me in the firing line… No chance. The politics didn’t work.
‘If Kor Alric turns up, don’t let him in, tell him I’ve gone down to Engineering.’ Lennart advised the stormtrooper detachment on watch. Even on
Black Prince’s pie-plate dropships there wasn’t enough room for them all, there would be details left behind.
This was one of them, eight troopers and a squad leader, E-11s, two flamers, a squad automatic and a riot gun.
‘Sir, what is Kor Alric’s precise legal status?’ the squad leader asked, slowly and carefully.
‘Good question.’ Lennart replied. Tempting- useful- as it would be to be definite, it wasn’t what the evidence said.
‘I don’t know, exactly.’ He admitted. ‘I think he’s violated the terms of reference of his position, and needs to be arrested pending investigation at the very least.
I know I can convict him of treason, but I don’t expect it to reach a courtroom. I think things are going to get resolved in a more…visceral manner. What do you think?’ he put the sargeant on the spot.
‘Sir?’ That was a very this-is-an-officer-problem kind of ‘sir.’ Get your finger out of your arse and tell me what needs doing, Sir.
‘I mean it. In a way, you’re what this is all about. The imperatives, the bone-marrow deep loyalty. What do they say- where does service to the Empire lie?’ Lennart asked slowly, spelling it out as he went.
‘Captain, the dangerous cults act-‘ the stormtrooper sargeant temporised.
‘Which Kor Alric attempted to misuse to force me to cooperate with his scheme. I’ll have to answer to that sooner or later, but to an honest judge, not to him.’ Lennart said, dreading the idea.
‘After what you’ve heard, Sargeant- NL1084, is he still the legitimate authority? Do you feel still bound to obey an order that he gives you?’
There was a long pause, longer than Lennart could afford, and a hissing and crackling at the limit of audibility- intertrooper comms. ‘Sir,’ the sargeant said eventually, in flat, baffled tones, ‘the chain of command has declined to offer a position.’
‘You know, a man can look surprised even in a full face helmet. How far up the chain of command did you go?’
‘To the contact code for Kor Alric’s offices on Coruscant, sir.’ NL1084 answered.
Lennart took a couple of seconds to think that through. They, Adannan’s colleagues in that particular labyrinth of night, had hung him out to dry. If he could take Kor Alric down- if the dark jedi wasn’t strong enough to pull off his own scam, then the hell with him.
Behind that attitude lurked something genuinely twisted, but there was a later to spend worrying about that. Or hopefully there would be. ‘So do what I ask of you, then, and stand ready here.’ He ordered, and headed for the lift.
‘Gethrim?’ he called the chief engineer on his personal com. ‘Final moves. Any idea what their plan is?’
‘Fan out. Give each of the minions a letter of authority, try to get them to a live com terminal, an escape pod, somewhere where they can get in touch with the rest of sector and region- rest of the Empire for that matter- to get help to use against you.’
There was also a muttered grumble about just because he was running the com tap, people coming to him for info.
‘To serve his goals, maybe. Me, I think he intends to take out along the way. I hope he does; I hope I have managed to make him mad enough to fixate on me and leave most of the rest of the crew out of it. If he’s any good as a forcemonkey, he can sense me and pursue, I’ll lead him away.’ Lennart said.
‘There’s only one problem with that plan. You’re a dreck swordsman.’ Mirannon pointed out, bluntly. ‘There. I’ve fed their biometrics into the system with an exclusion order.
Locked them out, they can override locally, but they’ll need to repeat the command at every hatch they come to. Slows them down and tracks them for an intercept.’
‘Nicely done, but I was actually thinking of your other talents as a homicidal maniac.’ Lennart said.
“You do realise disembowelling people is just a hobby?” Mirannon started to say, then realised just how much like the crazed dark jedi that sounded.
He changed it to ‘You know, after this I may take up a less active pastime. Spanner arranging, maybe.’
‘I know. After. Where are they now?’ Lennart asked.
‘Mostly stumbling around the bridge tower. Two, no, three already made it into the main hull, his personal pilot, his PR flack and the slab of meat.’
‘Right. Not a problem. I know who I can get to deal with them- although I may need some backup to deal with Adannan personally.’ Lennart said, perfectly matter of fact.
‘I was wondering when you were going to work that out.’ Mirannon said.
