So the next chapter is finally here. Not quite as soon as I had hoped, but it's the thought that counts right?
Anyways, thanks for the reviews and views guys. PS: I literally just realized that when I was signed in I could reply to reviews, so if you've left one I will get to replying to them soon, and I apologize that it took so long.
Hearts of Iron: Chapter VII - Palpatine wants to get off this ride...
Date: 3/15/95, Location: Outskirts of Berlin - SS Assembly Area 445
Erika glared at the annoyed looking trio of storm-troopers, who for some inexplicable reason had decided that her unit's assembly grounds were off limits to her unit.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but all of the above-ground access points in this sector have been restricted." The youngest of the trio answered, moving in such a way as to bring the SS crest on his lapels into the dim light of the access tunnel.
None of her men were buying the bullshit. One of her Captains put his hands on his hips. "So let me get this straight…" The unshaven teen growled. "We can't access OUR parade grounds because they're off limits, even though we have orders from a GENERAL, to assemble there immediately." He flipped his cap off and ran a hand through his hair in disgust. "And you can't tell us who gave the order to shut down ALL of the access points, because that's classified?"
The older of the trio, a gaunt and graying man just shrugged carelessly and sneered at them. "Orders are orders."
That sent a pulse of frustration through Erika's mind. She had used that same excuse often enough to know it was almost certainly bullshit. "So…" She hissed at the man, who blinked and took a step back at her tone. Well aware that despite being older than her, he didn't actually outrank her. "Can you at least tell us why the access points are shut down?" She left the part about him being a useless shit-stain unsaid, but the tone was all there.
The storm-trooper just scratched his Stahlhelm nervously. "Well I think it had something to do wit-" Whatever he had been about to say was cut off by a rapid series of thundering cracks, as loud as any explosion she had ever heard, and deep enough to tell her that they were from far away.
Several seconds later, when everyone had finished pulling themselves away from the sides of the tunnel where they had dove for cover, the emergency lights clicked on for the second time that day. And the sound of a thousand klaxons mixed with the banshee wailing of what seemed like every air-raid siren in the entire city.
That was the last straw in Erika's mind. "Enough of this!" She spun around and started barking orders. "Grubber, Kowalski, get your asses back to the motor pool and get the tanks up here now! Tomoko, alert the rest of the Company and find General Maho and tell her that we are moving to engage whatever's out there."
"Look Untersturmführer, we can't let you-" It was as far as she let the gaunt leader of the trio get before she grabbed his shirt, funneling extra strength from her emotions as slammed him back into the steel blast-door hard enough to hear bones crack in protest.
He groaned in pain but didn't stand back up.
That was perfectly fine with her. After the day she had been having so far, it was refreshing to be able to let go a little, to have something to funnel some of the anger and humiliation from earlier. The fifty or so clicks she heard behind her only added to her confidence as the rest of her platoon flicked their safeties off, she didn't need to turn to know that the other two SS troopers were currently looking down the barrel of every small-arm in her unit.
The look on their faces was balm to her soul, she smiled. "Now gentlemen, will you do the polite thing and open the door for a lady, or will I have to do it myself." It was as thinly veiled a threat as she had ever made, even drooled in honey as it was, and they all knew it.
That knowledge certainly didn't stop the two remaining SS guards from scrambling to get the door open for her though.
Once outside, Erika stood in center of the well-trimmed grass and inhaled the crisp air. Much of the city's waste heat was funneled out by downdraft shafts that ran the height of the cities massive towers, that kept the surrounding regions temperate even during winter, but it was still a chilly night out.
But it wasn't dark out. There was fire in the sky tonight, massive blooms of purple and orange, where the massive shells from the city defense cannons had burst over Berlin.
And something was falling in their direction… something huge, glowing with fire and trailing smoke.
And it was coming in fast.
"Back into the tunnel…" She whispered underneath her breath, before an explosion across the flaming hulk snapped her back into reality. "FUCK HELL! EVERYONE BACK! GET THAT BLAST DOOR CLOSED!" She roared at her shocked subordinates as urgency suddenly set in.
Her screaming shocked them so much that one of her troopers even dropped his MP-40… he didn't go back to pick it up as they scrambled back past the rapidly closing vault door.
