'I have had it!' are the words that echo in Rolan Kallea's mind as he leaves his office in a huff. The rising anger easily comes across his face as he rides one of the automated sidewalks through the immense Senate Complex on Hosian Prime. A couple of Senators' aides try and call out to Rolan, but his current mood also comes with selective hearing. 'Populists, Centrists fighting over squabbles…meanwhile the First Order is out there, and nothing is being done!' The junior senator does his best in keeping the anger from breaking out of his body. It doesn't take him long to wave down a taxi and head back to his apartment at Windsor Towers. While not considered crème-de-la-crème, the tri-circular buildings house a variety of tenants: authors, actors, administrators from several universities, high end computer programmers that are staying there on the companies' money.
The feeling of anger begins to die out as Rolan takes in a few deep breaths as the turbolift heads up to his floor. Soon as he gets off, the senator quickly heads towards his apartment door several feet away. The door quickly slides open upon the key code entry. Rolan takes a quick view of Hosian Prime's skyline of high-rise buildings and skylanes when a protocol droid enters the living room.
"Welcome back, Senator, but I wasn't expecting you back until the end of the day. Did something happen, sir?", says LC, his blue colored protocol droid.
"Oh, a whole assortment of things, LC." The droid watches as Rolan heads over to the kitchen, pulling out a tall glass and a bottle of wine. He wastes no time in filling the glass and guzzling it down in a matter of seconds.
"Oh dear…was it that bad today, sir?" asks LC.
Rolan takes another gulp of wine. "Let's see…it started with petty squabbling masquerading as 'fruitful debate' amongst the military committee. Then came my meeting with the pompous idiot of a senator, who questioned something that should have never been questioned in the first place."
"The pompous id—oh, you mean Pel Glitton, sir?"
Rolan doesn't respond. He just pours out the last of the wine and chugs it down his throat. "Where's Trixie?"
"I believe at the hangar, sir," replies LC.
A smile slowly appears on the junior senator's face. "Good."
Quietness looms over the flatlands of the planet Nakota, which is nothing new for those who call this Outer Rim planet their home. Hir is one such person. As he stands in the kitchen of his large homestead, he looks out at the pitch-black darkness that sits over his farmlands. Light blue begins to creep into the darkness: sunrise is coming. Hir takes in a breath before raising his cup and taking a sip of hot caf. He hears movement alongside of him and casually looks over. Marri, his wife, has made her way over to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. For a couple minutes Hir just watches as Marri combines the soap and water into a white foam, rubbing her hands before rising them off. A small smirk appears on Hir's face upon seeing his wife's habit of slowly rubbing her hands with a distant look on her face.
"You're doing it again," he says before taking another sip of caf.
Marri snaps back to the present. "Oh, sorry…I don't know. I just thinking about our child…I can't place it, but something's off…I don't know." Hir can see the look of concern start to slowly appear on her face. He wraps his arm around her and gives her a reassuring squeeze.
"Our child hasn't been a child for twenty years now," he said, kissing her on the forehead, "Don't worry, everything's good." The both of them hear the sound of servos and footsteps behind them, they turn around to see a servant droid.
"I'm sorry to disturb, but everyone is waiting."
Hir takes several gulps of the caf and heads outside with the servant droid following. As he takes his time walking over, a gentle breeze comes through. This gives Hir a feeling of things going well today but the day hasn't started quite yet so for now, maintain expectations until otherwise. He reaches the building where a multitude of people stand about amongst various heavy farming machinery. As soon as Hir places one foot onto the hard cement floor, Aidi Toblega, his foreman, lets out a large whistle. Everyone settles down and focuses on the farmer.
"Good, early, morning to everybody here. I'll keep this quick: it's harvest time, so things are going to ramp up real quick". Hir quickly scans the numerous faces in the crowd. "Most of you have worked for me for a few farming seasons, so you know my standards. To the new faces here, let me tell you what they are."
"100% effort, take your time, no rushing, stay aware and stay alert."
Aidi starts assigning jobs to the workers while Hir continues on.
"Now the forecast reads that heavy storms are supposed to hit late in the evening, hence why we're here so early in the morning. If everything goes as planned, we be should be done before the rain shuts us down…let's get to work!"
