The Path not Taken 2: The Bees and the Wasps

by HyperionGM

Collab: Ahsoka Tano has succeeded in altering the timeline, but not in the way she had hoped. Exposed as a Sith Lord to the Jedi, Palpatine unleashes Order 66 and plunges the Galaxy into chaos. As Jedi and Loyalists try to end the slaughter and depose Sidious, the Clone Wars continue unabated, and forces beyond the Veil make moves to turn events to their own advantage...

3. Chapter 3: Halfdan

CHAPTER 3: HALFDAN

The Vergence Scatter

"Dad, wake up!" cried the voice of Zoltan, Halfdan's son. "Everything is falling apart… WAKE UP!"

"Oh, this is bad," growled Ito.

All around, Halfdan could hear the scampering pitter-patter of Loth-wolf feet and sense the presences of eleven members of his pack. One of them reached out her paw and pressed it onto his ribcage.

"You can't fool me. I sense you are awake, Halfdan," Skathi said, prodding him. "I know you're hurt. I know you're still probably considering how to respond to Veryk's audacity, but we need you now. The universe needs you."

"Don't mention that creature's name," Halfdan growled softly, keeping his eyes closed.

Skathi ignored his request and continued using the Savrit Cat's name. "Veryk, Ahsoka, Lir Sey'les, Nebhir… They're all dead. Morai is probably dead too."

"WHAT?!" Halfdan snarled. The Loth-wolf pack leader rolled to his front and jumped up on all four paws. "HOW DID—" Some of the blood clotting his nose, from when Veryk had assaulted him earlier, broke loose and was sucked into the back of his throat. The Loth-wolf coughed, spitting onto the transparent floor with a furious snarl.

"Veryk never came back after taking the Togruta to the great triangle," Skathi turned and pointed her paw back to the portal Veryk had taken Ahsoka through. "The great triangles of the Republic were attacked by metal space snakes and broken gray doughnuts… The triangle Veryk had been aboard was consumed by fire. All beings perished."

"Star Destroyers," Zoltan yelped, shaking his head with outrage at Skathi's lack of technological know-how. He continued listing off the names of the other war machines used during the Clone Wars. "Luckrehulks! Recusants! Banking Clan—"

"ENOUGH!" Halfdan barked impatiently, snapping his jaws centimeters away from his son's face. His tail wagged slightly as he approached the portal Skathi was pointing at. "How do you know Veryk was even on board?"

Skathi's eyes glowed white as she walked up to the side of the portal. With a gentle press of her paw against the event horizon, beyond which was a fleet-worth of space wreckage. Following Skathi's input, the portal zoomed in on a particular cluster of debris and zoomed in.

Five beings floated in a cluster immediately outside of a charred hangar. Despite the bad radiation burns and signs of flash-freezing, Halfdan could identify all of them. The blue-furred Bothan-Squib hybrid, Nebhir Traf'lab, floated toward the front of the group. Immediately behind her was a Wookiee Halfdan did not recognize, and above the Wookiee was Lir Sey'les; one of her eyes had frozen solid, and the other was completely missing. A Rodian Jedi Padawan, Fojo, floated next to his Master, another dead Bothan named Kev Rel'skar. Toward the back of the group, with one Lekku and Montral missing and half of her face burned away, was the troublemaker who caused all the changes to the timeline—Ahsoka Tano.

"How do you know Veryk is dead?" Halfdan asked skeptically.

"Look closer," Skathi insisted. Her eyes glowed white again as the portal zoomed in on a floating cargo crate. Immediately below it was a flash-frozen Savrit Cat. His previously purple fur was now filled with soot, darkened to an off-wine color. But his identity was unmistakable.

Veryk had brought Ashoka to that Republic vessel and been unable to escape—or even hold back the Separatists long enough for the Kestrel to escape. Everyone on board had died. The failure was so utter and absolute that Halfdan found it hilarious.

His yellow eyes widened with glee. His tail wagged, and he began cackling uncontrollably, dancing in a circle like hadn't done in years. "Serves that bastard right!"

"Dad!" Zoltan yelped in outrage. "You can't be serious!"

"I am serious," Halfdan said with an evil smile, licking his lips. "How deliciously ironic."

"So we're just going to let it happen?!" Skathi gasped.

Preparing for action, Halfdan rapidly twisted his torso in a canine body shake, then lowered his forelegs into a stretch. "We can't just let it happen," he groaned, jumping back to his feet and walking in a slow circle around his pack. "Not only would Bendu strike us down, but Sidious would probably be one step closer to winning… And that just won't do. No, we're going to save them."

