The Situation worsens...
Marai
The idea of a checkpoint is simple. You place it, and everyone coming through it was searched. But to have one to get on a tram that starts at one place, and require someone to pass through another is not only the high point of redundancy, but absurd. A person complained, and the brusque guard merely pointed to a man to the side. "Take it up with Captain Gelesi. Me, I just follow orders."
"But why must I go through this again?" A citizen wailed. "I was just here an hour ago! I went to see my sister off planet!"
The Captain walked over. "Calm down citizen. There are intelligence reports that Republic agents have been slipping weapons in to dissidents, and we have had to tighten security. But it is for your benefit." He smiled, nodded politely, and went back to his post.
"That poor man." A woman ahead of us said.
"Whatever do you mean?" I asked with a wide-eyed expression.
"Do you know how hard it is to follow unpopular orders?"
"I think so." That innocent doe eyed expression had been a good friend back when I was the apprentice of a Consular, then as a security officer. No one thinks you have a brain in your head when they see it.
"Military police captured a Rodian with equipment to falsify Star port visas, so they stopped issuing them except to travelers coming in as you are. If it is stolen or lost, you cannot leave the city center. Then there was that unprovoked attack on our fleet earlier in the week. Intelligence reported that armed dissidents were preparing to strike at the palace and murder the queen."
"That's horrible!"
"Yes it is. General Vaklu has vowed to keep us safe, so this is just another problem that will go away when the Republic decides to leave us alone."
"But why did you feel pity for the Captain?"
"He is loyal to the royal house, and to the Queen. There are rumors that men within our very army are part of the dissidents!" She looked horrified the way someone is by an animal in a cage that can rend them alive if freed. "Would you want to be on a lonely checkpoint when one of your own men might slit your throat in the name of Republic solidarity?"
"But the Republic doesn't do such things." I had noticed Gelesi coming back, and I pitched my voice so he would hear me.
"There are times when I think General Vaklu is right." He said. "You are?"
"Marai." I giggled. Manda'lor looked at me askance, the Handmaiden
merely rolled her eyes. "But why do you say that?"
"Because being part of the Republic means we end up fighting in their wars. They brought war to the system when they took Dxun from the Mandalorians, and the Jedi were there to interfere with our society even before that. Then the Jedi were the enemy in the last war, and a lot of our men died fighting them. Even with the Mandalorians on Dxun it was simpler and far safer.
"The General keeps pressure on the Queen to resign, or at least secede from the Republic. It has caused a breech in the army itself, because there are those that feel he is not only right, but that she should resign and let Vaklu lead." He sighed. "But her father signed that treaty, and she feels we will get more than bloodshed from the Republic if we only give it time."
He looked at the men who were busily processing the travelers. "I trust every man here, and none of them would help an off world concern if it hurt our people. But having them split between our own queen and the commanding general of our army, that is a nightmare. If I gave an order and it was the queen's will and not the general's what would happen?" He mused.
He turned back to me. "Well since I am standing here talking, let me do some of the actual work." He took a scanner, ran it over the bands on our wrists, and read it. "All right, three legitimate transponders." He waved. You can go, welcome to Iziz."
We stepped through. There was a small clothing store near the entrance, more of a costume shop and I motioned Manda'lor to stay outside. Something had caught my eye, and I was happy to find it.
A moment later, I stepped back. "What do you think?"
"I think it smacks of subterfuge." The Handmaiden replied from behind me.
I sighed. "What do you know of the Zeison Sha of Yanibar?"
"They are a splinter sect of the Original Jedi Order that teaches that anyone can find the Force within them if only they look. Separated from the Jedi 20,000 years ago because they also preach that those who use the Force should not meddle in any way in the affairs of others. They advocate nonviolence and giving aid to the needy if at all possible. Yet they are trained in a variation of the Echani martial arts because while they are nonviolent, they are not stupid." She repeated.
"That last sounds exactly like Atris." I said.