‘I was just hoping you would realise it’s too damn’ dangerous to mention the possibility until it’s too late for Adannan to work it out for himself.’ Lennart said. ‘He has a huge blind spot where it comes to non force users- I hope; best not to give him ideas.’
‘Ah. Right.’ Mirannon said blankly. Should have bloody known the skipper was going to be ahead of the situation.
‘I’m going to need some of your fu- men. Voulnteers only of course, this is going to get messy, likely to be a lot of fallout.’
‘If you’re just planning to nuke him, I can easily manage that; give me a minute to run up a pellet and laser-trigger.’ The engineer joked. Actually, there was an idea he could use in there somewhere.
‘Not that it isn’t tempting, but a little bit of gamma’s an occupational hazard, especially for engineering; it’s the legal fallout I’m actually worried about.’ Lennart said.
‘So I should warn them they’re in for a fate worse than death?’ Mirannon bounced back.
‘Afraid so. If anyone’s mad enough to volunteer, send them to DC Dorsal-140.’
The first intercept was no real surprise. One of the blips had entered a main vertical turbolift shaft, and was heading at high speed to Main Machinery-1.
What other way was there to get around a ship even the size of a destroyer, quickly enough to matter? The crowded, deliberately awkward internal structure didn’t help- for structural strength and to resist blast and flash, the structure was full of corners, baffles and blast doors, offset corridors, subdivided spaces.
It was at least as bad as an urban area to get around, realistically ten minutes from end to end in uniform, more depending on what was being carried. Battles could be won and lost in that time- several already had today.
When there was no shooting going on, sometimes the easiest way to get from one extremity of the ship to another was actually to go EVA, but not now.
Turbolifts were on the face of it an absurdly dangerous and failure prone solution to the problem, but there was no real practical alternative.
Well, not short of issuing everybody their own individual jetpack and rearranging the internal companionways for personal flight. That could be made to work on paper, and Mirannon would liked to have seen it tried at least once, although preferably on someone else’s ship.
Login and over-ride, redirect the capsule to the maintenance yard adjacent to Main Machinery-1. Why walk further than necessary? The big engineer made the rest of his dispositions, then strolled off to meet a man in a lift.
Incriminating himself by doing so, but what the hell. He guessed, and rightly, who Adannan would send. The yard was closed off by a blast door, running hot- somebody was trying to melt their way through from the other side using a lightsabre.
That was possible on cheap separatist ships, not on Starfleet spec. Plug in, set a momentary softening in the tensors securing the door, then a two second delay to open.
As he had expected, the lightsabre sank in as the forcefield relaxed, then wedged stuck as the field came back to full strength and hardened the metal around it again. As the door slid open, the goon on the other side didn’t have the sense to switch his blade off and had it torn out of his hand.
It was who Mirannon had been expecting, the heavyweight, Banaar. Man of the bans, the boundaries; borderer and half- outsider, a natural for becoming twisted embittered and hostile.
He glared at Mirannon for a second, then popped two long vibroblades out of springloaded forearm sheaths, snapping into his hands and activating, and he decided to join the scream and leap school of combat.
Split second to make a decision; was he needed alive, for any purpose? For interrogation, information, evidence? On the face of it, no; although it would be as well to err on the side of caution, it being notoriously difficult to unkill people.
Mirannon stepped into the attack, left arm snapping out in an up and out block across Banaar’s right wrist to stop that blade and give time, at the same time drawing his plasma torch blade and firing it up- the thug might be fast, but he was a grudging, grumpy, negative personality.
So many qualities, so many dependent factors. Temperament, preparation, mental discipline. The big engineer wasn’t a hardened killer, but he was a better man. Hs blow landed first.
The plasma torch took the dark minion in a perfect stop-thrust just below the ribcage. Which would probably have been enough, but then Mirannon chose to exploit the properties of a containment- forcefield torch that was a tool more than it was a weapon, and fanned out the blade.
All the way. What had been a hundred and thirty centimetre long elliptical sectioned cone deformed into a flat-headed mushroom of power and light, twelve centimetre stalk, eighty centimetre diameter disk.
That sliced Banaar’s torso in half, destroying him structurally, no last dying moves. He looked astonished for a second, expression on a head on a half- severed neck bobbling above a filleted, cauterised body; then the corpse squelched to the ground, most of the clots bursting open.
