LOTF: Collision/Chapter 12

The HQ's chair interface disappeared and all the screens surrounding the room switched displays to reveal Dylan Antiunknown, alive and well in a dark, gray room in a black armored uniform much more closely resembling what other members of the Brotherhood wore. He wore an even more sinisiter, more gleeful smile than the Dylan that lied dead before Hans had prevously worn. Hans furiously leapt out of the chair to examine the body.

"Don't bother." Dylan told him. "He's too good of a replica for you to tell the difference. After all, you didn't catch on between Mandalore and Umbara, did you?"

...

Opening his eyes, Ganner was surprised to find himself, Linora, Taran, Decien, and the entire base unharmed by the laser. The ground, however, began to shake as several spots on the ground began to open up from below, revealing themselves to have been concealed doors, with dozens of large cruisers and frigates lifting off from under the surface of Anarto II. After six years in the shadows, the Brotherhood fleet was mobilizing.

In surprise, Deicen had allowed all of his captives to escape his grip, and Linora and Taran immediately grabbed their blasters again. Decien reacted violently now, swiftly thrusting his hand out towards Ganner, shoving him out the window into the cold snow where he skidded. Lying on his front, he dully looked up to see Decien activate his lightsaber again and approach Taran, who he allowed to move just enough to beg Decien not to kill him as he approached. With one smooth motion, Decien slashed Taran across the chest, and Taran's face quickly flew through a torrent of final emotions: Surprise, anger, pain, and, at last, submission as a single tear fell from his eyes and he became limp.

"NO!" Linora screamed. With her voice, Ganner realized she was next and was awakened again with one thought: I have to save her. That Decien, who had clearly come for him and no one else, was now attacking his companions to get to him, infuriated Ganner and he drew on that emotion, grabbing his saber and began to run. He sprinted faster than even he thought possible, leaping towards Decien savagely with his blade ignited and poised to kill.

...

"You... you duped us?" Hans angrily asked, looking up.

"Are you kidding? Of course I did! Do you really think I'm foolish enough to hide in the path of Arek Saris, risking my own hide to silence that traitor Garrick Clyine? Or foolish enough to come to Coruscant to find Cade, and take the obvious risk of his betraying me?"

...

"Data transfer at ninety-five percent." DX reported, laying down sniper fire as what was still left of the Nebula forces defended the terminal with Ranulph and Qorbin. Ranulph ducked his head down under a table to barely dodge a blaster shot, and when he looked behind him, he saw the Nebula forces begin to make a retreat, laying down heavy covering fire as they back towards the elevator. "Where are they going?!" Ranulph yelled.

"Nebula has ordered a retreat. Her casualties are too high." DX answered, transitioning to his rotary cannon to deal with the the new burden of enemies he now faced.

"Blast." Qorbin muttered, deflecting a hail of shots. Ranulph got up again to attack and this time found himself surrounded by a much higher number of enemies, including many B2 droids, allowing him to only fire off a few hasty shots before he ducked his head down again.

...

"You know who Saris is." Hans stated.

Dylan turned around, his hands folded behind his back. "I know a great deal outside your understanding. For example, I know that the superlaser of my station is capable of firing not once, but twice within its cooldown period. And that shield is only good for one shot."

...

"I repeat, all Nebula forces retreat." Esvald ordered grimly. Nova simply sighed, shaking her head. Through the window, they watched as the Nebula fleets began to turn away from the station, returning to Nova's ship.

"You're dooming them." Praxon warned them.

"You've done that yourself." Nova responded.

"Oh, certainly not." Esvald said, turning away from the console to face Nova and Praxon. "Praxon could never have orchestrated a victory like this alone."

"WHAT?" Nova boomed, her eyes flaring with rage. She began to slide towards Esvald, intending to crush him, but he drew a blaster and leveled it at her. She turned to the Gamorreans.

"SHOOT HIM!" She ordered. The guards, also traitors didn't move. Praxon's hands clenched into fists, his anger building as tried to calculate how he would eliminate out his captors.

"Odds of survival are nominal." DX told him.

"I've waited so long for this." Esvald chuckled. "At last, I may properly thank you for killing off Dani Morrow all those years ago. She was so close to exposing us, but in her death she secured my position in the Nebula corporation, which is what made much of this possible. The Nebula Corporation now belongs to the Brotherhood."

...