"It is."
"The cut isn't exact for either sect. Neither is the cloth. But they are close enough that we can give a false impression." I motioned to the racks. "It is either that or a Jal Shay."
"Those pacifists? If we struck anyone they would know immediately that we were in disguise."
"The captain told us that General Vaklu has already linked Jedi to the Republic as part of the evils of it. While we bear lightsabers, we must avoid using them if at all possible. But if we defeat an enemy using our own skills with our hands, no one would be a bit surprised dressed this way."
She looked at the mirror again. We were in Zeison Sha dress. The top of it was a formfitting body suit in purple and silver, with armor plating attached across the chest. After all, as Atris had said, they were not stupid. However They did believe in giving an opponent a chance to hurt them. From just below her breasts a sharp triangle uncovered her abdomen to the waist, with a corresponding one on the back. There were unarmored, and covered with a black mesh that concealed, but would not stop anyone from hitting or shooting her. Below our legs were slid into skintight hose that also would not stop any attack. A half skirt covered us attached at the points where the triangles met. I was dressed as an Initiate, her as an Acolyte, the only difference being a sash I wore about my waist.
Our lightsabers hung from our belts, but the Zeison Sha used an extending battle staff like the one she had trained with when they had to fight, and our sabers would be considered as such until we touched the activation studs.
"If you say so." She sighed.
"What's the problem? You look scrumptious!" The triangles were skin tight, and by mentally painting it flesh colored, you could see our lower backs and stomachs.
She looked at me askance. "You are not helping."
We stepped out, and Manda'lor looked at us with a grin. " Manda'lor fifth rule, always allow an enemy to make the wrong assumption."
"That is in the book of Echana, The words on battle, book seventeen, verse 11."
"Great minds think alike. But what is the rest of the book about?"
"How to live without violence, but dealing it to all that bother you." She replied.
"Boring."
We walked on. A man had been crowded into an alcove by half a dozen soldiers with the Iron Brigade's symbol. "You can't do this!"
"Silence, scum." The subaltern smiled. "You can come quietly or we can beat you to a pulp right here, and no one will say a word."
"I am not a spy! I am a journalist for Iziz Comm!"
"You are a spy for the Republic and your propaganda will be silenced! You will walk back to the barracks with us, or you will be dragged. Take your choice."
"Propaganda! I have proof that General Vaklu ordered his men to attack a ship that didn't even fire back!"
The subaltern swung, his fist hitting the man in the stomach. He fell gasping.
"When you are in the barracks you can speak to your heart's content. Until then I suggest you be quiet." He looked up, and saw me looking at him. "What do you think you are looking at?" He snarled.
I put my hands together, pointed forward and down palm to palm. "It is good to see the military helping the police in their investigations. But part of my soul has to ask...Do you have a warrant for this man's arrest?"
He looked at me as if I had grown another head. "A warrant? I am under orders to carry out edict 17 of the Emergency Council. The military has been given broad authority to detain any citizen thought to be guilty of treasonous activities."
"Ah." I put a lot of meaning into that sound. "Thought to be... So you have proof of this claim?"
"That is classified military information."
"But does not your own law say that no man shall be taken into custody without such proof? Not just supposition, but proof worthy of the light of day? And when questioned by any who see your acts, does not the law also say that such proof must be provided? Not passed aside as a secret, for secrets cannot stand the light of day?"
The men with him were grumbling. I wasn't speaking my own mind. As if it were open in front of me, I was quoting the basic tenets of their trial law. One thing every Jedi had or learned was to have a prodigious memory, and I had spent half of my time as a Padawan assisting a Consular, who had to have the local laws and customs in that memory. Under their law, a man may be asked to come, but unless he is considered already guilty, he is allowed to refuse, though an attempt to flee was considered proof of his guilt. If he is thought guilty, the same rule applied, but they could take him by force if necessary. But if questioned by bystander, they had to give evidence that would stand up in court. I blessed my late master for his exhaustive reiterations of everything while we traveled.
