Author's Note: This is part three of chapter seven.

Holden Yiim scanned the Merchant Quarter through the gap in the debris. He watched white knuckles clutching his blaster rifle in impotent rage as a squadron of Mandalorians escorted a group of ten civilians at blasterpoint through the Quarter. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to open fire on the invaders and liberate the captives, but even with his honed reflexes he would at best be able to take out two or three of the Mandalorians before they realized what was happening and returned fire and in the process there was a large chance that the civilians would be harmed.

Then there was the fact that even if he managed to take out all the Mandalorians and free the captives without injury to them, he couldn't imagine what he would do with them. There was no way he'd be able to "baby sit" ten civilians plus the General, who was still unarmed, and also find a way to take control of this sad situation.

Slowly Holden released the death grip on his rifle and lowered it stepping away from the gap. His breath slipped from his tight lips in ragged blasts and he mentally counted to ten and then back down…and then did it again. Amazingly it didn't work.

General Vaklu watched Lieutenant Yiim as he moved away from the wall of debris and went to gaze for himself through the gap. He saw the squad and their prisoners as well. His first thought was one of confusion since he was under the impression that the Mandalorians didn't take prisoners. After all, what would they do with them? Maybe they lined them up and took practice shots. He had also heard once before that Mandalorians kept in fighting trim by forming "Combat Circles" where they arranged matches against each other. Maybe they had gotten tired of fighting each other and wanted to see what the Onderonians had.

His second train of thought involved pondering the possibility of his young companion and himself being able to take out the Mandalorian squad. True one or two of the captives might be killed in any crossfire, a couple may even be killed outright by the Mandalorians in a last ditch act of vengeance, but the survivors would look at him in awe at his bravery.

The General quickly dismissed the idea as foolishly dangerous. His main point of contention was the fact that he himself had no weapon so any attempts to liberate the captives would be made by the young Lieutenant. Vaklu himself would be forced to take cover during the firefight, and while he could claim glory for it being his command of Yiim that won the captives their freedom, it wouldn't look quite as good. There was also the possibility that the shots would alert nearby squads of Mandalorians which brought the real prospect of death closer to home then Vaklu would like. One squadron of Mandalorians might be within the realm of possibility to defeat, more than that would be stretching it more than a bit.

Suddenly Vaklu became aware that Yiim was watching him. The poor naïve man had been visibly outraged by the sight and so Vaklu tensed his own shoulders curling his hands into fists and shaking as in a rage. He clenched his teeth and furrowed his brow.

"Those beasts!" The words exploded through his clenched teeth, hard puffs of dragon's breath. "What further indignities are these great people supposed to endure while the Republic sits in their high and mighty towers looking down on us like we were peasants?"

The statement wasn't risky in the slightest. It was popular rhetoric amongst the people of Onderon from the common man to the Royal officials that the Republic was aloof and not to be trusted. It was one of the many reasons that the Onderonian government had never made an attempt to obtain full status as a member of the Republic. It wasn't that they had no desire to do business with the Republic; they just had no desire to have their culture tainted by the outside influences that would be commonplace if they were full members. Queen Talia however, most likely because of her affinity for those lightsaber bearing monks and their overly secretive order, had always tried to sway the people towards a more formal unity between Onderon and the Republic. Vaklu personally felt no need to share his status with the Generals and Admirals of the Republic military who rarely had a regal heritage to speak of.

General Vaklu took a deep breath and let it out slowly unclenching himself and turning towards Lieutenant Yiim. He visibly relaxed and a calm passed through him.

"I'm sorry my boy," he said. "I shouldn't let my passions run wild. We must view this with the logic and strategic ingenuity that are the hallmarks of the Royal Military." He nodded his head sagely.

"Worry not my good Lieutenant Yiim," he continued. "We will carry the day and all our people will be freed. But until we can muster more troops then just ourselves, I'm afraid those dear civilians must endure a little longer." Smiling he led Yiim along. They walked a few meters in silence until Vaklu realized that something was weighing on Holden's mind.

