Chapter 22: Revelation

The main hallway opened up into a larger, subterranean landing pad, and there was a shuttle. Nobody quite gasped in relief, but there was definitely a feeling, a slight relaxing of the shoulders and expressions. The odds of them surviving the day were still not good, but they'd just gotten a lot better.

Marina gestured quietly to Bao Dur, who stepped closer to the shuttle while she and the others moved to cover the door. The iridonian worked quickly. "There is a concealed launch point through that wall, but both the door and the shuttle have been locked down by the security breach. We'll either need the access codes or to reset the whole security system."

Marina nodded. "Right. Let's keep moving then."

They moved forward cautiously towards the echoes of fear in the Force from whoever was still alive down there. It didn't take long to find them. Through two more airlocks they reached the command center. The front door had been blown open, and if Marina had to guess, this was where it had all gone wrong for Czerka. Bodies in czerka uniforms lay strewn about the floor, cut down when the security network detected their breach of the command center and triggered the lockdown. Concealed turrets, the remains of which still smoked, adding their acrid stench to the smell of death, had activated and opened fire.

They approached carefully and froze when a shaky voice called out to them from the bunker. "Oh, thank the stars! You're the rescue team, right?"

A green-skinned twi'lek in a smudged, dirty czerka uniform scrambled out of the command center, then froze as he found himself staring down three blasters. Kreia hadn't bothered to raise hers.

"Uh . . . h-hello." He slowly raised his hands.

Marina gestured with her blaster pistol. "Back inside and keep those hands where I can see them. We're going to have a little talk."

The chirp of an incoming message echoed across a cold, darkened meditation chamber. The room's sole occupant suppressed a flash of irritation and roused herself to reach out in the dark and accept the call. "Yes?"

"My deepest apologies, mistress. We have detected a signal, a shuttle that descended from the station and was shot down."

The woman's eyes snapped open, all thought of sleep instantly forgotten. It was her. It had to be her. "I see. Rouse your sisters. We will be having guests soon, and there is much to prepare."

Marina stood dumbfounded. It didn't seem possible. It was too . . . too impossible, too unthinkable to be true, and yet . . . they'd questioned the terrified twi'lek survivor, gone through the Czerka team's files and records. And then they'd found a classified manifesto.

Czerka was preparing to declare itself independent of the republic, a sovereign nation unto itself. That was . . . well, that was insane, on the face of it, but the more she read through Czerka's reports, the more possible, and terrifying, it started to look.

The Republic was in tatters, on the cusp of unravelling completely. And while the Republic Army was still huge, that was actually a liability, not an asset, as the Senate struggled to pay for the huge, ongoing commitment. They were giving as generous terms as they could to entice people to opt out of their contracts early, but with a flood of ex-soldiers hitting the labor markets already strained by floods of refugees, the unskilled labor market was a buyer's paradise, with pay so low it was barely survivable. All that meant a stable job wasn't something to give up lightly, and the republic was saddled with literally millions of soldiers they'd promised sky-high pay to in its desperation to find enough bodies to throw into two meatgrinder wars in a row.

Worse, the Republic couldn't even make use of all those soldiers. As bad as it had been for the Army, it had been even worse for the Navy. They were struggling just to get enough food to the huge garrisons stretched across the galactic frontier, and the process of rotating the soldiers home while still having any sort of active fleet presence was slow, painful, and leading to plunging morale, not to mention unrest among family members and the locals who had to deal with armies of bored and anxious soldiers with not enough to do.

And amongst this administrative chaos was Czerka. Flush with cash thanks to the wars, they were perfectly positioned to pick up highly trained, experienced troops on the cheap for their security forces. And in fact, the Republic had been leaning heavily on Czerka's security teams to police safer areas, freeing up Republic troops for the fight. At the moment, they had virtually uncontested control over something like ten systems. That was a drop in the bucket compared to the Republic, but they had at least 50% presence on another sixty or seventy worlds, and a 20% presence on another 150 or so. Their withdrawal would wreak absolute havoc, and if they timed it with an all0out independence bid on their core territory, there wasn't a chance in hell the Republic could suppress it. And there was a better than even chance it would never even get the chance—the core worlds, already deeply disgruntled that the normal flow of wealth and raw resources from the rim to the core had been reversed in a bid to prop up the Republic, could very well throw up their hands and call it quits. It only took one or two of those dominoes to go and it would be unstoppable.

