Dawn of Forever, Part XII

It was a scene that took place with greater frequency in recent weeks. A convoy was pulled from hyperspace into the waiting arms of raiders, but instead of the usual pirates and such, there were warships waiting for them. With the teeth pulled from the Empire's military presence, the independent powers now preyed on the under-defended ships that were still necessary to keep commerce flowing within the Empire's territory. It may seem unimportant, but commerce meant revenue, which meant tax money for the Imperial war machine. More and more were getting the same kind of messages from the Empire that Lando Calrissian had received, and provoking their subjects with even greater demands for funds while not protecting their interest was potentially leading to further revolts against their government. This was all well and good, but the Malon, who had sent three cruisers to deal with this convoy, also never turned down a chance for a handful of credits. Hurting the Empire was just a bonus.

Unfortunately for them, they'd garnered some attention. As the cruisers swooped in with tractor beams at the ready, two Borg tactical cubes arrived. One would be enough. The Malon turned to fight for all the good it would do; thanks to their own interdictor torpedo, they were now stuck here with the Borg. Their ships had been outfitted with heavier weaponry, but even when these managed to penetrate the Borg adaptive shielding, they did little more than scratch their armored hulls.

Three blue spheres were launched from one cube, splashing across the shields of a Malon cruiser. Alas, that was the point; the shields flickered upon impact. It was very, very brief, perhaps a few dozen miliseconds, but the shields were open nonetheless, and with centuries of finely-honed transporter experience, it was more than enough.

In the engineering section of the cruiser panic quickly spread as a horde of Borg drones appeared. Security forces were already standing by for engagement, but the drones ignored them, and the Malon quickly found their attention elsewhere. Two snaps rang out before anyone could react, and suddenly the security head's... head... rolled past. The Malon opened fire, but the figure was too quick, literally bouncing off a wall as he evaded their blast and dove, two deadly blades of pure energy spinning beside him. He weaved around them, casually slashing through as he passed and forcing the Malon to withdraw. He drew to a quick stop to catch a Malon's shot. It was a continuous fire weapon, a phaser or disruptor. Weapons like that could have advantages against a Jedi, or severe disadvantages. The continuous beam bounced off the lightsaber and was angled back, slicing down three additional Malon security guards before hitting the one holding the weapon himself. That had cleared engineering for the moment, but there was no time to celebrate. He gestured at the three doors, which each closed in turn. Finally, the situation fully dealt with, Sebastian shut down the lightsaber. "Status?" he asked.

"Ninety-two percent," the Borg Queen informed him. A few seconds later the ship lurched and the lights dimmed; emergency lights cut on under back-up power, not enough for much else. Gravity, minimal life support, transmission reception (not even enough to answer), and the doors. "Reactor is off line," she said. "We are the Borg-"

The Malon on the bridge listened as their guts tightened. "-your vessel will be assimilated," the chorus announced. "If you do not evacuate you will be punished." That was more than enough for them. It wasn't that the Malon crew were cowards, but they didn't care to throw their lives away, or hand them over to the Borg. The escape pods were quickly filled and ejected.

The other cube had been engaging the remaining two cruisers. One had been subjected to some of the Borg's heavier weapons; it was only useful for materials now. The other, however, seemed to be powering down as well. Sebastian nodded as he examined it on his datapad; no real damage, it looked like the destroyer droid squad coupled with the drones worked quite well. That was good; he didn't care for these jobs much, despite their necessity. Since the Borg had to stop assimilating personnel, electronic records were now the primary source of their information, and too often ships would lose some data during the course of the battle. The new Borg tactic of disabling the ship without damaging it had provided a wealth of information on anti-Imperial activities, not to mention some useful details to be integrated in Borg construction efforts. But that led to the second advantage of taking the ship intact; it meant you had an intact ship. The Borg were still salvaging damaged and empty cubes from before their re-birth, so they had no need for them, but there were plenty who paid handsomely for a fully-functioning warship. Naturally, the Borg only sold to Imperial allies to avoid provoking the Empire. Taar may have adopted a grudging tolerance for the Collective, but it wouldn't take much for him to declare it open season on any cybernetic organism.

The drones nearby had plugged into the main computer; there were no doubt high-level encryption patterns to protect the Malon's secrets, but they had no hope against the sheer number of minds devoted to breaking them. It took seconds before data flowed into the hive mind. "Interesting," the Queen said to Sebastian. "It seems this Malon ship had a brief encounter with the bioships."

"What?" Sebastian said, visibly shocked at the news. The Borg had been searching for the bioships that had attacked the Imperial fleet for some time, and hadn't found a trace of them. Any clue could be of help in finding this enemy and figuring out whether it was the Vong or someone else. "How much information do you have?"