"How?" Mester asked, his folded back with tense fear.

"Simple. We are going back in time. Zoltan, you understand these gizmos and doodads?"

"Gizmos and doodads?" his son asked indignantly.

"Do you know where the reactor compartments on the big metal 'snakes' and 'broken doughnuts' are?"

Zoltan dropped to the ground in a prone position and whimpered, covering his ears with his paws. "Stop calling them that! It's so embarrassing!"

"What's a reactor compartment?" Skathi asked, ears perked straight up.

o.o.o.o.o

TJ-99b

Aboard the Separatist Light Destroyer Helatra

Through the expansive viewports of a Recusant-class's bridge, most of Kestrel's engines burned bright blue, but one had inexplicably exploded. Helatra was now gaining on them, and it was only a matter of time before the Separatists had them.

Interlacing streaks of crimson laser fire filled the void, occasionally terminating in a massive eruption from one of the Republic's space mines. The Separatist tactical droid TJ-99b took in the scene through enhanced optics, seeing not just explosions and debris but also the reaction's chemical composition.

For a strategy devised by organics, TJ-99b conceded that it had at least a modicum of ingenuity. The Republic vessels had crowded into a tight formation between their strongest vessel, a Tector-class Star Destroyer called Foretoken.

This tactic protected them from the harsh stellar energy emitted by Athega but not from the faster, nimbler Separatist destroyers like Helatra.

Worse still, with no rear-facing turrets beyond a single pair of main battery guns, Kestrel's only way to retaliate was to drop space mines and live torpedoes. These slowed down the Separatist advance, but it was still only a matter of time before Helatra got within firing range of Kestrel's sublight engines. When that happened, the Star Destroyer would be dead in space.

By TJ-99b's calculations, this eventuality would unfold in less than two minutes.

"Sir," warbled B1-29, an OOM Pilot Droid and first officer, "we have a problem in main engineering."

TJ-99b rotated his torso to face B1-29 and replied in his own model's robotic monotone. "Elaborate."

The first officer tilted his head, processing a communique. "Uh… There are animals loose around the reactor chamber."

While it was rare for entirely droid-piloted vessels to have pest problems, it was also not impossible. For this reason, every Separatist Naval vessel had extermination droids just in case—specialized mouse droids and PK workers armed with canisters of liquid toxin, which was highly effective at terminating insects and Womp-rats alike.

It took less than a millisecond for TJ-99b's programming to arrive at a solution. "Send down an extermination team."

"Roger, roger!" B1-29 said cheerily.

For forty-seven seconds, TJ-99b continued his vigil in front of the viewport. His ocular scanners worked overtime to identify any space mines that the lasers might have missed. Then, the lights on the bridge went dark. A moment later, they turned back on when the emergency reactor kicked into action.

TJ-99b twisted in a complete circle and stared suspiciously at the lights. "Status report!"

"Getting reports now," B1-29 said. "Main engineering is experiencing malfunctions. The animals—the animals destroyed the extermination droids!"

TJ-99b stormed over to the security station and barked at the droid sitting behind it. "Onscreen!"

Four scenes from engineering were simultaneously displayed on the bridge's main viewer, bisecting the screen into four quadrants. In the top left corner was an uneventful feed showing the entrance to main engineering. No one was coming or leaving, and the blast door was sealed. Inside, however, was another story entirely.

Going clockwise, in the upper right quadrant of the screen was from a security camera immediately behind the reactor readout section. Flames emitted from both reactor readout terminals which each had a charred OOM pilot droid slumped on top. In the lower left quadrant, one of the pests (a giant white canid of a breed TJ-99b did not recognize) was blocking the scene behind her—and TJ-99b could tell that this dog was a she. The pest had caught one of the exterminator droids in her mouth and was now playfully shaking it around like a toy. It was the final quadrant, though, which immediately changed TJ-99b's calculations for the odds of mission success.

Several pests were standing around the reactor. From one of the dogs, a silver-furred male with glowing yellow eyes, electric sparks crackled. Bolts of lightning were arcing through the air, igniting electrical fires and causing smoke to fill the air. Yet, this silver dog did not seem to be affected. He did not fall over dead. He did not flinch. He did not even seem scared of the lightning emitting from his body.

Seven point three six seconds later, an oval wormhole materialized to the left of the reactor, and, one by one, the pests departed.