As a hobby, against friends and colleagues, fence, prod, probe, be flashy and experimental, have fun. Against subhuman slime like Adannan’s hired brute, the instant killing stroke was better than he deserved.
‘Medical?’ Mirannon normalised and powered down the blade, called the med complex dispatch desk. ‘Cleanup crew to turbolift maintenance, bring the heavy gurney and a freezer bag in case we need to mine his head later.’
No answer. ‘Medical? Hello?’
‘Sorry, Chief, we have a situation here. The twi’lek-‘
By then, Mirannon was already off and running.
The one of Kor Alric’s minions who was absolutely sure this wasn’t going to work was Laurentia. She was painfully aware that there was no real hope of accomplishing the task she had been set, which was to go to the Legion, turn them back to the side of officialdom and reassert the Special Agent’s claim on their loyalties.
She didn’t think the job had a snowball’s chance in hell, and was wondering bitterly what would get her first, the legion, the crew or the ship’s own environmental systems, when suddenly there were people, stormtroopers, in the corridor ahead. It was going to be the worst case scenario after all.
She had been trying to pick a reasonably empty route, away from the working spaces of the ship and from where damage control would be busy. Try to get as far as possible on her forlorn hope- which it had been all along, hadn’t it?
Ever since Kor Alric had plucked her out of the depot unit where she had been perfectly content serving as a specialist-7 trainer in civil policing and civilian interaction.
He had essentially abducted her to serve as his personal assistant, public relations agent, and whatever other darker and sicker things occurred to him.
What he had mentioned as a possibility to Lennart, he had already done to her twice, keeping her head alive on life support while he took here apart and put her back together again, while she was conscious and watching. Strangely, the actual cutting wasn’t nearly as bad as the running commentary he had kept up.
And other, lesser indignities and degradations, and occasional opportunities for her to do the same. So it had gone, Kor Alric cultivating both sides of a love-hate relationship, steering her towards a state of dependency where there was nothing in the universe she hated and feared more than him, but could not exist without his attention and approval.
He had made a psychological wreck of her, and whatever independent intelligence she still had left agreed with Lennart; he had made them all less. Part of her duty in particular was to make more of herself, she had to try to repair the damage he did to her, stay strong and capable, ready, adaptable and willing to serve.
And how he had enjoyed playing on that. Still, the imperatives remained. If this was the hand she had been dealt there was nothing to do but play it out, suffer, endure and grab at every bittersweet moment; learn to endure, if not exactly enjoy, the pain.
Intellectually she knew she was one of many, but her kin were spread few and far between. Aleph-3, the absurd one with no personal name who had spent her life in the field, had fallen in love, or convinced herself that she had, with her commanding officer.
Who, to be fair, was a competent man who treated her as a professional and respected her skills, and wanted her to be her own person- against her own wishes on the subject?
Ah, there may be an opening there, Laurentia thought, and hated herself for still wanting to try.
It was Omega-17-Blue who were barring her way now, had intercepted her on the upper barracks deck four levels above the staging area for the dropships. Caught before she could get a chance to deliver the message.
Laurentia was relieved but not surprised when her sister took off her helmet and hooked it to her belt. Tactically it would have been netter for them to just shoot her, but there was a lot of unfinished business.
‘Are we really so dissimilar? We share the same fatal flaw.’ Laurentia said as an opening gambit. ‘Loyalty to our men.’
‘In your case, I would call that a death wish.’ Aleph-3 shot back. ‘You’re probably not aware, but you have a nervous twitch; every time I mention him, you jump as if someone stood on your tail.
Why do you follow him?’ It was an impossible question, one that momentarily took Laurentia aback as she tried to work out how her sister could ask that.
‘You shouldn’t need to ask that. It’s built in to all of us, unyielding loyalty, faithfulness to authority no matter what-‘
‘Except that it isn’t.’ Aleph- said flatly. ‘There is nothing, nothing in the hindbrain that condemns us to a life of service without meaning, without intelligent anticipation, without excellence. We do not have to be used the way you have been used- how could you let that happen to you?’
And in asking that, Laurentia realised, she also asks, how can I? The situation starting to get to you a little, dear sister? ‘So you are content to be a slave, just so long as you aren’t an obscure one? Have you ever been a harem pet, or do you just want to be?’
