CHAPTER EIGHT
Kilrathi Fralthi-class cruiser Ras Nik'hra
In orbit over Eriadu
To someone who was used to the kind of vessels utilised by the Galactic Alliance, the differences encountered on a Kilrathi vessel were quite marked. GA ships were clearly designed for war, there was little doubt about that, but even then, there was hardly a thing out of place; everything seemed to fit together. Even during the days of the Galactic Civil War, that seemed to be the norm. Whereas the Imperial ships, in particular the Star Destroyers, had been cold and militaristic, the Rebels had a certain sense of artistic flair to theirs. And yet through it all, ships on both sides of the line simply seemed to be put together just fine, and any instance where they were not, they were usually fixed quite quickly. Nowadays, vessels of the Galactic Alliance seemed to have a blending of Rebel and Imperial styles, but they still displayed the required functionality.
Kilrathi vessels, however, were another league entirely. Looking around, Leia had to wonder how such a ship even managed to continue functioning, much less fighting. In many places of the Fralthi-class cruiser, wiring and ductworks were left exposed, and pillars and protrusions were located in areas that they were not normally found. Leia was tempted to ask Ralgha about the design of the ship, but she had a feeling that not even he would know much about it. From what she could tell, Kilrathi built everything, including their warships, on the basis of sheer basic functionality, and anything else took a very unimportant second place. For someone who had grown up on a highly artistic world such as Alderaan, the differences between the two seemed so far apart to Leia that they might as well not even be in the same galaxy.
Pushing such unimportant matters from her mind, Leia allowed Ralgha nar Hhallas to lead her to his conference room. She was somebody who was more than capable of defending herself from a being as fierce and imposing as the Kilrathi noble, but nonetheless was accompanied by Jacen, as well as two Alliance guards that had been assigned to her side.
Wedge Antilles had also come on over, leaving the Dragon's Claw under Han's command. Though Wedge was more of a fighter, he still knew how to talk down an opponent when the need arose. Plus, as the commanding officer of the vessel that Ralgha had surrendered to, he was pretty much expected to be there.
Ralgha himself only had one individual by his side, and that was his retainer, Kirha. Though the younger Kilrathi's face clearly showed his discomfort at the entire situation, he nonetheless stood faithfully by his liege-lord, his clawed hands clasped behind his back. His demeanour suggested that he was somewhat jumpy, and it was only after Ralgha told him to relax that he did do. Privately, Leia felt a lot of sympathy for him.
Once in the conference room, the participants took their places. Ralgha sat on one side of the table, Wedge and Leia on the other, while Jacen stood guard near his mother, and the two Alliance soldiers took up position on either side of the door.
Entering what could be considered her 'politician mode', Leia was the one who started the proceedings. "Lord Ralgha," she began, "you will have to excuse us if we are still somewhat apprehensive, but we are still coming to grips with the fact that a member of your race has announced their intention to defect."
To his credit, Ralgha showed no sign of being offended by Leia's comment. "I perfectly understand, Jedi Organa Solo. If we had experienced anyone from your side attempting to defect over to ours, we would probably be in the same position. Though, given my race's belligerent nature, I cannot understand why one would be willing to do so, unless they intended to become a slave."
"I thought the same thing during the last war," Wedge admitted. "Honestly, what were those Peace Brigade idiots thinking?"
"Regardless of such things," Leia continued, "we would like to hear your side of the story. When you first approached us, you made mention of a rebellion on one of your worlds…" unable to remember the name, she left the sentence hanging.
"Ghorah Khar," Ralgha supplied.
"Ghorah Khar," Leia repeated, "thank you. Would you please elaborate on that?"
"Certainly," Ralgha answered. "Though I am afraid I cannot tell you too much, as I was not made privy to all of the details. The leaders of the rebel cell determined that it was best that way; if one of us was compromised, we could not divulge all of the information."
"Having been a part of a rebellion ourselves, we can completely understand that," said Wedge.
Nodding, Ralgha continued to explain. "There is a growing movement on several worlds within our Empire, Ghorah Khar simply being the most prominent, and therefore most vital. You see, throughout the history of my race, we have waged one war after another. The reasons mattered very little, if at all. All that matters to a Kilrathi is gaining honour and victory through conflict, and spilling the blood of our enemies. For countless centuries, that is all we did to each other, until the Utara came."