"This world's problems won't be solved by keeping your torments to yourself. Speak your mind son," Vaklu said keeping his gaze forward and trying to anticipate what this young upstart officer would say. Holden hesitated which told Vaklu that it was something that he feared the General would see as being somehow insubordinate or would appear to question a decision or order.

"Begging the General's pardon…but we've been heading away from the Palace this whole time," Holden said leaving it there as if this explained all his fears. General Vaklu didn't bite.

"Yes…yes we have. Is there a problem with that?"

"Well…sir…the way I figure…at this point the Mandalorians have claimed the Palace as their HQ- " He paused for a moment waiting to see if the General would help him out and take it from there. He didn't so Yiim continued. "-which implies that that might be where they are keeping most of their prisoners, and if nothing else, the most logical place to be holding the Queen since she was there to begin with."

"And you think it would be in our best interest to concentrate our energies there initially." It wasn't a question. Yiim didn't know how to proceed so he kept quiet and forced Vaklu to take the lead. "Listen, Lieutenant, your desires are quite admirable. I too wish it was merely a matter of storming the castle, saving the captured Queen from her tower and riding off into the sunset victorious, but we are men of war and we must be realistic." Yiim could feel the heat on his face as he flushed, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of anger at the implication of naïveté by the General.

"During your briefing you told me yourself that the Sky Ramp was not a viable entry point," Vaklu continued. "How else would you have us enter the Palace?" The question was rhetorical but it started a thought in Yiim's mind, one that escaped his lips before he had a chance to consider whether or not it would come across as offensive.

"But, you would have been in the Palace during the attack correct? That is where the Command Post is. How did you get out? What about that air shaft you came up from…where did that lead?"

For a brief moment General Vaklu's face paled and then became boiling red with rage. The moment passed and the mask fell back into place. Before Yiim could continue, Vaklu switched tracks.

"You are missing a large tactical point my boy. Even if we managed to get into the Palace, what would you have us do? You are correct, the Palace has more than likely become the enemy HQ, which means that not only is their commanding officer located there, but any Mandalorian soldiers acting as guard detail for him, and then any soldiers acting as guard detail for these potential prisoners you are concerned about…that WE are concerned about. Add to that number any other soldiers that may be coming and going on business with their commanding officers and you could be looking at a small army in and of itself. Think Yiim, what would you do if you were in the enemy's boots?"

Vaklu paused for a moment and turned away. Now that he wasn't facing the young soldier he allowed his mask to crumble a bit and express that rage and frustration at having to placate this "white knight". Turning back the mask of compassion and concern was well in place and he continued.

"I understand your frustration with this. You are a soldier, and your instincts are to commit to war against the aggression of the enemy, but you must start seeing this affair as a leader does, as I do. I would be very glad to be able to go in and rescue everyone, all our people…all the possible soldiers that are behind those Palace walls. You must understand however that we are but two men with one blaster rifle between us. If we are to have any chance of making this right, we must find more of our soldiers before they too are captured…and we must hope that we are not too late."

Yiim's head dropped as the General's words ran through his head, weighing heavy upon his mind. His instincts, his very nature still cried that this wasn't right, but what the General was saying was logical, it made perfect tactical sense and after all…wasn't that the reason he was the Chief Commander of the entire Royal Military?

"Yes sir," he began, "I guess my instincts are just fighting against logic."

For the first time, something close to a sincere emotion passed across Vaklu features and he looked at Yiim the way a father might look at a son whom he realizes will be a man someday. The sentiment however was overshadowed by his cool calculating mind. This boy would be very easy to manipulate indeed.

"Lieutenant, you are a fine soldier. I see potential in you, but if you ever hope to one day become a commanding officer, even one day take my place if that is your ultimate goal, you must learn to see the bigger picture."

"Yes sir."

"Come now, we have far too much rubble to search. Can't hang about here lamenting our limitations."