Ganner leapt at Decien as he prepared to strike down Linora, and Decien tried to dodge his attack but only mostly succeeded, taking a blow on his shoulder. The shoulder plate dropped to the floor as Decien, surprised by Ganner's sheer ferocity and the fact that he'd actually been injured, hesitated for a moment. Ganner sought to take full advantage of it to press on the offensive, moving to unload onto Decien mercilessly. Decien, however, had a much different idea. He quickly shot out his hands toward Ganner and unleashed a wave of purple lightning, catching Ganner off guard and sending pulses of writhing, permeating heat and pain into his skin and through his veins. Ganner quickly fell to the ground in agony, dropping his saber, still sparking even after Decien had ceased his attack.

"Enough!" Decien shouted. He reached out and threw Ganner's lightsaber through the window, far out of sight, then brought Linora to him again, slowly choking the life out of her. Ganner tried to rise up but Decien raised his other hand and held Ganner down on his knees. Linora's eyes widened, meeting Ganner's, who vainly tried to resist Decien's power.

"We've tarried long enough. Ganner Slarwalker, you will pledge yourself to my teachings or I will kill this woman whom you have so foolishly assigned value to."

...

"Say I believe you." Hans proposed to Dylan, looking down at the surface of Anarto II. He could see the ships leaving now, and he could feel the urge to fire upon them again, but he knew better than to take Dylan's word at face value.

"This is obviously a trap, so what's the catch to letting me kill your people?"

"Well," Dylan informed him, "It's simple. The reason the laser can fire twice is because we simply neglected to ever put a failsafe on it. The station can't actually handle that kind of power. The superlaser would fire, but the entire lower half of the station would be vaporized instantly, which of course would then destabilize the surviving half of the station and likely send it on a collision course with the planet itself. You would be sacrificing your friends to cripple my fleet."

"It doesn't matter who dies." Barak said from behind Hans. "You have to complete your mission."

...

At the datacenter, the data spike began to glow green, indicative of its succesful download of the entire Brotherhood database. The green was mostly drowned out by the red and orange of blaster shots that coursed rapidly through the room, but Ranulph noticed it anyways and immediately grabbed it. "Qorbin! We have to leave!" Ranulph yelled.

Though he didn't give a verbal response, Qorbin acknowledged Ranulph by quickly running ahead and giving a quick Force blast to knock down as much enemies as possible before turning and running. He sprinted past DX-245, who had been standing motionless since the process of uploading the data had ended. "DX!" Ranulph called, almost in the elevator. Shots were hitting the droid, but his armor was holding.

"I AM PROCESSING THE BROTHERHOOD DATA. IT DOES NOT COMPUTE." DX yelled in a droid monotone. Galen and Ranulph shared a look of mutual distress. Finally, DX snapped out of it and slowly began to move again towards the elevator, drawing fire as Ranulph tried his best to cover the droid. A stray shot veered towards Ranulph's head and he again dodged out of its way. It directly struck the elevator's control screen, causing sparks to fly out it.

"MISSION FAILURE IS IMMINENT." DX warned.

...

Aboard Nova's flagship, Praxon fell to the ground as the information poured into his brain, an entire database of dark secrets and impossible truths unfolding themselves onto his mind. The data that had caused DX to stutter penetrated his brain as well, though it did not paralyze him because unlike DX's processor, not everything that Praxon processed had to make sense.

"I see everything." He whispered, on his knees. Esvald crouched down next to him.

"Then you know your folly."

Praxon looked up at the Brotherhood spy, seeking answers. "But how? How could he have done it? No one is that powerful."

"Can't you see? Our power never came from what the galaxy knew. It came from what we hid in the shadows." Esvald raised his blaster and placed its cold metal firmly against Praxon's brow. "And now, we rise."

"No, please." Praxon begged, actually trying to distract Esvald as he reached for his blasters. "You don't know what I see. You're being played too. This is all the doing of Da—"

Closing his left eye, Praxon saw Esvald's finger tighten on the trigger in his cybernetic interface, and had the processing power to comprehend the slightest hint of warmth, of pain, the scent of burning flesh, of the sound of a blaster shot before he died.

...

Hans quickly turned around to see Barak Dakens standing before him in an Imperial officer's uniform. Barak wore a determined expression on his face, walking past Hans, over the fake Dylan's body, towards the chair.

"What?" Hans objected. "I can't kill them. You, I'm not so sure about."

"Nonsense." Barak dismissed him, sitting in the chair. "I gave you orders to destroy the Brotherhood and they're in the way. War will always breed collateral damage, Hans."

...

"We have to go." Galen told Cade, standing in the cockpit of the Fortune Destroyer with his son in the pilot's seat and Asura co-piloting. The other Nebula ships were already lifting off, and the Destroyer was unable to reach Hans or Ranulph.

