AN: Hello my friends, here again with the next installment of our tale. Here we charge headlong into this final confrontation, but rest assured that these tales of the Hasty Lady are far from finished. Stay tuned, and enjoy!

Chapter 11:

No More Secrets

The bustle of Coruscant was something Shana could never quite anticipate fully, no matter how many times she'd been awestruck by it's motley glory. Every species and life form imaginable, and many beyond the mind's conception poured through the streets. Insectoids, reptilians, mammalians of all types; some just vaguely humanoid, some near-human with startlingly subtle or unignorable differences, and some that were as beasts, with no structural similarity with herself at all. And then there were the wonders.

There was a crystal growth on a spidery mobility droid, pulsing within a hazy electric-blue energy field. Shana had sighted it early and watched awestruck as it approached. She could feel the power coming off the thing, radiating and resonating through her. "Wait," it said suddenly, words leaping unbidden into her mind instead of through the commbead she wore to communicate with SENA. "This one is like us. But not. How did you come to be, little Light?"

"Uhhh, what?" Came the response, and Shana could hear it in her ear, thank the stars. The Mando desperately wanted to hear what would happen next. "I-I'm an energized Corusca gemstone matrix based on, eh, human neural structure," SENA stammered.

"Then you are not born to the Freedom of Light? You were originally a chemical exchange intelligence? And your skill in the use of your Light is... Learned?"

"...Yes." SENA spoke in a way Shana had never heard from the electronic being. Awestruck? Humbled? Maybe both.

"Astonishing! Such an evolution is thought impossible by our kind. How lost you must feel. You have much skill, little Light. Though you have much more to learn. I entreat you that you should visit the world of our people, in what you call the Unknown Regions. There you can learn the full skills of our manner of beings. I shall transmit to you the stellar coordinates."

Information passed which Shana was not privy to, and the crystal creature departed on it's way. "What was that?" Shana asked.

"Something I think I needed to see," SENA replied. Shana got back to walking, her hand absently resting on the Corusca. The silence between them hung heavy in the air despite the din of a bustling ecuminopolis. SENA flared in exasperation. "What?" She intoned through Shana's commbead. "What is it?"

"Can you read my thoughts?"

"What? No!" SENA couldn't help but laugh.

"Then how did you know I had questions?" Shana stepped wide to the left as a roiling flow of luminescent ooze slid down the street.

"I saw it on your face," SENA responded.

"So you can see then. How? How does it all work?" SENA made an exasperated sound, and Shana added a small, "If it doesn't bother you."

SENA reigned in her aggravation with mild effort. "What the Illumination refered to as the Freedom of Light?" Shana nodded once. "Well that's a pretty way of describing my energy reaction. Your brain operates through chemical exchange processes; mine is a hypermatter reaction, bouncing through pathways in my crystalline molecular structure. The surface of the Corusca is an unlimited energy transformer; light, heat, radiation, even friction, I can absorb energy from any physical process within my absorption feld radius, add it to my hypermatter reaction, and gather info from those emissions like you would see and hear. And I can transmit too, I can even create effects within systems that have no wireless capabilities, if I really try."

Shana couldn't help but laugh. "I wish I could say I... Heh, that I understood even half of that," she sputtered, eventually gaining control of her mirth. She gazed into the fiery gem, into the center of the incandescent color that slid along the facets of the material like blazing infernos spun into webs of light.

"...What? What is it?" SENA was just about tired of this woman and her strangeness.

"You and those like you are beautiful," Shana blurted. "Sa haar ka'rta ka'ra. Like the hearts of stars. You've transformed into something my mind could never fully comprehend, a higher state of being. Transcendence is the stuff of chakaare and dikute, snake oil. But this Freedom of Light is real. Perhaps some day the potential of this existance may outweigh it's pain."

"Perhaps," SENA admitted. Her matrix of light flared, a portion of her confusion and regret replaced with the warmth of sympathy. "But I'm still so human. I still feel human, at least. And I feel how strange it is too. Every moment I feel how much this shouldn't be." There was a heavy pause, ladden with tension. "I wonder if ISCA is as confused and scared as I am, or more. I can hear him, now that I can bear it. And I don't like the sound if him."

"Then let's find our captain fast as we can," Shana stated decisively. They scanned the boulevard together, sighting each establishment and judging the likelihood of Wren winding up there. They passed over first a swanky-looking establishment, even the bouncers wearing formal attire; nope. Then they passed one with a line full of the most bizzare creatures Coruscant had to offer; not out of any prejudice, but still highly unlikely. Then they passed one with some of the most lewd signage Shana had ever laid eyes upon; SENA insisted Wren would rather space himself than enter, and Shana strode along with flushed cheeks and a wayward imagination.