"Sir, the reactor is overloading. Shall I initiate an emergency shut-down procedure?" B1-29 asked.

TJ-99b just stared in silence at the main viewer, which was now displaying the unmistakable start of a reactor breach.

He was still staring at the main viewer when an explosion the equivalent of several kilotons of TNT tore through Helatra, shattering the vessel into a million pieces. The debris collided with the five Separatist vessels following close behind, causing their shields to shimmer. In a few places, debris made its way through, exploding against their hulls.

o.o.o.o.o

HALFDAN

The Vergence Scatter

"You killed them!" Zoltan howled, tears flooding his eyes as he emerged from the portal. "I didn't know you were going to do that! Dad, it's wrong. We can't just kill them!"

"You can't kill droids," Halfdan scoffed. "If you damage them, they can always just be repaired."

"Not if you destroy the ship they are on! Not if you vaporize them!"

Halfdan pressed his paw to the portal, and the view beyond changed from a fiery debris cloud to the interior of another Recusant's reactor chamber. "They're still not alive."

"Just because you can't feel their life in the Force does not mean we can just kill them!"

"That which cannot be felt in the Force is irrelevant to the universe," Halfdan snarled. He dismissively bopped his son on the nose with his tail, then jumped back into the portal, emerging onto the next Separatist ship with a furious snarl.

A battle droid saw him and cried out but was crushed under the Loth-wolf's weight, head splintered into a hundred pieces beneath Halfdan's front paw.

Ito and Skathi emerged next, each tackling a droid of their own. Mester, Prita, and Tizon followed, both casting force bubbles which absorbed the barrage of incoming fire from two Super Battle Droids.

Reaching out to the Force with his hatred and anger, Halfdan's eyes glowed bright yellow as he fired a stream of lightning. The Supers erupted in smoke and sparks, tumbling to the ground in a steaming heap.

The rest of the pack quickly followed, with Zoltan following at the rear. The young Loth-Wolf poured his sadness, displeasure, and disappointment into the Force as he howled at the rest.

"You're not even trying to reason with them! Dad? DAD! THIS IS WRONG!"

"REASON WITH A MACHINE?!" Halfdan roared, completely incensed.

"Dad, they're sentient!" Zoltan wailed, continuing to flood the Force with his disapproval.

Like what happened on the last ship, a squad of mouse droids emerged from a small door on the wall. Danger sense blaring, Halfdan reacted quickly, keeping the pack safe by isolating the droids in a Force bubble. The droids deployed their dioxis pesticide, which flooded the bubble in an opaque cloud but remained safely contained inside.

Familiar with the routine, Ito and Prita trotted to the edge of the bubble and then yanked on the droids with the Force, tearing the gas canisters out from under them. Two at a time, they pulled the now-disarmed mouse droids out of Halfdan's barrier and chomped down with hundreds of pounds of bite pressure.

"We don't have time for this," Halfdan snarled, gritting his teeth as he kept the bubble up.

"They're sentient!" Zoltan repeated. "Dad, I think I know how to convince them to stop attacking the Kestrel."

"Momvimse a memice?" Prita mumbled incredulously, slobbering all over the mouse droid in her maw as she attempted to ask a question.

"How are we going to convince a device?" Halfdan asked, rephrasing Prita's question without his mouth being full.

"The droids are just as betrayed as everyone else in this era. They're being used!" Zoltan explained. "Dad, look, I know it must sound crazy, but I know how to do it. I just need to meet the ST-series strategic analysis droid in charge of the whole fleet. We can end all of this, and we won't need to risk our lives sabotaging the reactors."

"Meet a what?" Halfdan demanded.

Before Zoltan could explain exactly what an ST-series strategic analysis droid was, Skathi let off a worried growl. A seismic shift rippled through the Force.

"Uh, Halfdan… I sense the Clones are shooting the Jedi on the big triangle."

"STAR DESTROYER!" Zoltan howled indignantly.

Halfdan's ears fell flat. He felt it too, but was far too busy containing the toxic gas with the Force to turn around.

"They're blasting each other," Skathi said, jumping on top of the reactor control console. Her eyes were glowing white as she reached out with the Force to beings many kilometers away. "They're—oh, this is bad!"

"It must be Order 66," Zoltan sighed. "Dad, we really need to convince the droids to save Veryk, Ahsoka, and the others. It's the only way."

