Chapter 88

A New Dawn

The Resolution dropped out of hyperspace just in time to catch the breaking news from the holonet. A parade ceremony was being held for the courageous crew of the Hawke that had been instrumental in the defeat of the Sith threat.

Ranks of republic soldiers, fleet crew and fighter pilots were massed before the stage containing the crew to the backdrop of the Rakatta tower. A flyby of A wings occurred when the Republic medal of Honour was being pinned to the pristine Jedi robes of the human male leader of the expedition with a clearly smitten Bastila looking on in admiration. The group the cheerily waved to the cheering crowd and the cameras

Terri looked at Bastila after placing down her cup of caf

"How could you leave me for a man?" She demanded tearily

"My dear, how could I resist such an epitome of a human male Jedi, no mere demure maiden such as myself can resist . You simply did not weigh up to him." Bastila replied as tearily

"I am going to be sick." Melissa commented

"Still miffed that your existence has been denied in the grand tale told." Cart said

"Obviously you lost some IQ points the moment they pinned the Admiral rank on your uniform." Melissa retorted

"The colour is wrong." Zaalbar grunted looking at his replacement

Mission was looking horrified at her clone or more accurately the bubbly giggly teen on stage.

"Did they give her a boob job as well as a lobotomy." She demanded

The door to the lounge opened and the elders as well as the rest of the family entered the area. Marina sighed deeply as she sat down

"I believe now is the time for explanations." She said

"That would be nice." Terri said

Marina pointed to the screen

"When we found out about those abominations the order to destroy them were given immediately." She said

"Then what happened to prevent it." Bastila asked

"Because I ordered them to wait." Canderous spoke

Canderous shifed in his seat

" As soon as the negotiations with the republic began it was clear that once again we were negotiating from a place of weakness. One of the first demands had been that a sanitized version be released to the general galaxy."

"Force forbid the public learn the truth." Bastila remarked

"That fact allowed us to gain more concession from the Republic than any other." Daria said

"Such as?" Terri asked

"The reparation costs to Cathar will be supplied by the Republic for one. Another portion of funds will be given for the restoration of Concord Dawn." Marina said

"Also the Republic will not be taking a closer look at our industries and shipyards. That alone will help us to rebuild our society and people." Xena added

"And with the republic agencies monitoring us being recalled we do not have to worry about attempts to interfere in our way of live." Lllith continued

"You also benefited from this. With the clones in play anyone targeting you will now have nice open and public targets." Lance added

"And with Revan now officially being a human male and not a half elvenhan female as previous rumours suggested Terri is free and clear, Melissa as well as her presence has been scrubbed from all records." Karana continued

Fay pointed to Bastila now showing blonde hair instead of her usual brown

"And everyone knows Bastila is a brunette and in love with a human male. Obviously the woman outed on Naboo in that scandalous relationship can not be Bastila Shan of the Jedi order."

"I am still angry at you for that gene modification." Bastila told Fay

Melissa looked to Canderous

"Are you going to tell us what the real plan is for your clone?" Melissa asked

"Apart from allowing me to retire with my family?" He asked in return

Canderous sighed at her silent glare

"It is about the clanless. Most of the mercenaries and guns for hire come from the general population that do not belong to a specific clan or from smaller clans that have been destroyed. More than one of them have said that they will only return to the Mandalorian people under a Mandalore. As you know I can claim the title but would have to renounce my clan affiliation, not just me but Annaka and my children." He said

"I would have to take over and I am not near as good a choice for clan head as my brother is." Karana said

Melissa leaned back

"You had the cloner add something when no was looking." She said accusingly

"That is correct. The clone had a memory added. One of Revan instructing him to rebuild the mandalorian army against an unspecified threat. The clone will seek out the armour of Mandalore the ultimate and reclaim it."

"And become the Mandalore the clanless will accept." Melissa concluded

"And after enough time has passed the offer to rejoin our society in full will be made to them as new clans of Mandalore or in whatever position they want to return in."

Melissa nodded and sat back fully

"That cloner, Jack said that her species were the one to kidnap the kids. Can we use that to track down where they came from?" Terri asked

Marina shook her head

"Immediately no. From interrogation and ship records we learned that the cloner was on a journey of discovery as she put it. Her species will at times wander the galaxy and perform experiments on undeveloped planets and on return to their planet add that knowledge to their collective databases. Short of invading them for their databases we have nowhere to look. In return for her freedom she has agreed to look and report what she finds but the chances are slim that we will learn anything."

Lance produced his datapad and typed on it moments later Melissa and Terri's pinged as they received messages. They opened it and looked at Lance

"Why are you sending us death notifications?" Terri asked

"Thought you might find it interesting. Officially both Melissa Carpenter and Terri Cazor died on the Dauntless." He replied

"So where does that leave the rest of us?" Mission asked

She sat forward and pointed to the frozen scene on the holocom

"Officially we no longer exist, what do we do from here?" She asked

"Whatever we want to." Cart answered

He pointed to himself

"Me. I have a beach plot to build a house on and spend time with my son, his wife, my granddaughter and my daughter and that is all I want. With Bacta looking to become a major thing I will never have to work again neither will any of us."

"And where do the twins fit into it?" Bastila asked

Xena and Lillith took Carth's hands

"As he is not a Mandalorian officially nowhere. We have discussed this amongst ourselves and came to a very personal agreement and that is all that will be said." Lillith stated

"As all such arrangements should be." Xena added

Canderous pulled Annaka onto his lap

"I will of course be spending time dealing with Clan affairs and my family."

Melissa turned to Zaalbar who merely shrugged activating his translator

"My uncle and I and several other displaced Wookies will be meeting up and making our decisions. At some point we may create a colony of our own since we can not return home. I still have access to the seedstock on Dantooine if we want to start our own Wroshyr plantations."

Terri shrugged

"As long as I have Bastila I have everything I need. At some point we will have to sit down and decide what we want now that we are free of all expectations on us. For now lying on a beach and doing absolutely nothing sound like perfect idea. And even if we all split up we will all stay in contact in some form"

Melissa pointed to the room Mission had been using

"You still own half of the Last Round onboth Arkaxis as well as Dantooine and unless I am mistaken Selina will want to see her sister at some point. Go talk to her and make some plans. It is not as if we have to decide on the course of the rest of our lives right now."

Mission nodded at that advice

"Like you said, not everything has to be decided now. Speaking of, what will you do?"

Melissa stood up

"For now? I am going to have lunch with the two who have decided they want to be in a relationship with me. Then I need to make plans to wrangle a clan of stroppy young girls. Look after all my business interests, I might be better of running around looking for adventures than dealing with that, but for some reason I am looking forward to dealing with that all."

Melissa nodded to the rest as she walked out. Terri looked to Bastila

"I feel rather hungry myself. Care to take me to lunch?"

"And this sudden hunger has nothing to do with the chance to spy on Melissa and her girlfriends I am sure." Bastila replied

"Of course not, that I will be close at hand to give advice is purely coincidental." Terri said virtuously

The End

Thank you to all for reading this. I hope you enjoyed my tale and I am looking forward to any feedback that you might have. If this was not evident before this was my first attempt at writing a tale and any advice to improve would be appreciated. I will be coming back and fixing the multiple errors my story contains. But for now I am considering this as complete

I have several ideas for new stories and will be getting to some of them in due course. Though most of them will be in other fandoms

With Thanks

Revan222