No one waited to hear the sound that signified the massive steel door's tumblers closing all the way, instead it was a full sprint down the tunnel and away from the apocalyptic landing that was heading towards them at de-orbital velocity.
'DEEPER'… was the only thing in her mind as they rushed down into the bowls of the earth. 'WE NEED TO GET DEEPER!'
They weren't halfway back down the tunnel when the ground jumped up to meet her with a cataclysmic noise, snapping her knees almost to her chin, then it dropped back out beneath them and she fumbled as she flew through the air, slamming hard into concrete as she went tumbling foreword.
Thankfully, her uniform provided the resistance she needed to slow to what was mostly a stop after only a few bounces against the concrete, though that didn't stop her from being made to flop helplessly as the blackened world around her heaved in distress.
When the tunnel stopped trembling in shock, she slowly raised her head and coughed into the dust and smoke, trying to peer around with the light of the single working lamp that was still flickering uncertainly further down the tunnel. "Shit… is everyone alright?"
A chorus of half-snarled "Ja's" was her reply as she pulled herself up off the ground alongside her unit.
Now her anger was back and Erika grinned at it, because this time she wasn't the only one. Dozens of glowing red irises illuminated the otherwise blackened tunnel, she could feel the psychic rage tingling on her skin.
That feeling that made her teeth sharpen…
She didn't need to look to know that the assembly grounds, and probably everything around them, had been leveled. Didn't need to look to know that whoever these assholes were, they had absolutely obliterated the sculpted gardens that she and everyone in her unit had been using for their parade grounds since they were still SS initiates.
Oh, there was anger alright, anger and hatred and righteous fury.
That last emotion was a relatively new one… usually she was on the giving end. Having her stuff destroyed left a foul taste in Erika's mouth. Like the aftertaste of bile or some sort of slimy rot.
She spat as one of the youngest members of her battalion, a boy everyone called Heinrich glanced up at her. He was a green who had come on to replace a man she had lost to an infiltrator nearly three months ago. He stood uncertainly, like a newborn taking their first steps, and the ground trembled again slightly.
But his pupils flickered with rage that he didn't yet know how to harness, and she could work with that. "What are we going to do Kommandant?" He asked at a half whisper, inching towards the tunnels walls, wary of a collapse.
Her heart swooned with amusement and she couldn't help the grin that spread as the sounds of frantic jackboots and the enraged roars and rattles of tanks echoed down the tunnel. "The same thing we always do Heinrich." She said, almost breathlessly. "We're going to water Berlin's gardens with their blood."
Elsewhere nearby…
"Alright, what are we working with?" Thorn growled out the question in a harsher tone than he had meant to.
He wasn't mad with the major, but it had been a really trying day so far, and it certainly didn't look like it was going to get better anytime soon.
The major shrugged, ignoring the troopers bustling around the ruined bridge section, and flicked off his helmet commlink to answer him. "In short, not well. Roughly 2,000 of the men on board are still in fighting shape."
Thorn grimaced beneath his helmet. "Less than that if we tend to the wounded."
The other trooper nodded, sparing a wary glance at the darkened landscape out the shattered viewport. "Engineering reports that some of the speeders and AT-RT's are salvageable, but the hanger doors are jammed and most of the heavier walkers and aircraft broke free of their moorings, either when we were hit or when we crashed."
"And those are scrap…" He didn't bother to ask for confirmation; the landing had nearly tossed him clear of the bridges newly broken windows. The stuff in the hangers and cargo bays would have been tossed around like a nuna in a shredder.
"What about the other ships?" Thorn asked.
The major just shrugged again. "The Reverence and the Dream of Naboo both exploded in the upper atmosphere and are assumed to be lost with all hands. The rest of the fleet is scattered around the region, the furthest from our position being the Undauntible, which was shot wildly off course and report their current position at several hundred kilometers away."
That was bad, that was almost unbelievably bad, for nearly than a third of a force to be obliterated or cut-off so severely was almost unheard of, but Thorn steeled himself and asked what he really didn't want to know anyways. "That just leaves us and the Symphony… have they reported in?"
"They're about ten miles from here." The major nodded in affirmation. "Shrike says that they have three thousand men in fighting condition. He also confirmed that some of their heavier walkers survived hit they took, apparently it was more of a glancing blow against their engine section." The other trooper's hand shot up to his helmet. "Also, the captain reports that the forces he sent to scout the area around his crash site are reporting hostile contacts and have been taking casualties."