Laurentia was aware that she was attacking from a position of weakness. What would constitute a position of strength? Harsh reality against fluffy imagination, Pain against Dreams? Inherently extremely depressing- but if that was what was most likely to work, it was what she would have to do.
‘We came out of the same mould,’ the actually younger Aleph-3 admitted, ‘but I’m not your mirror. Why are you asking me these things that you should have asked yourself, and got answers to, long ago?’ Which was a question that could be pointed both ways.
They were clones; what was obvious to one as obvious to the other- and they were both accusing each other of being fundamentally flawed, of missing the obvious.
‘You’re afraid.’ Aleph-3 went on. ‘Afraid of being a clone, willing to do anything, descend to being a prostitute and a sadist’s torture doll, to grasp at an identity of your own.’
Water off a sugar cube’s back. It was so true, so painfully and directly true that it made little difference. So many of the rank and file- and the live born enlistees more than most- fit that description, eagerly embracing anonymity- but not their line.
Their batch was supposed to be identifiable, distinct- and yet identify with the many. It was as much a fact of Laurentia’s existence as breathing oxygen, so true that it actually had no tactical significance, being effectively unchangeable. So why had her sister chosen to say that?
‘You? Sniper-scout, seeing without being seen, undercover operative; how many identities, how many masks, how many ways to avoid having to say ‘I am me, I am here, it is now?’’ Laurentia counter-accused.
Aleph-3 opened her mouth to retort, then remembered Lennart had said much the same thing. Instead she snapped ‘if that means accepting what identity means for you, then damn’ right. I am a hunter, a shadow, I’ve tracked down dozens of enemies of the Empire- and you belong to one.
You’ve let yourself be used, tortured, three quarters destroyed- if that is what it means to be and to belong, then I want no part of it.’
‘And you think you would have been able to do any differently in my place- you think you would have been given a choice?’ Laurentia snarled at her sister.
‘You’re fooling yourself- followed a trail right off into dreamland. Reality hurts. You don’t have choices, you don’t have options, I was hurt and how are you try to use that against me.’
‘Hurt? You were played.’ Aleph-3 bit back. ‘You’re a doll owned by a monster, the only thing you have to be proud of is your suffering, and that is nothing worthy of celebration.’
Why am I saying this? Aleph-3 wondered. What is actually my objective here? Killing my sister would be trivially easy. The rest of the squad aside, he took her apart and put her back together too many times.
She’s not as strong or as fast as she ought to be, her skills have too much gloss polish and not enough cutting edge, although as mad as she has every right to be she shouldn’t hesitate to hurt me. Although what is this standing and talking, if not hesitation?
The thought crystallised; I want to save her. From Kor Alric, and from herself. Although she knows how to place her barbs, I don’t think I can save her from me as well if she keeps trying to goad me. Two out of three is the best I can manage.
‘You, you number. You’re nobody’s; that man you think is yours,’ Laurentia screamed at her sister, ‘he doesn’t want you, he can’t tell who you really are- doesn’t know how many of you he’s going to have to put up with.’
That went to the bone, Aleph-3 had to admit. Largely because she was terribly afraid that it was true. Did Jorian Lennart need her? As he was at the moment- no. Honestly, no.
As he grew into the Force- but a moment; was what she wanted to turn him into likely to treat her any more considerately than Kor Alric did Laurentia?
The dark jedi’s pet saw her sister’s flicker of doubt.
‘Join us. It really is that simple. Come with me, do your duty. Your connection doesn’t make sense and can’t bear fruit, only misery- and that’s not what you’re for.’
That was so absurd, even in her confused and blackened mood Aleph-3 noticed it. ‘I don’t believe this.’ She said. ‘That you, victim as you are, still have the nerve to talk about purpose-‘
‘Audacity was never something our line was short of, sister.’ Laurentia said. ‘Consider this, we were designed and raised by a bunch of isolate xenomorphs, who had the personal contact of two males from freakishly repressed cultures.
A mando so gynophobic that a clone son was the only way he was ever going to reproduce, and a dried out old fart of a jedi- and past that only the textbooks to go on. You think it’s remotely possible that they actually got human sexuality right? You really think we’re normal?’