I looked at his face, and suddenly I understood. "And how many other 'journalists' are even now languishing in detention, or being interrogated as we speak?" He would have lost at Pazaak with that face.
"I do not have to put up with these innuendos from you, uitlander!"
"Ah." Again a lot said. "Yet even I who know little of the trade know that only a foolish spy would cloak himself as a journalist. If people know you are seeking answers, they will try to conceal them, will they not? But now it seems that those who speak with a voice your General does not approve has become enemy. The Galaxy would know this, I think."
He had tried to call, but I had just gone all in. Unless he wanted to try to arrest us, he would have to fold. I may hate Pazaak or any form of gambling, but the metaphors are so excellent.
He knew he had lost, but he still had to bluster. "Let him go, men. You. Citizen, will go home. I shall be back to bring you in. With a Warrant." He stepped closer to me, trying to impress me with his height. But most men were taller than me, and that did no good. "And as for you, a word to the wise. If things change, as I believe they will, the animosity of the Military is not what any visitor to our soil would desire. If you are known to harbor our enemies in thought word or deed, there will come a time of reckoning. Count on it."
I watched him go. The Journalist flashed his star port visa, winked, and was gone.
The further we walked in the market, the worse it got. The people were as divided as their leaders, and even those of us that did not call the planet home were being caught up in it.
"Do not use Dxun as an excuse, my friend." A Twi-lek was saying to a Devaronian as they walked ahead of us. "The Jedi have always been the seed of this problem. If it were not for Exar Kun, a fallen Jedi himself, Dxun would never have been ceded to the Mandalorians."
"But there are good and evil in all groups." A surprisingly calm answer for the Devaronian race. "It is just that an Evil Jedi spreads a larger shadow than a merely evil man without his gifts. It is the principles of this that are at question here. The Queen and her General. Talia works within the Republic framework very well. She rules with a light hand, and her people love her."
"True. I will concede that her intentions are good. But those closer to the throne would see mistakes the common people do not. That is why so many of her cabinet support Vaklu. She is too young to have the experience needed to bring her world from these troubled times."
"But she is honest! Vaklu tries with his words to twist her people from her people. He is Schutta."
"Schutta?" The handmaiden whispered.
"A Twi-lek swear word. It means someone that plays with their own Lekku and will not let others touch them." She looked confused then I made a motion as if brushing my hair then nodded toward the Twi-lek before us. She considered, then her eyes widened as she blushed.
"What ever else you might say, General Vaklu is a hero of the Mandalorian wars. A man with vision and experience in trying times." The Twi-lek went on. "He may... use words to conceal what he believes, but he has the best interest of his people at heart."
"So to help his people he murders his own kin? It is strange that the day the Queen's father died Vaklu was in charge of his security detachment personally. When the assassin killed him there was only their word as to what occurred. The assassin was dead, and nothing linked him to any organization that had spoken out during the treaty process. There are those that remember that he is the heir if Talia dies without issue. Will he be willing to kill again, or go to war to take that crown?"
"Yet she weakens her own position with her support of the Republic." The Twi-lek pressed. "The Republic was sick after the war of Exar Kun, it was wounded by the Mandalorian wars, and the Jedi Civil War has weakened it even further. Most of the planets of the Rim are still healthy, yet they are tied like children to a dying mother's womb. Any good doctor would separate them so they might live when the mother dies."
"But the strength of the Republic is such that this will pass given time." The Devaronian replied placidly. "If those with extra would only help those like Telos where it is needed, we all grow strong again. The Republic bore the greatest share of the cost during the war, and they will again time without number if we merely support each other. Besides." He looked at his companion with a speculative air. "If it were your leaders we discuss, whom would you trust more in this situation?"
"The question is not fair. Leaders always see the entire tapestry, not the little parts the common man works upon. We must trust them to decide what is best for us."
