Dawn of Forever, Part XIII

Lando Calrissian pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, I want to pay you-"

"And I want to give you your shipment," Dalon Ros replied. "That's why I went into trade instead of becoming a computer debugger or an animal trainer. But if I'm to give you something, you have to give me something back. That's why it's called the 'trade' business instead of the 'charity' business, or the 'I was born yesterday' business."

"You'll get your money," Lando promised.

"Now," Dalon said, doing a little spin of his index finger and touching his desk. Lando didn't like it, it reminded him too much of the death spiral his company was in. "Payment upon delivery, that's what our contract says."

"Look, Dalon," Lando said, "I'm up against a wall here. The Empire's demanded credit on their ships, they're not paying me."

"You've got a contract," Dalon said with a shrug. "Sue 'em."

"We're at war, Dalon," Lando pointed out.

"The Empire's at war," Dalon said, "I'm not. That's why I went into trade instead of soldiering."

"When this is all squared away-"

"No, no, no," Dalon said emphatically. "Your company may be ready to plunge into bankruptcy, but I'm not holding hands with you on the way down. If you don't pay me, in full, now, I'll find someone else to buy this stuff, cut you off from all future sales, and put the word out on this. No respectable merchant's going to even pick up the commlink for you, understand? This is not how you run a business!"

Lando looked around the room, tight-lipped, trying not to give voice to his frustration. "Look, if the Vong win-"

"Don't talk to me about the Vong, Lando," Dalon interrupted. "I don't know when you fell in love with the Empire, but I'm not going to drive my business into the ground in the name of patriotism."

"I'm just being pragmatic," Lando said. "If the Vong win they'll kill all of us."

"I'd rather die rich than live in poverty," Dalon said flatly. "Now, we both know your business has been circling the drain. I've been making your deliveries only because a deal's a deal, but it stops being a deal when you stop paying. Now, what's it going to be? You going to pay me my credits, or are you going to drive a stake through your company's heart?"

"All right, all right!" Lando said. "Give me a minute to get it together; you'll get your money."

"I'm not going anywhere," Dalon said, then leaned in closer to Lando. "Yet." His hologram vanished. Lando hit the desk in frustration, then began gathering funds together. Finally he transferred the credits to Dalon Ros' account, and the latter began offloading the equipment for the fighters Lando wasn't being paid for. He pinched the bridge of his nose again; he wasn't sleeping much lately.

Lando reached forward and activated a few buttons. The holographic Quark materialized in the room. "Please state the nature of the fiscal emergency."

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Lando grumbled.

"I wish you wouldn't summon me like that," Quark shot back. "I'd like to keep what little dignity I have, thank you very much. Now what's the problem?"

Lando gave a gesture of hopelessness. "Unfortunately, you hit the nail on the head. We have a fiscal emergency. Dalon Ros showed up with his shipment."

"He wouldn't cooperate," Quark said, whose insight into the mind of businessmen everywhere bordered on supernatural. "I told you he wouldn't."

"Yeah, well, it was a long shot, but it was all we had." Lando settled back into his chair, if only as a token concession to his exhaustion. Quark took the seat opposite him. "He threatened to pull out and tell everyone we can't meet our bills."

"Expected that," Quark said. "And most don't need much of an excuse. The Empire hasn't been making friends out here, if you hadn't noticed. They're not going to listen to your 'all for one and one for all' speech. What did you do?"

Lando swiveled in his chair a little. "I paid him," he said finally.

"I see," Quark said, knowing he had taken the first step and now was waiting for the ground to hit him. "And where did you get the money?"

"The only place I could," Lando said. "Payroll."

Quark nodded. "Yeah," he said under his breath, picking out the rapidly approaching rocks at the bottom of the cliff. "And you think our staff will install those parts if we don't pay them?"

"Look, I didn't call you over here for this," Lando said impatiently. "We have two days to make payroll, let's do it."

"How?" Quark asked.

"Sell off some of the excess baggage," Lando said. "Some of the corporate ships-"

"You're not gonna move that stuff in two days," Quark said. "Not for the kind of value you're looking for."

"You have a better suggestion?" Lando demanded.

"Your plan isn't going to work," Quark said. "Don't waste time and resources on something that's just going to doom us anyway."

"It'll buy us time," Lando said.

"For what?" Quark asked. "Until the Empire pays us? The war's not going to be won next week, Lando; we're in this for the long haul. You need to not just look at the next two days, look at the next two months."

"I have," Lando said. He seemed to sink even further into the chair. "I have," he said in a voice just above a whisper.

"We need an investor," Quark said. "It's the only way; that or selling off what we have and starting again."

Lando shook his head. "I'm too old to start again, Quark. This company... it was my last shot at the big time... and we had it. I knew we had it..."