"The Utara?" echoed a confused Leia.
"The Utara were a benevolent and educated race. Highly advanced, but pacifistic in nature. They saw us, and sought to educate us. They gave us the ability to fly to the stars."
"So, you didn't develop space-faring technology yourselves?" Wedge asked.
Ralgha simply smiled. "Given our tendency for destruction as opposed to creation, do you honestly think the Kilrathi would have taken the time to do so?"
Wedge paused for only a couple of seconds before answering. "Uh, no, I have to admit that such a thing is kind of hard to believe."
"Well, there you go, then," Ralgha replied. "Naturally, once we had broken free from the bonds of our homeworld Kilrah, we repaid the Utara in the only way we knew how."
"How exactly?" Leia asked, dreading the answer.
"By slaughtering every last one of them," Ralgha said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe. "After hundreds of years of killing each other, the Kilrathi finally had an enemy from the outside against which to test their mettle. The war, if you could truly call it that, lasted only a few years, but in the end, there was not a single Utara left alive.
"Over the centuries since then, we have spread throughout our own corner of this galaxy, in the area that you people refer to as the Unknown Regions, conquering one system after another, and ruthlessly wiping out one species after another. That is all we have ever done. And then we happened to stumble across you."
"Us?" Leia asked.
"Yes, this great civilisation known as the Galactic Alliance. You had overthrown a totalitarian regime that spanned the entire galaxy, and then done battle with a race from beyond the Rim, who had shown themselves to be at least as bloodthirsty as we Kilrathi could be." Ralgha leaned back in his chair, a mysterious smile on his leonine face. "I must admit, that former Empire and these Yuuzhan Vong… they would have been rather interesting adversaries to fight. But instead, you managed to rise up and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, then went on to unify the galaxy in a way that had never been done before.
"Well, for the Kilrathi, the Galactic Alliance was an adversary far too great to pass up."
"So you attacked us," Leia said, framing it as a statement and not a question.
"So we attacked you," Ralgha confirmed. "And almost immediately, the folly was evident. For in the past, we simply attacked, conquered and destroyed our enemies. But they were isolated, small and insignificant, barely worth a mention. This war is different. We are not simply fighting an inferior foe in some uncharted corner of the galaxy. No, we are fighting virtually the entire galaxy this time! In a way, we are overstretching our boundaries. In theory, we could have waited a few more decades or even centuries until we had amassed enough power to make a more concerted strike. But no! The Emperor, in all of his corrupt and vile glory wishes to make a name for himself as being the one who led the Kilrathi Empire into dominating the entire galaxy."
Pausing to allow himself to catch his breath, Ralgha dropped his eyes to the desk. "And yet through it all, I continued to serve our forces loyally, in the blind faith that we would prevail. That what we were doing was the 'right' thing." He raised his head to look at Leia and Wedge. "And then came the day when I lost my entire hrai."
"Uh, I'm sorry, your hrai?" Leia asked, unfamiliar with the word.
"My clan," Ralgha translated. "It happened last year. My people had attacked one of your worlds - Bakura, I believe it was called - and in retaliation, the Alliance attacked one of our planets. The battle was intense, and in the end, there was hardly anything left alive on the planet's surface." He looked at Leia and Wedge, his gaze making them feel as though it was piercing directly into their souls. "That planet was my homeworld, Hhallas."
The room dropped silent for a moment, and both Leia and Wedge contemplated what Ralgha had just said; the weight of the words seeming to push down on their shoulders. Even Jacen's mind was racing with the implications of what had just been laid out before them.
In the early days of the war, the Kilrathi had advanced throughout the Outer Rim, attacking and invading many systems. A great deal of these were uninhabited, but there were some that had people occupying them, and they were somewhat isolated from the rest of the galaxy. One of these planets had been Bakura.
Just one day after Leia and her comrades had destroyed the second Death Star at Endor, they had been called upon to assist Bakura repel an attack by an alien race called the Ssi-ruuk. They had even entered into a truce with Imperial forces there in order to defeat the invaders. Eventually the truce had fallen apart when the Imperials turned on them, but in the end, the Alliance had saved the planet. Decades later, the Bakuran military had even assisted New Republic forces during the Corellian Insurrection, a large part of it happened to be masterminded by Thracken Sal-Solo, the insidious cousin of Leia's own noble husband, Han.