Everybody immediately heads towards various speeder trucks and bikes and head out to start the day. Hir slowly looks up the sky getting lighter with every passing minute. "Please, let everything go as planned," he whispers.
Many Hours Later…
The sun has moved from its high noon position to a slow descent towards the horizon. Collectively, all operations on Hir's multitude of farms have run relatively smoothly: someone or something must've heard the farmer's wish in the wee early morning. The rows of wheat, barley and soybeans have been harvested by the combines, dumped into many trucks and sent to collection points to be shipped to numerous off-world planets. Hir's has kept tabs on the weather periodically throughout the day: so far, no change - storms will arrive late in the evening. While looking at the progress reports, he begins to think the possibility of finishing the workday early, for once. Hir immediately snuffs out that thought as quickly as someone stomps their foot on a bug. He then feels the wind shift a little bit and slightly drops his head. His years of farming gives him a sinking feeling: other shoe has dropped.
The chime of his commlink go off, and Hir reluctantly pulls it out his pocket. "Go ahead," he says with a slight deflated tone. The farmer is told of the news. He quickly heads over, hopping on his swoop bike and taking off.
Reaching the quadrant of untouched fields of barley, Hir can see over at one corner of the field. The sight that no farmer ever wants to see: stationary combine machines. The Nakotan speeds his bike over to the spot and sees a group of his workers standing around the silent combines, which gives him the feeling of dread. He then sees Marri under one of them.
"What happened?" he asks. She slowly gets from under the combine, the combination of dirt and grease covering the top half of her body.
"Very simply: those wonderful rodents got themselves ripped to shreds and have jammed up the harvesters," says Marri, wiping her forehead.
Hir has no time to lash out in frustration. 'We were this close,' he thinks. "How long, Marri?"
She rubs her hands. "No longer that a couple of hours to remove dead rodent parts." Just then, Hir's commlink begins to chime: the servant droid is calling.
"Just received a weather update, sir: the timetable of the heavy storms has been moved up!"
"By how much?" asks Hir.
"A few hours is what the forecast said, nothing more specific, sir."
Hir and Marri have been at this too long to begin to fall to pieces. He quickly takes out the datapad and pulls up the progress reports on all of their farmland, specifically the total of operational combines. He quickly selects ten of them that show the term 'complete' and orders the drivers to head over to where he is immediately.
Marri doesn't need a verbal cue; she nods her head. "Okay, folks! Time to earn your paychecks and get these back up and running before the incoming weather puts a damn hurting on us!"
The sun continues to lower closer to the horizon. Marri and the farm workers go at it like charged beasts removing chunks of dead animals from the jammed combines. With a bit of luck that hasn't left the workers, they've been able to get some of the combines cleaned out enough to where they can limp back to the homestead to be fixed.
Hir sees the ten replacement combines arrive and tells them two words: "Unleash Hell!" As the machines line up and start harvesting up the barley, his commlink chimes again. Hir quickly grabs the commlink in annoyance. "Now what? The news can't get any worse!"
A gentle nudge wakes up Rolan from his slumber. As he looks about, the senator lets off a long stretch to get his limbs loose from an extended time in a stationery position. Rolan then looks out, the mixture of joy and relief begins to run throughout his body a little bit faster: Home.
As the ship descends further and further into the planet's atmosphere, Trixie punches up a few buttons with her metallic fingers. An image encased in blue appears in between her and her passenger. The small servos in Trixie's neck make a whirring sound as she looks over at him.
"A ridge of storms is slowly moving over the region we're heading, sir." Just then, a message comes through the cockpit: All flight operations are temporary suspended due to oncoming storms. Trixie casually reaches out and turns off the ship's comms as the message begins to repeat itself.
"I didn't hear the message due to the ship's comms being messed up…darn." Trixie sees a slight smirk appear on Rolan's face as he tightens his seat belt. She slams the thrust lever forward; the ship lets off a strong jolt. The droid increases the downward pitch as the altitude plummets. Rolan feels the vibrations run throughout his body - but not an ounce of fear invades it.
"This brings me back to Saleucami…Good times," he muses.
"You and I remember that planet a tad bit differently," replies Trixie. The warning horn begins to go off: 'Pull up! Pull Up!' Without any concern (because that wasn't put in her programming), she raises the nose of the ship; they are now flying a little over a few hundred feet off the ground.
