Barton IV
Mayday stood at the back of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the holo image rise from the Holo emitter and flicker in front of them. It was some kind of logo; there was no way you could determine the sex, age or even species of Fulcrum from only the voice.
Were they were coordinating more cells than this one? Possibly more than one Fulcrum? It wasn't any code name he had heard of back in the day and the likelihood was that it was an ex-republic or Seppie supporter.
He had to get out of that mindset - Republic and Separatists— it no longer mattered.
This was his first time attending a briefing.
He wondered why.
He'd like to know more about who was giving the orders.
"As always you don't have to take this mission. You are here by choice." The voice said, revealing nothing about the mission prior to acceptance. "And, as always, you are on your own if caught."
We don't know who you are anyway, so we are always on our own.
Mayday listened carefully, previously they had asked for him to be vetted by others and going somewhere else to help with coordinating missions but as far as he was concerned he was staying here with Donca.
She had argued for him to stay with them.
He owed her. She deserved his loyalty first and foremost.
He had work to do with them. They showed promise. There were a couple who could make half decent snipers, considering the length of time he'd had with them.
He still wanted, no, needed to find Hela. If he went anywhere else he may not get the time or freedom to complete his searches.
Now he had that freedom of choice, Donca and Finor had both said if he wanted to leave he could. He was enjoying that feeling of freedom, of being in charge of his own destiny but that feeling also came with a price. The anger at the way he and his brothers had been treated, and the guilt that he had been the one to survive.
He shook his head, metaphorically shaking himself out of those thoughts; it was a dark path to go down.
"Commander Mayday. It's good to have you with us." Fulcrum addressed him.
His ears pricked up at his name and he pushed himself away from the wall, taking a step nearer.
"I'm not a Commander anymore."
"Aren't you?"
"No!"
"That isn't what I hear. And it's all good."
"Just payin' a debt." He looked at Donca, who smiled, and wondered just how much Fulcrum knew about him.
"We hoped more of your brothers would come over to us. They proved themselves to be exceptional fighters."
"They'd need to have a good reason."
"Fighting the Empire that enslaved them isn't good enough?"
Mayday thought of Crosshair and how he had fought for the Empire, as had he himself.
"Not for some."
Fulcrum did not understand clones.
"And you do?" Fulcrum asked.
"Like I said, just payin' a debt."
They let the silence hang there for longer than normal.
"The mission—" Fulcrum started, "should you accept it." They paused, "is Serenno."
"We accept!" Donca said, she was fully committed.
"Serreno?" He asked, taking another step closer to the Holoemitter but he wasn't sure why; it made no difference.
"Yes. Dooku's Palace."
"Pah! The Empire gutted that place with an orbital bombardment numerous rotations ago, before I left the Outpost. It's been levelled."
"Not all of it. They took the credits and valuables from Dooku's war chest but we have Intel that there were data crystals hidden away. They could have valuable Intel on what the Emperor was planning—" Fulcrum continued.
"Apart from taking over the Galaxy you mean!" Mayday interrupted him, for some reason he thought they were male.
Donca and Finor turned to look at him.
"No. On how he intends to keep his hold on the Empire and not just with the new Stormtrooper Corps but with new weapons. We know he was planning this for years." The distorted voice was not angry but almost amused at his comments.
"If it's anything like the gear I saw, I wouldn't be worried."
"Explain!" The tone said it was an order, he knew one when he heard one, despite what Fulcrum had said.
"The stormtrooper armour we guarded for over a year was cheap, thin, compared to the clone armour I wore. Firing on them is like punching a hole in a Flimzi bag."
"We think it's something bigger."
"Dooku had numerous meetings with the Geonosians before the Clone Wars. They continued during but not with Dooku. The Republic continued to meet with them."
"More droids?"
"No! There's a few droid factories left but nothing like before."
"New and larger destroyers?"
"Possibly, we don't know."
Mayday walked closer, "What do you know?" He asked.
He thought he heard a muffled chuckle before Fulcrum continued, "We've been following the credits."
"And?"
"The figures don't add up."
"How?"
"Trillions of credits go into the Imperial War machine and the Empire does not get value for money. And I for one don't believe they would allow that."
"Do you have any more Intel—proof?" Mayday pushed, "I can imagine the Empire has some creative Accountants."
"The Empire has Trillions available plus more from taxes going in every day and what's produced does not match the value of what is removed from the War Chest."
"Embezzled?"
"Anyone embezzling is quickly dealt with—permanently." Fulcrum confirmed.
"So these credits are disappearing —officially."
