Krev is frustratingly efficient. He gets things done. It feels like a wordless reproach to Alnam.
"We'll be meeting her tomorrow," Krev says over the comlink.
Alnam puts down the desire to ask where. Bnagen doesn't know shit, he has to remind himself.
"Okay," he says. "Call me when you're done."
Krev doesn't ask him about Alnam's progress. It somehow makes it worse — the implied question and that Krev knows the answer already.
It's afternoon. Another day off that Alnam spends drinking alone. I should've stayed in the CorSec. Could've been agonizing over wasted prospects now, at least.
He knew it. He fucking knew it. He knew it would be this — cleaning shit up for bureaucrats. Hell, his trial assignment was exactly that.
Did bureaucrats make you throw Fozatta off the rooftop?
No, fucking Lawrie did.
Alnam often questions himself if Lawrie ran Fozatta over on purpose or not. He knows he should be questioning Lawrie — preferably, a hogtied Lawrie and with a gun in his hand — but it's impossible. He's unsure he can even face the man now, after several months of not having seen him.
It did shake him up — Lawrie — didn't it? It really fucking derailed him. So it must've been an accident, right? But Alnam can't say now: was it Lawrie who was really derailed or was it himself and later he just extrapolated his own condition to Lawrie?
How could I do it? It's beyond absurd. Ask me now if I could murder a defenseless person, and I'll say no. Ask me an hour before it happened — and I'd still say no. So how the fuck did it happen? How did I allow it to happen?
The question is not whether the universe is a better place without Fozatta. The question is whether it is a better place with the new Alnam.
Maybe it's good I didn't fight for Yalgi.
He gets out — to the balcony. The skies are baby-blue today. Tomorrow, he'll have to listen to the Nasgrata Sector senator's explanations of how his entire entourage — watch and learn, Kram Midduk — got to be composed exclusively of his own brood. It's going to be his third round of explanations — and, Alnam bets, not the last.
Our forces are sieging the Outer Rim worlds — and I'm stuck doing this shit, he thinks, looking at the traffic below through the prism of his beer glass. A retarded thought — what else could he be doing? Fighting at Ord Radama? You've fought you share. Back on Telos.
But there's something he can do. Something he should — while he still has time before another day in the senators' company.
He goes back inside. Thinks about closing the blinds. Thinks about hiding his beer.
Does neither.
Father answers almost at once.
"I'll call you back," he says, though.
"What was it about?" Alnam asks him when Father does call back a minute later.
"Reach my age, and you'll understand. How are you, Vad?"
"Not bad." He pauses. It's something out of his childhood — and it came to him without thinking.
"Given how often you usually call me, I'm predicting something important has happened."
"Well, a few things. They killed a Jedi on live holovision. I assume you saw it."
"Of course I did. Does it surprise you that they did?"
"I'd known about that Jedi before the whole thing. That he was toying with the dark side or whatever."
"And that is reason enough to murder him?"
"Remember what you told me about the cost of life? How we have to say two lives are always more important than one? What if the lives on one side are those of clones?"
He takes a sip, and Father surely notices his defiance.
"What is the difference?" Father asks. "A clone is by definition a genetic copy of a person."
"Not a precise one. They are altered—"
"They may be, but it's not the point. They are not altered at any important level. They are made loyal, but not mindless."
"What about the ConCare boys?"
"And what about them? Would you stop being sentient and deserving respective treatment if you were lobotomized?"
"I don't know. I was thinking recently: what is the significance of Rothana?"
"Is there any?"
"That's where ConCare as well as Rothana Heavy Engineering are registered. This can't be a coincidence, can it?"
Father waits.
"But why Rothana?" Alnam asks. "For ConCare? Why not Kamino? They'd need to transport clones there."
"I don't know. I'm sorry, but I don't, and I am not sure if it is important."
"They got the grant for their lobotomy research before the war. I can't say what possibility is worse: that they had access to clones back then or that they used not-clones."
"Who told you about the grant? It wasn't in Devin's posts. Did Devin tell you?"