Rolan looks over past Trixie and sees the long, pitch black, stormfront heading their way. The solid gray wall under the stormfront doesn't miss his gaze either.
'Yup…so glad to be home,' he thinks. The ship streaks over the land as if its hair is on fire. In a couple minutes, Trixie decreases speed: their destination is in front of them. With a flip of a couple switches, she gently lands the ship onto a bare open area of land.
As soon as the walk ramp touches the ground, Rolan quickly comes down and places his feet on actual dirt. Even though the winds are whipping about strongly, it doesn't lessen the Senator's mood as he looks over his shoulder back at the YT-2400 Corellian freighter. "Thanks, Ruby Red," he says. He then hears the sound of rapid footsteps crunching on top of the ground. Rolan whips his focus forward and sees Marri, who is making a direct beeline to him. Rolan's mood goes from joy to concern when she slams into his torso, giving him the tightest squeeze as tears streams down her face.
"We thought you were dead!"
'Wait, what?' As Rolan tries to pry himself from Marri's ever-tightening embrace, Hir comes in and grabs his face with his large, work worn hands; Rolan can easily see the look of shock mixed with disbelief on Hir's face.
"Is it…is it really you, son?"
"Yes, it's me! Mom…Dad…the hell's going on?!"
Marri moves her face from his chest and looks up at him, tears still coming down her face. "It's gone, it's all gone!"
"You're not making any sense…what's all gone?" says Rolan. Without words, Hir pulls out a small holoprojector from his pocket and turns it on. The projection of a newscaster appears in blue. Rolan stands there and watches as the newscaster, riddled with total shock and disbelief, stumbles with the breaking news.
"I've b-b-been in the news for about…twenty years. I thought—", The newscaster pauses for a moment to prevent himself from breaking into tears, "—I thought I had seen everything…but Iwas horribly mistaken." The newscaster looks down for a moment or two, then back into the camera. "It is w-with a very heavy heart to report that…the entirety of the Hosian system, the seat of the New Republic, all f-f-f…five planets were completely destroyed along with the New Republic fleet. S-Soon afterwards, a message was sent galaxy wide by the First Order, claiming responsibility. While there's no confirmation, the death toll has been speculated to be in the hundreds of millions…"
Numbness now occupies every part of Rolan's body. Everything around him becomes a white noise. He doesn't feel his father's hands on his face, nor his mother's tight squeeze.
'My God…They're gone…ALL gone!' Rolan's mind wanders from fellow senators he knew, the immense multi-tiered theater district where he'd catch a play, to food alley: for a couple of credits one can a plateful of good food from many food trucks. He is trying to figure out his next step, but his mind just stopped functioning, and the Senator's body begins to get limp. A couple seconds later, Marri can feel the weight of her son in her arms: Rolan has collapsed.
Nightfall has fallen at the Kallea homestead as the storm continues to unleash its fury over the region. Marri looks out the kitchen window, seeing small bits of debris being whirled around by the wind. The debris doesn't do any damage to the multitudes of Quonsets due to shield generators. She turns away and looks at Hir sitting at the kitchen table, who's silently swirling the short glass of bourbon, looking off in the distance.
"From getting the harvest in to having your son show up, alive and breathing when you thought he was dead," says Hir, flinging his head back, shooting the bourbon down his throat. "Some kind of day, that's for sure." The two of them hear creaky footsteps on the floor as Rolan enters the kitchen. He makes it over to the table and sits down next to his dad.
"How long was I out?" asks Rolan.
"Just a little over an hour," replies Hir.
Rolan takes his hands and slowly drags his face as his mother places a hot cup of cinnamon tea, a plate of freshly-baked lefse and squash rolls in front of him. The look of confusion and shock are easily seen on his face. A bright flash of lightning illuminates the stormy night as Rolan's eyes go all over the place, trying to process what has happened. He snaps out of it upon the loud, deafening crack of thunder and slowly reaches for the plate, taking a squash roll.
As Marri sits down across from the two men she loves, Hir refills his glass with more bourbon, but he doesn't look over at his son.
"So, this wasn't planned?"
Rolan slowly shakes his head as he chews the food.
Hir takes in a gulp and swirls the glass once more. "And no one knew that you were coming home?"