"Sith…" Thorn swore under his breath. "Have we been able to contact Republic High-Command?"
One of the aids nearby snapped to attention. "Our long-range communication antennas were destroyed by the landing but Senator Chuchi and Major Ozzel are still within range of our short-range comms, and they have agreed to patch us through to command."
The aid tapped on one of the few consoles that was still glowing, and it gave a hissing noise, and then an extremely blurry hologram flashed to life. A few seconds of fiddling and a good solid whack by a technician at the back of the console, and the image resolved into something more than a fuzzy blob.
"Commander Thorn?" General Kenobi asked, a rather alarmed looking board of figures sitting in various places behind him straining to catch what was happening.
Thorn snapped to attention, banishing all useless emotions he felt about the situation at the moment to the back of his mind. "General Kenobi." He clipped out, sliding into a familiar salute.
The general looked relieved to see him, bags beneath the other man's eyes betraying the strain the situation must be putting on him. "Thank the Force…" Kenobi groaned out in relief, looking like he had to physically restrain himself from sagging. "I take it the situation has become less than ideal?"
Thorn was suddenly pleased he had decided to keep his helmet on. The senators in the room seemed to be in varying states of shock and he had no illusions that any reaction other than crisp professionalism would only make the situation worse.
"Have you managed to contact Padme?" Skywalker cut in, looking more stressed than Thorn had ever seen the other man.
"I-" he stopped himself for a moment, carefully contemplating his response, mindful that there were plenty of senators and other various politicians visible through the hologram.
But in the end, Thorn knew that they needed honesty right now, maybe more than anything. "Unfortunately that seems like that will no longer be possible General."
III
Greater War Room 21XV, Coruscant - The Galactic Republic
The situation was getting out of hand… far out of hand.
And this was not part of his scenario.
Palpatine grimaced, trying to keep his look reassuring despite how disgusting it made him feel on in the inside. Now was not the time for anything but his best performance. Right now anything but his best could easily lead to disaster.
Senator Amidala was a crucial piece of the puzzle that was Anakin Skywalker, without her his entire plan would have to be though out again, and with the Clone Wars already well under way that wasn't really an option anymore.
Padme Amidala was currently lost on a planet that had just proven its capacity to project its sovereignty against even a larger than normal task-force.
"Well…" He sighed, folding his hands and gazing across the room at all of the other people in the room. Their faces were covered with a wide range of emotions, few of them conductive to solving the situation they had accidentally gotten themselves into. "It seems that we have terribly misjudged both the aptness of the inhabitance and their apparent desires."
"I will gladly lead a rescue fleet personally Chancellor!" Skywalker nearly shouted, looking like he was moments away from sprinting from the room in sheer impatience anyways.
Kenobi placed his fifth tea in the last hour down before Sidious could even answer the young Jedi. "And accomplish what exactly?" He rebuked his padawan lightly. Waving his hand at the system hologram on the table, as it replayed the information they had managed to gather so far. "They have already proven that they are more than capable of shooting down ships as big as cruisers. Who knows what other surprises they might be holding back?" He sighed.
"Two different varieties of anti-orbital weaponry have already been showcased, and even most Separatist fortress-worlds only typically have one or two installations of that type, and you already reported your fleet was taking fire from dozens of such weapons at once. Over different sections of the continent no less." Mundi interjected quietly, nodding the to the hologram of the trooper in question.
Thorn, whose hologram had only reappeared moments ago to give bad news and ask for orders, nodded gravely in confirmation. "Our ships never stood a chance against that much firepower General, we were caught completely flatfooted."
"A trap this was!" Yoda answered, the aged Jedi stating the obvious from his hoverchair, waving his cane to emphasize his point.
"But why do this?" Chuchi's hologram pleaded across the void of space, distraught at the chaos that seemed to be well on its way. "We didn't even know this system existed until recently." The blue woman cried. She was one of the few people in the meeting who Palpatine thought looked more stressed than Anakin, if that was even possible. "What possible reason for these actions could there be?"
He stood grimly, but with as much authority as he could project as the room burst into several heated debates. Reading himself to try and calm the assembly before it got out of control. Or at least he would have if a thunderous banging from the door hadn't cut him off before he could start, though the shock of the sudden noise did calm the room.
