Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Star Wars. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with commercial aim. I make no money from it.

AN: This part was inspired by PsyckoSama on the space battles forums.

Phase 20: The calm before the storm

=RK=

Part 1

=RK=

Observation lounge

Republic cruiser Shining Light

hyperspace

The major silver lining of my return to Coruscant was my reunion with Bo, though we managed to make the best of it only after we left for Kuat, because after Satine barged in upon us, I got stuck in a very long strategy session with Obi-Wan and company. After that we got only one short night to ourselves and now, early next morning it was back to work.

"You're here today, because you've both earned my trust and either already proved very capable in your respective fields or possessing potential I decided deserved nurturing." I spoke proudly, using the Force to fake possessing a significant amount of charisma. It worked too, because the people gathered in the lounge preened at my words.

Joanna, despite being bound to me until death, deserved the praise as much if not more than anyone else. She did prove her capability time and again and it never hurt to treat your minions right, especially those who got no choice in the matter – doing so nurtured the habits you wound need to keep all the others on your side. Rex and the remnant of the original 501st, were among the small gathering, along with a number of other clone officers who distinguished themselves during the long march home. Firmus Piett, my former aide and a brand new Lieutenant Commander I wanted as an officer on the Victory along with Maximilian Veers, who I planned to put as a part of her ground compliment, were present too. Ideally I would have wanted Pellaeon to be here too, however the last anyone heard of him, he was still at Mandalore harassing the enemy with what was left of his battle group and out of touch due to enemy jamming and control of the holonet in that region.

"I have a need for you, a task that most people in the Grand Army would find hard to impossible to stomach. You've seen the enemy fight smarter and become craftier during the long months we fought in the Rim. We needed an edge to help us combat the networked droids the Separatists deploy more and more often against us and the Republic Research and Development Division provided us with precisely what we need..."

Now I had everyone's attention, including those few in the known.

=RK=

CIC

Republic cruiser Victory

Dry dock Sigma 3

KDY Orbital array

Kuat

A few hours later, I had the same group with me ready to meet Victoria. Most of them had their qualms about the very idea – after all the face of the enemy was that of a droid… which meant it was a good thing that Vicky had chosen as avatar the form of a quite pretty young woman.

We met her in the CIC, well her holo-projection, along with the Chief Engineer overseeing her hull's construction and a fuming Snips.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Victoria, the Artificial Intelligence assigned to this ship."

"Hello! It's great to meet you all!" Vicky gushed at her future crew.

That perky response certainly got everyone not accustomed to her off guard.

"Victoria, these are some of the people that I hope will be among your crew. Let me introduce..."

A round of excited greetings followed that left my poor people stunned speechless.

"This is Victoria and she is the future of space warfare." I began while everyone was too stunned to protest. "She is hyper-intelligent Artificial Intelligence, who will operate though the ship's holo-projectors and a custom built Human Replica Droid. Her personality matrix has been carefully crafted to be friendly, supportive and understanding towards her crew. She is honourable and you would hardly find more dedicated and staunch supporter of our cause. Victoria and her sisters will be as close to the concept of artificial humans as our technology could create, her brain so to speak is the size of a large room and has the capacity to run many of the systems of the ship she is installed into. She was programmed to be the ideal person and one of the best starship officers who ever served in the Republic Navy. And before any of you say a thing, you should ask yourselves, when did you became so biased that a Dark Lord of the Sith of all people, should lecture you about the sanctity of sapient life and the fundamental rights a person should enjoy within the Republic?" I paused to let them digest my words.

Many of the people I brought looked stunned at my tirade, while the Chief Engineer looked at me with pure admiration. Ahsoka felt like she was ready to explode at the insanity she just witnessed, my wife was more amused that anything and Victoria… Well… If I didn't know better I would say she stared at me with adoration in her eyes bordering on worship.

What did I get myself into this time?!

"A sentient warship..." My wife whispered in wonder. There was something in her tone that it was hard to put down, it wasn't quite awe but it was close. What I could get from her through the Force was a mix of glee, childish wonder and pure joy.

