Dawn of Forever, Part XLIII

Annika felt fear grip her as she looked Darth Whind in the face once again. On instinct, she cloaked herself, and she saw her enemy's eyes widen in shock. Whind pulled out her lightsaber and lit it, but Annika's strike came too fast, knocking it away from her as she drove her into the wall, her hand at the Sith's throat. She assessed the situation very quickly: she was on an Imperial starship, alone with this Sith, and-

And wearing an Imperial uniform.

Theory 1: She was here in some undercover capacity.

Theory 2: She was attempting to escape.

Then she noticed her rank badge, that of an Imperial captain. You don't normally try to pass yourself off as the captain of a ship.

Theory 3: She was what she appeared to be.

Whind blasted her with a Force push, and Annika stumbled back to the desk. She glanced, and weighed her options. Last time she'd fought Darth Whind she'd won, but barely, and she had been on top of her game. She didn't even know what this body was capable of. Taking a gamble she put Theory 3 to the test by dropping her hand on the alarm. Almost instantly the door opened and a squad of stormtroopers appeared, an officer in the rear. Whind turned and faced them, and they pointed their blaster rifles at her. "Stand down, ma'am," they said firmly, clearly ready to fire.

"That's not the captain!" Whind said firmly.

"Stand down," the officer said even more sternly. Whind looked between them and Annika, venom in her expression. She deactivated the lightsaber and tossed it aside. The stormtroopers quickly rushed in and locked binders around her wrists. The officer came forward and stood at attention before Annika. "Orders, captain?"

Annika straightened her uniform front and tried to look like this was old hat for her. "Throw her in the brig for now," she said. "I'll decide what to do later." The officer nodded and Mara was led out the door; as she left another came in. Annika noticed his rank badge. "Commander," she said. "I assume you heard her accusation."

"Yes captain," the commander said.

Annika nodded; time to put that eidetic memory to use. "You'd be within your right under Section 7 of the General Security guidelines to have me submit to tests to verify my identity."

The commander smiled faintly. "Captain," he said, "we know you and the Emperor's Hand have been at each other's throats. For what it's worth, I think I've been your XO long enough to prove whose side I'm on."

Annika smiled slightly in return. "I can always count on you, commander." He nodded and left, and Annika slumped onto the desk. "What has she gotten me into?" she mused quietly. Then she checked her uniform pockets and found a code cylinder. "Well, why don't we find out?"

An alarm sounded, and Sebastian Skywalker cursed quietly and deactivated it. "Morning, sir," Janet said, standing nearby. "Are you getting up?"

"Am I dead?"

"No, prefect."

"Kriff. Then I guess I'm getting up." Janet pulled out a datapad while Sebastian pulled himself out of bed.

"I was told you were up late, prefect," Janet said. "No one would fault you for taking some time to rest, approach things with a clear head."

"My head's as clear as it's going to get," Sebastian said with a scowl.

"You won't do the Alliance any good if you drive yourself to an early grave."

"I'm fine, never felt more youthful and alive, now where the hell's my cane?" He found it and limped into the sonic shower. "I want a situation report on the Vong shield in three hours," Sebastian called. "Instruct the Borg to have their report ready, and the senior military commanders to be on hand so we can discuss our options."

"Yes prefect," Janet said.

"Anything I need to be aware of?"

"Things remain hairy with the annexed territories," Janet said.

"There's a shock." Sebastian rubbed his face, cursed, and switched over to standard shower mode. Sometimes you needed hot water in your face. "Cirule on top of it?"

"Yes prefect."

"Good, I'd rather this thing get settled quickly and without too much collateral damage."

"Of course." Janet hesitated. "About the Vong, prefect... are you sure we can do this? I mean, with the shield-"

"Janet," Sebastian said, "If I thought we couldn't win this, saying so out loud -even to you- would be the last thing I would ever do, so the point is moot. For now, I am going to proceed on the assumption that we can and will win, because I cannot accept any alternative, clear?"

Janet nodded. "Yes. Thank you, prefect."

"You're welcome. Pick me out some clothes please. I'm too tired, and I can't go stumbling about dressed like a blind Telaxian."

Luke Skywalker entered Annika's office, a look of obvious contempt on his face. "Who are you?" he demanded quietly.

Annika put the paperwork down; fortunately it was all rather elementary, so that even she could work through it. "I'm who you think I am, in the abstract sense."

"I don't sense anything from you," he said with quiet accusation.

"I know. I have the ability to cloak myself from Force-sensitives."

"Then turn it off."

"I'd rather not."

"Then I don't believe you," Luke said. "You're not Seven-"

"I am," she said firmly. She took a deep breath and lowered the cloak, which of course meant he could sense she was telling the truth. He could also sense everything she was feeling... the ache that the sight of him filled her with.

"What's going on?"