"Palpatine, you lying bastard!" An stern voice growled. "Open this blasted door or I'm going to break it down!" The next unwanted problem he was going to be forced to deal with today roared through the doors buzzer, making people scramble all across the room.
He waved the purple armored guard at the door permission to open it. "Good morning Skirata." He answered the man calmly. "I assume you are here to inquire about the location of Null-11?"
The door slid open with a hiss and a pair of helmetless Madalorians stormed in, flanked by the remaining Null-ARC troopers and a full squad of clone commandos. "Your men promised me that I would be the one to command the Nulls." The grizzled old soldier snarled at him from across the room. "Where is my son?" He demanded, pounding his fist against the nearest table and making the senator there squawk in fear.
He hid his smirk in a grandfatherly smile. "Convenient timing as expected, I was actually just about to get to that." He slid his hand to the console that sat on the desk in front of him. "Captain Ordo." He addressed the trooper by his name, carefully gauging the reactions of the newest persons to burst into the meeting. "A status update would be quite appreciated."
That shut everyone up, and a little blue figure appeared on the table before him, the armored outline of the man in question standing behind two special-ops troopers sitting at the control of a ship.
The Null removed his helmet as Kal and his entourage pushed their way up towards his desk. "We've taken three captives and we were preparing to leave now sir…" The ARC trailed off, looking quite uncertain about something. "Chancellor, I feel a pressing need to warn you that our transmissions have almost certainly been compromised."
"Then switch to another channel." Mace grumbled from his seat, more than a little irritable at the mess they had found themselves in.
There was a long pause, and both of the Special-Ops troopers removed their helmets as well. They looked visibly disturbed, almost sick. "You misunderstand us General." One of the troopers said, his hands clenching the controls of the Stealth ship tightly. "The natives we captured, they were waiting for us sir… one of them greeted Captain Ordo in Basic and by his name."
The troopers had to be joking, Palpatine thought to himself. What the men had said simply couldn't possibly be true. But the troopers intent was clear in his voice, and even though he was vanished from the force by being inside the accursed system, Palpatine was still as good at reading people as it got.
And the men were not lying….
That was a problem… That was something that shouldn't have been even remotely possible. It created far too many disturbing questions to be accepted as true. Sidious did not have the time or the patience to deal with the consequences of statements like that right now.
To be honest, the implications made him want to run screaming back to his chambers and eviscerate something… maybe stew in his hatred for the Jedi over one of his ancient Sith holocrons.
But he had a plan to salvage and that came first. Unfortunately if the room had been loud before it was now nearly deafening, people were actually shouting at each other across the large room.
"Silence!" Mas Amedda stood and roared over the din, his booming voice silencing the room in a swift instant.
Palpatine nodded in geunine appreciation, feeling the beginnings of a headache already. "Thank you Mas, Captain Ordo if you would please explain." He waved to the hologram, mindful that everyone was now giving them their undivided attention.
The trooper opened his mouth to answer and stiffened. "Hold on one minute." The Null glanced at the two troopers manning the controls, and then he flicked the panel behind him. "Turn the cloaking device on and take off, I want to get off this rock before there are any more surprises."
He could hear the ships engines rumble to life through the holo, and the Null readjusted his stance as took off. It was then that the door to the cockpit slid open, and immediately a tiny figure spilled through the door. "Hey! Oh, what's that!"
Everyone in the room blinked, he could feel their shock ripple through the force. A child, a small girl in what appeared to be a lab coat rushed up towards the front of the cockpit.
"Spark, why isn't she restrained." Ordo shouted past the door.
"I honestly don't know sir!" A rather alarmed sounding Spec-Ops trooper answered as he chased the girl through the doorway. "We put her in binders earlier, didn't we?"
The child stopped at that, and dodging a swipe from Spark, she reached swiftly into her white coat and pulled out a pair of activated binders. "You mean these silly things?" She asked the room, maybe not seeing the smallish hologram on the dashboard.
It was absolutely unbelievable, Palpatine thought to himself. Her basic was clipped and stilted, and her accent was thick and rather guttural. It was almost like she had taught herself the language rather than picking it up naturally.
But it was there, and it was even understandable.
A child from a planet so deep in the Unknown Regions that no one had even known there was a system there to have a planet knew Basic…
And like that, his headache just kept getting worse.