Finally, SENA spoke up. "Take that right," she directed. "Scanned a print of his off of that window across the street."

Shana pounded her boots across the transparisteel walkway, hanging suspended beneath a massive closed bridge crossing between two colossal towers. Sure enough, a cozy looking pub with signage in Basic offering hot food and cold intoxicants with a clearly humanoid patronage sat nestled between a droid shop and a holonet cafe. "Kandosii, SENA," Shana breathed.

"Wait just a second," SENA responded, halting Shana as she made to cross the street. "Do you love him?"

The Mando nearly choked on her breath. "Do I what?"

"Don't play dumb with me, beroya," SENA insisted, her tone calm but ironshod. "Force, you've been sharing beds. Wren has the special combination almost no self-esteem and the child-heartedness it takes to honestly believe that someone might grant him that and still have no interest in him, but the rest of us aren't so blessed. And I knew from the start this was something fishy, none of this really shocked me. So if Wren is willing to overlook it, I'd be happy to see you stay on. We all know he could use somebody he actually talks and listens to. But I need to know your true intentions first. So no more secrets. Give me that much."

Shana sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I... I could stand here and argue it for all time, I think. We Mando'ad are the last people who'd believe in love at first sight, its the stuff of fools. But damn me if I don't care for him as much as you." Shana felt more interrogated than when she'd sat up front on the Lady for their arrival.

"I appreciate that you consider the question seriously, but you've gotta understand that your answer isn't exactly the most convincing I'd hoped for, especially considering the cicumstances."

Shana couldn't help but laugh a little in her frustration. "What would you have me say? That we will be one when together, one when parted? That we will share all and raise warriors? SENA I swear to you, from the moment I read the files to Mon Gazza, it was as any other mission, but when I saw him for who he is, I knew as well as you do that this universe holds precious little as priceless as that man's soul. And whether love holds true or not, I swear to you I'll defend him and the rest of this crew and our ship, until breath falls silent. Vode an."

A soft sigh filtered through Shana's commbead. "I suppose that will have to do," SENA admitted, before treating Shana to a more genial and comradely tone. "Now let's go, sister. Time to go collect our sorry-shebs captain."

Wren forked a slice of salt-grilled nerf tongue into his mouth, chewing away his anger. He followed by draining the remaining third of his ale, belching softly. In the back if his head, he knew eventually he would need to return to the meeting down below. This whole thing he was doing was massively unprofessional. But the flashback had put him in a state to be running rather than thinking. Wren silently damned his own brain, the traitorous and torturous organ. His thoughts were turning towards the object of his frustration when he heard a familiar voice.

"Ahh, no thank you," she said, mercifully angling her hand out of the transgressor's grip without harming him. "I think I see who I'm here for over there."

Shana crossed the floor of the pub with a grace and confidence that was almost magnetic. She'd been endearing when Wren had first seen her bare face, in those nervous early moments when she was either covered in armor that did nothing for the female form or too dangerous to carelessly look at. When they'd shared the closeness of a night's sleep, he'd found her attractive but in the way of the vagueness of darkness and relative chastity. Here in the low light, through his buzz and the cigarra smoke, Shana's beauty was undeniable. She came to rest upon the stool to his right, waving down the barkeep and securing two more pints of Wren's ale.

Wren sighed and rolled his eyes, chewing another slice of nerf tongue, and before he was done they both had a foamy pint before them. Shana parted her lips to speak, but Wren shook his head, instead raising the glass modestly. Glass touched to glass and beer flowed, and before long the glasses were empty again.

"Now?" Shana queried.

Again, Wren shook his head, and when the bartender came by he entreated her to pour two more. "And two Corellian whiskeys," he requested in addition.

"Kor Vella, Bela Vistal, or Tyrena?"

"Bela Vistal," Wren said with next to no hesitation. "Thank you." Shana smirked, and Wren shrugged his shoulders. Two cups came before each, one small and one large.

"Oya!" Shana proclaimed quietly, and they tipped the shots back. Shana gave a tiny, hiccuping cough, and Wren laughed once after a long exhale.

"Now," he said, sipping his beer and already well tipsy. "I assume the elder general sent you along to collect me?"

"Yes," Shana admitted. "Then and now. Once we detected activity around Byss we knew that there was a chance ISCA could be found and utilized, and that SENA needed to be accounted for, at the very least."

"Then you knew it all. All along."