"We're pawns in the game of a Sith," Annika said. "And what's worse is we don't know the rules. Look, I'm not from your reality, but I am Seven of Nine... just a different one." She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "I understand some things are different here; I'll do my best not to cause any trouble."

"Good. Then perhaps you can get my wife out of the brig."

The word stung her harder than Annika had thought it would. "No," she said. "Not until I have a firm grasp on things."

"She's done nothing wrong-"

"She attacked me!" Annika said. "And believe me, she and I have tangled more than once, and I did not like it! She stays locked up until I can trust her not to kill me."

"You're her best friend," Luke pleaded. "She saw something happen to you and was afraid of what it was. No harm was intended; can't you let it slide?"

"Look," Annika said firmly. "I have spent the past ten years either wasting away from a disease or locked up and tortured, so I am not inclined to just sit back and let things slide, all right?" Her voice softened. "But, there are other forms of persuasion... I'll make you a deal, Luke. I'll let Mara out of that cell and drop the charges, but from 1900 to 2100 hours tonight you are mine."

"No," Luke said firmly.

"Let me finish," Annika said sternly. "Your only obligation is to join me for dinner in my private dining room, to engage in civilized discussion. That's all. Circumstances may progress beyond that-"

"They won't," Luke said even more firmly.

"Then you've nothing to worry about," Annika said. "Just two hours of your time, and we can leave this mess behind us, all right?"

Luke glared at her. "Fine," he said through his teeth.

"Good," Annika said, returning to the paperwork. "Don't be late."

Sebastian hobbled into the war room and took his seat. The various military authorities were all on hand, either real or in holographic form. The Borg Queen stood, naturally; the Borg seemed to have little use for chairs. "Well," he said, "I know we've all been rather busy of late, but there's one very important matter we haven't had time to attend to: the Vong."

"A dark day for our alliance," Marnisch said quietly. "Victory within our grasp, only to have it stolen away..."

"This can still work," Sebastian said. "They're dug in; they're not going anywhere for a while, and I've got long range scans constantly watching. If they try to move, they'll have to lower their defenses, and that could give us an edge."

"But respectfully, prefect," Admiral Cirule said, "despite what you said to the populace, time is on their side, not ours."

"I agree, which is why we need to formulate a plan now, before they break out of their territory and put us on the run." Sebastian turned to the Queen. "You've examined all the data?"

"Yes," the Queen said. "The Vong's shield is created by a series of organic nodes, capable of impressive feats of regeneration. One of the nodes sustained a direct hit, and was regenerated back to functional capacity within minutes. Clearly their biotechnological skills are greater than we've imagined."

"How can they generate that kind of power?" Sebastian demanded.

"We don't know, there's no clear data on the subject. But we do know that the recharge rates for the Enterprise's primary weapon aren't fast enough to catch the shield when it's weak. It's our estimation that it would take over 87% of the entire Alliance fleet to bombard the shield for it to collapse."

"That'll never work," Cirule said. "The Vong would figure out what we were doing if we tried assembling that many ships, not to mention how wholly impractical it'd be to pull our ships out."

"I agree," T'lin said. "The Vong would simply abandon that world and go into hiding."

"While our enemies took advantage of our weaknesses and annexed our territories," Marnisch added. "No, that is no plan, that's a suicide note."

Sebastian nodded. "What else have we got?" he asked. "Can we use some kind of weapon against the Vong?"

"Yes," the Queen said. "The answer is obvious. We construct a second superlaser."

Sebastian dropped his datapad onto the desk in defeat. "Sure, not a problem. Why don't we build two and see if we can get a discount on parts?"

"Can we do that?"

"No we can't do that!" Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose; his exhaustion was getting to him. "I'm sorry. Look, someone please, please correct me if I'm wrong, but the superlaser for the Enterprise was one of the earliest components built, and that with the plans kept so secure there's no guarantee we'd ever find them. That means we'd have to learn by examining the one we have, is that right?"

Cirule cleared his throat and nodded. "The Emperor was vehement, especially after the mess that took place with the Mistryl."

"Figuring out how to build the damn thing's going to take too long," Sebastian said. "And that's just to get the blueprints. Then we have to build it, while fighting a war against the constantly growing and expanding Vong fleet."

"If we devote more people and resources," T'nil said, "perhaps we can speed up the research."

"There's an old engineering saying: you can't get a baby in one month by hiring nine pregnant women." Sebastian turned to the Queen. "Assuming a best case scenario, how soon can we have this built?"

"Six months," the Queen said. "But the greatest probability puts it at eleven."

"I think we all can see that that's just not going to work," Sebastian said. "The Vong's numbers will grow too rapidly, and they'll figure out what we're doing eventually... they'll disappear. We need something that can work now, not a year from now. What else have you got?"

"Nothing," the Queen said.

"The kriff you mean, 'nothing?'"

"I'm afraid no other weaponry would suffice, Sebastian."