Aleph-3 paused for a moment, remembering dealing with clone troopers whose sexuality had been so confused they had hit puberty in their late twenties, and how it had felt to be the only woman in the barrack block when they did.
That in itself had been a good incentive to throw herself into the role of sniper-scout, away from the main body of the regiment.
It had made a difference at the time, too; so many of the clones had been, effectively, eunuchs, and most jedi generals had all the empathy and concern for their men of a halfbrick, and tended to target- fixate.
A lot of the clonetroopers had got themselves killed because they, literally as well as metaphorically, did not have the balls to stand up to the oblivious dedication of their leaders and point out that there was often an easier and less wasteful way.
The lack of hormonal activity reinforced the sense that they were just meat, not living beings with a life cycle and an identity that might be worth preserving. How the live born recruits to the stormtrooper corps were coerced into the same mental state was an interesting and painful tale.
‘There are billions of different takes on what it means to be normal, and most of them contradictory. I’m sure I can pass for several.’ Aleph- 3 said, and regretted it immediately.
‘I’m sure you can, but only one of them matters; are you comfortable in your own skin? Are you doing what makes you happy?’ Laurentia asked, pointedly.
‘Considering how often you end up out of your skin, that’s not a metaphor I’d have used.’ Aleph-3 snapped back.
Damn her, she thought, she’s a version of me, she knows me too well and she’s already hit rock bottom, there’s nothing more I can do about that except maybe make her cry, and that takes us nowhere.
‘Squashing your libido out of shape and putting on a mask are not what I mean, and you know it. Who are you when you’re not pretending? Who’s the face behind the mask?’ Laurentia said.
‘Don’t be daft, I’m me.’ Aleph-3 said, weakly.
‘And who- what- is that? Is there anything that you would sell your soul for the chance to do, or refuse even if your life depended on it? Professionally, we’re ambisexual; man, woman, alien, machine, animal, no difference.
Where does the pretence and the facility, where does the ooze end and the hard edge of ‘no’ begin?
You don’t know, do you? You’re just as much a pet, a pawn and a victim as I am, you’ve never been given sufficient opportunity to prove it.’ Laurentia snarled. Perhaps this was going to be easier than she had thought.
‘Now that is something I can recognise in myself.’ Aleph-3 said. ‘Pride in being one of the boys, as well as one of the girls. That feels familiar- and I know who I am, even if I can’t explain it.’ Or daren’t, a little voice in the back of her head said. ‘At any rate, better uncertain than condemned.’
‘The one thing you have to be,’ Laurentia charged, waving away what she considered to be Aleph-3’s hollow protest, ‘loyal to the cause of the Empire. Faithful unto death, faithful beyond reason, wasn’t that the old joke?’
‘That was one we told against ourselves,’ Laurentia went on, ‘we knew ourselves that well, but we still stood to the colours and fought and died in the same old way. Nothing changed, the loyalty’s bred in the bone.
You don’t know your man as well as you think you do, and you’re not really bound to him. He’s a renegade, which in itself may be charming, but it’s wrong and you know it.
He’s not the power here, he’s a mid ranking line officer, Kor Alric stands far higher in the trust of the emperor we serve, and that is the imperative, that is what we have to obey.’
Aleph-3 could feel the rest of the team behind her thinking about it. Theoretically, Laurentia had a point.
‘He stands condemned as a traitor, caught plotting against the Empire. If you’re determined to stand by him, if his claws are in you that deeply, then my main imperative is to shoot you as an accessory to treason. Something you, personally, have only made easier.’Aleph-3 admitted.
‘Not by anyone who had the authority to do so.’ Laurentia stated. ‘Captain Lennart’s too junior- and already in violation of regs himself in failing to obey a senior official of the Empire.’
‘Are you entirely serious?’ The squad- and actually senior officer of the entire recon/hunter element, Aleph-1, asked Laurentia. ‘Your interpretation is that a senior officer’s authority automatically protects him against charges resulting from the misuse of that authority?
A junior officer has no right to question? Regulations, law, common sense, none of it important? I would have to ask my commanding officer’s permission to report him for treason, and would be unable to do so if he ordered me not to?’
Of course.’ Laurentia said, without a trace of irony. ‘The powerful- wield power. That is how it is. How could the Empire function if every Ploovo, Gort and Rikki could interfere at any moment?’