Still . . . it wasn't like there were no risks for Czerka in this plan. In fact, there were huge risks. Czerka was stupendously huge, and there was literally nobody else that could hope to swallow up the market share Czerka would leave behind if it died—no, Czerka wasn't going anywhere. But that didn't mean it couldn't bleed. If the public decided Czerka was the reason the Republic had collapsed hundreds, even thousands of cozy relationships with planetary authorities could dry up overnight. And while they had a fleet out there, authorized centuries back to protect their shipping without the Republic having to pay for it, they were still more lightly armed and shielded than genuine warships, and what was left of the Republic military wasn't likely to take kindly to any Czerka ships, not to mention the general surge in pirates, completely independent of whatever direction the Exchange and other organized crime decided to take things.

No, the risks wouldn't be worth it . . . unless they could somehow guaranty that the Republic couldn't turn public opinion against them before it went down. What they needed . . . was Telos. A secret devastating enough the Republic wouldn't dare to move against them.

Yes . . . it made too much sense of too many strange things she'd seen here. The Republic's insane waste of credits on what amounted to a PR stunt while their infrastructure was literally collapsing trying to rebuild this planet. Once it could plausibly build 'new' military bases here, the threat would vanish. In fact, she would bet good credits that Czerka had some ongoing salvage recovery contract with the Republic to try to repair, or rebuild, as many ships and as much equipment as it could. Either they'd excluded Telos from the deal and Czerka had gotten curious, or more likely, whoever had put the agreement together hadn't known about Telos at all. Either way, Czerka made their find. The Republic had no choice but to get the planet in good enough shape to deny that the weapons plants had been there before the Sith bombardment.

Of course, Czerka was involved in that rebuilding effort. They could hardly undertake such a huge project without them! And no wonder the ithorians complaints had fallen on deaf ears at the Republic—the huge amounts of graft going on despite the Republic's desperate economic straights was tacit acknowledgement that they were letting it happen as a payoff to Czerka to keep their mouths shut. And that explained why Czerka was willing to sabotage the ultimate success of the project to make a quick credit, despite it threatening the security of the Republic itself. So long as the project made reasonable progress to the point where the Republic could plausibly have built new bases on Telos, declare success, and bail out on the project, then the Republic was content to sit and wait, and Czerka was content to take the money.

Until it wasn't. Czerka had to know that their ace card was going to expire; so long as the planet was a mess, they were had the upper hand, but only that long. If they wanted to make their move, all they had to do was drag their feet on the project long enough to get enough of a force on site to make any effort to dislodge them too big for a spec ops affair. It would be messy, loud, and most importantly, public. And they almost certainly would have succeeded already if it hadn't been for the Exchange. They must know about this, about everything, and decided that they were better off with the Republic around than they were without it. And frankly, if they were trying to preserve the Republic, they'd have to save Czerka right along with it, the enemy it couldn't live without. Even a single loose threat could pull back to the devastating truth. So they'd blocked Czerka while simultaneously hiding Czerka's activities. It was bold, and incredibly risky, but whoever was running the show their clearly knew what they were doing.

And now here she sat, with perhaps the single most explosive piece of information in the galaxy at this particular moment in the palm of her hand. If she exposed it, the two largest institutions in the galaxy would shake, perhaps sending the entire galaxy into a full-bore civil war and a dark age it would take centuries, perhaps millennia, to recover from.

But if she hid it, she would be protecting lies upon lies upon lies. The surviving Telosians across the galaxy would never know why millions of their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, had died. There would be no repercussions on the Republic military minds, assuming they were still alive, that had broken the laws of warfare and buried weapons factories beneath civilian housing blocks in a cynical attempt to preserve military assets or gain public relations points to twitch the needles on fund raising and recruitment a half a percent.

Marina leaned back against a battered wall in the secret installation and covered her eyes in her hands as the weight of the galaxy settled once more on her shoulders. Stars, what was she going to do? All the choices were bad ones. And why was she, of all people, the one thrust into this moment, to make this decision?

It was a Jedi's decision, and she didn't want to make it. Maybe couldn't make it.

But, yet again, she was the only one to do it. She grimaced, rubbing her temples against he onset of a stress headache. It was hard to be objective. She'd fought, bled, and suffered more than she could bear to remember for the Republic. Some of the best people she'd ever known had gone beyond their limits, given everything they'd had and then their lives, to keep the behemoth afloat.

Time was a precious commodity, but she sat there thinking, back against hew all, for a long time, wrestling with it, trying not to contemplate what it said about the Republic that the decision was so hard. But in the end, really, it boiled down to a single question.

Was the average person in this galaxy, a nobody with very little control over their lives, just trying to get by and find a little happiness for themselves, those same faceless, numberless concourses the Jedi were supposed to champion; were they better off, or worse off with the Republic? It cut deeply to realize how difficult that question was to answer. And yet, in the end . . . the Republic was more than the often corrupt, frequently incompetent government it purported to be. It was a shared sense of identity, of purpose, that had ameliorated and even prevented countless wars over the millennia. It was a staggeringly huge economic system that often created equally staggering inequality, but it also offered opportunity to anyone with the courage and work ethic to give it a go. It offered the chance to move, to give more to the next generation.