Alnam chews on his lip. "He did. He showed me their site — that banthashit article and the donors page. You know, the one that mentions their grant from the government."
"You've been talking to Devin?"
"I have. He told me why he started threatening you, you know. You wanna know why? Because of that picture of you together with San Hill. You know the one: the meeting on Artesia. At Ulmis Systems."
Father is silent. Alnam continues:
"He thought it meant you were in cahoots with them all. That Ulmis and ConCare are somehow connected. Maybe they are — through the Dangors. He wanted to make sure you were as bad as he thought. That's why he threatened you."
"Is Devin on Coruscant?"
"What's it to you?"
"I'm not going to send assassins after him, for hell's sake!"
"Well, you already did once."
"And I already told you I wouldn't do it again. It was a mistake. A weakness."
Alnam believes him — he needs to. He needs to — for his and for Father's sake.
"He's on Coruscant," he says. "That other guy, Uerre, too. We've been working together for some time now."
"Tell me, were the posts about the contingency orders on the Shadowfeed Devin's doing?"
"They were."
"I thought as much. Talk about deceiving appearances — he is not a stupid man. No, not at all. His version of my plan proved more productive than my own."
The merry fascination in Father's voice is hard to hear for some — jealousy? — reason.
"You don't think the Jedi thing was due to it?" Alnam says. "Don't tell me you share Devin's illusion of his grandeur."
"And you are back to judging him by his appearances."
"Let's get back on track. Artesia."
Pause. "I don't want to discuss it."
"Cut the banthashit, Father. We have to discuss it. If we don't..." Alnam works through a shameful shortness of breath, "if we don't, I won't know what to think about you. I know you did a lot of bad shit — but so have I. I cannot judge you. You're my father. I cannot judge you. But this inability is going... I don't know what to do because of it. If — if — what I assume... what I can assume based on that picture is true, I don't know what to do. Period. I cannot judge you, but if it's true, my whole fucking system of judgment will crumble."
There are words you regret saying before you're finished saying them.
"And what does that picture make you assume?" Father asks.
"All sorts of things. That you may be involved in the clone army creation."
"What?" Father sounds so incredulous Alnam almost pisses himself out of relief — like a dog whose owner finally comes home five hours too late for the walk. "Why would you think that?"
"I don't really think that."
"How does that picture suggest it? Not to mention, I have no idea what picture it is."
Alnam's heart complains. "You mean you didn't meet with San Hill and Bakar Tum on Artesia in the year 2?"
"I did, but do you think I remember every picture ever taken of me?"
"They worked for Damask then, didn't they?"
Alnam can almost see Father's jaw muscles flexing. Eyebrows furrowed, no doubt, too.
"They did," Father finally answers.
"Well, this is what concerns me," Alnam says — but he is not concerned anymore. He is sure Father has an explanation — an explanation to everything, and they are talking now, and everything is going to be fine. "I suspect Damask could be the one who placed the order with the Kaminoans."
"What kind of logic is that? Even if he was, how would it make his business partners complicit? Not to mention, why in the universe would you think it was Damask?"
"You knew him? I mean, personally?"
"He was a hard man to get a hold of in person, but I did."
"And you think he was unable to do it?"
"What does it matter what I think? You should be proving he did it, not I that he didn't."
"Well... the Chancellor thinks he had it in him."
"The Chancellor?"
"I spoke to him about it." Alnam decides not to mention how it was Palpatine's idea that he should ask Father.
"You spoke to him about it?" Father asks in disbelief.
"He happened to be not-so-hard to get a hold of."
"You spoke to him about Damask? Vad..."
The familiar tone of disappointment — and battled anger. Too familiar.
"What?"
"Palpatine is a puppet of the Militarists."
"Oh, here we go again."
"Why else would he sanction these sieges?"
"To finally get rid of the Confederacy?"
