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Phase 20: The calm before the storm

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Part 3

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Onara Kuat's residence

Kuat

Onara pinched her arm in the vain hope she had a particularly vivid nightmare; failing that, she was now convinced that the Sith had driven her insane. At first, she was taken aback how normal Veil appeared. His bearing and manners, his appearance… None of those screamed 'planet murdering monster'! He was polite, happy going, normal, even – not so different than a few of the senior officers in Kuat's own fleet she was acquainted with.

She should have known better, because almost immediately after proper introductions the conversation turned unreal.

"I hear that congratulations are in order." Zash smirked.

"I should have expected something like that. Really." Veil rubbed the back of his head and smiled disarmingly. "My people were always crazy over their Basilisk wardroids. A sentient and fully self aware warship?" He chuckled.

What?! What did those insane warmongers do this time?!

"When you put it that way." Zash nodded with a gleam in her eye. "That woman is actually good for you. She keeps things interesting doesn't she?"

The Sith's expression shifted. "She does accept me for who and what I am." He agreed.

With his wife being a Mandalorian warrior it was no wonder that she would find destroying whole worlds acceptable. She might find it exciting the crazy bitch! She married someone like Veil of all people after all! And what was that madness about a self aware warship?!

Wisely, Onara said nothing. Gaining the Sith's attention any sooner than absolutely necessary was something she would rather avoid no matter how pointless such an attempt was!

"Ahsoka might need someone to vent at further." The Sith was saying. "She didn't take meeting Vicky, much less her adoption in stride."

Zash actually laughed at that. "Oh, apprentice, you do know how to stir trouble everywhere you walk. I can just imagine the fallout."

"I dare any naysayers come complain to Vicky in person, especially once she's fully operational."

"There will be at least one enthusiast, I'm sure."

"There always is, Zash, but we digress. I didn't come just so we can catch up."

"Really? You didn't miss your precious old master?"

If Onara didn't know better, she would have been convinced that the infernal woman was really hurt by the very idea.

"What would I ever do without you?"

"Have to put this little traitor on a leash yourself." Zash's yellow eyes fell upon Onara and made her feel as if something dirty crawled all over her.

"There's that. I must say, Madam Kuat, treason does suit you quite well." Veil needled her.

That accusation gave birth of indignation in Onara's heart. All she ever did was protect KDY's and Kuat's interests! She was no traitor! In fact, the only traitors she knew of were those holding her prisoner in her own home or planting their assess in the Chancellor's office on Coruscant!

"Oh, my, she looks flustered at the very idea. I should rile you up more often, my dear. Your anger is a much tastier morsel than your bowel loosening terror." Zash smirked at her.

"Less messier too, I reckon." Veil added. All traces of levity vanished from his expression. "You left Corellia fall, Madam Kuat. Your orders are directly responsible for prolonging this war for years and yet might cost us ultimate victory."

"As if you care!" Onara spat when her anger got the better of her. "You and your kind were never part of the Republic nor on its side! Its your creatures on Coruscant who rule as dictators now!"

"And it was you and your actions who put them there, Onara." Zash purred. "If we're to throw around accusations you're more guilty than any of us. After all as you just pointed out, we never had any allegiance towards the Republic. It is merely convenient to work with it."

She glared at the impossible woman with undisguised loathing.

"Under different circumstances, I would be congratulating you, you know?" Veil had the audacity to chuckle at her. "The Jedi Council and people like you achieved what the Sith Empire failed to properly do – the Order is all but gone, the Jedi are on the run and the Republic itself, why it was turned into a dictatorship by those most loyal to it in order to save it from itself."

"Do you really think you'll be able to get away with this?" Onara hissed. She was way beyond caring if it wise to antagonize the Sith or not. "Every day more and more people see you for what you are! More systems will turn against you!"

Veil's expression grew serious. "There was time when the Jedi were a direct threat to us," He nodded at Zash. "Especially when backed by the Grand Army. Ten thousand Jedi Knights leading billions of Clones… facing that would have been impossible task even for the likes of us, not to mention the rest of the Republic backing them. Today? The Jedi are scattered or on the run, the few loyalists are in my corner. The Grand army is behind us." Veil's calm and confident smile cut sharper than any blade. "The height of irony is that we are among those precious few who actually gave a damn for your rotten Republic, because of self interest if nothing else. It's time to reap what you sowed, Madam Kuat. We aren't the Republic nor the spineless Senate. Crossing us will have consequences and I can assure you, you will live to regret them."