‘That’s completely crazy.’ Aleph-1 said, not entirely believing. ‘I’ve been a scout all my career, and most of that spent in disagreement- different eye view, different idea of what was going on and what needed to be done from my line of command.
If things worked the way you think they do I would have been dead years ago- if common sense and power went hand in hand, fine, but they don’t, not in the human race and no species we know of is that alien.
There has to be some measure of respect for the abilities and willingness to serve of the lower status, some measure of reciprocity here.’
‘Captain, I don’t believe you’re a dishonest or treacherous man by nature,’ Laurentia said, with a twisted grin, ‘so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that, if I were to play back to you in a couple of days’ time what you’ve just said, you’d be as horrified as I am by the proto- Rebellion propaganda you’ve just reeled off.’
‘We have no rights, only duties?’ Aleph-3 shook herself together, and said. ‘Dewback-shit. We have the right of expecting the other parts of the Imperial order to live up to their mandate and do their jobs.’
‘Oh, and, as far as having sufficient rank goes,’ she continued, ‘you are aware of what just got broadcast over the PA? Your man condemning himself, from his own mouth. I have his own word for it, and apparently he’s of sufficient rank that I have to take him seriously when he incriminates himself.’
‘Nonsense.’ Laurentia, for effect, giggled. ‘He can order you to believe that he’s loyal, and follow him. His word against- his word? You’ll obey the formal order- you have to. You will fall into line.’
‘And if I think the higher duty is to protect the Empire from him?’ Aleph-1 said, again.
‘You can’t. It is the law, it simply isn’t up to you to decide how good a servant of the Empire he is, it doesn’t work that way round.’ Laurentia said, and actually the rulebook was on her side. ‘Now are you going to join the ranks of the deviant and try to stop me, or follow while I go to talk to the legion commander?’
‘If it’s word against word, rank against rank- he’s not here.’ Aleph- 3 said. ‘You are. And I believe the Captain and myself both rank you, Specialist.’
Lauentia looked over the team. Twelve of the elite of the stormtrooper corps- and the rules were clear. Even if she killed one, she could order the rest to fall into line, and they would have to do so. Captain OB171, Warrant Officer OB173, who else? Who was of sufficient rank- just the squad leader and her sister?
Laurentia flexed her left hand- the telescoping finger-claws shot forward, fused into place, and she drew her master’s gift and activated it with the other hand. Vibro-claw and lightsabre.
She darted towards her sister, claw ready to parry high, lightsabre sweeping up from low, hopefully to disembowel;
Aleph-3 barely had time to draw her parrying stick, the superdense rod of exotic Phrik that could withstand, briefly, a lightsabre, and move it up, round and out, pushing the sabre down and away from the high guard position.
The claw came down and tried to slash her sister’s right arm, Aleph-3 managed to lean back into it and avoid it ripping her head off, but she had a split second before her sister managed to manoeuvre the sabre free- Aleph-3 headbutted Laurentia.
Burst her nose, made her stagger briefly, lost a hank of hair and was stunned by one of the vibroclaw fingers flickering along the side of her head, but Aleph-3 recovered fast, adrenalin taking over.
Twisted out of the way of the sabre which went high and wide, managed to recover, switched her parrying rod from hand to hand, didn’t have time to think about her other hand as Laurentia came back at her.
Aleph-3 tried to get past the sabre and grab Laurentia’s sword hand, the sabre flickered back to cut her arm off, Aleph-3 blocked it with the rod and started pushing it up and away, had to jump back herself as the claw came down and raked her over the chest- the armour took that swipe, a few scores, no real damage.
The iridescent red-blue plate the squad all wore was actually the never-officially-issued Royal Guard version of the later model Clonetrooper suit; it had been designed with some pretty impressive enemies in mind- could take most carbine and pistol fire.
How long would it take for a lightsabre to burn through? Longer than a second- well, there was a chance there.
Although not a good one. Might hold off a slash, briefly, not a thrust. Aleph-3 decided to feint what had worked last time- catching the lightsabre on her stick, holding it for a moment while bringing her heavy rifle up in the other hand.