"That can — and should — be done with exertion, not blunt force. The Republic should be on the defensive — unless it can swallow its pride and start negotiating. The only thing this insane offense will achieve is the loss of hundreds of billions of taxpayers' credits worth of military equipment, which loss will have to be replenished by paying again and again to the war industry. Did you not follow the Senate sessions? The entire Militarist block had been clamoring for nearly a year about how it was necessary to retake the Outer Rim worlds—"
"Yes, if only they'd listen to the great strategist Vygo Alnam—"
"Yes, if only they would. Or do you think they have much more experience than I in war matters? Tarkin did, say what you will about the man, but Tarkin is dead. Only his shade lingers in the Senate, but alas, it's enough to inspire those greedy sociopaths to compete with each other now to outdo his sociopathy."
Rich coming from you, Alnam thinks.
"Okay," he says. "Let's assume you're right. About this and about Palpatine. Why shouldn't I have asked him about Damask, then? How is it connected?"
"I will tell you," says Father. "I will tell you, and I hope, it will also explain where I fit into all this.
"Damask... Hego Damask, you see, was a visionary. When I was young — really young, younger than you are now — he was a hero to me. Of course, I was not even then foolish enough to make heroes out of people I didn't know — but I knew Damask. Your grandfather had sold him his share of several small banks back in my teenage years, and they would occasionally visit each other afterwards.
"One day, I got to meet him. It was on Alderaan. I was... twenty or twenty-one, and I thought I would much rather be on Coruscant, taking care of my new company. I felt like my father did not appreciate what I was doing — he had always hoped I would choose finance like he had done, and he deemed my love for technology something that could not make me a steady profit. But it was a family gathering, so I had to be present.
"My father introduced me to Damask; I think, Damask was late that evening, and it happened well past the start of the shindig. I remember the scene: they were standing by the main staircase, drinking cocktails. I noted to myself how gaudy it was: two of the Galaxy's largest financiers having about as much imagination as some nouveau riches. I had, you see, a certain propensity for dismissing my father's lifestyle and choices back in the days of my youth."
Father pauses — no doubt to let Alnam feel the generational continuity through.
"But as soon as Damask opened his mouth, I was taken aback. Unlike other bankers I knew, his scope of interests was not limited by acquiring more wealth until there is no more wealth to be acquired or no more you to acquire it."
"I thought plenty of bankers had opinions on politics."
"He had more than opinions."
"Plans, then?"
"Bah. Plans are just opinions with an ego. He analyzed politics. He actually understood what was what. Now I see that I fell so easily for his vision because it was — no doubt, deliberately on Damask's part — so very close to my own. He too loathed how inefficient the Republic was — and worse, how stagnant it had become in its inefficiency.
"To your generation, life must feel different — with the war going on and with Palpatine's promises before it; but when I was young, it was this stagnancy that we were sick of more than anything else and the feeling it would never change."
"Well, change it did."
"Really? I am not so sure."
"So did you become friends with Damask then?"
"I doubt he had any friends."
"And Palpatine?"
"Just a useful fool."
"What a take, Dad."
"Would you rather I put him on the pedestal like the whole Galaxy seems to?"
"At least half of it doesn't, you know."
"The Separatists put him on one too, don't fool yourself. The sort of a pedestal might not be the same, but the deification process is still there."
"Alright. I get it. So you didn't befriend Damask or anything? Did you two... communicate after that?"
"We did, of course. He took an interest in my droid AI improvements — as nascent as they then were. Or so I thought."
"Meaning?"
"Don't think I was not a useful fool to him as well."
It feels strange hear Father admit things like this.
"Were you?"
"Unfortunately. I suppose he saw in me my... proactivity, my connection-building skills — and the money I was set to inherit. The Muuns are long-lived, so he could afford patience.
"We would run into each other occasionally for the next twelve years or so. We would talk about the state of events, and those talks did nothing but reinforce my admiration of the man. Ultimately, though, I thought nothing of those meetings, and at the time, Alnam RoboTech did no business with Damask.
"Then he dropped from my sights for quite some time. Not just from mine, really — I don't think he was seeing anyone much during that period."
"And what period would that be?"
"17 to 4 BrS."
Alnam whistles. "Not bad for a vacation. So it followed his accident?"
"Exactly," Father replies.
Didn't correct me. Doesn't know?