Veil leaned forward and his eyes blazed with that sick yellow colour. The lights dimmed and Onara could hear voices that soon turned in such an agonized screams the likes of which she hadn't imagined during her darkest nightmares. For a brief moment she heard Bothawui die. Onara saw Veil for what he was – a hungry monster that eagerly waited for her to give him any excuse to do the same to her home. It was then that Kuat knew she was in a hell of her own making and there was no salvation in sight. Her world shrunk to the screaming damned souls Veil consumed and her mind blanked out.

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Some time later, Onara came to laying on her couch, with her head resting in Zash's lap. The Sith woman gently massaged her temples and in her, Kuat found an anchor against the hows echoing within her mind. She clutched the Sith woman and felt an unfathomable sense of relief when she returned the gesture.

"It's going to be all right, dear." Zash smiled gently and ruffed her hair. "You're a good girl. You'll continue to be a good girl and nothing like that would have to happen to Kuat."

Onara found herself mutely nodding as she felt elation at the reassurance. Zash looked away, which made her feel disappointment.

"It's almost done. I've been working on her for a few weeks now." Zash said. "She'll be ready."

"You never disappoint. It's always a pleasure to see a master at work. Onara, do tell me all I need to know about KDY's board of directors." Veil demanded.

Onara looked up at Zash for permission and once she got a nod she began talking as fast as she could.

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Interlude: Historical Notes

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IN (Iliina Noreen): Is there no simple way to explain the Fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire?

MK (Dr Mer Kilex):I'm asked that question quite often, you know. Look just at the Core – more than ten thousand Senators represented it during the age of the Republic. While many of them did come from a single worlds, many others answered to whole systems or even alliances. There were more reasons for the Fall than there were independent polities in the Core. There was nothing simple or clean about it, but if I'm to summarize, which will give a grossly warped impression of what actually happened…

IN: No matter how educational it might be, we simply don't have the time to go into proper detail, Doctor.

MK: That figures… Well, let's begin with an example. What did you felt and think when Corellia fell? That's a question I often ask my first year students.

IN: At first, shock. The impossible happened, Corellia fell and we were no longer safe.

MK: You weren't alone in that. How people and governments saw that event illustrates a very important point. Governments, especially democratic ones, need support, they need the people they govern, to believe in them. As you said, when Corellia fell, the people in the Core no longer felt safe. Until then, there was no real doubt among the average citizens that the war could and would be won. Despite various setbacks, people trusted Chancellor Palpatine, their governments and the Grand Army. In no small part due to quite successful propaganda, there were certain high expectations about the impending battles at Corellia and Kuat. The thought of defeat, or worse, a disaster, never crossed the mind of the average citizen. People knew that at Corellia and Kuat the enemy would break, that those battle would be the turning points of the war.

IN: Instead, Chancellor Palpatine got assassinated, the Clones went rogue due to Order 66 and as if that wasn't bad enough, Corellia fell.

MK: Exactly! And here things become complicated. Many people and groups saw the fall of Corellia in different light from each other. It was a shock for the citizenry, a wake up call if you will. We all know how many people came up to the closest recruitment stations after that, many more went out on protests or even began rioting.

IN: Certainly. I was a young reporter then covering one of the biggest protests in recorded history on Coruscant. Those were strange days even before Chancellor Palpatine acted from beyond the grave and exposed how corrupt the Senate used to be.

MK: Speaking about the Senate… Corellia's fall was one of the main factors leading to the stalemate that ultimately doomed the Republic as we knew it. You see, the Grand Army saw the fall in a different light from their civilian leadership. First, it was the significantly more perilous and complicated strategic situation that resulted from that debacle. Second, it was the loss of industry and as importantly ships, both operational in battle and incomplete construction. Third and as important, it's is well known nowadays that certain high ranking officers saw the actions of Kuat at the time as a treason and that would colour their interactions with the civilian government from then on.

IN: You're speaking about the fact that when Chancellor Kenobi got elected it was with the tactic approval and support of the military and not just because she was the wife of General Kenobi, the Supreme Commander of the Grand Army. Support that didn't wane when she had to further consolidate power in the months preceding Republic offensive to retake Corellia and relieve Mandalore.