"Yet you support by your words someone that would usurp the throne to control it. How is that in the public good?"
"I may not trust every word he speaks, or that his advisers speak for that matter." The Twi-lek admitted. "Yet he is a man of bravery and honor and never has he broken a promise."
"But has he even made a promise in this? How can you trust anyone that spends so much time avoiding giving his word when his own people ask it of him? I have heard him speak of the forgotten glory of his people, and the purity of his race that he seems to think so important. Yet not once has he said 'I will fix this, I swear'. Instead he says, 'If only I were in charge, this could be done'." He turned and gave me that fanged grin of his people.
"Weighty things we speak of, human sentient. Upon what side do you come down upon?"
"I must confess that anyone who can politely explain what Schutta means would have a brain in her head. Tell us." The Twi-lek agreed.
I stopped. "A good leader can be many things, but unwilling to face the issue is not one of them. If his own people have asked for his word and the General refuses to give it, what manner of leader will he be? I have heard too many promises from politicians, which they later fail to achieve through inaction, but I have never heard of an Onderoni that went back upon their spoken word. To stand silent begs the question. Is it that he will not give his word, or cannot? To say he will not implies he does not wish to be bound by his oath of honor, so what he does is a lie. To say he cannot implies that he knows that he would be forsworn, and none can hold him to a word he has not given.
"Yet every word I have heard of the Queen says that she will not give her word unless she can encompass it or try to succeed, and she has said many times that upon her word of honor Onderon will leave the Republic over her dead body, whether she is queen or not. So that leaves Vaklu only one way to win, and that is if she dies."
"There is that. She would die rather than let her people be dragged into something that she feels may be of a danger to them." The Twi-lek admitted. He looked at the people around us.
"Now if only her people would realize it."
We were deep in the foreign quarter when a Rodian stepped out in front of us. I could see movement; maybe eight or ten others. They were placed to surround and contain us.
"You really should think to get some false ID." The Rodian said. "A friend at the Star Port noticed a shuttle. Very strange a shuttle from Dxun, where your ship crashed, with a woman I have sought for so long."
"Do I know you kind sir?"
He chuckled. "Marai Devos, the surviving rider of someone else's doom. You have led every bounty hunter in every system on a wild fowl chase until now."
"Sir, you mistake me for someone else."
"No mistake, General." He hissed. "I was in the fleet before Malachor. The fleet that was dead in an instant thanks to you!" He motioned. "As you can see, I am not."
"The path of peace has many that will ensnare you." They were too well hidden for me to see them all. Perhaps Manda'lor had a better view. I knelt, hands before me in prayer. After a moment, The Handmaiden joined me.
"What are you doing?" She hissed.
"We are unarmed."
"No we're-" She suddenly smiled. "Always allow an enemy to make the wrong assumption."
The tableau was frozen. We had protested mildly, what you would expect from Zeison Sha. Now we were obviously trying to prove our non-belligerence. The men in hiding began to come out. There were nine of them with the Rodian. Most armed with stunners. Manda'lor looked around. "Unless they have a sniper that can shoot through walls, that is all of them." He said. "Got a plan?"
"Me on one side, her on the other, and you cleaning up the stragglers"
He smiled. "I like your style. Give the word."
I stood again, and the Handmaiden and I faced the ones around us. The only one that didn't have a stunner was the Rodian.
Then we moved. I felt but did not see the Handmaiden leap, crossing the five meters between her and the man on the far right of the line on her side. I had done the same but was on the far left. Four men on my side, five on hers.
I caught the man's wrist, using a nerve hold that brought a scream to his lips as I spun him between his fellows and me. I picked him up using the Force, and threw him in a flat arch toward the others as I dropped to one knee, other leg extended to the side. Manda'lor's weapon roared.
My missile hit the first, and had bowled into the third as I leaped again past the tangle of bodies. I snatched the stunner from the last man's hands, slapped him into a wall, and turned it on the pile, then him.