"No! We can't leave everyone behind!" Asura objected. "The data spike shows 100 percent completion; they'll be here any minute!"

Galen's face paled, his eyes widened. "We don't have that long." He whispered. Asura, just as wide-eyed, shared a fearful look with Cade, weighing her options.

...

Ganner weighed his options quickly in his mind. To attempt to join and subvert Decien would be practical suicide, but he couldn't fight now. Actually joining Decien almost seemed appealing, with the amount of knowledge and power he might gain, but dark secrets always held a high price. Still, he looked at Linora's face, beginning to turn purple. She had saved his life. He had to save her.

"All right." He said, lowering his head as to not see the look on Linora's face. "Let her go and I'll join you."

"Ganner, no!" She objected. "Don't give in!"

"Linora, please. This is our only hope." He met her eyes again, this time much more slowly and painfully. She was on the brink of crying; he couldn't afford to be. Decien's eyes were narrowed. He was observing Ganner closely, like a predator tracking the movements of its prey before striking. At last, satisfied, Decien allowed Linora to land on the floor.

"I trust you know the way back to your ship." He told her harshly. She quickly glanced back and forth between Decien and Ganner, the latter quietly mouthing "Go," to her. Slowly, she turned, tears welling up in her eyes, and ran out the hallway, out of sight.

"Congratulations. You saved her life." Decien dryly said to Ganner. "Rise."

Ganner stood up, meeting Decien, and the two stared each other down. Ganner's blue eyes projected and uncharacteristic hate, while Decien's green eyes displayed his typical arrogant confidence, and now even victory. Suddenly, disturbed, Decien looked away, then to the sky. "Enough. We need to leave as well." He began to walk out of the room, with Ganner following slowly behind.

"Come, apprentice. Much awaits you."

...

Hans stood on the bridge of the Brotherhood HQ, facing Barak, sitting on Dylan's chair, and Dylan himself, still facing away on the screens of the room. He looked down at the fleet's escape under the shadow of the station and knew instinctively that he would not have another chance like this again until it was too late. The silence of the room placed Hans in an even more tense position, as though the entire galaxy was waiting on him to make his choice. He thought on what Ganner would do — easy, he wouldn't fire, what DX would do — Hans couldn't run those calculations but he expected that the droid would choose to harm the Brotherhood as much as possible anways, and finally, a third viewpoint presented itself. What would Berloc Cerrano do?

"I won't be my father." He declared. "I won't betray them."

"I'm sorry," Barak answered, "But that simply isn't true. You only have one option here."

Hans raised his scattergun at Barak. "I'm getting real sick of you."

Barak didn't flinch at all, simply keeping the same determined expression. "Very well. Pull the trigger."

Hans felt his grip tighten all the way, but nothing happened. He looked down at his weapon and saw that the safety was indeed off, and there shouldn't have been a problem with it. He discarded the weapon, drawing his blaster again, only to be met with the same fate. Looking down at the scattergun on the ground, he realized that the stars and ships below him weren't moving. They stood still, the blue lights of engines glowing as though nothing was wrong with the world, yet the ships did not move. And Hans' weapons didn't work. Hans turned around towards the elevator and saw that it was still closed from when his allies had left him. And yet Barak was in the room with him.

"What is this?" Hans asked.

"This is the mission." Barak answered simply. "There is no alternative choice, no way you may find to complete it to a satisfactory manner without eliminating Antimatter Squadron, so the mission will not progress until you make the right choice."

"So what? I sit in here for eternity?"

"Not eternity. One moment." Barak corrected him. "Your mind may stretch it to the infinite, but it will pass."

"That's your plan? Break me by waiting?"

"Oh, no. I don't have to and I'm not going to take the time to. It's just easier than taking the reins myself. Still, if that's what it takes..."

"You can't." Hans objected.

"Shh..." Barak calmed him. "Close your eyes."

Entranced, Hans obeyed the command, and when he opened them he found himself having switched places with Barak, sitting on the chair as Barak watched, waiting for his command. Then, suddenly, time returned.

"Well, Cerrano, what will it be?" Dylan asked, his voice clearly indicating he already believed he'd won.

"The mission must be completed." Barak said, slowly.

"The mission must be completed." Hans repeated. Wait, what? Hans tried to take back what he had said. ''You don't control me! I'll destroy you!''

When that failed, he tried to move his body, but like a paralyzing night terror, he struggled with all his might against nothing and still failed.

"Fire." Barak ordered.

"Fire." Hans ordered.