"We've had it," Quark said under his breath.

"I'm not giving up, not while there's any chance of staying afloat."

Quark leaned forward. "Then you know what you have to do."

Lando stopped for a moment, then swiveled back. "You're not suggesting..."

"No legitimate investor is going to touch us," Quark said. "Face facts. That only leaves the illegitimate ones."

"You know how hard we had to work to get out," Lando said.

Quark held up his hands. "What do you want me to say, I'm just the messenger. You sell out, Lando. One way or another. Otherwise the company's going to crumble around you." He leaned back in the chair, hands folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. "I miss my bar," he said. "Think things over, I'm going to visit it in the holosuite." Quark dematerialized, leaving Lando alone to face the decision.

Alema gestured and concentrated. Fire materialized out of the air around her. With further concentration they grew larger and crackled. Beyond them, the shadows flicked across the Oracle's face in a most unsettling manner. "Fair," the old woman said, "but you've forgotten something."

Alema strained. She hadn't forgotten, but the smoke wasn't easy to do while she concentrated on the flames. She tried, but the images shrunk and vanished. "I am sorry, master," she said.

"You should be," the Oracle said without pity. "Why fire, apprentice?"

Alema had read up on this. "Because the passion of the Sith, the fire in our blood, makes us strong."

"And you have no passion," the Oracle said sternly. "This is not an intellectual exercise, child. Use your hate, follow where it leads you. Stop trying to pull a parlor trick and show me fire!"

Alema nodded and closed her eyes to concentrate. She slowly raised her hand. "No!" the Oracle snapped. "You are not a Jedi, stop acting like one!" Alema's eyes snapped open at the rebuke, and was shocked to see a Vong warrior in front of her. Before she could react he hit her in the face, knocking her to the floor. She turned back and he was looking down at her, laughing. Laughing! "Burn him!" the Oracle commanded from somewhere in the darkness. The Vong was the only thing that mattered, his expression of bemusement at the fallen Twi'lek, that sickening chuckle of his, the sting on her cheek from the blow. She reached out her hand, and flames engulfed him, billowing smoke and radiating heat. This only intensified as the Vong screamed with rage, then soon vanished. "Enough," the Oracle said, and Alema ended the illusion. "Much better. Think like a Sith, child. You're not a Jedi any more."

"Yes, my master," Alema said. "Thank you." She rubbed the spot on her face where she'd been struck; it had been a Force blow, obviously, but it was hard not to think of the Vong as the one that had really done it.

"We will have time to discuss your training in detail over the coming days," the Oracle said, leading the way out of the training room. "We're behind schedule. The Empire should have collapsed months ago."

"Against the Vong," Alema said, not bothering to disguise her feelings about it. She may be the pupil in this relationship, but she wasn't going to keep silent about her opinions.

"Yes, child," the Oracle said. "The intervention by the Borg has given the Empire time to bring more of their forces into the fray. The Vong of your galaxy will not last much longer."

"Good," Alema said.

"No," the Oracle said sharply. "The Vong would have been overwhelmed by a united Milky Way alliance rallied around us. Instead the Empire is going to defeat them. Surely you must see, child?"

"So long as the Vong falls-" Alema began, but the Oracle had whirled around, a gnarled digit in the Twi'lek's face.

"Your hate makes you powerful," the Oracle said, "but in the foolish it's a blindfold. You are not looking beyond the defeat of the Vong, to what will happen afterwards. With the Vong threat eliminated the Empire will now be able to rebuild their military and reconquer the Milky Way. This took the finest planning, child. Dividing the loyalties of the citizenry, providing aid to Garak, Nom Anor, and Alixus, pinpoint strikes at the weak spots in their armor, so that the Vong could deliver the killing stroke. And all that planning, all those years... long years..." She faded off. "How many were there?" she asked in a voice just above a whisper.

"Master?" Alema asked. The Sith Master seemed suddenly very frail and exhausted, and the novice had no idea why. The sound of her voice seemed to snap her attention back.

"This time will be different," the Oracle said. "This time the Empire won't be able to recover."

Garak activated the holoprojector; the Oracle stared at him. Garak didn't like it. It was the only stare that could make him feel uncomfortable. "I take it this is urgent?" Garak asked, skipping past his usual banter. It never mattered with the Oracle, she could see right through him anyway.

"For you," the Oracle said. "The Empire's vulnerable now and ready to fall, and it will be its own short-sightedness that will serve as the catalyst."

"Wonderful," Garak said, since he had no idea how to respond. Provoking the Empire was something he'd hoped to avoid, even if they had lost their final superlaser. He was only involved because the Oracle had shown him just how easily she could destroy everything he'd worked for if the mood struck her.