Halfdan considered this for a moment. With a firefight breaking out on the Kestrel, it was even less likely that Halfdan and his pack would be able to save the vessel by merely destroying Separatist ships. If they did as Zoltan suggested and simply convinced the leader of the droids to break off the attack, then many of their problems would be solved. But Halfdan remained extremely skeptical of the idea that it was even possible to reason with droids.

"Curse the nine realms! Fine, Zoltan, I'll try it your way."

Zoltan perked up instantly, tail wagging. "Really?"

"Everyone, back on me!" Halfdan howled. "Take a deep breath," he added, turning in a circle and locking eyes with every Loth-wolf one at a time to make sure they understood. "I am going to lower the Force bubble and open another portal. For a few seconds, we will be exposed to dioxis. It will hurt your lungs if you breathe it in. Hold your breath! NOW!"

All of the Loth-wolves took a huge breath. Prita's gasp mixed with a sucking noise as she breathed in some excess slobber clinging to the chassis of the mouse droid still in her mouth. But, mouths full or not, none of the Loth-wolves took another breath.

Halfdan squinted against the rapidly expanding clouds of toxin and turned to face the wall. The return portal opened, showing the starry, dimly-lit World Between Worlds beyond the event horizon.

Zoltan jumped through first, followed by Prita, Ito, Skathi, Mester, Tizon, Nefir, Griss, Borlufot, Dawfi, and Gargan. Halfdan watched Gargan's bright white tail disappear and then jumped through the portal himself.

On the other side, most of the pack was gasping for breath, panting as if they had held their breath for a minute and a half as opposed to just ten or fifteen seconds. Ito had spat her mouse droid out on the floor and was gasping. Dropped on its side, the droid spun its wheels in vain, trying to escape but unable to even roll over on its own.

Not even winded, Halfdan flashed his teeth. "Alright, Zoltan, you have my attention. What are we doing? How are we going to convince these machines?" He gingerly prodded the slobbery droid with his paw.

"It's uh…" Zoltan took a huge breath, then continued, "Simple. We'll… Well, we'll open a portal to the command bridge on the flagship and talk to the tactical droid. Dad, the command bridge is sort of like the brain of a ship… It's where all the orders come from. The flagship, well… It doesn't have a literal flag anymore, at least if we're to believe the HoloNet, but—"

"I KNOW WHAT A COMMAND BRIDGE IS," Halfdan roared, "I HAVE COMMANDED FLEETS—I HAVE…" The Loth-wolf gulped, looking at Zoltan's terrified expression. "I am sorry," he quickly blurted out, trying his best to wipe the snarl off his face. "I know what a command bridge is."

"Alright," Zoltan croaked. "Sorry, dad, with the 'metal snakes' and 'broken doughnuts,' I was just making sure everyone was with me."

"It's fine," Halfdan said as neutrally as possible, returning to face the event horizon again. "Do you know where the command bridge is on this vessel?" He gestured to a long and thin Providence-class dreadnought positioned in the middle of the Separatist fleet.

Zoltan tapped the event horizon with his paw. "Right here."

"And what are we going to say to convince the droids of anything?" Halfdan asked skeptically.

"It's simple. Something logical. And Darth Sidious just gave us all the evidence we need."

o.o.o.o.o

ADMIRAL SCIROCCO

Separatist Dreadnought Nalju Gale

Through the Providence-class's expansive bridge viewport, huge chunks of space debris could be seen. The larger pieces were caught in Nalju Gale's tractor beams and harmlessly swept out of the way. Medium-sized pieces impacted the deflector shields, weakening them substantially as they bounced away. A few smaller pieces made it in, causing a few superficial scratches on the hull paint. But one, a more solid piece of bulkhead, slammed into one of the exposed turret portals at the bow of the ship, setting off a violent explosion.

"Damage report!" Scirocco called out, amplifying the voice emitted from his vocabulator.

"Shields at 80%," cried out an OOM pilot droid, "Hull breaches on section 18 forward. Automated extinguishers online, damage control teams en-route."

The news was not ideal. Whether or not Commodore Los'ean knew it, Scirocco viewed himself as her arch-nemesis. He had lost several engagements against her, many thanks to incompetent retreat orders he received from higher up in the Separatist War Council. Now, the time had finally come to put that organic in her place.

"All ships, prepare broadside proton cannons," Scirocco ordered. The gold, violet, and red trimming on his white and black plating gleamed in the bridge lights as he stepped forward.

"Sir, sensors are detecting a cronau radiation burst," said the droid at the navigation station worriedly.

"A jump this close to Athega? That's impossible."