"Excuse me little one." Kenobi cut them all off swiftly, before anyone else could interject, throwing a sharp look at the holographic troopers who were poised to re-restrain her. "If I may ask, and I believe it is in the direct interests of everyone here…" This time the stern look was directed at everyone around him in the conference room. "To ask how exactly you learned the language you're currently using?"
The little blonde stopped short as Spark stopped chasing her around the cockpit, evidently not having seen the holo before that moment. Her eyes widened and a brilliant look bloomed on her face. "Oh, wow! I've never seen one of those working before!"
"Working…" That term raised a number of questions that probably had no end of disturbing implications, but he filed that little bit of information away for later debate, and opted to let Kenobi continue his little questionnaire.
Besides, seeing the self-righteous Jedi so off kilter was always an enjoyable experience, and he needed that balm right now. There was simply too much at stake for any missteps on his part, and besides that the sight of the normally calm and collected Jedi being shocked really was amusing.
"Um…" Obi-Wan trailed off intelligently as the child rushed to the front of the cockpit and began trying to pry the console off with a little metal rod.
"SITH!" One of the pilots swore in reaction, swiping the thin tool the girl had pulled from her coat. "Don't take stuff apart while it's running!"
"WAAG!" The girl whined, waving the arms of her oversized lab coat in a twirling motion and reaching up to grab at him. "It's mine, give it back!"
Kenobi, ever the diplomat, chose that moment to inhale deeply and cut back in. "About Basic Ms…"
The girl brightened instantly, her stolen tool seemingly forgotten. "I'm Lena Einstein, but everyone just calls me the Professor! And I know Basic because you guys are always so loud!"
"Loud?" Bail said questioningly from the corner of the room he had been sandwiched into.
Lena's eyes widened slightly as they darted back to the hologram, this time she seemed to actually see that it was an entire room of people she was talking to. "Yeah, whenever we pointed telescopes and receivers deeper into the Milky Way we couldn't get anything else but you guys jabbering on at all hours of the night!" She gave them an adorably disapproving look, her arms crossed and everything. "Don't you know there's a war on!"
Palpatine wasn't sure exactly how anyone was supposed to respond to that statement either, or if she was referring to some conflict on her planet or to the Clone Wars. So again he opted to stay quiet, simply letting them continue their little back and forth, and instead merely shot Kenobi an approving glance for getting the conversation this far.
"There's a war on?" The Jedi answered cautiously, looking like he was between curiosity and annoyance as Anakin stood up to interrupt for the third time in as many minutes.
"Yeah, for like the past thousand years…" Lena said distractedly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
So it was some sort of personal war that they had stumbled into, not a people wary of the devastation wrought by the Clone Wars.
Sidious figured internally that would go a long way to explaining the native's reactions to their arrival, but again the answer only created more questions. There were wars all across the galaxy, even before the outbreak of the Clone Wars itself. The Republic, hardly as stable as it usually appeared from the outside, had always been filled with conflicts of various sizes and scales.
But for a world to have been at war for a thousand years was simply unheard of. Most planets either resolved their conflicts or blasted themselves back to the Stone Age long before they reached that point.
That there was anyone left for his little backup plan to even find, none the less that they still had the capacity to shoot down cruisers, was nothing short of a miracle.
"Your planet has been at war for a thousand years?" This time it was Chuchi's holo who cried out, sounding absolutely appalled at the information.
"Yep!" There was no fear or horror in the child's voice, none of the weariness that someone rescued from a war-zone usually exhibited. In fact she looked proud, like Chuchi was her mother and she had just told her about how she had gotten a top grade on some school test. "It's the best!"
No one really seemed to have anything to say to that… not that he could blame them. After all, what exactly could you say to a statement like that?
But now that he looked at the girl again, the oversized lab coat she was wearing had a distinctly military look to it. It was sharply creased, with jagged S-shaped crests on the lapels, highlighted with a sprinkling of gold trim.
"Ok…" Kenobi trailed off, trying to bring the conversation back into proper focus. "So, would you be willing to tell us how to get our friends back?" He asked, reaching past his own confusion and exhaustion to try and bring a fatherly smile to his bearded face.
"Friends?" Lena asked back, looking confused. Suddenly her eyebrow raised and she turned back around, looking down towards the rear of the ship. "Munich sees us Ordo."
