Chapter Three
A Ravaged People
As soon as the team was geared up, they made their way to the designated escape pod, where AP-9 was waiting for them.
"Finally. You were supposed to have arrived for landing approximately six and a half standard minutes ago!"
"Then we have time to make up. Let's go."
"Do each of you remember your mission?"
"You don't need to repeat it," Grey interrupted the officer before he could go into it again. "And besides, we'll be in contact the whole time. If one of us, through some memory disorder yet to be discovered, did actually forget, you can just tell us again."
"Why did Canady pick you?" The captain (best Kalvnik could guess) grumbled. Kalvnik was about to about to reply when the man continued. "Feh. Doesn't matter. Just do your job."
The escape pod opened, and the eight of them all went inside and (with the exception of AP-9) took a seat. They watched as the door closed on them. Before anyone could say more, the pod disconnected from the Eclipse.
They weren't so much flying as falling. As the surface of Csilla came closer, Kalvnik allowed himself to be curious about what they would face there.
Was the Unknown Regions really having a war of their own? If so, what was the scale of it? Would it explain the random power outages they'd had on the way here? Who was winning, and what side would the Empire end up on? Were they ready to fight another war, so soon after the last?
All these thoughts and more were silenced as the planet atmosphere pushed against their craft, followed minutes later by a harsh landing.
They were here. And it was cold.
The Aristocra was in shambles. Chiss were screaming and shouting all around each other, no single voice being heard above the clamor of everyone else.
They had to try something new. Everyone agreed on that. It was what that was the issue. It seemed every time the Chiss as a people were about to come to a conclusion, a new voice entered the mix and threw it all into disarray. And with that, they were right back where they started: nowhere.
"So what do you suggest, General? We take our ships, pour our fuel down, and light every area we see an enemy on fire?"
"I don't see what's wrong with that!"
"We don't have enough fuel for half of what you're suggesting! Not without mining in enemy territory. And how would we make sure the fire doesn't turn back on our people? Ridding us of them does no good if we're all dead!"
It had been like this ever since the last battle ended. Casualties had been lower than before, and Ari'nitan'colgrana had wrongfully believed that may be cause for celebration. Unfortunately, a small victory (or less than an absolute loss, as the pessimistics saw it) had done nothing to turn the tide of slow extinction. It seemed a new village was being abandoned every month, even as the survivors closed their doors to refugees.
No one wanted to be infected. Even the Chiss who seemed healthy were treated with suspicion if they even so much as mentioned encountering the plague. And everyone knew that when the plague took hold, friends became enemies, and lovers murderers. Fear had been rampant for years on end, and showed no sign of abating.
It was that very same fear that kept them from coming together as a people. They would be stronger if they knew who to trust. But until the blue changed to black, it was impossible to be certain if someone was your enemy.
"Enough!" She called out, waiting for silence. After a minute, they seemed to comply. "I think we can take this idea a step forward… if you'll hear me out."
"Yes, Arin?" Her father, a member of the Aristocra counsel, turned to her. "What is it?"
"I do believe we can use fire against this disease. But small amounts aren't enough. We would have to entrap them in a large blaze... but we would also have to keep it centered in one area."
"And how would we do that?
Arin had to consider it. "What if we lured them into an area we knew we could seal off? Perhaps the Crater to our southwest?"
"We have runners catch their attention and lead them to the blast zone, then our ships can sneak up on them from above and bomb them." The general, a mid-aged male Chiss, expanded upon her idea. "We haven't tried it yet. And at this rate, that's a good enough reason to give it a shot."
Cheers came, tired and scattered amongst murmurs of resignation. Winter was getting harsher this year, and the fighting had made food stores light. No one wanted to go out and hunt in these times unless they were desperate.
"This is madness! Nothing is going to be able to stop them!" A tear filled cry. "Don't you see? This is our destiny. Our punishment from above for whatever our sins may be."
"We never should have looked to the outside world. This curse comes from outside Csilla, and when it is through, Csilla will not remain. Only the menace that torments our souls."
Chaos once again. Arin groaned, wishing she could be doing something useful with her time. Anything was better than listening to crowds bicker.
"Will you two stop bickering? I'm trying to focus, here."
"Focus on what? All I see is snow and ice!" Grey shivered in spite of her cloak. The cloaks had been a last minute decision, meant to hide their weapons. "Marawan, are you sure this is the correct way?"
"According to our visuals, you all are headed in the correct direction. You should reach a village of some kind any minute now."
"A village of some kind, huh?" Kalvnik worked hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Got anything more specific than that? Heat scans? Signs of a struggle?"
"Nope, the ship's been moved too far away for that. You're the eyes and ears down there." And with that, Kalvnik's communication was disconnected. While it had been important to establish they could, indeed, get a signal down at the surface, the call itself hadn't done much to help them.
"I'm confused. Why are we keeping in touch with the ship if they can't do anything for us?"
"These comm links aren't for us, nerfherder. We're wearing them for the ship's benefit," Marx Dunn, a tall, brutish soldier answered Gordon. "They get to wait nice and cozy up there while we trudge through this winter wonderland by ourselves."
"Guys, shut up. I think I see something."