Long story short, many in the Galactic Alliance felt that they owed the people of Bakura for all they had done for them in the past, and their apparent failure to protect them from the Kilrathi felt like they had let them down or betrayed them. Despite eventually pushing the Kilrathi away, the Bakurans still lost many people, and large parts of the planet were heavily damaged. As retaliation, an Alliance attack fleet, bolstered by ships and soldiers from the Bakuran Expeditionary Force, had set out for Kilrathi territory, where they had come across the planet of Hhallas, and practically razed the world. It was considered by many to be the first real victory for the Galactic Alliance in this current war.
"My entire clan was wiped out that day," Ralgha went on. "Not only that, but many of our servants and slaves paid the price in blood as well. By most forms of logic and reasoning, I should have sworn complete and utter vengeance against your Alliance and attempt to spill the blood of everyone within it. Instead, it opened my eyes, and I started to realize how corrupted my race had become, and how the root of that corruption lays within the halls of the Imperial Palace on Kilrah; on the stone throne that even now is being warmed by the decadent backside of the one who calls himself Emperor. If he is allowed to continue to wage this war, then it will lead only to even more pointless death and destruction - not just for the Kilrathi, but for all of your races, the Alliance, and even the entire galaxy itself. The only hope that the Kilrathi people have is if they learn to change their ways.
"And although it pained me greatly to do so, I knew that in order to help that change come about, I would first have to betray my own people."
Ralgha went silent for a minute, and everyone else in the room felt as if the weight that he felt over his decision was hanging about the room, making the very air feel heavy and press down on them all. Even Ralgha's own servant, Kirha, seemed to be affected by his liege-lord's words, as his eyes suddenly dropped down to the grey floor, and his shoulders appeared to droop slightly.
Leia was tempted to say something, but she knew that Ralgha was not quite finished yet, and so she remained silent, letting him continue.
"I had heard about several groups of rebels across different planets within the Empire, mainly in our outer territories. The most prolific of them were located on Ghorah Khar, and I figured that if anybody were to assist me in my goals, they would be the best choice. And so, I made my way there. It was quite a risk, but in the end, I managed to track the rebels down and integrate myself into their cell."
"How exactly did you do that?" Wedge asked. "I apologise if I am interrupting, it's just that my wife has worked in espionage and intelligence-gathering for most of her life, so naturally I am curious."
Ralgha smiled at this. "It was actually much easier than I thought it would be. As it turned out, a very close friend of mine was in league with the rebels, and it was she who put me in contact with them."
"She?" Wedge echoed.
"Lady Hassa. She is one of our most esteemed priestesses, and one of the most influential as well. We have been friends ever since we were both cubs back on Hhallas. I can only suspect that the attack on our homeworld must have had the same sort of impact on her as it did on me, though she has never confirmed it."
"So after Lady Hassa put you in contact with the rebels, how exactly did you go about undermining the Emperor's rule?" Leia asked.
"Regrettably, there was little we could do," Ralgha continued. "The Emperor's influence is still too strong, and although there are numerous rebel cells throughout the Empire, they are still too afraid of speaking out, lest they bring his wrath down upon them. You may be familiar with what the Kilrathi have done to their enemies or the inhabitants of the planets they have conquered, so you can only imagine what they would do to members of their own species who had betrayed the Empire." Here Wedge, Leia, and even Jacen all nodded. They had both read the reports and seen it all firsthand. The Kilrathi were certainly brutal; the only other race that came close in such terms had been the Yuuzhan Vong.
"And so, on Lady Hassa's orders, I travelled here with orders to surrender my ship and crew, and to announce my defection. My crew were naturally curious as to why I had suddenly ordered them to change course, but they went along with it. However, things would have gotten… unpleasant… when we arrived here and my true motives were made public, and so I conducted a little ruse to lure them into the armoury - after I had removed all of the weapons, of course - and detain them there. I can only imagine that right now they are wishing the wrath of Sivar to fall upon me."