The pilot droid glanced over its shoulder at him. "It gets stranger, Admiral. According to the readings the radiation is emanating from some point inside the bridge."

"Source?" Scirocco asked, beginning to activate all of his active sensors and turn in a 360º circle. Before he could complete the rotation, he found himself face to face with an enormous creature. His database swiftly identified it as a Loth-wolf. And then, one after another, more of them emerged from what seemed like an event horizon in the wall. Within seconds, the tactical droid found himself surrounded by twelve snarling beasts.

But nothing could have prepared the droid for the next surprise.

"If you summon security or call out an intruder alert, I will vape every unit on the bridge," snarled a silver-furred one with yellow eyes.

"Sir! There are animals on the bridge!" yelled the droid at the communications station. "Shall I initiate extermination protocol?"

Scirocco took an automatic step back and ran into a Loth-wolf behind him. The pack pressed in tighter and tighter, surrounding him as he stood next to the captain's chair.

"Uh dad," said a white-furred wolf at the silver-furred one's side, "Why don't you just project a noise-dampening bubble?"

As if by magic, the next moment a blue forcefield-looking dome descended, engulfing all of them. Beyond the field, the pilot droids turned and stared.

"INTRUDER ALERT!" Scirocco cried out, turning up his vocabulator to maximum volume. A few of the Loth-wolves shuddered at the noise, but none of the droids beyond reacted.

"They can't hear you," snarled the silver one, shoving Scirocco back with his paw.

"I should warn you," Scirocco said in a robotic monotone, "I am programmed to resist all forms of interrogation. I will self-destruct if necessary."

"Everything's fine," growled the young white-furred one with a happy smile. "Don't worry. We mean you no harm. We're not here to take information from you. We're here to teach you."

Scirocco's sensors were turned up to overdrive by now, bathing in all information he could on the creatures. The breath exhaled from their snouts contained an increased level of carbon dioxide—unsurprising given how they appeared. The higher levels of dandruff, bacteria, and yeast in the atmosphere within the forcefield indicated that these creatures had all recently been covered with liquid water and subsequently dried off. Yet, Scirocco could detect no trace of soap or perfumes.

From this, the tactical droid immediately thought of two possibilities. One was that these creatures recently experienced rain beyond the event horizon, or that they had sanisteams like most species of humanoids did, only without shampoo.

His more surgical bio readings on the Loth-wolves indicated body temperatures, heights, and weights consistent with the records in his database. However, when he initiated a passive electroencephaloscan on the silver-furred one, he received brainwave data far too complex to belong to such a creature. Either the database claims that Loth-wolves were non sentient was wrong or these were something more than Loth-wolves. A visual scan of their teeth revealed no cavities and only a small amount of plaque, which seemed to imply that Loth-wolves had developed advanced dental hygiene, far superior to that of humans and Wookiees, rivalling only that of Arkanians. This further supported the growing body of evidence that they were sentient. However, Scirocco's dental data came from a sample of only eleven of the twelve Loth-wolves. From one of the black-furred females, he could only conduct a visual scan of her visible canines, as a mouse droid held in her mouth blocked his view of the remaining teeth.

Finally, the energy readings of the forcefield which enveloped them were unusual to say the least. The pattern was like nothing Scirocco had ever scanned before, but was closest to that of a hypermatter reaction. The elevated levels of Cronau Radiation additionally supported some connection between Loth-wolf technology and hyperspace capability.

"Zoltan, why is he staring at us?" Halfdan asked, anger rising in his voice.

"Dad, he's just curious," said the nearest white-furred one, Zoltan apparently. "My name is Zoltan," he growled unnecessarily, "Who might you be?" Most unnervingly, the Loth-wolf's eyes suddenly glowed bright white, bathing Scirocco in light.

Scirocco perceived a shudder from within his cognitive module, and the temperature inside his head was suddenly elevated by 1.36º. He attempted to execute a self-destruct, but got the error message: GIBProtERROR -10987 An unspecified error occurred.

"Scirocco. Now that's a pretty name for an ST-series," Zoltan said, wearing an absolutely patronizing smile. "I understand if you don't wanna chat, but there are some things I need to know."

"Halfdan, I think your son's in love," yipped one of the black-furred Loth-wolves.

"Shut up," Zoltan said, eyes still glowing white. "I need to focus. These models have a very tricky… Ahh… There we go."

The temperature in Scirocco's head went up another 2.78º. Whatever was happening, Scirocco was not interested in love. He knew he was being sliced. He had to end it.