They all went silent at Kalvnik's request, squinting through their headgear towards where he pointed. "What is that?"
"I would think it's the village we were told of." AP-9 began to walk up to it, only for Kavlnik to stop him.
"Wait. We have no idea what or who is in there. First, we need to scout the perimeter. Make sure there's nothing that can endanger us before rushing into battle. So unless you secretly moonlight as a battle droid, lay off."
"Hmph."
"You heard the lieutenant. Two groups of two should go around the settlement from each direction and report back with what they see. If you don't call in in a few minutes, we come after you."
"Yes, Corporal!" Kalvnik, Grey, Gordon, and AP-9 watched as the rest of their group filed out. They didn't want anyone to go off alone just yet, but Kalvnik wondered if they should even be splitting up at all.
It was probably nothing. Just a few big bonfires that got the bigwigs nervous and required a team of soldiers to confirm as harmless.
But as the time ticked on, Kalvnik couldn't help but to become nervous. It was midday. He and his men weren't far from the village entrance at all, and yet it was silent. Eerily so. The last time Kalvnik had seen a settlement of sentient beings so quiet…
His eyes lost focus, memories flashing back to his final days on Ryloth. One minute, the village was so quiet, so peaceful. Kalvnik thought the insurgents had abandoned it. The next…
There was fire. Kalvnik was watching with a mad glee as the flames spread everywhere, engulfing buildings and lives indiscriminately as each turned to ash. It would be the last time those tail-headed bastards thought to lead him into a trap. They'd thought he would be an easy mark, thought he would be soft on them no matter what trick they pulled.
Well, it wasn't true. None of it was true. They would pay dearly for the mistake they made in thinking he could be used as a pawn.
A cold wind poured over Kalvnik, cooling his fever dream. His comm link beeped. "What is it? Have you found anything?"
"We have. You might want to take a look at it, Lieutenant."
"It," Kalvnik repeated. "What is 'it'? And where are you?"
The cadet gave the other groups directions to find them. When they did, everyone recoiled in shock. The stench of rot overwhelmed their senses, followed by a strange sweet.
Were Chiss not supposed to be blue skinned? And solid?
"I'm sorry, go over it again. You found what, exactly?"
"It's a de-a body of some kind," Kalvnik leaned in, not wanting to get too close to it. "I think it used to be a Chiss."
"You think so? Why the uncertainty, Lieutenant?"
"It looks like it's been dead a while. And the body doesn't look like… wait." Kalvnik got out his holo-projector, pulling up an image of Thrawn. "It doesn't look at all like Thrawn. It's all black and… I think it's dissolving."
"Do you think it may just be decomposing?" Gordon asked, reaching over with a gloved hand to-
"Don't touch it!" Kalvnik snapped. Gordon pulled his hand back almost reflexively, clearly shocked. "We don't know what it died of! For all we know, it's diseased."
"Can you send over an image of the body in question?" A new voice rang in from over the comm link. It was Canady himself. "Have you found any more bodies like this one?"
"No sir," Corporal Grey spoke up through her own link. They were all connected in to this call. "We saw fit to report after finding this one, and we still haven't entered the village proper."
"But no signs of life?"
"No sir. It's possible the entire village is dead."
"Hmm…" Everyone (even the droid, who had been inconsolable upon the discovery of the body) was silent as the vice admiral considered their options. "This doesn't bode well for our plans. You said it looked like they died of disease?"
"That was my first thought," Kalvnik confirmed. "Unless this is an unusual scavenger bacteria that goes after corpses, I think the black is from an infection of some kind."
"Of course, we don't actually know anything," AP-9 had to chime in. "This is all baseless conjecture."
"Well, operate on the side of caution. I agree with the lieutenant in that you shouldn't try and touch it. If it is some foreign disease, I don't want any of you getting sick with it. We probably don't have treatment for it."
"Yessir. We will gather visuals of the body and scan the village for lifeforms. When that's done, we will report back with whatever we've found."
"Good job, soldier. Here's to hoping we can find some live Chiss soon." And with that, Canady ended their second call to the Eclipse since landing on Csilla.
Kalvnik's men all turned to him. "You heard me. Scan the area in groups of two. The droid and I will be here, gathering visual evidence for further examination. I don't want anyone going off by themselves, you hear?"
They saluted. "Yes sir!"
The lieutenant watched them file out, then turned back to the corpse at hand. He tried not to think about what he was doing as he took out the visual scanner. His goal was to create a holographic image for the ship to look over long after he got sick to his stomach from it.
"Here, AP-9. You get in close." He tossed the device to the droid.
"Me? What do you think I can do? I'm a protocol droid, in case you forgot!"
The soldier grit his teeth. "Exactly. You're a droid. Which means organic diseases can't harm you. I don't want to catch whatever this guy had."
A snort. Who even programmed this thing? "If you even can as a human."
"I don't know. Chiss seem pretty humanoid to me. We probably have a more similar makeup than you think." Why was he wasting his time with this junkmetal? "Will you just take the scans and send them back to the ship?"