"Who is Munic-" Was as far as the ARC trooper got before the ships warning systems started screaming at them.
"We've detected several objects accelerating towards us from the city, sir!" One of the piloting soldiers shouted and the troopers lurched as the pilot punched the accelerator.
It would have been funny, really. The whole thing should have been wonderfully hilarious really, if only the situation hadn't been so important, Palpatine thought to himself with a frown as several aides brought everyone in the conference room more drinks. The looks on the trooper's faces were a comical mixture of confusion and shock. "Why isn't the ship cloaked!" Ordo shouted.
"We are still cloaked!" The trooper replied, sounding a good bit less calm than he had only moments ago.
"Then how in the Hells are they tracking us!" Ordo growled, visibly composing himself. He turned, looking down at Lena with a sternly raised eyebrow. "You know, don't you?"
Their blonde captive nodded happily. She waltzed up to the screaming sensor panel and stared at, seemingly deep in thought. "Not big enough to be anything from the late Aggregat family. Judging from the speed and size, I would say that they're either Rheinbotes or Wasserfalls…"
"Ok…" Ordo gritted out, clearly having no idea what in the Force the child had just said. "How are they tracking us?"
"Your ship has a... you called it a cloak?" She gave them all an amused and rather doubtful look. "And it is this cloak that makes this ship invisible to eyesight. This statement is correct, is it not?"
"Yes!" Ordo almost shouted, waiving his hands at the sensor screen. "So how are they tracking us?"
"By not using sight, obviously." The child answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The ship is still a physical object moving in the atmosphere, so it makes sense that they can track the disruption it makes even if they can't see what's causing it right?"
It was a cold bit of logic, something that no one in the room had thought of if the gobsmacked faces around him were any indication. Palpatine held his breath and downed a hot cup of tea to calm his brewing headache and help him resist his urge to throw something at someone. Watching as the troopers scrambled and the control panel cried out faster, the missiles closing in rapidly.
And as the beeping turned into an almost constant tone, the child struck.
Lena shrugged at him though the hologram, seemingly amused by his growing frustration. "Either of those would be guided by operators on the ground and I don't have time to teach you how to attempt a spoof on a radar station so…" She waved her hand behind her lazily, and there was the sound of a massive explosion and the holo fizzed angrily. The two men who weren't piloting were thrown from their feet due to lack of crash-webbing.
Lena though, seemingly completely unperturbed by the massive explosion and just turned back to the holo, seemingly undisturbed as the ship shook hard enough that Ordo was actually thrown into the air, an unnerving smile on her lips. "Now where were we? I believe you had a question Sir?" She asked, turning to look at Kenobi expectantly.
The Jedi's eyes were wide with horror, and Sidious for once could not blame him. "Several more now than I had before to be completely honest." He whispered in shock, the entire room was dead quiet. "But for now, let's get back to the question at hand?" Kenobi choked out with a resigned swipe at his beard, pointedly ignoring the questions that were on the very forefront everyone's mind.
Lena nodded as the ship she was on seemed to stabilize, Ordo pulling himself up by the pilots chair beside her. "By friends, I assume you mean the ones that call themselves the Cadets?" She stated in a tone that made it obvious that it wasn't a question she was asking.
"You've seen them!" Ion shouted at her answer, standing up swiftly and making is way to the increasingly crowded front of the room. "Where are they? Are they safe?" He asked, his face a mask of worry and fear.
"I have seen them; I can't tell you where they are exactly right now." The cherubic blonde replied curtly, "I can say that about half could be considered safe…"Lena trailed off, suddenly looking quite put out.
"And the other half?" Kenobi said quietly. His echo in the force making it quite clear what he expected the answer to be.
She crossed her arms at them and huffed. "You know if they had just surrendered in the first place we wouldn't have had to kill so many of them securing the ship." She pouted at them.
That change among the senators was a thing of beauty to a Sith. Sidious watched as so many of them shattered, as they threw their heads into their hands or merely started staring off into the distance. Their minds simply not capable of registering the words the girl had spoken.
The other people in the room were more apt to handle the news. The Jedi for instance, were simply giving the grieving people pitying looks, or turning a harder look to their captive guide. "So they are dead then?" Mace asked, looking like he was resisting rubbing the frustration from his bald head.