"Yes. It's the only answer. Also there's the sanctioned use of slaves."
Mayday bristled at the thought, "Slaves?" He finally asked.
"Kashyyk is being systematically farmed for the Wookiees to provide slaves for working in building—something—we don't know exactly what. We think it's a new version of the Tie fighter."
"But would that account for that amount of credits?" Asked Mayday
"We don't know."
"So you're clutching at straws?"
There was silence on the other side.
"No. We have people on the inside."
"Can't you use them?"
"They're too valuable where they are, obtaining Intel."
"And we aren't?"
He felt Donca's hand firm but cool on his forearm.
"Mayday! Back off! I've agreed we'll do it. It's what we're all here for. Including you. Or am I mistaken?"
He stood back upright, not realising he was leaning forward. His face inches from the holo image.
"Everyone has value." Fulcrum continued, "Everyone."
Mayday thought he caught a tinge of sadness in the way that was said.
It was the sadness of a Commander. He knew that.
"I just don't like going on a Fool's errand."
"I understand but in this case we need to check. Be sure."
He shrugged, Donca was right that's why they were here. He stood back waiting for the instructions.
.
Serenno
Their new pilot dropped the little freighter out of hyperspace effortlessly and they entered the atmosphere. There was no Imperial presence here now they had stripped the planet and the Emperor's new Enforcer had removed a number of the Heads of the Noble houses. Fulcrum had provided additional information.
Sorenno was destroyed as a planet and a force. There was no way it could influence galactic politics again, not in this generation.
The Empire liked retribution.
They flew low over the decimated city, the buildings flattened and no one would be able to live here, not in what was left. The pilot hovered over Dooku's Palace or what was left, struggling to find a safe landing area. There was no way to confirm it was structurally safe. Finor spoke to their contact to confirm the rendezvous point.
"We're going to have to get there on foot."
Dash groaned; he would not have been Mayday's first choice because of his attitude but he was strong and their best sniper. If he got the job done that was all that mattered.
.
She landed, there was very little space and the ship was out in the open, exposed to anyone, "I'll drop you off then find some cover for the ship. Let me know the time and place for the pick up."
"Will do!" Confirmed Finor.
The group trudged through the ruins, the usual smells of decomposition and wildlife taking over assailed their nostrils until they left the city limits and moved into the countryside which eventually led to a lush area of forest. Mayday looked around, it would be easy for someone or anything to attack them. Plenty of hiding places.
He watched his comrades walk ahead of him, nervously checking their surroundings. They were used to Barton IV and the fauna there.
Mayday was on alert, listening to all the new small sounds of the forest.
The forest opened out a little revealing a destroyed container at the bottom of a sheer cliff face. They had to negotiate the container to get near it.
"Check it!" Ordered Mayday, "There may be useful equipment in there."
Zak and Dash climbed it and lowered themselves inside; he followed and leaned over, holding the edges and giving a quick look himself.
Dash looked up, "Don't you trust us?" he asked.
Mayday didn't reply but climbed down himself and stood in front of Dash, "Yes. But a different perspective is always good."
Dash gave him that look that said watch your back, "Nothing much here, " he continued, "No equipment." He kicked a few empty boxes, "They've emptied it. Not even left us any credits."
"Back up then." Mayday gave Zak a leg up, followed him a few yards, then leaned down to offer his hand to Dash. He refused, climbing up himself.
"Up there!" Pointed Finor, to the top of the cliff, "And there's no way around."
All their heads looked upwards.
"It's doable!" said Mayday and started climbing.
.
Mayday, Finor, Dash and Zak waited at the rendezvous point. Even in this part of the forest there had been fighting; Mayday touched the scorch marks on the trunk of the large trees.
Blaster fire.
"Is it just the four of you?" a male voice asked. Mayday couldn't quite work out where it came from, the trees interfered with the direction the voice came from.
"Yes!" Answered Finor.
"Who sent you?"
"No one!"
An older man, grey haired, drooping moustache, appeared from the undergrowth, carrying a back pack and a blaster; he looked at them all, lingering a few longer seconds on Mayday.
"So you want to get into the Palace?"
"Yes!"
"The Empire's gutted it. There's no treasure left and what there was, was ours to begin with and now the Empire has it."
"We know."
"So what do you want?"
"Information!"
"I doubt there's anything left there."
"That's not what we've been told."
"So I've heard."
"Is there a problem?" asked Mayday.
The man looked at him again, as if he recognised him.
"No. I'll help you get in."
"Why can't we just drop in?" Asked Dash, they had seen the Palace in their way in.