And, above all, it offered hope. Hope that people could work together, could talk through problems, could compromise, and ultimately that people could learn to live with each other without killing each other.

That was what decided her. The Republic offered hope. It wasn't as true a hope as she might have wished, but a hope it remained nonetheless. And right now, hope was what the people of the galaxy were in desperately short supply of.

Marina stood up slowly, suddenly weary down to her bones, stepped over to the computer console, and wiped the data. The others, all three of them, watched silently, expressions concealed, as she chose the fate of the galaxy. That brought the ghost of a smile to her face. A little optimistic there, aren't we? Even doing this, there's a chance that Czerka decides to go through with it anyways. And even if they don't, I still give the Republic, what, maybe a 30% chance of of getting past this no matter what I do.

"Right," she said brusquely, not bothering to comment on what she'd just done. Well, as long as they were going to force her to lead, she might as well reap the benefits of not debating her decision. "Bao Dur, see if you can crack the security and lift the lockdown. Atton, you and I are going to go through the Czerka team's supplies and see if we can find anything salvageable. Kreia . . . you do your Jedi thing and let us know if anyone's coming."

They each acknowledged in typical fashion: Bao Dur with a "Yes, ma'am," Atton with a shrug, and Kreia with a curt nod that somehow managed to strongly suggest an eyeroll at the 'Jedi thing' she was far too dignified to debase herself with.

They worked quickly. By the time the strobing red lights clicked off, the webbing on Marina and Atton's armor was full of ration bars, spare power packs, and grenades, with a little pile set aside for Bao Dur. Kreia, of course, declined, as the robe she insisted on wearing wasn't exactly flush with pockets. Besides, it would make for unsightly bulges.

"I think we're good to go, ma'am."

Marina gave up on the idea of getting Bao Dur to shut up about that, and deliberately didn't look at Atton, but somehow saw his amused snort anyway. "Good, do what you can to keep the front door locked down, grab the shuttle authorization codes, then gear up. It's long past time we got out of here."

"Aren't you forgetting something, 'ma'am'?"

Marina clenched her teeth at the biting sarcasm, then relaxed and turned to Atton without expression, who inclined his head towards the twi'lek who'd done his level best to keep his head down.

"Ma'am," cut in Bao Dur urgently, "I now have access to external video feeds. The Exchange has finished off the defenders. They broke in once I lifted the lockdown and got past the initial security doors before I could reset the system."

"Can you stop them, slow them down? How much time?"

Bao Dur entered a final command and stepped over to start attaching his share of the gear to his armor without pausing his explanation. "I did what I could but they have serious decryption hardware with them. They were definitely anticipating something like this. Security will slow them down, but not even re-engaging the lockdown will stop them. We have five, maybe ten minutes at most."

Marina bit off a curse. This was bad.

For some reason, the indecision seemed to get under Atton's skin. "Face this, princess." He almost snarled. "You leave him behind, the Exchange will wring him dry, then kill him, either to cover what the Republic did here, or to hide their involvement, or both. Even if you could take him with us, you increase the chances word gets out, and introduce a security risk to all of us, and especially to you and your pet bat there. He knows too much. But we both know you can't take him. I saw the shuttle manifest, same as you. The shuttle is packed tight with droid parts, and we don't have time to unpack it. Even four is going to be a squeeze. There's only one option here, and it should be as obvious to you as it is to me."

Marina frowned. "Atton, what are you saying?" She was trying desperately not to follow his line of thought. "We can't take him with us, no. But maybe if we leave enough supplies, he could hide, evade the Exchange teams. They won't stay here any longer than they have too . . ."

It was too much for the twi'lek. "Yes, please, listen to her! Leave some supplies, I'm really good at hiding. I swear, I won't tell them a thing, I'll—s"

Atton sighed. "Fine, I'll do it myself." He drew his blaster pistol and shot the prisoner in the chest right over the heart, who collapsed without even a scream.

Marina just stood there, shocked. Bao Dur was quicker off the mark, and had his weapon trained in an instant. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Atton very slowly lowered his pistol back to its holster, eyes locked on the barrel of the solderi's blaster. "Sparing him the hours of torture you were about to send him to."

"You sick bastard! You can't just shoot prisoners!"

"No?" returned Atton, crossing his arms carelessly in front of him. "Tell me then, what was your plan? Nobly staying behind, sacrificing yourself for this useless drone? No wonder the Sith kicked your assess, you practically killed yourselves!"