"Sivar?" Leia asked. She had heard that word before, but still did not understand what it meant.
"Our deity," Ralgha explained. "The god of war, and the only one that the Kilrathi worship. In fact, my ship was meant to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet for a reason that has to do with our worship of Sivar, and that is one of the reasons as to why it is imperative that you believe me."
"I have a feeling that I am not going to like what I am about to hear," Wedge muttered.
"Your feelings serve you well," Ralgha told him, but there was no humour in his voice, only a dark sense of foreboding. He leaned forward slightly, fixing Leia and Wedge with an intense gaze as he explained. "Every year, we hold a… celebration, if you will, called the Sivar-Eshrad. It is a way in which the Kilrathi can show their appreciation for the war god in a way that only he and we can truly understand."
"With violence," Wedge stated.
"Exactly," Ralgha confirmed. "The Sivar-Eshrad is celebrated by every Kilrathi who is able to attend, and those who cannot still ensure that a representative of their hrai is present anyway. It is preferably performed upon newly conquered territory, as it is believed that conflict hallows the site, makes it sacred. Understandably, this has often been a contributing factor into the large number of wars that we have fought. However, many see the ceremony as a civilising tool, ensuring that our desire to kill is directed outward against our enemies, instead of inward were it has the potential to start a civil war."
"I can almost see the logic behind that," Wedge murmured.
Ralgha gave a slight nod, as if he agreed with the Corellian, before continuing. "For the Sivar-Eshrad, a planet of our enemies is selected, and an extremely large force is hurled at it. Those Kilrathi who take part in it fight on the ground, using no weapon other than their claws." Here Ralgha held up one of his hands, the claws of his thumb and three fingers extended slightly, as if to prove a point. "The belief is that we fight that way to feel the 'true' essence of combat; of feeling our enemies die by our own claws. The 'purest' form of killing, if you will. Our enemies have their throats ripped out, and each death is considered a tribute to Sivar. Such a fight cannot be done from ships; it must be face-to-face, and with no artificial weapons, unless our enemies use them as well."
The mood in room had become one of stunned silence. Leia and Wedge were two individuals who had believed they had seen the very worst that the galaxy had to offer, and yet the information they had just been given shocked them both to their cores.
Seeing that the other two had been shocked into silence, it was Jacen, speaking for the first time in this meeting, who asked the next question. "So, how long does all of this killing go on for?"
The Kilrathi noble shifted his gaze to look at the young Jedi. "Until every last inhabitant of that planet is dead."
The mood in the room had already been one of shock, but after Ralgha had uttered that one simple sentence, that mood had taken on a whole new level; one that seemed to much more oppressive and sinister. The conference room had gone so deathly quiet that it would have indeed been possible to hear a pin drop.
It was Ralgha who finally broke that oppressive silence. "So now you understand how imperative it is that you accept my help. Not only can I put you in contact with the rebels, and thus enable them to put a much more effective front against the Emperor and his followers, but we may very well be able to do what no one has been able to do in the history of the Kilrathi Empire; we can put a stop to the Sivar-Eshrad." His speech done, Ralgha leaned back in his chair in a somewhat casual manner.
Leia, Wedge and Jacen all processed the information they had just been given. Over the time that they had been engaged in conflict against the Kilrathi, they had experienced the brutality that the feline aggressors had to offer. Much of it had been firsthand. Jacen, in particular, still had memories of what they had done to the citizens of Eriadu. And yet they had just been informed that the occupants of one particular planet were about to experience that brutality on a whole new scale; one that would shock even the hardiest of individuals. Their former adversaries, the Yuuzhan Vong, had been brutal, but even they had seemed reluctant to do something such as this.
Leia finally managed to recover her voice. "Do you know the name of the world on which this… Sivar-Eshrad, is to take place?"
Ralgha nodded. "A planet called Naboo."
This chapter includes several things from Kilrathi history and culture. According to Wing Commander canon, that story with the Utara uplifting the Kilrathi, only to be wiped out in return, is what actually happened. I simply transplanted that into the Star Wars galaxy and set it in the Unknown Regions so that the rest of the galaxy would be completely unaware of it happening.
Same thing with the Sivar-Eshrad, so bad times are coming for the people of Naboo!