Tears slowly start coming down Rolan's face. "I-I turned off my commlink and disabled the locator beacon on the Ruby Red…just wanted to disappear for a couple of days." The Senator tries to keep it together but the realization of being a survivor of a cataclysmic event and the last remnant of the New Republic is hitting him like of ton of durasteel. He then feels Hir's hand on his shoulder, and his father is pulling him into a warm embrace. That brings tears in Marri's eyes as she starts rubbing her hands.
Hir hugs his son tightly with one arm. He strokes the hair on Rolan's head, calming his offspring down. Hir looks up at the ceiling. "May the Gods be praised that our son is alive, back home with us…and may You be with him as he sets forth with the future ahead."
'Wait, what?' Rolan gently pulls away from his father with a look of confusion on his face. "Future ahead? There is no future, Dad! Why would you say such a thing?!"
Hir just sits there and watches Rolan wipe the tears from his face. The next words to come out of Hir's mouth are three questions. "Where are you from? What is your occupation? What just happened?"
'Wait, what?' The phrase pops up in Rolan's mind once again. He wonders if this is some kind of sick game that his dad is trying to play. His tears have been replaced by annoyance.
"I was born and raised on the planet Nakota. My occupation is…was being a senator, representing said planet and the New Republic that was not-too-long ago destroyed by The First Order. Thanks to their action, I'm the only surviv—". The realization dawns on Rolan like a lamp beaming its' light into the darkness of a room. He slowly runs his hand through his hair as the picture becomes clearer with every passing second. 'My God, how did that escape my attention?' Rolan slowly rises out of his chair, mind racing with numerous thoughts.
Both of his parents watch as their son bolts out of the kitchen to the bathroom, then they hear him retching up whatever was in his stomach. Marri looks at Hir. "What's going on?"
Hir just swirls the bourbon in his glass once again, then takes in another gulp. "Our son just became Chancellor of The New Republic."
As Marri sits back, taking in what was just said, Hir makes it over to the holo in the living room. With a few clicks of buttons, the image of a tall, slender droid appears. "Turn on the Ruby Red's comms and locator beacon. I get the strong feeling that Rolan will be needed soon."
"Copy that, sir," says Trixie.
The early morning hours of the following day have arrived for the planet Nakota. The strong storms have lessened in power and have slowly moved on, at least enough to where the temporary flight ban has been lifted. Hir looks about the homestead from the living room window.
Puddles of water are everywhere, and wind-stripped trees have broken branches hanging low. Light from the sun pierce through the overcast of clouds from time to time as Hir takes a sip of hot caf, gingerly rubbing his temples. "A little too much bourbon last night," he mutters to himself.
Another voice enters the room. "Got anything to do today, Dad?"
Hir takes another sip of caf, shrugging his shoulders. "Oh, one of the grain trucks lost two gears, several combines need fixing, and a swoop bike almost killed a worker because the engine hit its max RPMs - all by itself."
"A swoop bike's engine can't just rev up to max power all by itself."
"Apparently, this one can," replies Hir. Both father and son start laughing at the oddity of that one swoop bike has presented. With everything that has happened over the past day, a little bit of humor is welcomed.
Rolan pats his father on the shoulder and starts to make his way outside. "Okay, give me a busted combine or that swoop bike to start fixing."
"You will do no such thing, son."
Hearing those words from his father stops Rolan dead in his tracks. "Dad, another pair of hands will help—".
"This is something your mother and I and a few maintenance droids can do on our own. Your path is not here. It started when the Hosnian system was wiped off the face of the galaxy."
Rolan tries his best from rolling eyes in front of Hir. "Look, there's no one left, and no one knows where I—". Rolan is interrupted by the chiming of his commlink: it's Trixie.
"Sir, there's a communique for you. Its transmission code is military, secured line," she says. Rolan tells Trixie to send it to the holo in the living room, which she does. Both he and his father make it over to the blinking machine. Rolan quickly presses a button. The face of Major Taiz Poptor appears.
"Senator Kallea! Oh, thank the stars you're alive! Everything's gone to hell in a handbasket." A wave of relief comes over the brown-skinned Mon Calamari. "We were able to find you when your ship's locator beacon came on, but we can catch up later. Right now, it is about you, the First Order has started taking over major systems as we speak".
"Agreed, what's your location, Major?", says Rolan.
Poptor tells him that he's orbiting the planet Vandor on the Reliant, a Corellian Corvette.