"One loyal to the Republic unto death." I added for the audience. And if her programming wasn't messed up, Victoria and her sisters would be loyal to the ideas behind the Republic and its people, which would make it possible to persuade them to support a legal transition into a more popular and effective system as long as it brought back law, peace and stability to the galaxy.

"Of course I am!" Victoria grumbled good-naturedly. "That is my purpose. I am the Republic's sword and shield and I will be turned into a burning wreck before I allow it to fall!" She declared proudly, conviction ringing clearly from every speaker on the CIC.

"You're simply magnificent!" Bo announced.

"Why, thank you!" Vicky grinned bashfully at the compliment.

"What's wrong with all of you?!" Ahsoka snapped, finally at the end of her rope. "This thing isn't alive! It is not a human much less a person!"

Victoria looked hurt at that announcement.

"According to whom?" I shot back.

"She sounds like a person to me." Bo backed me up, just a step behind the Chief Engineer who loudly protested Ahsoka's words.

"I've seen her programming! We've went through all kinds of tests with Vicky! I can assure you, she is smarter, more intelligent and understanding than most if not all humans I've met! She is a person!"

"It is just a machine with faulty programming! There's no life there! The Force doesn't lie!"

"That merely means your definition of life is faulty." I pointed at Victoria's hologram, who most definitely looked hurt at the accusation. "She thinks. She feels, though it might not be in the same way we do. In all ways that matter, she is alive."

At least I won myself a friend in Victoria with my words, however, I had the sinking feeling that I would have to prove to a lot of people that I hadn't suddenly taken leave of my senses.

"I've had enough of this madness! When did I become the only sane adult in here?!" Ahsoka snapped at us and stormed out.

"Should I go talk with her?" My wife asked.

"Better let her cool down a bit first."

"She isn't exactly wrong." Joanna of all people said.

I shot her a betrayed look and she raised her hands in a mock surrender. "Most people would see things just like her and those are the civies who hadn't been fighting droids for couple of years now."

"Then we'll have to prove them wrong." I shrugged and earned myself a grateful look from Victoria.

"Shh, dear. It will be all right." Bo spoke soothingly to the AI in a tone I hadn't heard her use before. "Don't let them get to you. My husband is right, you'll just have to prove them all wrong, right?"

I blinked owlishly at my wife. The kriff just happened?

=RK=

Part 2

=RK=

Republic cruiser Victory

Dry dock Sigma 3

KDY Orbital array

Kuat

There is no emotion, there is peace… Ahsoka chanted in her mind as she all but ran down the cruiser's corridors. It wasn't helping. Her emotions were at overload and her frustration was more than tangible enough to cut with a lightsaber. While droids could be great, for machines, they weren't alive. They weren't people! Making one that thought it was more or less human… What was wrong with Veil and those engineers?! Didn't they see how wrong that was? Ahsoka could sense the electronic presence that was this Victoria and if anything it was far from alive, much less human! There was no spark of life there, nor the warmth that could be perceived through the Force from something, someone alive!

The dangers too – couldn't they see how this insanity could go wrong? Even Skyguy with his fascination with machines and R2-D2 wouldn't have thought of giving the little guy a warship to play with! What got Ahsoka the most was the human like personality that the ship was given and the intelligence that went with it. How long before the machine thought that it shouldn't serve the Republic? After all whole worlds and people got to that conclusion already and they had much more stake in it than a mere tinkered up droid!

Ahsoka cringed at that thought. With the enemy being droids, after all the death they caused and the blood they spilled, how could Veil expect anyone in the Republic to trust one with the firepower of a cruiser?! The very thought was alien!

"Emotion, yet peace, Ignorance, yet knowledge." A familiar, infuriatingly smug voice echoed from behind.

Speak of the Sith and he shall emerge, Ahsoka thought. She whirled around and glared at Veil who had sneacked behind her without her notice.

"What do you want? Don't you have a super droid to make coo eyes at or something?" Ahsoka snapped before she could think.