"And in 4," Father continues, "he contacted me. I hadn't expected him to — truth be told, I had stopped musing about his fate some ten years before that — so when he finally showed up, I did not know what to think."
"He called you or..?"
"He called me, yes, and invited himself to my office."
"Where was that?"
"Here on Sanner. Somehow, he knew I was with RT."
Father's voice betrays nothing, but Alnam knows how it feels for him now, being stuck on Sanner for good.
"He was already in one of the city's hotels. I was surprised to hear from him after all those years — but glad, too. I was glad he didn't forget about me. It was flattering.
"We met later that day at the tower. His looks disturbed me, I must admit: half his face was missing and covered now by a transpirator mask."
"Huh. I didn't expect to hear that from you."
"It was not the physical trauma that caused my inner response. Something had changed about him. I do not know how to explain it. You could just feel it. I was concerned, you know, about how I was going to feed him, given his condition, but it proved not to be a problem, as he refused any invitation I gave him to join me for a supper.
"He expressed his condolences for my father's death. I thanked him. I knew he did not come just for that. Then, he had a business proposition of sorts. He started with a long tirade aimed at Finis — that he was more of the same as Kalpana, which I had to agree with, even if I did not understand the need to come out of hiding just to share this rather widespread opinion with me. But then he told me he had had enough and was now preparing to change the tide.
"I cannot describe to you how it excited me. A man of Damask's capabilities, both mental and financial, at the helm of such a task? It was a mad notion, Vad. A mad notion. But that was what made it so beautiful. So tempting. So irresistible."
"What... what did he propose?"
"That we install a new chancellor. Through the power of our money and our connections."
"He offered you to install Palpatine?"
"No. I knew they were close — too close, perhaps, for me to ask about it — but Hego assured me that day his friendship with Palpatine pursued other goals. It wasn't Palpatine that he envisioned as a chancellor."
"Who was, then?"
"Bail Antilles."
It takes Alnam by surprise. "Bail Antilles? That yokel? With his terrible attempts to conceal his accent?"
"Antilles was to be just a step towards our goal. Damask emphasized that what we were about to start could not be completed in his or even my lifetime. But Antilles was to become a step in the right direction."
"Okay. But what did you have against Palpatine back then?"
"Nothing at all. In fact, I barely knew anything about him."
"Then why did Damask have to assure you he didn't want to put him in the office?"
Father chuckles a little. "You really did right to become a detective. The only thing I knew about Palpatine, essentially, was that he was Hego's protégé — and a politician. Naturally, I asked if it was him."
"Okay. What was his plan? I have difficulties imagining what he could say that would make such an impression on you."
"He somehow knew what to tell me — as if he'd spent all of his exile researching me. He mentioned not only the political stagnation, but also the technological — how we copy more than we create. For instance, why do we keep making droids that end up developing personalities? It is terribly inefficient: it takes away some of their ability to perform their tasks and raises more than a few ethical questions. But we cannot do it any other way. This is how droids have been for millennia — and we lack skills and curiosity to change it. Hego ascribed it all to the political system that encourages stability over progress. I disagreed with him, saying that technological advancements even since the Grand Manifest or, frankly, the Expansion haven't been that profound despite all the political turbulence. And yet, he convinced me — maybe I saw our disagreements as something to keep us on the right course."
"So what was the plan?"
"It was not a singular plan, but a great ball of schemes. It took us six, seven years to get from my office on Sanner to... to where it all ended. My role was to build a spy network within the Senate, if you'd believe it."
"Really?"
"Yes. My acquaintance with Finis was an important part of it: I was getting information the Supreme Chancellor himself!"
"What kind of information?"
"What was going to get passed, what wasn't. General sentiment: how sectors viewed various issues. A lot of it doesn't normally leave the Senate Building. All the under-the-rug tussling, of course. We would compare it, Damask and I, against official news — and our other spies' reports. He had a gift for analysis. He could see minutiae I would never have thought to look at. At that time, I almost didn't doubt our plan was going to succeed. How could it not with a man like Damask?
"And, of course, there was money. We needed to pay our agents, bribe senators, run smear campaigns — all kinds of expenses. And we did it through Ulmis Systems."