I spun, but it was already over. The Rodian had been blown back and into a wall, feet hanging 30 centimeters from the ground. I walked over to the other side, looking.
"You killed one." I told her.
"He hurried me." She replied. I knelt, going through the man's pockets. "What are you doing?"
I held up his Star Port visa and his wallet. "When they wake up, I think they need to reconsider what they do for a living. Having to beg or buy another visa will ram the lesson home added to the pain."
"Why won't they just steal-" Her eyes widened. I was stripping the man very efficiently. "What-"
"A man does not come across as very big or bad when he has to cover his genitals."
She chuckled, and helped me. We had them laid out neatly in their separate lines as if they were the dead from a battle before we were done. Manda'lor piled all of the clothing in a lump, and fired it with an igniter charge usually used for starting a campfire. We put the visas and any spare cash the bounty hunters had graced us with in our pouches.
"Are you through having fun?" Manda'lor asked grinning.
"I don't know." I looked at him speculatively. "Wouldn't it look more even with ten instead of nine?"
"You wouldn't."
I plucked at his sleeve and he backed off. "Now wait-" The Handmaiden snatched at the other.
Suddenly he realized that we were joking, and exactly how ridiculous he looked. We laughed together. It was comradeship, knowing that we would depend on each other in battle.
There was a thump of boots, and a small group of policemen came around the corner. In the lead was a small man with a commanding presence. He took in the scene sauntering over. "My oh my, what do I have here?" He asked.
"A slight... disagreement with some ruffians, sir." I replied.
He looked at the nude bodies, then at the Rodian imbedded in the wall. "I can see that much. Why are they... undressed?" He had a face worthy of Pazaak.
"I felt it would be a salutary lesson in the evils of preying upon the weak."
"Or the strong when they are in a puckish mood." He agreed. "Did you know there were laws against public nudity outside of the home or cantina?"
"There are?" I gave him that blank brainless stare.
"Did you bother to remove their identification and visas from the clothes before the bonfire?"
I stood silent. He sighed. "Men, arrest the men for assault and public nudity. Maybe a couple of days in the cells will teach them better manners." He looked at me, then his eye dropped in a slow wink. "Stay out of trouble. If I hear of any other nude parties, I will know who to find." He nodded and continued on.
Of Bonding
Handmaiden
I suddenly realized that it was about Marai that had called to me. I was one of six sisters, but I had never been fully sister to them. Sister of flesh they always called me, yet to the Echani, a true sister is sister of flesh and blood. They had never been mean to me, or at least not since we had grown to womanhood. When they had played, they always chose games that needed pairs, so they could readily deny me if I wished to join it; the other would naturally have to be referee.
At the Telos Academy, they had trained with me, because it would have been their shame if I fell in battle because of their refusal. But still we were not true sisters.
Sister of flesh, but not of blood. It has a meaning among our people that is dark and denies you company.
Yet Marai had accepted me from the start. She spoke to me with a kindness none had shown to me since my father had died. Her impulse to strip the men had spoke of something else. The willingness to have fun with another. She had reached back through time, found that sad little girl I had been, and asked me to play. Joking with Manda'lor had been even more fun. The Mandalorians have no body modesty taboos beyond social ones. It is impolite to expose yourself unless the other person would appreciate it, (Knowing they would, not a mere assumption) or in a setting where it might make others uncomfortable, such as at a dinner, or visiting.
To the Echani, to disrobe is to speak with your entire voice. The difference between a whisper and a shout. To us you can tell more about what a person believes or thinks by watching them move stand and fight than you ever can from mere words. You get the inner person little revealed by most people after reaching adulthood.
The Heart of battle we call it, where a person is stripped of all their lies, and revealed.
"A centi-cred for your thoughts." Marai asked softly.
"I was thinking that with five sisters, I have never felt so accepted as I do with you."