Shana snorted. "Hardly," she said warmly. "I knew you were Byssian, a zero grav trooper, a smuggler, bounty hunter. That you'd been part of the Velabri boarding party, and if you were still alive you probably had SENA. Really that's all. It's not like they had your life's philosophy on file. Or the over-under on your good and your sin."

That made Wren chuckle. "No, they wouldn't. And here I thought I'd done okay at keeping my head down."

"You did," Shana admitted. "It took me months to find you, and even when I did it was on the weakest hunch. Most frustrating hunt of my life."

Wren beamed for just a moment, sipping from his ale. "Well I'm glad you found me in time," Wren said. Shana searched his face and found it genuine. "Really."

"Come," Shana said, dropping credits on the table and gesturing to the door. They moved to leave, but found the way blocked when they did, a crowd of bodies congesting the doorway.

"Hey, clear the door!" The bouncer shouted, but he was immediately pushed from the doorway and into the street by three as large as he was. Shana scowled as the man from before came to the fore of the crowd. The man began to speak, but Wren wasn't for listening.

"Wrong night," Wren hissed in the man's face, before sinking his shin into the fork of the man's legs. The spacer drove his knee into the ruffian's nose as he hunched over, leaving it flattened against his face and throwing him reeling backwards. Wren sent him off with a swift spinning heel kick that smashed the man viciously upon on his cheekbone. The crowd rushed in at them; Wren lashed out with one leg, buckling the knee of one with a swift roundhouse before snapping back with his heel to stagger the next man as the first recovered. The first man swung hard but Wren beat his wide swing with a sharp straight to the nose and then an uppercut. As the first man fell leaking from his face, Wren spun through, hammering the second man behind the ear as the thug rushed into the percieved opening and sending him thudding to the floor.

Shana stepped back as one grappled with her and two more pushed in behind him. Bringing her hands together and using one to block the wrist of her foe, Shana peeled one hand free and sent it thudding him to her attacker's jaw. She hit him hard twice, before bending low to scoop one leg off the ground before Shana kicked out the other and dropped him flat on his back, a stomp between the legs keeping the attacker down.

The other two rushed in, and with a flick of her head Shana swung her braid around; the ring of sharply carved, speckled chromatic gemstone that was held fast there struck the man hard in the eye, sending him reeling as Shana felled his comrade with a flurry of vicious punches, ending with a hand braced behind the tough's head as Shana repeatedly slammed his face between her open hand and the fore bone of her curled arm. Finally she let the second thug drop, and as the third came reeling back to her with blood pouring from a cut above his eye, Shana felled him with one swift side kick that landed under his jaw and threw him bodily to the floor.

"CSF, break it up!" came the shout from out the door, and then the sizzle of stun batons followed. Wren and Shana both stuck their hands up as the brawl swiftly disintegrated, bugeyed at the prospect of tangling with the night patrol.

Shana and Wren were shoved bodily out the door by angry staff, and they stumbled out into the Coruscanti streets. Each sighted the other, and they exploded into laughter. "That... That thing you did with your hair...? Where the fosh did that come from?! Force that was just glorious!"

Shana beamed. "We daughters of Mandalore are fond of mesh'la besbe, jewelry as dangerous as it is aesthetically pleasing. Oh, but I thought somone had fired a slugthrower when you high kicked the first one!"

Their rambling steps and roaring laughter brought them to the edge of the suspended street, staring off into the glow of mid-high level Coruscant, as air traffic blew past and space traffic glittered in the night sky above. "See this?" Shana breathed deep, tasting that strange dirty freshness of urban air. "This is what let me lie to you like that. I hated it, deceiving one I now cared for. But I could do it knowing that all these people needed me to bring you here."

Wren nodded, now knowing he would eventually forgive her. "I can see why," he said softly, finding himself just a touch nearer. Shana pressed a dataslate into his hands, and the numbers and names upon it ran his blood cold. "An Assertor-class dreadnought? Fifty ISD-IIs, ten Tectors, ten Allegiances, ten Secutor fleet carriers? Lancer and Vigil-class corvettes, TIE Avengers and Defenders? Heavy dropships, fekking Darktroopers?"

"Now you see what warranted my deception," Shana said. "If this fleet falls into the wrong hands, peace may leave this galaxy forever. All who seek power will fight for it, Wren. We must keep it from Admiral Kemin. And if this venture is to succeed, a crew needs its captain."

Wren snickered quietly. "I'm no star captain," he said with a shake of his head. "Just a coward. I was too scared to die alongside my comrades and now I'm too scared to live for them. What sort of use is a man like me to a mission like this? When someone is unsatisfactory, you don't give them an even more important job, you bench them so they can't fosh things up any worse."