Alnam almost drops his comlink. We're getting to the good shit.
"Okay," he says.
"Okay," Father echoes. "We started this company. A joint venture, if you will. We would both put our funds into it. It would usually make us some little revenue — it was a legitimate company, after all — before we'd route the money toward whatever goal we had."
"That doesn't strike me as a particularly smart scheme, Dad. Not something I'd imagine two great industrialists like you come up with."
"It was less straightforward than just a paper firm," Father says with a ghost of pride in his voice. "You see, we opened it twice."
"Twice? How so?"
"Officially, there were two entities called Ulmis Systems. It's obviously against the law, but we managed to grease the right palms, which didn't even cost us that much. One copy belonged to figureheads. The other was ours. This way, we could put money into it without difficulties — and pay whomever we needed to pay without attracting attention to ourselves."
"Do you still own your part?"
"I'll get to it. This scheme did not fail us, and by the time of the Resynchronization, we had everything prepared to have Antilles elected four years later."
"There's something I don't understand. You say you were discontent with Valorum's rule, but wasn't Antilles his main proponent?"
"He was, and I'll tell you more: he really believed he was a loyalist. He never knew who was behind his rapid growth in popularity. But as he made his way into the higher echelons of the Senate, he was amassing favors he owed. It is a natural process in politics, of course, but Bail Antilles's favors had been calculated long in advance. Ah, it was a beautiful system, really — so many layers of people owing each other, and all the strings coming to our hands. Antilles was a perfect candidate."
"For you to rule through."
"No. To be guided by us. And his payment? To be forever remembered as the harbinger of positive change in the Galaxy? At times, I even envied him."
"So when did you change your mind and switch to Palpatine?"
"I never did. Damask betrayed me the year before the election."
"Why?"
"Why? He'd never meant to elect Antilles. 'Used,' I suppose, is a more precise, if less flattering, term than 'betrayed.' One day, I could no longer access the Ulmis accounts and Hego stopped answering my calls and mail. That was the time of the blockade of Naboo. I couldn't understand what was going on, and then, the vote of no-confidence happened. I decided to focus on it for the time being, but there was little I could do. Too little time to activate all my political assets — and no way to get my money out of Ulmis anymore. Still, I tried — I supported Antilles the best I could. I failed, and I knew it before the results came in. It didn't take a political genius to see Palpatine would win. His homeworld had just been attacked due to poorly thought-out legislation — he could not have lost even if he tried to."
"And you think Damask was behind the blockade?"
"He either was behind it or used it when it happened."
"But you don't believe he just used it, do you?"
"I don't believe Hego Damask was a man to change his dewbacks halfway into the desert. No, he was a schemer — just like me, really — and he used the web we had weaved and the money we had put together to orchestrate the invasion. Well — orchestrate the resolution being passed."
"You mean the free trade zone taxation one?"
"Yes. From there on, he only needed to sit back and watch as everybody did what he wanted them to."
"So why did he support Palpatine? If you two had been grooming Antilles to become the chancellor—"
"Because he was from the start not the champion of progress I thought he was. He was just another profiteer happy to trade arms for a petty credit."
"But why Palpatine? Why couldn't he just cut you off from your schemes and use Antilles as he saw fit?"
"I do not know the answer. I can only speculate."
"Please do."
"About a month before the Trade Federation invaded Naboo, there was a huge political gathering. Well — huge; it was definitely a crony-only party, but huge as far as such parties go. They met on the Perlemian space station."
Here we go again. Father loves his Perlemian Orbital Facility conspiracy theories.
Alnam says nothing, but Father detects his thoughts: "What? Am I boring you?"
"Not at all. This is the most productive I've been in years."
"The most productive our conversations have been, you mean."
"You know I like to chat to you. You know, every now and again."
"Hm. That must be why you call so often."
Alnam mutters his excuses.
"They met," Father continues, "on the Perlemian space station. The Chancellor was there, and all the likely candidates in the 4 election: Antilles, Teem... Palpatine. The Jedi Council. Damask was there as well — his first appearance at such an event in many years. He started rallying support for Palpatine, as I later learned — so it preceded the blockade at least by this much, and, I suppose, more.