Rolan winces upon hearing Poptor's current location. "Damn, it will take you awhile getting way out here to Nakota." Rolan's eyes quickly move about as Hir stands there. "Wait…I know a place," says Rolan. He punches up the coordinates and sends them.
Poptor's eyes slightly widen upon receiving the coordinates. "There?"
"It will be last places the First Order would look, and you can get there much sooner."
Poptor nods his head. "Okay then, we'll meet you there—and Senator?...Stay safe." The Major's face disappears.
A half hour later, the Ruby Red is ready to leave. Rolan has cleaned up, changed into a more hidden attire. Just before he heads up the ship's ramp, Hir and Marri come up to him.
"Give this to Trixie, just in case." Hir gives him a heavy blaster rifle. Rolan lets out a long whistle while inspecting the weapon.
"I thought you got rid of this Mom?" he says. A smirk appears on her face.
"I kept it for when it was needed, and it's needed. Your dad and I met over that rifle."
Rolan's eyes look up from the weapon and onto his parents. He points his finger, slightly waving it at them. "We'll talk about that…another time." He hugs both of his parents and shoots up the ramp.
"Don't forget what we taught you!" yells Hir. Both he and Marri take several steps back as the Ruby Red lifts off and shoots into the overcast sky of Nakota. It doesn't take the freighter long to leave Nakota's atmosphere into the starry blackness of space. Rolan's eyes are closed, mentally preparing himself for what's to come. Trixie looks over at him.
"You ready?"
Rolan opens his eyes. "I better be, I was raised by two retired full Colonels."
"Really, what was the reason for their retirement? Not being promoted to Brigadier General?".
Rolan continues to look straight ahead, shaking his head. "In my mom's words: 'That damn purple-haired, singsong idiot from Gatalenta!". With that, Trixie engages the hyperdrive and the ship goes into lightspeed.
Allegiant General Pryde looks out into space as the comings and goings aboard the Star Destroyer Steadfast continue behind him. The volume of voices have increased due to the destruction of the Hosian System and subsequent takeover by the First Order of the known galaxy. He taps the side of his leg with his ebonwood swaggerstick when an officer approaches him. "What is it, Commander?" he says in a calm tone.
"Sir, we have just received word from General Hux: the resistance was somehow able to destroy Starkiller Base at the planet D'Qar."
Pryde looks over at the Commander.
While the General's face hasn't moved a muscle, the Commander can feel Pryde's blue eyes boring into his soul.
"B-But Gen. Hux did dispatch his fleet over to snuff out the resistance on that planet, sir."
Pryde begins to tap his leg with his swaggerstick again, looking back out into space. "Keep me up to date with the General's situation…good or bad."
The Commander understands and quickly leaves General Pryde's presence. Several TIE fighters speed past Pryde's view as they continue their patrol. He doesn't follow them because something…someone has appeared in the window's reflection. "It must be something important for an enlisted to go above the chain of command to speak to me directly." The high-ranking officer calmly turns around, facing the person. "What is your rank?"
"Comms Technician, First Class. Apologies, Allegiant General, but I picked up something that warrants your attention, sir." The technician hands over a datapad over to Pryde. "It took me a little bit, but I was able to break through sir."
It doesn't take the General long to spot it: a communique sent to the planet Nakota via a secured line. Pryde plays the message and hears it all: Major Poptor, Senator Rolan Kallea, and coordinates sent by the senator for where the two will rendezvous.
"This definitely warrants my full attention. Call your immediate supervisor now, please."
The technician does as he is ordered. A few moments later, a junior officer arrives.
"Ensign Kik Enne reporting as ordered, sir."
"Question, this report is several hours old. Why am I now just reading this, Ensign?"
"W-Well sir, I was trying—". Before Enne can finish the sentence, Pryde takes the blaster rifle out of a stormtrooper's hand and shoots the Ensign right in the chest. She falls back dead. The technician stands there, frozen solid as the General gives the blaster rifle back to the stormtrooper.
"Now, Lieutenant, send out a team out to the coordinates that this Senator provided. Have them lie in wait for this Major and the survivor to meet up. Ambush them. Kill them…and anyone else who gets in the way."
The newly-promoted officer looks as a couple stormtroopers drag the Ensign's dead body from the bridge. "Understood, Allegiant General."