With a bubbling laughter Shana slugged Wren in the shoulder. "You really don't get it," she said. "You still see yourself as a minor piece alone on an empty gameboard, all your foes and fellows swept aside, leaving you in nothingness, a pawn left standing in a game long over." Shana regarded Wren directly, speaking with fiery conviction in her emerald eyes. "But you're the winning piece, the game itself. You brought us together, you guided us along, and only you can lead us forward, because even though I came into this crew as a week long lie, I know that I will never be able to fight my all, here and now or ever again, if I can't do it next to you!" Shana blushed hard, realizing what she was saying as she was saying it, and attempted to compose herself. "We will try without you," she concluded. "And we will inevitably fail."

Wren stood stunned and speechless at Shana, who felt as exposed and vulnerable as she'd ever been to a man. "Okay," he finally responded in a quiet, humbled voice, breaking from the railing and heading back towards the turbolift. "When you put it like that, I can't go and let everyone down. Not when they're all expecting me to put on a show."

Shana stifled an elated laugh. "Got 'em," she breathed, fingertips touching their Corusca friend, who listened and watched still. She strode up alongside Wren, passing SENA along, and together they boarded a lift for down below.

The chamber still waited, nothing different save Fink and Hakyo standing with impatient looks on their faces. General Dodonna waited patiently.

"We're all in," Wren stated, to the relief of his crew.

"Splendid," the elderly commander said. "Our men will start boarding and loading the Hasty Lady at once, and we shall meet with a small taskforce in orbit. Assuming we know our destination."

"I have him," SENA said. "Below the galactic plane. Here are the coordinates." Shana handed General Dodonna a dataslate, and upon it a star map projected.

"Mount up people, we're on deck!" Shana shouted to the assembled New Republic Special Forces, and the group left the audience chamber to load up their gear.

As the Hasty Lady blasted away from the underbelly of Coruscant, a lone figure stole away into the dark, pulling the balaclava from his head. He stripped away his NRSF uniform, and then his undergarments. Then the surface of his bare skin rippled. It's coloration wavered, and then settled at a dull brown, the structure becoming strange to the human form it once wore. With a groan of pain the figure fell to knees. Slowly he rose to his feet. Seeking a hidden pack, the figure clothed, first in a jumpsuit, and then in armor, piece by piece, until at last the helmet fell into place. It's T-shaped visor glowed a baleful red, the plates either black or sparingly a dull gold.

"Call: Admiral Kemin," the clawdite ordered his helm. He began strapping on weapons; an IR-5 repeating blaster pistol to his right thigh and a long gently curved knife to his left. He hefted a far longer weapon, more than five and a half feet long in a lacquered wooden scabbard matching it's little sibling, and it's two magnetic binders snapped to a ring running round his belt. He tucked the graceful man-reaping blade back, seeing the dark shapes and eyes aglow that had followed him through the night scatter and hide.

"Huzo? Agent Ruvhal? Are you receiving?"

"Yes Admiral," Huzo replied. "I have secured the location of the battlefleet." He opened his palm, a tiny circular eye-lense hidden within, its circumference girded with circuitry. He popped the lense into a small drive and connected that to the back of his helmet. "Transmitting now."

The signal lept from Huzo's helmet, radiating up to a gunship waiting in orbit. All dark otherwise, it lit up its transmitter systems and fired an even more densely encrypted signal into the shimmering sphere of the Deep Core hanging in distant space, before shifting to enter the Coruscanti atmosphere to pick up it's master. The signal would have distorted and scattered in the density of the heavy background radiation, but something picked it up and piped it through first.

Within the bowels of the Bellator-class fast dreadnought Sanction, the Admiral turned to the cavernous hangar bay, flanked on each side by the closed hangar apertures. Her crew stood assembled, Stormtroopers, Navy officers, and TIE pilots.

"My friends," she said, smiling in wistful sentiment. Her projected voice boomed out across the wide chamber. "We stand on the edge of all we've toiled and prepared for. Our S-Thread booster system is finally primed and ready to carry us to victory, and the means of our vengeance is finally at hand. A great fleet, equipped with every weapon of war required to sweep across the galaxy, waits for us in empty space below the galactic plane. The Rebel scum and the rabble Imperial Remnant will fall in line or burn in their holes, and we lost children of Byss will show all worlds the supremacy of our New Byssian Empire!"

Upon each vessel clustered around the glowing pieces of Byss, legions of loyal forces roared in approval, and the wheels of galactic war spun secretly once again.