Jagi and Reeza had just searched their 1,213th pile of rubble. Having found nothing of note or consequence they moved onto pile 1,214. After the palace had been officially taken and all military craft had been officially secured by the Mandalorian ground forces, the Basilisks still providing air support had been ordered to land in various areas of the fallen city. The remaining pilots had each been given a section of the city to begin searching. They were looking for survivors, soldier or civilian. Mandalorians normally never took prisoners, not in large numbers anyway. They did however try to keep some of the native population alive to be used as slave labor or in the case of the Mandalorians occupying a planet, to continue to provide some businesses and services for the Mandalorian troops; in this respect bartenders were especially valuable. Some natives were even used to assist the Mandalorians in their further conquest of a world if it was proving either difficult to immediately subdue the enemy or in the case of multicultural worlds where governments or societies maintained solidarity and segregated themselves from each other. The standing rule however dictated that any survivor that gave too much resistance was to be put down immediately. Taking captives was one thing, but Mandalorians were not babysitters.

Already the efforts of the search teams had been immensely successful. The Onderonian survivors not only tended to offer very little resistance to capture, but seemed to make very little attempt to truly hide themselves, as if the speed with which the Mandalorians had taken the city had led to them not being quite convinced that they had been conquered. Already the Palace holding cells, where the initial captives had been taken, were starting to fill to capacity. The Mandalorians had started using structures in the Merchant Quarter that were still intact as makeshift prisons. In several instances scores of Onderonian civilians and soldiers had been killed outright merely because they were too old, too young, or too infirm to be of any use to the Mandalorians and would do nothing much but take up space. Soldiers were usually executed before civilians since their training and dedication to duty made them a potentially constant threat. Much to the disgust of the Mandalorians however, a good number of the Onderonian Royal Military officers had proven to be nothing more then sniveling, crying children begging for their lives and swearing immediate loyalty to their Mandalorian captors. Some of these were killed merely out of disdain for their cowardice.

Jagi and Reeza themselves had found very few survivors. The section they covered had been fairly close to the point in the Wall that the invading Mandalorians had breached and as such was filled mostly with large chunks of debris. This area of the city never really had many citizens in it to begin with, but the duo was beginning to see that those that had been here when the attack had occurred had found themselves flattened by their Great Wall as it had come tumbling down on their heads. They had found one survivor in the last six hours. A Wall guard had managed to not be killed by that which he guarded; unfortunately the debris that had fallen on him had crushed his entire lower half. When Jagi and Reeza had found him he was nothing more than a head, torso, and arms dragging himself along desperately pulling the mutilated remnants of his lower body behind him. Reeza had shot him almost immediately. It had been a very merciful act for a Mandalorian.

"This is beneath warriors of our stature," Reeza said for the tenth time today. "Without us we would have never taken this pathetic city so quickly. And now they have us doing the mop up work."

"You mean to say that without Commander Ordo we wouldn't have taken this city so quickly," Jagi had responded. "In any case we each do our part for the greater glory of Mandalore, or would you rather bring up your grievances with him?"

That put a stop to Reeza's whining. No Mandalorian would dare complain like that to a superior officer, and most wouldn't have done it at all for fear that any of their fellow warriors would report them. For Reeza to do it in Jagi's presence denoted a sense of closeness that Jagi did not feel for his current partner.

Jagi himself didn't mind the searching so much. There were many other duties they could have pulled, and Jagi would rather be out here searching through rubble then stuck in some dark dank building guarding captives.

Their search of pile 1,214 proved to be a scintillating as pile 1,213 and so they headed for pile 1,215. Suddenly Jagi stopped short as he heard something. It sounded like rubble shifting, which alone wasn't anything they hadn't been hearing for hours on end, but it was followed by slight grunting noises.

The sound originated from a point just past pile 1,216 where the rubble was formed out of larger chunks of wall that could possibly provide a greater level of cover. Signaling Reeza, Jagi went silent and cut into a corner that would allow him to come up on the rubble walls from an angle that would be impossible to see if someone were actually amongst the rubble. Reeza crouched behind pile 1,215 which did well to obscure him from the one point in the rubble walls from which someone would be able to emerge.