Star Wars: Death and Life/Part Two

Star Wars: Death and Life

Alone in the corridor of the Republic flagship, Commander Carth Onasi mulled over his latest assignment as he walked: meet up with Captain Laera Reyolé, fly her to Dantooine, then return to the Fleet. It seemed simple enough, if maybe a little too routine a job for a man of his skills, but Carth was military through-and-through, and would carry out his orders to the best of his ability.

It had been a year since the defeat of the Mandalorians at Malachor V, and the forces of the Republic were maintaining their vigilance beyond the frontier lest a hidden cadre attempt to renew the conflict. Carth had spent much of that time ferrying people&mdash;high-ranking officers, Jedi Knights and Masters, among others&mdash;from one flotilla to another, to ensure the cohesiveness of the forces under Revan and Malak's command. Though he was a dedicated soldier and star pilot who had long sworn to serve the Republic, he had begun to detect a subtle change in the character of the officers and enlisted personnel he interacted with. The infantry and Marines were slowly becoming less and less restrained, almost frantic in their training. The starfighter pilots were getting downright bloodthirsty, and the transport crews seemed obsessive in their gunnery and quick-drop drills. Even the officers were starting to change, becoming less concerned with the survival of the galactic government and more so with their own.

As if that wasn't enough, the Jedi themselves were showing the most radical shift. Instead of their tawny homespun robes, they had begun to don more somber attire, the ubiquitous browns and tans morphed into deep blues, grays, and blacks, sometimes trimmed in metallic shoulder pauldrons or other accessories. Even their lightsabers were starting to change, the hilts looked more aggressive, more like weapons than tools. A small part of him wondered if he would have cause to see one of the Jedi activate his or her lightsaber, and if that saber's blade would be blood-red. Carth was not, after all, a stupid man; stupid pilots and stupid soldiers soon found themselves dead in the kinds of situations he had seen.

As Carth arrived at the quarters of Captain Reyolé, he thought briefly about the meeting with Admiral Saul Karath that he had attended earlier that day. His mentor had seemed agitated about something, as though worried that some far-off plan was going off-kilter. When the pilot had reported to the senior officer, Karath had talked up their history of service together, even touching briefly upon their unlikely encounters with the rogue Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick early in the war. Carth had been taken aback when the admiral had entreated him to wonder about the state of the Republic, and whether or not it remained fit to deserve his service. Overwhelmed, he had begged his pardon to the admiral, who had let him go with almost a sad look on his face. Bringing himself back to the present, Carth signaled at the hatchway, wondering briefly if a small respite on remote Dantooine would help to calm his mind.

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

After three days of relentless exercise, Laera had regained her powers of speech even as she worked herself silly in the massive warship's exercise facilities. Her shouted affirmation of life had done nothing to counter the fact that she had felt as limp as a wet noodle afterward, but she supposed that was to be expected after having been reconstructed from a hunk of meat. The time that had passed seemed almost inconsequential; sixteen Standard months was almost nothing when she considered the work that must have been involved. She had been pleased to learn of the final victory over the Mandalorians, though the elation had been short-lived when she learned that her entire unit had been lost. Decimated during the debacle at Jaga's Cluster, when the Mandalorians under Cassus Fett had routed a Republic task force, the remainder had been part of the decoy force at Malachor V itself, and had died as a result of the activation of the Mass Shadow Generator. The superweapon had been largely responsible for the ultimate success of that unholy contest, though the price had been extremely high.

Confident now that she had won back her strength of body, Laera relaxed in her quarters and perused the summation of events since her death, which had been provided by the doctor at her discharge from the medical bay. She knew that it wouldn't be long before her next assignment came down the chain of command, but what that assignment could be, she had no idea. There were, technically, an infinite variety of jobs for dead Marines, ranging from carrion to fertilizer; the thought made her chuckle to herself. As she returned her thoughts to the datapad she held, the hatch to her quarters chimed. “Enter,” she said.

The hatch slid open with a hiss and clank, and footsteps announced the presence of a confident but troubled officer. “Commander Carth Onasi, reporting as ordered, ma'am.”

Laera set the datapad down and stood, returning the man's salute. She recalled having once heard of this Onasi. When the attacking Mandalorian fleet had bombarded Serreco with nuclear missiles, he had played a key part in preventing the disaster from becoming a complete catastrophe for the native Stareb. She knew that he was a couple of years younger than her, that he was married and had a son, but he surprised her with his intensity. She nodded, wondering what to make of this. “At ease, Commander,” she said. “What's this about?”

Onasi stood at his easy, then presented a datapad, which Laera accepted. “I've been ordered to take you to Dantooine,” he said. “It's a farm world, in the Outer Rim. I've been told that the Jedi Order maintains a small enclave there.”