"Good question. Why can't we?" Asked Mayday, although he probably knew the answer.
"The infrastructure is too weak."
"So you've already been there?"
"Yes. I was trying to ensure that my planet's culture and history was not totally decimated by the Empire. I was trying to get anything to save."
"And?"
"There wasn't much. But I can get you in."
"How?"
"Through the tunnels."
"What tunnels? No one said anything about them!" Dash asked.
"When the palaces were built centuries ago, the Counts, Dukes etc, didn't want to see their servants carrying anything for them. In fact they didn't want to look at the servants at all. The servants had to face the wall if the Head of the house passed them in a corridor. They built tunnels for the servants to enter the Palace and move around it unseen. We're going to use those."
He turned away.
"So! Are you coming or not?"
"Come on!" Finor was at the front and they followed the Serennian through the forest.
.
"Is this where you live?" Asked Mayday looking at the small basic dwelling in the heart of the forest, where the man had stopped.
"Not anymore but it's useful for storage and 'just in case'. You can go in."
They entered the small dwelling; it was cooler and drier than the Forest. The Imperial decimation of the city had also affected the local climate. It was not as temperate as it had been.
"Help yourself to water. Fill your bottles. It's clean but I can't guarantee the state of the water in the city ruins."
Mayday peered down into the basement, through the open trap door.
"That's storage. We need to get nearer the palace."
"Down the cliff again?" Asked Dash.
"No, its a few miles from here. Next to an old abandoned village. But we can't get there tonight. Not through the forest."
"Why not?" Asked Dash.
"One—I'm old and it's easy to get lost in the forest at night."
Dash huffed in response.
"Two— Spine-wolves. They're nocturnal, hunt in packs and they have increased fast after the decimation of the city. They roam free now."
"We could take them down."
"Unlikely. Too many in the pack. They've expanded, no one to cull their numbers. So don't give them a chance to get your scent. We'll leave at first light. Eat and sleep."
.
Mayday stared at the ruins of the abandoned village, stone walls and doorways rose up from the cracked ground, showing how the lay out of the village had been laid out, "The orbital bombardment didn't do this, did it?"
"No. It was done centuries ago when the then Duke decided he wanted a lake near to his Palace. So he cleared the village of its inhabitants, built a dam and flooded it. Not necessarily in that order but that's a bit vague. The bombardment destroyed the dam so the water drained away."
Mayday looked at it, part of him fascinated.
"Didn't the Republic do anything, when it first happened?"
"No. Not their problem."
Mayday continued to stare at it trying to imagine people living here, "What should I call you?"
"Romar."
"Okay Romar. What did you do before the war?" He asked.
"History Professor."
Mayday wasn't exactly sure what a history Professor did but it explained Romar's knowledge.
"Is it safe?" Asked Zak as he walked up to them.
Romar chuckled, "As safe as anywhere is today. Just stay together."
He started walking down the incline towards the ruins.
The small group stayed together walking through the ghost village; it was an odd feeling. Mayday had walked through the ruins of the city before but this was different, he felt as if he was intruding.
"Aw Kriff!" Zak exclaimed.
Mayday turned to see him bent over in the doorway of a ruined house. He was besides the lad in seconds and looked inside the ruins.
The people there had been dead for centuries but the bones of the three people lying on the floor told their own story.
Two large ones and a smaller one.
A family.
Romar came up behind him.
"Sorry. I should have warned you. Just in case."
Mayday pushed Zak away from the ruins and followed him.
"Not far now." He pointed to an archway a few hundred yards away, "The inhabitants of this village all worked for the Count in some way."
"If it's been under water, is the tunnel safe?" Asked Mayday.
"We'll soon find out."
.
The tunnels were still wet but passable and it brought them into the Palace which was in a worse condition. He scanned the infrastructure; sunlight was finding its way in. He turned his torch off and he could still see.
"Careful where you tread." He warned before turning to Romar, "Do we know where they're likely to be?"
"Rumours of secret rooms have always been around. Hidden treasure, etc. There was always someone not happy with any of the Noble Houses. They always had guards. It could be anywhere."
He pulled out his datapad and accessed it, "These are a few examples in other houses that have been found." He passed it around.
"This is stupid. We're never going to find anything." Dash exclaimed.
"We split up." Finor ordered, "Check anything that looks like that." He pointed to the images, "Send them to everyone."
Mayday stayed with Romar, they walked through the tunnels to the first room; he scanned it, whereas Romar simply looked.
"Anything strike you?" Mayday asked. To him the room looked as if it was covered in very old identical wooden panels.