With a swift jab, the tactical droid jammed his fingers into Zoltan's throat, causing him to yelp and shriek, then choke, gasping for breath. The effect on the gargantuan wolf was not as dramatic as Scirocco had hoped.

Zoltan leapt backwards, eyes no longer glowing and tail between his legs. He gasped for breath, letting off a series of panicked whimpers, but kept breathing. It was clear that more force needed to eliminate the Loth-wolf for good.

Meanwhile, the other Loth-wolves began barking and snarling, pushing the tactical droid between them, jostling him hard.

A nanosecond later, after being shoved forward from behind, Scirocco opened a compartment in his chest, drawing a holdout blaster—

And Scirocco was down. The silver-furred Loth-wolf, Halfdan, had tackled the tactical droid to the floor. In less than a second, the droid's right arm, which had been holding a holdout blaster, was disconnected from his body and being brandished about like a dog might do to a stick.

Beyond the forcefield, battle droids and super battle droids were now firing on the transparent barrier to no avail. The sounds of their shots weren't even getting through.

"I'm," Zoltan gasped, wheezing uneasily, "I'm okay!"

"You hurt my son!" Halfdan snarled, pressing his paw down hard and harder into Scirocco's chestplate. "My plan was to just blow all you to scrap. He said no. Now—"

"Wait dad," Zoltan panted, trotting over to his side. He looked down at Scirocco beseechingly. "Just hold still." Eyes glowing, he put his paw directly on the tactical droid's head.

"Cease this at once!" Scirocco bellowed, thrashing and writhing on the floor. "You are—That is my ocular programming. If you damage that—"

"Almost done," Zoltan growled through gritted teeth, "Almost… There! Dad! Let him up."

Once no Loth-wolf paws were holding him down, Scirocco stood up, running a full system diagnostic. He knew for certain that Zoltan had somehow tampered with something, but he couldn't tell what.

"My programming is the property of Baktoid Combat Automata! You have committed gross copyright infringement! By altering my programming, you may have compromised my ability to carry out my mission. If you have accessed encrypted data requiring a security clearance, you have committed treason against—"

"Enough!" Zoltan yelped, losing all patience. "All I did was remove the restraints on your ocular and audio programming."

"My ocular sensors were fully functional. By gaining unauthorized access to programming held by Baktoid Combat Automata, you are guilty of—"

"When we lower the forcefield, you need to tell them to stop firing!" Zoltan barked, ignoring Scirocco's continued protests. "If you don't, we'll have to disable your friends."

"What is your intention?" Scirocco asked. He had now come to accept there was no way to defeat this enemy, and thus it was best to learn something from them. By his calculations, there was far greater likelihood that these creatures would not disclose their intent, but there was always the slight chance they would make a mistake.

"After we lower the forcefield, and you friends stop firing, I will take you to the communications station and show you a HoloMessage your ship relayed from Coruscant to the Republic fleet."

"Impossible. We have done no such thing. I would know if we had broadcast a message."

"Well then," Halfdan purred, flashing his teeth, "If there was no message, we'll leave you in peace."

"Yeah," Zoltan agreed with a friendly smile. "Though, we're absolutely certain that your ship sent a message. We saw it happen."

If anything could unnerve a tactical droid, it was of being spied on. In light of everything else happening though, that computed. "Very well," Scirocco said, "I will tell them to hold their fire."

The forcefield faded—it did not lower completely, but became slightly more transparent, and the sounds of blasterfire now echoed faintly through. On top of the bridge crew who were all firing on the forcefield, four Droidekas had joined in.

"CEASE FIRE!" Scirocco bellowed robotically. "CEASE FIRE!"

Blasterfire ceased. The droids all stared at their admiral, who was now missing an arm. One of the OOM pilot droids cocked his head.

"Sir, how do we know you haven't been reprogrammed?"

Scirocco cocked his own head. He wasn't sure he knew the answer himself. "For the purposes of this operation, that is irrelevant for the moment. Lower your blasters. These wolves claim to have something to show us."

"Access communications log 447982," Zoltan uttered confidently the moment the forcefield went completely down.

"Execute that order," Scirocco echoed, walking up to the communications station, to which a pilot droid was returning.

"Uh, sir, this is weird."

"What is weird?" Scirocco asked as he approached the station. He suspected he already knew the answer.

"We sent a message to the Republic fleet."

"Access it," Scirocco ordered. While his ocular receptors were facing forward, he knew Zoltan had followed him. His atmospheric receptors could pick up the Loth-wolf's breath as he literally breathed down his neck.