Laera scrolled through the datapad&mdash;a cheap military model useful for handing off official items that could be wiped and reused&mdash;and read the orders. She was to be given a Standard month's furlough, where she would be billeted on the outskirts of Garang, the planet's small capital city. Beyond that, however, the document was devoid of details, stating only that this Commander Onasi was to accompany her on the trip. “You've also been ordered to act as my escort, yes?” Laera asked.

“Yes, ma'am,” Onasi replied.

“Did anyone brief you on this, or is this just a case of datapad handoff?”

“The latter, I'm afraid, ma'am,” Onasi replied, his tone mixed.

Laera frowned at the man. “Speak your mind, Mr. Onasi,” she said matter-of-factly.

Onasi paused for a moment, looked at the captain askance, then nodded. “Have you noticed the changes going on, ma'am?”

“'Fraid not, Commander,” Laera replied sardonically. “I don't know if they told you, but technically, you're ferrying a dead woman.” The statement had the effect Laera had desired; blank shock registered on the commander's face, clearly this information was too much for his soldierly bearing to deal with. Laera sat back in her chair, and invited Onasi to sit down as well. “How soon do we leave?”

“At your pleasure, Captain,” Onasi replied, still standing, his voice and expression numb. “The transport should be ready by the time we get to the hangar.”

“Good, my gear's already squared away,” Laera replied smartly, getting to her feet once again and striding to her closet. She secured the heavy duffel and, followed by Onasi, strode toward the hatchway and down the corridor.

An hour later, the small packet transport had made the jump to hyperspace, leaving the two officers with little to do but wait. The journey from the fleet patrol line to Dantooine was expected to take sixty-three Standard hours at the packet's swift .7 hyperdrive rating and the spice-happy course that the supremely-confident Onasi had plotted. The ship, normally built for up to four passengers, would be comfortably empty for the trip out, leaving the two officers with plenty of room to keep to themselves if they desired. Laera, however, had other plans.

“Nothing to do now but sit around on our butts, eh Mr. Onasi?” she asked, leaning against the pilot's couch with one elbow across its back.

“I'm used to it, ma'am,” he replied, letting his dour mood go long enough to return her smile. “Trips like these make me glad I'm not flying Aureks anymore.”

Laera posted her head on her fist. “Marines like me don't know much about those fancy jobs you flyboys tool around in, but don't those Aureks lack hyperdrives?”

“No...they usually don't have them...” Onasi looked positively alarmed at the jibe, as though he was unused to such candor from a superior officer. Laera certainly didn't feel like a captain of the Republic Navy at the moment, to say nothing of being the higher-ranking officer, which was probably why she was being so playful with her pilot. Smiling broadly, she decided on the appropriate remedy.

“Mr. Onasi&mdash;Carth&mdash;we're going to be on this bucket for a while, and on a two-credit fringe world for even longer than that. We've got to stick together, so as of now, I'm officially ordering you to treat me as though I were your equal in every way. No ranks, no calling me ma'am, and no saluting, until we get back to the Fleet. Is that understood?”

Carth paused for a moment, looking agape at his passenger, desperately searching for the right words. After a pregnant pause, he found them. “As ordered...Laera...”

“That's the spirit!” Laera cheered, standing up and playfully clapping the man on his right shoulder. “Care for a game of dejarik to pass the time?”

“Yeah...sure...”

Several hours later, the two vacationing officers were in the midst of their fifth game, and each was well into their cups. Carth kept doing odd things with his Mantellian savrip that had Laera spitting in mock fury, but she was giving as good as she got. When not arguing about dejarik, the two were waxing philosophical about the war, managing to avoid the bad parts as only drunken soldiers can. The current game was ostensibly a tie-breaker to see who was the better player; so far, things were split right down the middle. Carth and Laera had made their respective moves, and each was looking over the board and their opponent's faces, trying to read intent and divine strategy and tactics. It was during this rather lengthy pause that Laera finally broke the silence.

“So tell me, Carth...what was this change you mentioned, before we left the Fleet?” she asked, her voice slurred slightly by the alcohol she had consumed.

Carth leaned back in his seat, taking in the main cabin and the officer that sat opposite him. “I'd have to know what happened to you, and how long you were...well, dead...before I could answer that.”

Laera shook her head languidly, then leaned back and crossed her legs, closing her eyes as she sighed deeply. “You remember the liberation of Onderon?”

“Oh, sure, everyone in the Fleet knows,” Carth replied. “Revan had made contact with the Onderonian resistance, a team was secretly brought onworld to scout the Mandalorian defenses, and they managed to blow a key power station at a time when the main attack was stalled. The Mandalorians were forced to retreat, and the Republic won the day. I was flying medevac for most of it; we saw some pretty bad casualties.”

Laera smiled sweetly. “Who do you think led that team, Carth?”

“I don't know, we were never told&mdash;wait...was that you?”

“Yep, sure was. And that's where I died.”

“If you don't mind me asking,” Carth replied, leaning forward again to peer into the captain's eyes, “how long ago did they&mdash;well, I guess there's really no way to say it&mdash;when did they 'bring you back?'”