"Do you have any alternative at all?" Sebastian asked. "I mean, come on! The people in this room are notorious for pulling off long shots with all kinds of crazy notions, surely there's got to be something else that could actually work, some, some kind of ray that can sap strength from their shield or, or, or a transporter that can penetrate the shield so we can blow those things up on the ground. Something! Anything!"

"Anything?" The Queen asked.

"Yes, I'm open to damn near any idea at this point."

"Based on our analysis of the data, yes, there is one alternative. Put someone on the planet before the battle begins. When the Enterprise arrives, destroying even one of the nodes will cause enough of a loss of power that the superlaser will penetrate and destroy the planet."

"But we can't put someone on the planet," Admiral T'nil said, "the Vong will raise the shields."

"They did not raise it for our probe droid."

"You expect a probe droid to accomplish this?" Marnisch said. "The Vong destroyed the last one with ease."

"A probe droid would not work, but the principle is sound." The Queen held up her hand and a hologram appeared of the probe droid in its pre-launch form. "The housing is large enough to hold a person. We can modify the design to turn this into a hyperspace-capable escape pod."

"It'll come in too fast," Sebastian said. "Those things hit like a meteor impact. They're designed to do that, to maintain the probe's cover. This thing hits and the passenger's reduced to tomato paste."

"We would have to improve our inertial dampeners," the Queen said. "If we can reduce the response time, it would be possible for a humanoid passenger to survive the impact."

"The Vong would investigate," Cirule said with a shake of his head. "They're going to be on the lookout after the last probe droid."

"We would have to disguise it to appear to be a large meteor," the Queen said. "The number of meteors that bombard planets on a daily basis preclude the possibility of them assuming that all of them are probe droids. We are certain the Vong will be unable to see through the deception."

"It's ridiculous," Sebastian said.

"Then we must build the star destroyer," the Queen said.

"There's no time!" Sebastian snapped. "We can't do it!"

"Then it seems this is over, Sebastian," the Queen said. "Evacuate as many as possible through the wormhole and destroy it, and leave the Milky Way to fend for itself."

"That is not an option," Sebastian said sharply.

"Sebastian," the Queen said, "we cannot win if we cannot penetrate that shield. That fact is undeniable. If we cannot win, then logically saving as many as possible is the only way to proceed-"

"NO!" Sebastian snarled. "No one else is going to be abandoned, do you understand that?! We don't leave our people behind! We-" He stopped; he didn't even have the energy to rant any more. He just leaned forward on the table, face buried in his hands. Eventually they slid back; he seemed calmer, but no less tired. "Your probe droid pod idea," he said slowly. "Can you actually build it?"

"We are Borg."

"How long?"

"That would depend on the success of testing. This would require technology that hasn't been designed before and material construction that hasn't been used. Conservatively, six weeks."

"That's conservatively?" Cirule asked.

The Queen looked at him. "We would be simultaneously testing a number of techniques, day and night, without risk of fatigue. Our nature provides many advantages."

"But you can't use it to speed up the superlaser work?" T'nil asked.

"Devising improved components for known technology will be child's play compared to developing a weapon capable of annihilating entire planets."

"Why didn't you do this kind of research before?" Cirule asked suspiciously.

"It is not efficient. Here efficiency must yield to necessity. Naturally, there is still the matter of the occupant."

Sebastian nodded slowly. "Yes. It'd have to be only one, to make it as small as possible. And only one pod, or the Vong would realize something was up." He tapped the table absentmindedly with his cane. "You'd need an individual who could sit cooped up in that thing for a long time. Someone capable of handling any resistance single-handedly. Someone experienced in fighting the Vong face-to-face. You'd need a Jedi..."

"There's not many Jedi," Cirule observed. "The Academy has only a dozen or so students-"

"Students won't do," Sebastian said. "Even an experienced Jedi is going to have a hard time of it."

"Respectfully, prefect," Marnisch said, "I think you sell my soldiers short. One of our number could do this."

"I respect the abilities and courage of your soldiers, all of your soldiers," Sebastian said to the general group. "But we will have only one chance at this, after that the Vong won't let their guard down. We need every possible edge we can get."

"Who do you have in mind?" Cirule asked.

"There's really no choice, is there?" Sebastian said. "There's only three fully-trained Jedi left. Jaina Solo's good, but her experience is limited because of her involvement in running the Academy. I'm obviously no longer up to the challenge. That leaves only one, Anakin Solo. He's strong in the Force and an experienced soldier."

T'nil cleared his throat. "Despite your efforts, prefect, I'm afraid it's no secret that you and the Academy don't see eye-to-eye."

"Anakin won't back down from what needs to be done," Sebastian said.

"But this isn't just some errand," she said. "You're-"

"I know," Sebastian said, a little stronger than he needed. "I know. The shield won't fall until the planet's blown up... I'm asking him to die."

Go To Part XLIV
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