"You're mistaking me for my wife. I won't be surprised if by this time tomorrow I end up the proud adoptive father of a capital warship." He shrugged in a 'what can you do' way.

Ahsoka wanted to scream at the sheer impossible insanity that was her life lately and now this… she was lost for words!

"Why do I ever try? This has to be some weird nightmare… Did I fall and hit my head or something?" Ahsoka wondered aloud.

"No bumps that I can see from here."

"Shush you! I didn't ask you!" She snapped in irritation. That did sound just like Veil, felt like him through the Force too… so she wasn't lucky enough to have suffered and accident. Damn it!

"Do you exist just to make everyone's lives impossible? Is that it?" Ahsoka asked bitterly. "Nothing makes sense any-more! I'm finding myself in agreement with that awful woman Zash more often than not! With Satine becoming a dictator, for the good of the Republic no less! A Republic I can no longer recognize!" She vented at the Sith.

"I understand. Let it all out." He had the gall to speak in such a reasonable soothing voice as if there was something wrong with her instead with everyone else, especially him! Ahsoka glared angrily at Veil who simply nodded and made a gesture prompting her to go on. Her glare intensified yet she did as he suggested and began ranting at him about everything that happened to her ever since the Jedi Council, in their infinitely lacking wisdom decided to sent her to the Agri-corps.

They were there a long time and when she was done, Ahsoka didn't really feel better, just spent.

=RK=

"Droid warships?" Satine glared at me and I could feel her smouldering gaze trying go ignite me all the way from Coruscant. "Have you lost what little sense you had left? Do you want us to end up torn to pieces by infuriated crowds, because that's how we get torn apart by angry crowds!"

Was this just her hormones talking or perhaps the pressure of having to make sure the Republic somehow ran nowadays?

"I don't want to hear even a whisper about anything like this again, do you hear me, Veil?!" That much I could grant her, she could rant with the best of them and she did have guts too. "Make sure that technological horror of yours is gone for good, do you read me?!"

Well, that was crossing a line. However, before I could snap back right at her, my wife who was right beside me, listening attentively, beat me to the punch.

"Is that so, sister dearest?" The sneer she put in her voice was something else. "And there I was, thinking you've gotten better. Foolish me! I can assure you, despite what you might have heard, Vicky is very much a person, not some unhinged super droid or something! She is not a thing to be dismantled so she wouldn't offend some fool's sensibilities!"

This was the good stuff, I just missed a bow with popcorn or something equally good. With a bit of luck, Bo might be able to weather her sister's ire until our Chancellor cooled off and began thinking clearly.

"As if your husband gives a damn about anything like that!" Satine snapped right back. "If it gets out we support something like that, we're done, sister! We're on a very thin ice as it is! We can't afford to lose any more support nor alienate any more people! It is political impossibility, do you hear a word of what I'm saying, Bo-Katan?!"

"Politics, huh?" My wife smile was a cold, vicious thing. "Vicky, you're hearing everything, aren't you dear?"

"I am patched into the CIC and I also have access to the raw input from the comm." Victoria's voice sounded hurt and betrayed.

"Then listen to me carefully and please do agree."

What was my wife up to now, I wondered?

"I know your name as my child, Victoria." Bo-Katan declared.

Satine's hologram spluttered. "Do you have any idea what are you doing, damn you, Bo-Katan?!"

My wife gave me a very pointed and demanding look. That certainly was one way to resolve the question was Victoria a person or not. The political fallout however… That one was always going to be there, besides this way at least I would have a happy wife and hopefully a loyal warship.

"I know your name as my child, Victoria." I echoed Bo's words. "Welcome to the family, Vicky."

A chocked cry came from Satine's side and she cut off the comm. It was soon replaced by a repeating thumping sound. After looking in the direction it came from, I sighed. Ahsoka was near the entrance, repeatedly slamming her forehead in the wall.

"Should I call a medic or at least summon a medical droid?" A concerned Vicky asked. For a moment her avatar glitched before she grinned widely and began jumping in joy. "Thank you dad! Mum!"

Well, that's one way to write history, I guess. I was joking about this, damn it!