"During that meeting, and it is well-documented, a man came to Senator Palpatine. A terribly distressed man. Distressed and crippled."
Alnam tries hard not to zone out — he's heard this harrowing tale far too many times. The beer is doing its thing, too.
"He gave Palpatine, before collapsing, a small object that none of the witnesses I was able to question could recognize. It was something akin to a gemstone or a small pendant or something like that. The event created ripples: news outlets praised the senator for his kindness. Bah! The way they put it, Palpatine all but covered the man with his own body from the security's blasters.
"The man was sent to the medical facility and then, to the planet's surface. Palpatine paid for his stay in First Stars. The curious thing is, no one knew who that man was and how he managed to sneak onto the station. Everyone who saw him, however, was positive that he was scared half to death.
"Later, that man was murdered right in his suite in First Stars. He was then identified."
"As Lorn Pavan, yes. I remember." Alnam wonders if he should mention Padawan Pavan he saw at the Commission meeting.
"As Lorn Pavan, who had been once a clerk for the Jedi Order. And the way he was killed? With a lightsaber."
"Father," you are starting it again, Alnam wants to say, "do you seriously think the Jedi would kill a person? I mean, like that? In cold blood?"
"I was allowed to read through the police report. The investigators posed several questions to the medical examiner: could the wound that killed Pavan have been dealt with a weapon or utensil other than a lightsaber, such as a plasma cutter? Could it have been dealt with a blade and then cauterized by a separate heat source? Could it have been dealt with a blaster with altered fire intensity? The experts' answer was 'extremely unlikely' to the first one and 'impossible' to the other two questions."
"And it means the Jedi killed him?"
"It is surely a less convoluted explanation than any other."
"Not only Jedi use lightsabers."
"Really? The only Sith we've seen in more than a lifetime is a former Jedi — and the only ones insisting on him being a Sith are the Order."
"Somebody could've stolen a saber. How about that?"
"This is an explanation born out of your unwillingness to accept the most obvious one."
"Well, pardon me if I'm not jaded enough to see the Jedi as political hitmen."
"If someone else was behind Pavan's murder, why did the Order wrestle the case from the CorSec?"
"To find who was stealing lightsabers from them, for instance."
"Vad," Father says tiredly, "the Jedi Order is an institution that is virtually autonomous from the rest of the government. It's a religious organization we know almost nothing about — despite the role it plays in the Republic. In this war. Almost nothing of their inner dealings escapes the Temple — and what does is mostly just their PR department's drivel. Please, entertain the possibility the Jedi may have not been completely honest with the outside world, and I will explain my theory to you."
"Alright."
"Pavan was murdered soon after talking to Palpatine. Unfortunately, the detectives did not pay enough attention to the wound he had previously sustained, because it had been taken care of prior to his death. It was important, however, for his hand had been severed. The stump was cauterized — otherwise, he would have bled to death before reaching Palpatine and the med bay, and no witness recalls him bleeding.
"What I think happened is Pavan had stolen something from the Order. A holocron, most likely, given the description. He arrived at the space station — invited, I suppose, by Palpatine or Damask. It was a trap, however, and though the Jedi failed to kill him on the station and Palpatine had to play along, they succeeded a day later on Coruscant."
"How does Palpatine tie into this?"
"I believe he is the connecting force between the Militarists and the Order."
"You believe so why?"
"He is known for his friendship with the Order, isn't he? Think of all the times he's posed for media with Skywalker."
"Skywalker was a just boy when Pavan was killed."
"He is not the only one. It was Jedi Knights who resolved the Trade Federation's invasion. I can bet you whatever you want there was something fishy going behind the scenes."
"I'm sorry, but that's conjecture — at best."
"It would've been — had Damask not supported Palpatine during the election. But for some reason, he did — while he could have gone with Antilles, just as you said. It means Palpatine had something Antilles did not, and I think it was how well he was received by the Order.