"I grow on you. Sort of like a fungus." She said blandly. I chuckled.
"Do you know that I have never had my sisters joke with me since we were children?"
"That is sad."
"I had hoped that showing my heart in battle when we grew older, but they did not want to believe my open heart."
"There are other ways to communicate. Talking for instance."
"But the heart speaks loudest when you fight. Take the traitor Malak."
"Why him?"
"His attacks on Telos and Taris spoke of his heart more loudly than his words would. His destruction of those worlds was brutal, callous and had no finesse. Where Revan had been kinder, he would have been the worst ruler the Galaxy had ever seen.
"Revan spoke with the language of tactics and strategy. It is the difference between taking the threads and weaving the pattern as she did compared to merely throwing paint on the canvas as Malak would. She showed her heart to the Galaxy when she went into Malachor V. It was a cold heart, but there was pity.
"Then she returned reborn, living the life of her savior. That life moved her feet in a gentler, but no less adamant path."
"Reborn?"
I told her of Revan's redemption. "I wish someone had recorded the final battle between her and Malak."
She pondered what I had told her. "And what do you think she was saying?" She asked in a soft voice.
"That Malak had betrayed her merely for the lust of power. Unlike you or my father, he left himself no place to stand in redemption. That she understood him, accepted him, but could not bear to have him live a moment longer."
She was pensive. "What is the problem?"
"Malachor V. It wasn't all Revan's fault that it happened. Don't paint me as a shining saint. I was not aware when it happened; I did not see it, only the aftermath. But I was the author of that massacre more surely than Revan or the Mandalorians."
"You speak the truth, but I do not understand. It hearkens back to Atris and her unreasoning hatred when she spoke aloud. But beneath it..."
"Beneath what?"
"Both of you share one thing. A sense of profound loss. Yours comes from Malachor, hers from when you were banished. When she spoke with words, it was always harsh, unrelenting. But by watching her hands, her face, the movements of her body, I felt only her own pain and loss. She has felt that searing agony since you were sent away."
"She made her feelings more than clear at my trial."
"She did then what she felt had to be done, but it is as if she had to amputate her own hand to stand there and speak against you. It was so difficult for her to speak of, or admit, that she has spent the last decade denying it even to herself." I watched her face. "Is it that you did not care for her as she did for you?" I asked hesitantly. "Atris is beautiful and wise."
"When I faced you in Kashin-Dra, I defeated you by being a bit better." She said softly. "I was struck by the same when I was but a girl. Atris brought me from it as if I were the horrible monster of legend."
I remembered the stories. But they taught of the love the person had that brought their lover back from madness.
"There had been Jedi that have fallen from the order in times past because of their love for a person. Atris said there were others that had even done so and kept their unions secret to remain."
"Yes. It happens."
"I did not know if you knew it from knowledge or from experience."
"I think every Jedi feels it with others at times. " She was solemn. "But love of any form is not for us. Besides, Atris and I were friends, nothing more."
"But you never expressed it to her." I considered. "It is said that Revan who is of my race bonded to the woman Bastila as we would."
"I could not follow that path." She said harshly.
"But-"
"No." Her voice was harsh with pain. "She spoke to me of bonding, but I refused her. To bond because you care so deeply I can understand. But I am not Echani. I would have to deny it if I were to remain Jedi."
"I do not-"
"When there were rumors we might be lovers in the Academy, I stayed as far from her as I could. I knew the stories, I had heard of them. To touch the mind of a man driven to the beast is the greatest expression of love in your world. Only a maiden pure with love in her heart can succeed, and they are bonded for all eternity by that love." She stopped, looking at me sadly. "But I was afraid of what a bond would bring."
"But-"
"You don't understand!" She spun, facing me. Then she stalked toward me. I backed unthinking until I was against a wall, and she stopped, close enough that I could feel her breath on my face. "While I was afraid, part of me wanted that bond. To feel her skin beneath my hand," I felt her fingers run along my face. "To kiss her lips, to kiss all of her body, to be one with another person for just once in my life."