"I'm glad you think so," the Oracle said. "Because I'll be giving you a very special gift. Of course, you'll need some fine mechanical minds to help."

"I have several good men in that area," Garak said.

"You have a handful, Garak," the Oracle replied. "The rest are glorified mechanics, not up to the task at all. You'll need help. You'll be rendezvousing with me at the coordinates I'm sending you to learn the details. Make sure to bring Calrissian with you, his people are up to this kind of challenge."

"Calrissian doesn't work for us any more," Garak pointed out.

"Don't keep me waiting, Garak," the Oracle said, and cut the transmission.

Garak sighed. That was the problem with the Oracle, she spent so much time looking into the past and the future that the minor details of the present eluded her. He was just about to reach for the comm to have someone arrange for his shuttle when it activated on its own. "Mr. Garak," came the voice of his aide. "There's a transmission coming in from Lando Calrissian. I told him you're busy but he says it's extremely urgent, that he needs to speak with you personally."

Garak stared at the comm unit for a few seconds. "How does she do that?" he asked quietly.

"Sir?"

"Put Mr. Calrissian through, please," Garak said. "I'm sure his business with us is most pressing."

The Oracle and her new apprentice had departed; Ben Skywalker had been left in charge. This was just the latest insult, as far as he was concerned. Of course he would be in charge while the Oracle was gone, being the senior-most Sith present and almost as powerful as she was. But it was the entire concept of being left here, like the oldest child babysitting everyone else while mom went out for the night. Ben had led armies; he didn't need for the Oracle to remind everyone that he was in command during her absence. He wielded authority as easily as he wielded a lightsaber. No, the purpose of that little gesture was to remind everyone, including Ben, of who was really in charge, of who had the power to give authority and take it away.

Hatred fueled the Dark side in Sith. The Oracle was Ben's personal dynamo.

Ben didn't wait long until after she and her new apprentice had departed. The new apprentice... that was another little effort on the Oracle's part to humiliate him. That simpering girl hadn't even been able to fight off Molly back on that Vong planet, and she was going to be the apprentice? Molly... she was still loyal to him, anyway, or at least, as loyal as Sith could be, and she still shared his bed from time to time. Her training had been a personal affair, and he'd used subtle Force manipulations to help get her to trust him. Ironically, the Oracle had been pulling similar tricks on him. Whether Molly would feel the same if she ever found out was unimportant to Ben; Sith had little in the way of empathy.

Those little manipulations... Ben remembered that letting the new Sith apprentice live had been the Oracle's idea. It had made sense at the time, something to put the fear of the Jedi into him. Like everything else, it was all just a part of her larger plan in using Ben and the Sith against the Empire. Ben should have known better. There were two Sith approaches to enemies. One was to leave your enemies beaten but alive, like the Oracle did with her Borg captive... they reasoned that it was far crueler to let them know they've been defeated, and took great personal pleasure in knowing there was some crushed foe that hated them. This was all well and good, but as has already been established, Sith are patient, and a crushed Sith can think about nothing else but revenge. Many have risen up far enough to seize it, even if it cost them their lives. That's why Ben and most sensible Sith chose to kill their enemies when they had the chance. Very few enemies dealt with in this fashion have managed to cause any further trouble.

Now he and Molly stood outside the entrance to the Oracle's laboratory. Years of experience with Section 31 had taught her how to bypass just about any lock that had been invented, but the Oracle proved quite the challenge. Nevertheless, persistence paid off, and the door slid open. Ben led the way, peering over the chemicals and machinery with only the barest interest. He had no science background so it was pretty much meaningless to him. "What are we looking for?" Molly finally asked after a couple of minutes. She hadn't been in here before and Ben could tell the room made her uncomfortable.

"The Oracle's hiding something from us," Ben said. "I want to find out what it is."

Molly nodded. "But the Oracle's very clever, Ben."

"Cleverness gets your foot in the door," Ben said, "but to be a Sith takes force of will. She has power, but she's distracted, and not altogether sane in any case. What's this?" It was a box, too long to be a footlocker or storage container.

"It's a stasis chamber," Molly said. "Haven't seen one of these in a while."

"How do you open it?"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Molly said. "It could contain virus samples, hazardous bio-matter-"

"How," Ben said with a tone that froze Molly to the bone, "do you open it?"

Molly stepped forward and quickly activated a few buttons on the panel. The lid opened with a hiss. Ben froze, Molly gasped beside him. Both could only stare at the contents of the chamber.

"Close it," Ben said finally. Molly was biting her lip, staring, but her hand seemed to operate independently out of self-preservation and tapped the panel, shutting the box. They still continued staring at it.

"What does it mean?" Molly finally asked.

"It means," Ben said slowly, "that there's a great deal more going on here than I ever expected."

Go To Part XIV
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