"Enough," the Borg Queen said succinctly. Sebastian knew what that meant. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and the implant deep inside his brain switched on.

It always hit him like a blow to the solar plexus. To think he used to feel this way all the time! After a timeless period had passed his connection was cut and he was left gasping, but the new knowledge was fresh in his head: all the sensor recordings, all the flight details, all the little things that could prove the vital element in finally finding this mysterious force. "Any theories on where these bioships may have gone?" he asked the Borg Queeen.

"We have a few possible projections," the Borg Queen said. "You wish to take the Tactical Cube?"

"Yes, I'd like to look into this personally," Sebastian said. "This could be what my father was alluding to when he spoke of the greater threat to us. If so, I've got to figure out just what it is."

"Agreed," the Borg Queen said, although Sebastian knew she placed little stock in his views of the Force. Whatever these bioships were, they presented a possible threat and possible new information for the Borg, which made them doubly of interest to the Collective. They may be a business rather than a military force in the galaxy, but that didn't change their fervent drive towards knowing and understanding everything, of achieving total perfection. "Engagement at this time, however, would be unwise," she added.

"One thing at a time," Sebastian said. "Let's find them first, then decide if we're going to fight or not."

"That is a dangerous strategy."

Sebastian shrugged. "What can I say, I like to adapt." And with that he de-materialized off the Malon cruiser and disappeared into hyperspace on the Tactical Cube.

Annika Hansen Skywalker lay on her bunk, the lights dimmed to allow her the chance for some sleep. At the end of the day.... that was the expression, wasn't it? At the end of the day, often followed by an unpleasant truth. After all, that's what this time brought you, in the quiet and the dark, with absolutely nothing but the voices of your own mind. And often there was one voice, the unpleasant one. Not the conscience, no, though it knew about guilt. It knew about a lot of emotions, and used them with the fine skill of a master golfer selecting between a seven and eight iron. It was the voice of truth, with all the attractiveness of an open cadaver. At the end of the day, it spoke, and it was a voice not easily silenced.

Its message for Annika was simple: you're dead. You will never leave this place alive, and all your actions here are in vain. Maybe you made a difference with the Borg, but that's all over now.

It was at that moment that the Oracle entered Annika's cell, and the grim truth and fresh pain flipped a few switches in the woman's mind, and she leapt at her former captain. It wasn't calculated and lacked all of the normally subtle and crafty tactics Annika employed; it was brute force anger taking out its frustrations on the face of its tormentor.

She never landed a blow. Instead she was bodily picked up and tossed into the wall, not hard enough to break anything, but just hard enough to make a point. The Oracle's face showed no sign of response to any of this, as if she was too distracted to bother herself with a raging ex-Borg besides a subconscious reaction, like the brushing away of a fly. "It's good to see you're in touch with your emotions," the Oracle offered. Annika growled at her in response. "They can make you so strong when you let them." Annika rolled over and looked at the wall rather than at the thing Janeway had become. "I think you're starting to wake up to that. Pain, you see, is very good at getting one to admit the power of the Dark side. It worked for Ben, for Molly, even for Alema."

"I'm not interested in the Dark side," Annika said coldly.

"Then why did you attack me?" the Oracle asked. "Why did you lash out?"

"Because killing you would be a step closer to my freedom," Annika said, turning back.

"Analytical," the Oracle said. "You'd always turn to that as a crutch, but there was no reason in your actions, only passion, hate." She stepped closer and her voice seemed more soothing. "You've been conditioned to resist those feelings. I assure you, they give you strength, and with strength comes the ability to impose your vision on reality. For you, it was to live in a galaxy without me. For me, I saw a galaxy without an Empire looming over it."

"An Empire founded by Sith," Annika said. "Yet you join with them against the Jedi. That never made any sense, captain."

"The Jedi are weak, Seven, you should know that by now. You've seen first-hand Luke's limitations." The Oracle smiled a little at Annika's murderous expression. "You see? So easily it comes, doesn't it? Anger? Hatred? The Jedi suppress this like the Vulcans, but it's emotion that fuels the power of the Force."

"And if it were not for that, then there would be no Empire," Annika said. "Don't you see that?"