Lena shrugged. "Little less than half, the rest are mostly fine though…" She trailed off with an annoyed wave, seemingly not terribly interested. "We wouldn't want them hurt anyways, that would've defeated the purpose of capturing them in the first place."
That was what Sidious had been waiting for. "So…" He cut in quietly, all eyes sliding back to his presence, where they belonged. "What purpose did you have for attacking our ships? For capturing the cadets?" He asked, making a physical effort to look as forgiving and grandfatherly as possible.
Lena turned lazily to look at him. Their eyes locked and she gave Palpatine a knowing grin. "Krieg." She slipped out breathlessly.
Ion growled. "Look you bra-" The young man made an effort to compose himself. "Look, just tell us what you want for them! Pantora is a rich sector, we could get anything you little dirtba-" He wound himself back again. "Just name what you want already!" He finally growled out in frustration.
The blonde girl gave him an look, eyebrow raised. "I already told you how to get them back…" She smiled at Ion. "We want krieg! And that means no negotiations, no compromises, no retreat, nothing but endless war!" She smiled at them, wiggling her finger at each point, like she was asking for a pet or begging for a sweet at a market.
"Then kerig is what you will have. "Growled Ion's father. Chairman Papanoida rose heavily from where he sat in the briefing room's corner. His face twisted in a mask of stern anger.
Notluwiski's stern gaze swept at her little hologram, his face pale and sickly but full of determination. "If your world is so in love with this conflict then we shall give you what you desire." He rumbled. Kenobi and several others opened their mouths to object but he continued before they could speak. "War… yes we will give you your war until you're sick of it." He jabbed a hand at the child's hologram, a determined light brightening in his eyes.
Lena's reaction was surprising, though Sidious internally figured that at this point it probably shouldn't have been.
She laughed at them.
The girl laughed high and loud, her face a mask of genuine amusement. "That's a might big promise Mr.…" She said as she trailed off into giggles. "I wonder if you'll be able to fulfill it, hmm?"
"Cocky little shit aren't you?" Kal grumbled, the Madalorian fixing her with a curious glance.
"If you know yourself and you know your enemy, not in a thousand battles shall defeat ever find you." She fixed her luminous gaze on Skirata, suddenly serious. "We know ourselves and our capabilities, our strengths and weaknesses perfectly. For we have spent a thousand years tempering our nations in the hell-fires of war." She smirked at him, that knowing grin that she had given Palpatine earlier. "and we know you... certainly better than you know yourselves. For we are watchful, and out eye never closes."
The child, the girl that had just blown up several missiles with a wave of her hand gazed back across the room. "But you know nothing at all of us, and our long vigil had taught us that you know precious little about yourselves... And our experience has taught us that the general that knows not himself nor his enemy will never be free from defeat."
"So let me give you a piece of advice my father once gave me." Her eyes fell across everyone in the room again in turn before finally returning to Skirata's face. "What you don't know… it can hurt you, there are more things between Heaven and Hell than you might have dream't of in your philosophies, and the secrets you deem unworthy of your attention can still deem you worthy of theirs…" The girl trailed off ominously.
"For instance good man, how many soldiers were you planning to send to… make us sick of it, as I believe you said." She fixed her flippant grin back on the chairman. "Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? How many?"
"What kind of question is that?" Ion shouted as he stood up again, looking angry at the conversations sudden turn to battle philosophy.
"Sir' we're breaking orbit now." One of the pilots cut everyone off nervously. "If I could interject and ask for further orders?"
Thorn turned back to him at that. "And I need my orders as well Chancellor."
"I would suggest surrender." Lena told the holographic trooper in a half-bored tone. "You're far too close to the major cities to have any chance of surviving until reinforcements arrive." She nodded to herself, seemingly approving of the course of action. "Just keep your hands empty and up and surrender to the soldiers that aren't dressed in black."
Palpatine rose as the feeling in the room changed swiftly. "Ordo, I think it would be best for everyone if you came back with our new guests… Chuchi if your task-force could take them back to Coruscant?" He asked, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible.
The look on Ozzel's face was worth the slight snub. His eyebrows nearly reached his hairline and he opened his mouth to contest, but Chuchi answered faster. "Of course, Chancellor." The blue woman nodded at him diplomatically.