MK: That was indicative of the loss of trust in the various civilian governments and institutions among the Republic military. We come back to the Fall of Corellia as an example. We already summarized how the military saw that event, the same for the citizenry. The various governments on the other hand? It was a public secret that Kuat allowed Corellia to fall. That's how many a government saw it and that fact further poisoned the already tenuous balance in the Senate. After that perceived betrayal, the trust and support Kuat could enjoy was at all time low. Bribes, incentives, threats, promises of protection and military aid – none of that was enough to break the stalemate and elect anyone backed by Kuat.

IN: The way the Senate got locked up for more than a month without resolution is often cited as the failure of democracy and one of the primary reasons why when it was established the Empire enjoyed such broad support.

MK: It helped that the people behind the Empire were the same who made sure we didn't actually lose the war, despite what some people still claim. That's not a wrong supposition. An excellent case can and is often made that the various democratic institutions, not only Republic ones but those of many member states failed during the war. For me, its a matter of perception and priorities. A great number of citizens saw one thing in the fall of Corellia, the military something else, and the governments – for too many the danger was past as they saw it. Corellia didn't fall because the Separatists were an existential threat to the Republic much less to their own worlds and systems. It fell because of the Jedi's Coup and Kuat's betrayal that ensured their arch-rival got crippled for decades if not centuries. If it wasn't for those events they thought that the Separatists would have been crushed during the battles at Corellia and Kuat and in a year or two, the war would have been all but won. That belief shaped policy in the Core to disastrous effect. However, it should be said that those who had it weren't totally wrong.

IN: That's one way to put it. As some of our viewers may recall, it was just two years ago that the military declassified a great amount of documents from the Clone Wars.

MK: Indeed! Of particular note are the strategic assessments based on captured intelligence, war-games and analysis from GAR High Command on the enemy capabilities and intentions. During their Grand Offensive, the Separatists never intended to capture or even really "win" at Kuat in the first place. As far as they were concerned, that battle was merely a large scale raid meant to bind our forces in system in place and wreck as much industry and incomplete construction as possible. Corellia on the other hand…

IN: Admiral Trench planned to destroy Corellia's industry, any and all construction underway and eliminate as much of the Republic's strategic reserve as practical before falling back to Duro and the fixed defences the Separatists had already built in system. At the same time, Admiral Yularen intended to deliver a crippling blow to the enemy's navy. The results of many war-games played by GAR High Command remain inconclusive. If it wasn't for the Jedi Coup and its fallout it was possible that the enemy would have suffered a devastating defeat. It is also possible that Admiral Trench would have either won… in fact the most controversial conclusion among those assessments is that he had better than even odds winning and thus placing us in much worse military position if it wasn't for Order 66 forcing Admiral Yularen to jump out shortly after arrival in system.

MK: That's true. Ironically enough, that's one point both Imperial loyalists and Republic fanatics agree upon – they claim that if it wasn't for the Jedi Coup, Admiral Yularen would have won and thus changed the course of history. Many forget or chose to ignore that Trench was the best the Separatists had and that intelligence recovered later in the war confirms he was confident he could have won even if Admiral Yularen did fight. War-games do support the possibility of such an outcome. When the opposing force is commanded by a better tactician they can and more often than not win during war-games…

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IN: Kuat in general and Onara Kuat in particular did redeem themselves in the eyes many, though the how of it is one of the most controversial and shrouded in mystery events that lead to the rise of the Empire. What's your take on it, Doctor?

MK: Onara Kuat did change her tune a few months later, that's a matter of record and the same is true of the KDY's Board of Directors who at the time for all intents and purposes were Kuat's government.

IN: That was one of the reasons why a great deal of Kuati citizens welcomed the new form of government with open hands – for the first time in centuries or even millennia they did get a say in how their system was run.

MK: While true, it's notable that many of the Kuati forces that returned home after Onara Kuat and company finally released them were a major factor in changing how things were ran at Kuat. Without broad support among Kuat's own naval and ground forces, such a change would have been… unlikely or at least quite bloody. That's one of the reasons for the controversy – if there are any records about what exactly led to Onara Kuat's change of heart or how the Kuati navy decided to support a reformation of their government and inclusion in the Empire, they're still classified. Some point at a certain meeting that's a matter of record between Generals Veil and Zash, Onara Kuat and KDY's Board of Directors, however all anyone's saying is that they discussed the construction and deployment of the Silencer super-weapon as well as various other matters pertaining the war effort. No one has admitted that the question of a future Empire or a change of the way Kuat was run was ever raised at that point...

Transcript from GNN interview with famous history author Mer Kilex