"No, but if I was leaving anyone behind I'd take the drone over you in a second. I've half a mind to kill you right now."

Atton sneered. "Finally getting around to finishing the job, then? I'm only a meter away this time, let's see if even you can finish me off in one shot from there. Come on, Republic, do it. You'd be doing me a favor."

"Enough," snapped Kreia. "Fools. The Exchange comes, and you bicker. Do not kill the man who is to pilot the shuttle. Once we are free of this place, you may kill each other as you wish, but until then, put away your toys."

Marina still stood, shocked. Atton . . . how could he just . . . just murder a prisoner in cold blood? That wasn't . . . that wasn't him, that wasn't Atton. Only, she'd never seen anything to suggest that wasn't exactly who and what Atton was, so why was she so surprised?

Atton contemptuously turned his back on the iridonian, and for an instant his eyes swept past Marina. Their eyes met, and for an instant the man's defenses slipped. Without warning, she was in his head. His thoughts were quiet, but his emotions . . . the armor of selfish cynicism was not nearly as deep as she had thought. From the inside she could feel the doubt and fear that ate away at the armor, making it thin and brittle. The fear was almost overwhelming, yet none of it, not a single scrap, was directed towards the gun pointed at the back of his head. No, the overwhelming fear was directed utterly and completely at her.

His mind felt her presence and . . . tensed, for lack of a better word. It was instinctive, a last-ditch and futile survival mechanism, the mental equivalent of stomach muscles clenching as the firing squad takes aim, of jaw tightening as the hangman reaches to drop the platform.

Through the darkness, pain, and fear came a single thought.

Like what you see, princess?

His thought echoed in his own mind, so different from the sound of his voice. It was calm, a stark contrast to the fear pulsing through him, with an endless depth of weariness she knew far too well. He was waiting for the headman's axe to fall, and beneath it all was a single, quiet sigh of relief. Relief, and acceptance.

Just as abruptly as she'd entered Atton's thoughts, she was thrown back out, thrust into her own mind, and she staggered back, physically recoiling from the mental whiplash. And yet, she almost thought she sensed something at the very lost moment. Was that . . . surprise?

Bao Dur didn't see what happened when Atton turned away, but he saw the General stumble back, and he didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger, yet even as he pulled something wrenched on the tip of his blaster, pushing it up towards the ceiling and sending the blaster bolt just over Atton's shoulder.

The man might be a murderous pile of filth, but he was quick. He dropped and spun, not the flashy and incredibly stupid holovid roll, but a desperation, boneless flop to the floor designed to give you exactly one chance to kill the other guy before he kills you.

Bao Dur sidestepped and brought his gun to bear, but he had to bring it down from almost pointing at the ceiling, and he was slow. He had a half-second to be surprised at the raw, enraged fury on Atton's usually carefully controlled face, then the man's blaster barrel was pointed center mass.

He stumbled as whatever had hit his weapon hit him again, even stronger than before, and he hissed in pain as the blaster was wrenched out of his deathgrip. Then it occurred to him that he was still alive to feel pain, and he looked to see Atton shaking his wrist in pain as he glared daggers at Kreia.

Bado Dur's gaze followed and he saw both of their weapons in the old woman's hands, each held with extended fingers by the trigger guard, dangling like particularly distasteful and dirty bits of detritus.

"Fools. Kill each other if you must, but do not put her life, or mine, in danger. We are leaving now. If you wish to come along, we might tolerate your idiocy for a short while longer." She dropped the blaster pistols contemptuously. "Come, marina, time is very short." With that, she practically grabbed Marina and hustled her off towards the shuttle bay.

Bao Dur and Atton's eyes met one more time, and a whole conversation passed between them wordlessly. This was not over, but Kreia was right. This was not the time.

They each snatched up their weapons and scrambled after the Jedi in a mad dash.

A/N: FINALLY. It took a very long time to figure out how this was going to work. Telos is, by far, the messiest, least well written part of the whole game. So many things just don't make sense. The Republic's not caring about graft on their posterchild project when they are pretty well broke. Czerka willing to sabotage the project for any reason when it will almost certainly mean the utter collapse of the Republic—businesses don't do well with total anarchy. The ithorians quickly graduating from self defense to corporate espionage and then asking a jedi to do things just as wrong as what they were accusing Czerka of doing. Etc.

I'm still not totally happy with it—the first part of the chapter is unintentionally jarring and jerky, but I need to keep moving. I hope you enjoyed my best effort to pull all those discordant pieces into a coherent whole. I didn't intend for it to be a contemporaneously relevant examination of the value of modern democracy; that just sort of happened.

So… your thoughts?