"What I see," the Oracle said, "is a means towards an end, nothing more. Besides, it is as much the fault of the Jedi that the Empire exists. Their failure to see the threat, and the failure of their teachings to stop it." The Oracle looked away as she reflected on something. "You don't really have the full story of what happened, do you? Second-hand tales, Imperial propaganda, wishful thinking... no one else really has the means of manipulating time itself to discover the hidden truths. Half a century ago, at the close of the Clone Wars, Emperor Palpatine seized total control." The Oracle seemed lost in the memory of it. "Right there, that was the critical junction. Palpatine was strong in the Dark side, oh yes, but there were still two Jedi who had the means to thwart him, two who had the chance to destroy the Empire before it ever began. One I'm sure you can already guess at."

Annika nodded a little. Luke's father, who in the end embraced that same dark path, and cast a shadow over his family that haunts even Jaina and Sebastian generations later.

"The other was a Jedi Master, in fact," the Oracle continued. "A powerful master of the Force, whose fighting style was so aggressive it skirted the boundary between the Light and the Dark, yet he in his arrogance believed he could control it." As the Oracle spoke the air nearby shimmered until it formed a sphere, and inside a battle between Jedi and Sith played out. Palpatine was almost unrecognizable in his comparable youth, but as Annika watched she saw what the Oracle meant. The power of the Jedi master was obvious even through this vision, the way he disarmed his adversary and left him prone and helpless. "He placed Palpatine under arrest," the Oracle said with a rumble in her voice, "at the same time that young Skywalker arrived."

And there he was, exactly as Annika had seen in the records. She could read between the lines. This was the pivotal moment, when Anakin Skywalker would stand in the light or embrace the darkness; when the Republic would endure or descend into the Empire that would bring two galaxies to their knees. Three human beings in this moment were about to affect more people than you could count in a lifetime.

"Anakin wants Palpatine taken alive," the Oracle said. "Windu has already arrested him. And yet... so close to the twilight between the two sides of the Force, so precariously balanced, as much in his way as the green youth beside him.

"The Force, Seven, has a strong influence on the weak of mind," she said bitterly. "But the influence on all minds, the unity of it, affects all. It can have a strong influence on the weak, but a weak influence on the strong. In the depths of his soul, Master Windu knew that the Jedi could not hope to remove Palpatine, not with the Senate and the Courts on his side. There was one and only one way to remove a man like Palpatine, one way to abort the birth of this monstrous thing called the Galactic Empire, and it took what all revolutions will ultimately end with... with one single swing of the blade."

Windu's face filled the sphere, frozen in his stare at the fallen Sith. The Oracle regarded him with nothing but contempt. "But that is not the Jedi way. That is not the way that Mace Windu and other teachers of the Jedi had pounded into Anakin Skywalker for years and years. And Palpatine, well, he was a friend and mentor to Anakin, keeping him in his confidence, offering things that the Jedi had refused. And Windu, who never made any attempt to hide his dislike for the young man, who despite all he had done never trusted him. Who would he side with, if Windu turned his back on all he'd told Anakin and tried to kill Palpatine? The answer is only too obvious." And now it was the fallen Sith who filled the sphere. "And Palpatine knew what was in the two Jedi's hearts, and so he reached out to Windu and gave that strong mind the weakest nudge, and toppled a thousand governments with it.

"Despite being a Jedi, despite the truth of Anakin's own words, in his heart of hearts, Mace Windu wanted to see Palpatine dead. Dead for the crimes he'd committed against the Republic. Dead for the worlds that burned by his order. Dead for the Jedi that fell in a war he caused. And that weak nudge was all that he needed to swing, and all the prompting young Skywalker needed to intercede." The scene played out, as Windu raised for the killing stroke, only to have the conflicted lad stop him, leaving the opening for Palpatine to destroy his own would-be killer. The air swirled less and the sphere evaporated.

The Oracle now glared at Annika. "Do you know why I hate the Jedi? Because they were given their chance, and they failed to measure up. It wasn't that their ideals failed them, it was that they could not hold themselves to those ideals!"

"One man's failure does not-"

"A Jedi master!" the Oracle shouted. "One of the most senior amongst the Jedi Council, could not measure up to their own standards! The Jedi always have been and always will be inferior because they will never admit that their code demands the impossible of them, that to do what must be done you have to be ready to cross the line!"

"So you side with the Sith that created the very Empire you seek to destroy?" Annika said, bringing up what seemed the obvious contradiction once again.

The Oracle scoffed at her. "The Sith are not like the Jedi, Seven. That Palpatine succeeds is not a victory for Sith everywhere, it's a victory for him and him alone. A Sith acquires power to attain their goals, and my goal is to destroy the Empire. Whether it was made by another Sith or not is of no consequence to me."

"But in your division, you are weakened," Annika shot back.

The Oracle leaned over her, until her face was mere inches away. "Think about the battle between Jedi and Sith Masters, and tell me which side it was that was divided."

Go To Part XIII
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