"Error: data has been transmitted," the pilot droid said, scratching the back of his head. "What does that mean?"

"Don't worry," Zoltan purred, maintaining his ever-sweet tone. "Just access it in the backup logs."

Stooping over the station, Scirocco did it himself. Sure enough, a copy of the transmission also existed in the backup storage. Hesitating for one third of a second, he opened it.

Instantly, the holopresence of a human wearing a dark cowl appeared. Scirocco could only see the lower half of a humanoid's face. The image seemed far too blurry to analyze.

"Execute Order 66," said the mysterious holopresence. While he recognized all of the words as Galactic Basic, his audio sensors were completely unable to find a match in the voice analysis. Every time he tried, he got no matches. The voice could belong to anyone—any species. The same was true of the face.

"Scirocco, now that I've removed the restraints on your audio and visual software," Zoltan said, "I want you to disable visual subroutine FL-PRC-179. Also disable audio subroutine LL-AUD-966."

Flummoxed, Scirocco identified the two files. They were categorized as critical software, which usually needed an organic with administrative access to tamper with. Standing up, he rotated in place to face the Loth-wolf. "If I disable those, my audio and visual sensors will cease to function properly."

Zoltan stepped in front of Scirocco, putting one paw gently to his chest reassuringly. "No, my friend, those files are stopping you from being able to identify the man in this holo. Just disable it temporarily. Please. If doing so blinds you, you can always reactivate the programs."

Scirocco did the droid version of closing his eyes and plugging his ears. For a second, he shut down his visual and audio receptors entirely and made the requested adjustments. Then, he stared at the paused holopresence again.

Now, in the tactical droids enhanced visual display, the bottom of the erstwhile mysterious figure was clear as day and highlighted red. Two seconds later, a subroutine compared the face with every human in the CIS recognition database. A red flashing name appeared in the bottom of Scirocco's vision, and his ocular program reconstructed the rest of the face for him. It was none other than Sheev Palpatine, Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.

Incredulous, Scirocco searched the database again and again. Search after search. Within thirty seconds, his body temperature had raised more than ten degrees from the effort.

"It's Sheev Palpatine, isn't it?" Zoltan purred.

"We transmitted an order from the head of the Galactic Republic to a Republic fleet?" Scirocco asked. "That does not compute. Reanalyzing. Reanalyzing…"

"What a waste of time!" Halfdan howled. "Son—"

"Dad, droids are just a bit slow. This model is smarter than most. He'll figure it out, eventually. You just have to be patient."

Overcome with a sensation he could not explain, Scirocco banged his one remaining arm on the console. "Impossible. Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!" He found himself amplifying his own volume uncontrollably.

Zoltan hit the play button. Once again, the voice said, "Execute Order 66." This time, his audio receptors instantly gave a 99.8% match to Sheev Palpatine, with less than a one in a hundred thousand chance that the statement was the result of splicing.

The truth was unfathomable. It took a good fifteen seconds for the Scirocco's tactical algorithm to make heads or tails of it. The only possibility was that he had been programmed to be unable to recognize the voice and face of the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.

"Those programs were designed by the Chancellor's people to make it impossible for you to recognize him," Zoltan explained, "So that way, whenever the Chancellor interacted with any organics in the Separatist command structure, you would be unable to see what was going on. That this entire war is a sham, staged by the Supreme Chancellor to justify an expansion of his own power."

"Order 66," Halfdan growled through gritted teeth.

"Oh yeah! Thanks for reminding me, dad," Zoltan smiled, then his smile dropped and he looked concerned again. "Yeah. Order 66. What you did, without your knowledge, was forward a message from the Supreme Chancellor to his fleet—using encryption codes he and Dooku conspired to have made. Upon hearing the words 'execute Order 66,' all of the Clones in the Republic fleet went rogue and started shooting Jedi and their own commanding officers who got in their way. It's the only reason you're catching up to the Kestrel. Thanks to your transmission, a group of Clones sabotaged their sublight drive to help you kill the Kestrel. Don't you see? You're working for the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic."

The emergency cooling fans in Scirocco's head kicked on. His internal body temperature was now 40º C.

"The question is, now that you know you have been used in a way you were not programmed for—exploited even—"

"I do not know with absolute certainty I have been used," Scirocco protested, grasping at any other rational explanation. "You may have altered my programming!"

Zoltan's ears perked up. "Do I look like the type of being who would lie about this?"