"And the Militarists needed the Order. Despite their best efforts, Ranulph Tarkin was not remembered fondly by the majority, and they needed support of some entity popular with the masses. Look at the war — it is evidence enough the Tarkinists got their revenge. It serves all of their purposes — and it is legitimized by the Jedi. Don't you think the Order's duty in the current situation should be to the whole galactic population, no matter which side of the war people found themselves on? They should be participating in the conflict only as peacekeepers — or at least withdraw from it altogether, yet the Jedi lead the Republic's forces, and the Republic's forces only."
"I must admit, it does sound logical. But I find it hard to believe the Militarists of all factions hold this much sway."
"What's so surprising? Remember what happened to Sienar when the Senate discovered they had been supplying their former Techno Union partners with war machinery. The Senate had it dissolved and gave its stock to the Navy. Republic Sienar Systems! If there was ever a company too big to fall, it was them. Yet it did. Look at the vote — every Militarist senator voted in favor of the dissolution; it was the so-called liberals who opposed the decision."
"A few favors had to be repaid, I suppose." Alnam doesn't recall much of the hearings — he was more focused on other news when they were going on.
"Naturally. Many senators fear being painted as Tarkinists, but when push comes to shove, they have no choice. This process should have taken years, if not decades — but they managed to dismantle Sienar in under a year. This is the power they hold, and the war has only bolstered it."
"So Damask was right to bet on Palpatine?"
"If he wanted personal gain, then sure. Not that he was there to make use of it."
A terrible and titillating thought comes to mind.
"Father, did you—"
"No. I had nothing to do with his death, though I did, I must confess, gloat when he died."
"Any idea how it happened?"
"Not really."
"Palpatine thinks it was a mix of wine and painkillers."
"Maybe. This time, I may even believe what he says."
"You know what strikes me as weird about Damask? You can barely find anything on him on the Holonet."
"No doubt. Why would Palpatine want anyone to know whom he owes his post?"
"On the Shadowfeed, too."
"It's in a large part derived from the Holonet, so there's that."
"Okay. What can you tell me about those Forakk engineers on Geonosis? Who are financed by Ulmis and are apparently from Dangor Industries?"
"I wish I could tell you anything about them, but I can't. When Damask cut my access to Ulmis, he soon shut the company — the one we were the founders of — down. I have no clue what Ulmis is up to nowadays."
"But can it be appropriated by Dangor Industries?"
"I don't see why not."
"What about the Geonosian project? Do you know what it is?"
"I don't."
"Do you think Damask could commission the GAR?"
Father takes a long pause — so long, only the comlink's warmth tells Alnam he's still there.
"He may have," he finally says, "but I doubt he was alone in it even if he did. All the Militarists have gained tremendously from it — if not for the clone army, the Senate and the populace would have thought twice about entering a war — so most of them are to blame, if not all."
"And does... does the Chancellor know about it, do you think?"
"He is a tool. I can't speak to the extent of his knowledge, but he is a tool, so your asking him was a pointless move."
Well, at least he told me to talk to you.
"Had Damask survived to this day, would the war really start? He was a big shot in the InterGalactic Banking Clan, after all."
"It's hard to say. Maybe the Clan would have been fractured — one part staying with the Republic and the other one seceding to the CIS. Or maybe he was in the dark about the army creation altogether. Maybe the plans have changed since his death. We can only guess."
"When did you learn about ConCare? I'm sorry if it sounds like an interrogation, but—"
"I understand. Brate told me."
"He contacted you personally?"
"No, through my agent. Forgive me, but I don't want to disclose his identity."
"I read his diaries. It's Theodane something, right?"
"Right. It's Theodane something."
Alnam bites on his lip. "So you really weren't behind it or anything? With ConCare?"
"Vad, how could you even think I had anything to do with it? Does it sound like me — to create a slave army and give the war complex enough work for a decade?"
"I... I'm sorry. It's just doing a number on me. This whole thing."
Father sighs. "I know. And I know it's my fault, too — what I did could not not affect you. I am sorry too, son. But you know — I hope you know — I couldn't make a different decision."
"I do. And I believe you."
"Thank you, Vad."