Her eyes flickered to Lena and he could see a sense of unease pass across her face before fleeing into a friendly smile. "I'm sure we'll get along just fine." She asked more than stated, a hint of nervousness edging back.
"Meanwhile, we're going to have to figure out how to get this mess resolved." Kenobi finally broke down, half addressing Anakin's frantic energy.
Lena chucked. "Await my arrival General…" Her eyes glinted merrily as she peered into the space beyond the cockpit and continued. "You will need my advice if you are to have any hope of succeeding."
The pilot sighed at that cryptic comment. "We've grouped up Senator, and await your command."
"So…" Thorn trailed off. "What exactly do you want me to do Sir's?" The trooper asked.
Kenobi ran a hand through his hair, looking exhausted. "I suppose your men must surrender." He said helplessly, unfazed by the inhalations and wide-eyed looks from half the people around him. "Any help we could send at this point will take days to arrive at the least, and from the sounds of it you're completely surrounded and outgunned."
The odd little girl nodded her approval to him, turning to Thorn. "The men under your command will not need to die needlessly. As I said before, just keep your hands up and avoid troops in black."
Ryio sighed as Thorn silently saluted sharply and cut his connection. "Then, let's not waste time." Chuchi turned back and bowed. "I am afraid we will have to continue this conversation at a later date." She said apologetically and a moment later the ships leaped into hyperspace and the hologram vanished.
There was a kind of collective sigh as the chaos of hyperspace travel cut the transmission. With the exception of a few individuals in the room who were raring to go, or trying not to sob, everyone seemed to be weighed down by the oppressive knowledge of the scale and scope of the task that had been presented.
This peace was broken when Commander Fox slammed his fist into the wall near the door, hard enough to leave a dent in the durasteel, and stormed out.
Even the Jedi looked shocked. The other commanders in the room seemed to share a look between them and then with Kal and his entourage. "We'll go calm him down Sir." Rex answered curtly, his helmet dipping in respect, as Bly and Cody rushed out to find the other man.
Palpatine sighed explosively at that, allowing some of the exhaustion and frustration that he had been feeling to show. "Well… I suppose we should get started cleaning this mess up." He started with a wave of his hand.
III
Location: Outskirts of Berlin
Thorn stood in the ruins of what might have been a pretty pavilion at one point. Beautiful marble columns stretched to the sky's, carved with reliefs that might have been about victories or battles, their pale surfaces streaked with soot and dust.
He didn't have time to appreciate their artistry though. He was following his orders… to the letter and not the spirit maybe, but his troops still marched towards where he presumed the city that had blasted them from the sky was.
He had radioed the bridges of the remaining cruisers with their orders to surrender, but he had also added that they should rig the reactors of their cruisers to blow as soon as their troops cleared the blast radius.
He saw no reason to just hand over the technology to these barbarous primitives.
Though their exact level of primitiveness was being rapidly brought into question in his mind by recent events, and he had ordered his forces to keep their weapons slung and their guard up.
"Kacker, do you see anything?" He asked the nearby major, who was standing atop of a half-collapsed garden shed that had presumably been ruined by their landing, the other man had his bino's to his helmet, peering into the dust and darkness.
The major swung his gaze across the horizon again and slid down the shattered little outbuilding. "Ground troops and vehicles, thousands of them and they're all coming our way."
Several troopers around him stopped and reached for slung weapons, looking like they were contemplating trying to fight their way out of this anyway, despite their orders. He shut that down with a single look. The idea that they were simply going to surrender was not sitting well with anyone, but they were loyal soldiers and they still followed his command.
Thorn certainly included himself in that "anyone" but he was going to keep to his orders too, chiefly because they allowed him to protect the men under his command, but that was besides the point in his mind.
He would try to surrender, but if they were going to die, they would die fighting. But if they were allowed to, then there was simply no point in fighting. They were beyond help, he knew it, and all his men knew it.
And he would be a fool if he didn't think that the troops massing on the horizon didn't know it.
And so Thorn grin his teeth, ignored the clenching in his gut, and kept walking into the unknown.
So, that was chapter seven.
Nothing too exciting in this one but rest assured, we will be getting back into the meat of the story soon.
Next Time on Hearts of Iron: Erwin and Miho get yelled at, Lena and Maho both do a bunch of yelling, and the cadets conspire to escape!