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Anti-Slavery.

We have smuggled the last group away from the market. Guards are everywhere.

Slave ship has been hijacked; 14 quadrant command has been ordered to find the ship and collect more slaves.

Imperial guards are out in force.

The slaves in the mines are revolting, but the guards are slaughtering them.

Thasia growled under his breath as he read the reports he had received from his agents; it had taken him over a decade to form the spy networks and underground railroads needed to get the slaves out; he'd had problems finding like-minded Gallifreyans, and it had taken him a long time and effort to sound them all out so they wouldn't betray him and his predecessors who'd seen just how cruel Gallifrey was towards beings they considered inferior, or lesser.

The Gallifreyans had such a high-handed opinion of themselves. They had come to believe so much in their own manifest destiny, believing that they were gods simply because they could regenerate, and they looked down on other species.

But while so many people Thasia and his/her other lives had been friends, they had the same views as everyone else, and they selfishly believed that Gallifrey should rule the universe, and yet Thasia didn't. He had never understood the Gallifreyans' manifest destiny, nor their belief that they deserved to rule, simply because they were Gallifreyans. They rode roughshod all over the galaxies, bombing planets to pieces; the enemy, as the High Command, the Ruling Elite, and the Council and the religious orders claimed the aliens who lived out in the universe were nothing but the enemy, but the enemy of what.

None of them could oppose Gallifrey. The rulers only used that as propaganda to justify the wars and everything. For years ever since his last self had left Gallifrey to travel the universe, to try to recover from the wars, Thasia had mapped out the slavery rings, the markets and the worlds where the most labour was sourced from, and held come up with a plan, using contacts to break them up, sponsoring and financing rebellion while bringing awareness of what was happening to the people of Gallifrey. Half of them had been brainwashed to believe they were inferior people, but Thasia knew while they had an overinflated belief in their superiority, many of them didn't know the truth.

Even now there was a rising amount of protest and a desire to stop the occupations. Rebel groups were making it harder and harder for the occupational armies to keep them contained, and that only helped strengthen Thasia's cause.

Thasia was roused from his thoughts by the door chime. Quickly, he shut off his computers, and he went to the door, making sure that his hand blaster was within reach.

To his horror, a familiar figure was standing on the other side of the door, wearing that same arrogant expression.

"Thasia, you do like getting into trouble, don't you?" The unpleasant smirk on Tecteun's current face was shamelessly faux sympathetic while Thasia tried to stop himself from panicking.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Lies don't become you, although you do have a talent for it."

Tecteun pushed her way inside, followed by the squad of soldiers and police officers. Thasia spluttered, absently considering using his pocket blaster, but it was dangerous; the soldiers and police were armed themselves, with large blaster rifles he recognised from his military service as meson blasters. Why would they carry those? They were capable of blasting a house to pieces.

"What do you mean by that?" Thasia hoped to buy time.

Tecteun's smirk vanished. "Don't play games," she sneered. "We know you set up underground railroads," she went on, "organised riots and rebellions throughout the empire."

Thasia narrowed his eyes, wondering if he should come clean with what had done. "What you're doing is wrong; who cares if those races Gallifrey had 'uplifted'" he spat sarcastically, ignoring the snorts from the soldiers, "are less advanced? We were less advanced. But we went out into space. We explored the stars. We split the atom. We wrote sonnets. Who are we to judge others for the speed in which they advance?"

Tecteun listened to this with amusement visible on her face. "I agree," she said, surprising Thasia. "I do, but at the same time, we are older. Who better than us to guide the various civilisations?"

"True, that's a good argument," Thasia nodded, but then his pleasant expression darkened with anger, and surprisingly the soldiers and police officers were shivering. They hid it even from themselves. "But you don't nurture them, and you don't guide them; you torture them, you beat them with plasma whips, and you chip them with nano-DNA explosives that unravel their DNA strands and cause them to explode in puddles of gloop."

"Some have to be sacrificed to ensure order. This is not a debate, Thasia," Thasia did not like the familiar way Tecteun was speaking to him, and at the same time, he had the strangest feeling she knew him very well despite them not meeting for long enough to have that kind of relationship. "You have been found guilty by the council, for sedition and treason and terrorism."

Thasia clenched his fists, unsurprised by Tecteun's actions and the decisions of the ruling elite. They liked their power too much, and they often threw aside law and protocol. "Is there going to be a trial?"

"No!" Tecteun might not have meant it, but that came out too quickly for Thasia's curiosity not to be roused. "There will not be a trial. Take him away," she snapped at the soldiers.

As he was being led away, after being frisked and they found the blaster, which only added yet one more charge to the docket, Thasia was in a daze as he was taken to his cell, one thought dominating his mind.

Tecteun.

With Tecteun, there came a lot of questions.

Why did he have the suspicion Tecteun knew him and he knew her, only he didn't know how?

Why was Tecteun so interested in him?

And what did she have in mind now?