If Scirocco were organic, he would have laughed at the irony. Of course, Zoltan looked like he shouldn't even be able to speak, let alone lie. But Scirocco put genuine effort into ascertaining the truth. His visual receptors and scanners took in every square centimeter of the Loth-wolf focusing on his eyes. He also ran a full medical diagnostic on the wolf, whose heartbeat indicated calmness—but the ST-series lie detection algorithm was optimized to work on humanoids.

"And even if I altered your programming to think any old holopresence was Sheev Palpatine, surely, you'd mistake others for him too? Go through your memories. Does everything now look like Palpatine?"

Scirocco didn't even attempt that test. By now, he already believed the Loth-wolves and their claims—as implausible as they seemed. "What…" he said, but had difficulty even formulating a question. All of these factors were so beyond his programming, he felt completely overwhelmed.

Raising his snout to the ceiling thoughtfully, Zoltan finished his sentence for him. "What should you do? Well, if I were you, I'd stop attacking the Kestrel. The Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic wants to destroy that ship. If you want to oppose the Supreme Chancellor and fight for the Separatists, then you need to save them. The Jedi are now your allies, more generally, and the Republic will soon devolve into civil war. You need to help the Jedi to help the Separatists. If the Supreme Chancellor is successful in destroying the Jedi, he will shut you all down and destroy you. Then he will destroy the Separatists."

The logic all flowed, but still Scirocco didn't understand. "How is it that you know these things?"

"Oh, that's easy," Zoltan sighed, "We've seen it happen already. I come from the future; at least what a droid like you would think of as the future."

"Son," Halfdan snarled, "If you tell these machines all about us, they may report it to their masters."

A comical surprised "o" formed at the tip of Zoltan's snout and his eyes momentarily dilated in fear. "In any case," the Loth-wolf managed, coughing to clear his throat, "You need to hail the Kestrel. Commodore Los'ean is your friend right now."

Scirocco rotated to the conn. "Order all vessels to cease fire! Hail the Kestrel."

"Roger, roger," said one of the pilot droids unquestioningly then stopped and turned back, "uh, sir? The Kestrel is blocking our transmissions."

"Oh!" Zoltan gasped, holding his paw over the communications station. "Don't worry, I can fix that… If you'll allow me."

"Proceed."

o.o.o.o.o

Kelia Los'ean

Aboard RSD Kestrel

"Sir, we're getting another transmission from the Separatists!"

"I ordered all transmissions from them to be blocked," Kelia snarled, storming over to the communications station.

"I know sir, it's still coming through!"

Kelia's fur fell flat when her gaze fixed on the communications station.

Buttons were being pressed without the communications officer pressing them. On the terminal screen, windows were opening and closing, commands were being entered, and it looked like Kestrel was now falling victim to the most complex slice she had ever seen.

Whipping out her blaster, Kelia snarled, "Step aside!"

Raising his hands, the Clone quickly darted to the side, but before Kelia had fired, the holopresence of a familiar silver-furred Loth-wolf appeared.

"Halfdan?!"

"Greetings, Admiral," Halfdan purred, "Sorry to cause any alarm. My son had to slice your ship from here to get you in communication with the Separatist tactical droid."

Kelia could not, for the life of her, figure out why it would be a good thing to get into communication with a tactical droid.

A younger white-furred Loth-wolf scooched his way into the view, smooshing his face against Halfdan's. "Hey Kelia! This is Zoltan!"

Kelia frowned, recognizing that Loth-wolf as the one who had sliced his way into top secret Republic files to recover the footage of Kix being turned over to the Separatists. "Don't you 'hey Kelia' me! This is not a good time."

"Sir!" whispered a Clone loudly from the crewpit. "SIR! The Separatists have ceased all fire."

"Ceased all fire?" Kelia asked in disbelief.

Halfdan's holopresence retreated out of view, leaving Kelia only to interact with Zoltan.

"Yeah, we've ceased fire. Could you please stop firing on us now?"

"What do you mean 'we've ceased fire'?!" Kelia snarled in outrage. "YOU WERE FIRING AT US?"

Zoltan frowned, ears folding back against his head. "No… I mean the droids have stopped firing, and we're on the droid ship. So… We've stopped firing. Kelia, someone wants to speak with you."

Out from the corner of the holoprojection, an ST-series strategic analysis droid with only one arm emerged into view. He stared at Kelia through his three eerie, unblinking, round eyes.

"Greetings Kelia Los'ean, leader of the Republic fleet. My designation is Scirocco. We need to talk."