She leaned forward so close that I thought she would kiss me. I understood what she meant, because if she had kissed me, if she had done what she said, I would have done everything she asked with joy. Then she leaned away. "But a Jedi cannot give into such feelings. I could not give her what she so obviously wanted." She backed away.
Suddenly I understood her misconception. "And you were how old?"
"Sixteen."
"Did she not tell you?" I asked gently
"Tell me what?"
"Most do not even try to understand my people. They think we concentrate on nothing but sex, but it is love we cherish. Of lovers, true, but there is the bond of child to parent, of siblings to each other in protection, of teacher to student. Even to ideals, such as you would have sworn if you were Echani when you joined the Jedi.
"I think it is what brought my father to my conception. He did not marry for love, or for the bond, or even for children. He had already sworn his to the people of our home world as their warrior."
"Then-"
"You might have jumped to a conclusion then. She might not even have thought of you in that way."
"All these years..." She blushed. "I thought-" She shook her head. "No, I know Atris well enough to know that any bond less than full would have been less than what she wanted."
"I have asked that which I did not need to know. Forgive me." I asked softly.
She sighed. "You are my sister of battle. There will never be a question you cannot ask me."
Encirclement
It was not going well. General Vaklu looked at the reports on his desk, and almost flung them across the room. The anti Propaganda edict had worked better than he expected. All of those journalists who had proven exactly how close they cleaved to their ethical stand of disclosure when it was a choice of 'the people have a right to know' and being told they would suffer pain for telling them.
But one of the worst had not only slipped the net, but some foreign woman had helped him escape! His first broadcast from orbit from a departing ship began with 'This is the truth from exile' and had blasted those sensor records that had proven that his men, and not the Republic dogs had begun shooting.
Of course damage control had eased the problem. The blame had fallen on the squadron commander, luckily already dead in that battle. He had overstepped his authority in giving the order to fire. Fortunately those records had not leaked to the press.
Colonel Tobin came in almost running. He reminded the General of a lap dog, desperate for attention.
"The Jedi is alive and here in Iziz!" He said.
"Is this yet another preface to a glorious failure, Colonel?"
He even had that woebegone face of the lapdog. Honestly sometimes Vaklu wanted to kick him. "Consider the equation, Tobin. Staying on Dxun, she can meet quietly with any number of people. After all, we have yet to halt traffic to the moons. Coming here is bearding the lion in his den. Why would she be so foolish?"
"We were warned that the crew of the Ebon Hawk was resourceful General. I take full responsibility for what happened because I thought that no single merchant vessel could stand off two full squadrons."
"But it wasn't just one ship, was it?" Vaklu asked mildly. "Instead it was what, fifteen merchant ships that opened fire after Republic Corona was hit." He stared at the man. "If you had sent a corvette, the problem would have been cooling ash in orbit, and I would not have lost the best squad of trackers I had in my army."
"If I may." Tobin activated the holo-vid. Captain Gelesi was at the entry gate." A woman was there before him.
"You are?"
"Marai." The woman giggled.
Vaklu expanded the holo until they were life sized. He stood within the penumbra of Gelesi, looking into her eyes. No, there was little of the coquette there, unless she had been a street walker for a decade, or a policeman. It was a well done act that almost but didn't quite ring true.
"I am ordering the action platoon to prepare. They are in the Western foreign quarters. They will swoop down-"
"You are getting ahead of yourself, Colonel." Vaklu cut him off. "We know someone if the Palace is helping the Queen. He helped foil what is it, seven assassination attempts? That person is more important."
He looked the woman in the face. "She is obviously incredibly brave, or equally stupid. We will use her as a staked nerf to attract the Brantarii into the range of our guns. And when it is there, she and that creature will die. Have her watched. If she meets anyone that leaves the palace, only then will we spring the trap."