Pushed out for the sabre and caught it; wondered whether or not to convert the feint into a real attack; found the grip, started swinging the gun up- as expected, her sister reacted to that, swaying back out of the high block and flashing the lightsabre round and down-
Aleph-3 tried to drop the muzzle out of the way, didn’t quite manage it, had the front end of her gun sliced off. Which was an acceptable loss, because it let her get a lunge in with the parry stick into the nerves in her sister’s other armpit.
Laurentia’s claw arm hung limp, the lightsabre recovered- almost of it’s own will, she felt, following what the weapon said to do- and slashed out flatly at Aleph-3’s stomach; Aleph-3 rolled backwards and found herself against the feet of the rest of the team, and Aleph-1 pushing the hilt of a vibrosabre into her hand as she stood up.
Laurentia had been about to follow up and slash at her sister as she stood, but hesitated. Partly from caution- Aleph-3 had an offensive weapon now. Partly- well, they were sisters. The same flesh and blood. It wasn’t going to be easy to land the killing stroke.
In theory, loyalty alone mattered. She had thought that. Now- well, the first thing to do, they thought circling round each other, disarm. Laurentia could accomplish that easily enough by striking at- through- the vibrosabre.
Aleph-3 kept sidestepping, trying to hold the sabre abck and keep the parrying stick forwards; almost succeeded in turning through one eighty, leaving Laurentia between herself and the rest of the team.
‘You do realise I want you dead as well?’ Aleph-1 said, as Laurentia passed closest to him. And raised his own carbine.
Laurentia was shocked, taken aback; her mental horizon had contracted to focus on her sister, she had almost forgotten about him- turned to swing the lightsabre at him.
Aleph-3 saw her opportunity, darted forwards, almost colliding with her sister, reaching past her to catch the lightsabre near the hilt with the stick and flick it upwards- and sabre coming up and under, almost straight up the line of her sister’s torso, impaling.
That worked, at least the first part. Laurentia looked down at the sabre pushed out of position, back at her sister almost draped over her, screamed in anger and tried to reverse the blade in her hand, cutting down on her sister’s head.
Aleph-3 started to bring the sabre up, had to raeach out and back to get it in position to start the move, hesitated. Was this right? It might be necessary- but what a life her sister Laurentia had had, torment and torture, and to come to an end like this, barren and brutal and lightless-
for a moment, it was more than she could do to deliver the killing slash. Her own flesh and blood deserved better, deserved a second chance.
The hate in her sister’s eyes burned through that, it was the duration of a blink, a surge of realisation, not long to change a life but more than long enough to end one. The lightsabre swept down-
And fortunately, Aleph-1 had the presence of mind to pull the trigger.
At a slight angle to avoid overpenetrating into his senior warrant officer, who was left there in shock for a few seconds as the chestless body of Spec-7 batch 6NL strain code 554 subunit 108, “Laurentia”, collapsed to the deck.
‘If you had managed to get that blow in,’ Aleph-1 said, ‘you’d be having nightmares about this for the next ten years. Couldn’t let you go through that.’
‘She was right.’ Aleph-3 said, lost and maudlin. ‘What am I not willing to do, where won’t I go…Jorian knew that, that’s why we were sent to meet her. I needed to do that- nightmares and all. I couldn’t. I flinched.’
‘Normal, human reaction.’ Aleph- 1 said. ‘which is a step up.’ He retried the lightsabre from the corpse’s dead fingers. ‘He also knew we would be here to back you up. Come on, we’ve still got a shuttle to catch.’
‘What do we tell the High Colonel?’ Aleph-3 managed to ask, the most sensible question she could come up with instead of what she felt like saying.
‘Simple. An agent of the traitor tried to give us illegitimate orders, and like the indefatigable, incorruptible servants of the Empire we are, we- did what had to be done. It is true,’ Aleph-1 pointed out, ‘from a certain point of view.’
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To be honest,the more I write them, the closer I come to thinking that Aleph-3 really is chasing a mirage trying to seduce Lennart, and she would actually be happier with OB171.
. What do you reckon is the converged sheaf that the squadron followed up with? The Mandator itself should probably put out, what, about a few hundred petatons per volley on its own, depending on how big it is (~5 recusants=venator, ~2.5 venator=ISD, so around 80-100ISD=mandator?).
Personally I would have gone with a football shape and gutted him 
just asking. If you don't have any openings left I'll understand 
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