"Nothing yet." He answered quietly as he walked slowly around the room.
"So how does it work? Do we push anything that looks like it's out of place?"
"Yes. I've never done this before."
"Great!" Mayday replied but he had done something similar with Skoll, so he did the same as Romar, looking for anomalies.
The panels were highly decorated in this room, he wasn't sure about the others but assumed they were similar.
"What would these rooms be used for?"
"Years ago, it was for staff who ran the house. With Dooku, I'm not unsure."
Mayday pressed a random panel, he pushed; there was no give in it, no click, nothing.
"Are we sure about this?"
"You tell me, I was just asked to bring you here."
Mayday shook his head then he heard something he had not heard in a long time.
"Clankers!" He pulled his blaster and ran out of the room.
In the main tunnel, Zak and Dash were hugging the wall firing back at the Batyle droids heading towards them.
Mayday joined them firing at the first ones, "I thought they'd all been deactivated"
"Obviously not!" Muttered Dash, standing at the corner of the tunnel returning fire.
"What did you do?" Asked Finor, now with Zak.
"Pressed a panel, just like the images showed." He fired, his aim wasn't that good.
If they get out of this, thought Mayday, I need to get his blaster work up to scratch.
More clanking noises coming from another direction. They were being caught in a pincer movement; he turned to start firing at the new ones. Dash ducked and glared at him, thinking he was firing at him, until he turned. They were getting closer to him; the last one was right on top of him. Mayday leapt at it; he couldn't tell you how he did it but he jammed his blaster it's head from above and fired, dropping from its shoulders as it whined its death throes.
It was all quiet.
"Is that it?" Asked Romar, his blaster smoking.
"Looks like it."
"They must have been guarding something. Where were you?" Mayday asked them.
Dash nodded and they followed him.
The room looked as if it had been blown up, rubble everywhere but there was a gap in the panelling revealing a huge vault, filled with flimzi books and old fashioned data crystals.
"So they were guarding this?"
"Looks like it."
"Get all the data crystals and any other data devices. We'll take them all. I don't want to stay here if there are more of those around." he had never been a fan of droids despite his separatist leanings.
They dragged out everything that looked as if it held data, exited through the tunnels faster than they entered and Mayday had no problem with that.
.
"So what do you think?" Finor asked Zak.
The young lad shrugged, holding up one of the flimzi thin data cards before fully pushing it into the reader on his datapad.
Many of the data crystals were cloudy showing as they had degraded.
There was a box of flimzi thin data cards; Zak pulled one out. The readout showed the need for a password, "It could be anything, without the password or encryption codes I can't access them safely. I could have a go but then I could end up destroying everything that's on it."
"Fek!"
It was the first time Mayday had heard Finor swear and now they had to make their way back, not even sure if they had succeeded.
.
As they waited for their pick up, Mayday stared at the helmets arranged in the shape of a pyramid; they were clone helmets, not Stormtrooper. There was still remnants of the paint on them, the ones used to denote their battalion or legion, to assert their individuality. Mayday could not take his eyes off them. Romar had surprised him, especially since he stopped for a few seconds at every mound of earth; the others had thought he was just getting his bearings, catching his breath, as had Mayday, but then it was at every mound and sometimes the mounds were bigger.
"I didn't know what if anything cultural was done for clone troopers when they died. So I just buried them or what was left but their helmets seemed to mean something. I had seen them arrange the helmets for their brothers. Is that what you say?"
"Yes."
"So I kept them. Brought them back here."
Mayday's scanned them with his comlink, identifying the CT numbers and names; he didn't recognise any until— he stopped and closed his eyes for a few seconds.
"You knew them?" asked Romar.
"This one, Wilco." the images Donca had shown him came back, the Imperial shooting him, "I trained with him."
"I'm sorry."
Mayday looked at the old man, there was sadness in his eyes and even though his planet was destroyed. He really did seem sorry.
"Why?" Mayday felt there was more.
"I met a few of your brothers. Looked a bit different to you but they helped me."
Mayday nodded.
"A word of advice. Don't feel guilty for surviving. Someone has to. It's what some of us do."
A/N: the idea of the submerged village is taken from Ladybower Reservoir in the Derbyshire Peak District National Park. Although it was dammed to provide clean water for the surrounding area and not on the whim of the local landowner. Derwent was the village 'drowned' when the Ladybower Reservoir was created between 1935 and 1943. It is historically significant as the place Guy Gibsdon and his men trained for the Dambusters raid on the dams of the Ruhr Valley with the 'Bouncing bombs'.