"Fine," AP-9 conceded. Kalvnik watched as the droid flipped the rotting corpse onto its back, cringing as the torso came apart and black goo gushed out. The smell was getting worse by the minute. Kalvnik could only hope the bile rising in his throat was out of disgust, and not anything more.
He may not have been a stranger to dead bodies, but this was no fallen soldier. This wasn't the work of a blaster shot or an air bomb. This was something else. Something unknown. Something capable of reducing a sentient body to slime.
And whatever it was that had happened to this Chiss, Kalvnik would do everything in his power to prevent it from happening to him or his men. They'd been through too much just to die out here.
That was when he noticed. The way the gunk splashed on the snow… it didn't remain stationary. Even if one assumed the fluid were somewhat warm and causing the snow to melt, it shouldn't be flowing the way it was.
It almost looked like it was headed for him. But that was crazy, right? What kind of-
"Get back!" Kalvnik's instincts trumped his reason, and he fired his blaster into the ground towards the black liquid.
AP-9's head shot up. "What are you doing? I'm trying to take scans over here!"
"The liquid… it looked like it was coming at me." Kalvnik knew exactly how crazy he sounded. He fired twice more into the snow for good measure. "Just... finish your job quickly. I want to get away from here."
AP-9 fixed him with a stare, then shook his mechanical head. Must have thought he was losing his grip.
And maybe he was. Kalvnik had seen some shit in his time as an Imperial soldier. Things he wouldn't repeat to anyone. But despite that, he wasn't about to doubt his senses. Not with how many times they'd saved his sorry ass in a battle.
He made a call to his men. "Found anything?"
Gar'an, a tall, lean fellow, was the first to respond. "Just more bodies, sir. Some are a bit less black than the one we found together, and look like they were stabbed to death or had their limbs ripped apart. Some are just piles of slime. We're documenting the evidence as I speak, sir."
"Well, don't get close to the black liquid, whatever it is. I don't want to see a single drop on any of you. AP-9 is already getting close-up scans of a body, so it isn't necessary for any of you to do so."
Kalvnik hadn't always been this cautious. Before his time on Ryloth, he was as reckless as an enemy rebel, and in constant trouble because of it. But after his time on that planet, Kalvnik had felt his mind turn in on itself, internalizing every thought until he constantly overthought everything. It made him feel better to think it was just part of getting old (even though he was barely thirty-five), but that didn't stop him from giving everything a third glance.
"AP-9. Are the scans finished?"
"...They are. Sending them back to the Eclipse now." As soon as the droid got out of the way, Kalvnik fired another round of shots into the black goo, which he swore had gotten closer since he last looked.
"Okay, men. AP-9 and I are done here. We'll be waiting at the front entrance to the village for you all to finish. I want everyone fully inspected by a partner after they leave the area."
"Do you really think it's that bad, Lieutenant?"
"Whatever it was, Dunn, it wiped out at least an entire village of Chiss. Plagues and wars are a debilitating combination, and not something I wish on even the worst of Imperials."
"Yes sir, We are making our way back, now."
After Kalvnik got two more variations of that response, he ended the call, cocking his head for the droid to follow. It scoffed, but complied.
At the rendezvous point, Kalvnik watched as each of his men looked each other over for signs of the infection. They all appeared to be clean, allowing Kalvnik a small relief.
"Grey. Check me for any signs of the Chiss disease."
"Yessir," she replied, cool grey eyes sweeping him over front and back. He complied when she told him to lift his cloak, appreciating the amount of thoroughness she put into every job.
"Everyone seems to be clean, sir. Should we call the ship again?"
"I suppose it's time, yes." He made the call himself, somewhat surprised that Canady was the first one to pick up.
"Vice Admiral. Did you receive the transmissions we made?"
The middle aged man swallowed. "I did, Lieutenant. The crew and I were reviewing then before you called. Do you believe that infection wiped out every Chiss in the village?"
"It's not clear if they all died of it, but it seems obvious that they were all infected at some stage. If we could, we would take a sample back to ship with us, but unfortunately, we lack the materials."
"That's fine, though I'm sure our scientists on board with disagree." In a stroke of unimaginable luck, most of the Empire's top scientists had been able and willing to reach the Eclipse on time. "We'll show them the evidence you collected and see what the medics aboard can tell us. In the meantime, show the utmost levels of caution. Look for signs of life."
No shit. Kalvnik resisted the urge to hang up in a rage. "Will we have navigational assistance from the ship in searching for other settlements?"
"Yes, you will. And while it may not seem like it where you are, our initial scans did pick up signs of a battle when we first arrived. Look for signs of firebombing and you should find it."
A/N's: And so we have to wait until the next chapter for our team of soldiers to meet some live Chiss. I decided I had already introduced too many points in this chapter, so more will be done in the next, as well as some more action. The Empire finally gets to learn about what the Chiss have been fighting for all these years.
Let it be known that I have yet to read the Thrawn novel, by the way. The canon one, I mean. It looks good, and I really want it, and if it goes into much about Csilla and the Chiss, please tell me. I am relying on Wookiepedia here. And there's not much on there, so I've taken a few creative liberties. Also, expect some liberal use of Legends stories going forward.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to read. Hope you enjoyed, don't forget to review, and I'll see you on the far side!