“Only about a week ago, near as I can reckon,” Laera replied. “Oh sure, they gave me a litany of what had gone on while I was dead: you know, the slogging match that was Dxun, the debacle at Jaga's Cluster, and the final battle at Malachor.” Laera paused, examining her fingernails while she drummed up her thoughts. “So there I was, a dead Marine with nobody to fight, so I guess they decided to send me on vacation.”

“You don't regret dying?” Carth asked in hushed, almost reverent tones.

“Marines don't have time for regret, Carth,” Laera sighed. “At least, we don't when there's battles to be fought. A rocket-jumper can regret not securing her backup thrusters when her mains misfire, but only for the time it takes for her to get acquainted with the ground. A Mandalorian can regret taking on a Jedi, but only until the Jedi can decap him and kick his bucket. No, if there's anything I regret, now I've had time to think about it, it's not being there for my unit when they got ravaged and slaughtered in the war's last battles. So, there you have it. For nearly a year and a half I've been little more than a sack of bantha steaks. That about sum things up for you, Carth?”

Ashen-faced, Carth could only nod his understanding, such as it was. He expected that his inability to get around the fact that he was speaking to someone who had literally been resurrected was not out of the ordinary. Cloning was common enough that such things were never really bothered with, despite the lack of a system to “teach” a clone prior to “birthing” it. He suspected that the process had involved a lot of cybernetics, prostheses and other such feats of technology, but since Laera hadn't said anything, he decided that she either didn't know, didn't care, or didn't want to discuss it. Probably all three.

“Well, let's call this one a draw,” Laera said, shattering the doleful silence that had fallen over the cabin. “I'm hitting the sack, and so should you. We'll talk more in the 'morning,' okay?”

Carth nodded, then stood and headed for the aft berth as Laera headed for the forward bunk. As small as this packet was, there were no real quarters; instead, four fold-down bunks in small niches set off the main cabin served as sleeping areas. It wasn't the most luxurious way to travel, but for a Marine used to tight quarters aboard an assault shuttle, it served her needs well enough. Laera hadn't always been an officer, and knew well what the enlisted soldiers had to suffer with. Sleep came for her almost before she had settled into the plush frame of the bunk.

&mdash; &mdash; &mdash;

“It's like they're forgetting what they had fought for, almost,” Carth said, his brow creased in worry, his hands in his lap as he stared off into hyperspace. The flight to Dantooine was entering its thirtieth hour, and the two officers were once again ensconced in seats on opposite sides of the hologame table. Laera was nursing a cup of stimcaf, while Carth sucked on a pouch of zueber syrup. “We've been flitting about the frontier for a year now, supposedly looking for the last remnants of the Mandalorian fleet, but there's no fleet out there. They surrendered after Malachor, and Revan personally oversaw their disarmament. We should have gone back to Republic space, let the crews and soldiers rotate out, and gone back to routine patrols within the border with fresh people.”

“I would imagine the Jedi had to report to their Masters about the success of the war, right?” Laera asked.

“That's what really bugs me, though,” Carth replied. “None of the surviving Jedi went back to Coruscant, at least, none that I remember. There was a report not long ago of one who did, though, She was the general in command of the bait force at Malachor; I thought she'd been killed in the battle, but someone told me that she'd survived. Something about having 'gone deaf' and wanting to find out why.”

“General Sunrider?” Laera inquired.

“Yes, that's the one,” Carth commented after a beat. “I think she was one of the first Jedi to join the fight against the Mandalorians. Admiral Karath once mentioned that a handful had gone to Serreco to investigate the situation.”

“My unit was under her command,” Laera admitted. “She had given approval to the Onderon mission after Revan had gotten confirmation from the resistance. I kind of liked her; she didn't seem like the typical Jedi. Most of them were a bit standoffish; you know how they can be, always preaching about something or other. But General Sunrider...she seemed to 'get' it. She led by example, and never asked any of us to do what she wouldn't do herself. If only one Jedi went back, I'm sure it was her.”

“I imagine the rest of the Order isn't too pleased with her.”

“Well, I can't see why,” Laera countered. “We needed the Jedi. If it weren't for the Revanchists, we'd have lost the war long ago.”

“You're not wrong there,” Carth replied. “But still...there's something wrong with the ones that have stayed with the Fleet. Do you remember those homespun robes they used to wear?”

“You mean the ones that look like they'd been sewn from bantha hair?” Laera laughed. “Those things must chafe like gritpaper. What are they wearing these days that has you so worried?”

“It's not just their clothes, as if that's not unsettling enough; most of them have taken to dressing as though they're going on night recon, but some of them have even started wearing armor. It's their faces, their bearing, that really stands out, though. You can almost look into their eyes and see that something behind them has changed, shifted, gone dark. I don't pretend to know anything about the Force, or what they call the 'light' and 'dark' sides, but this just creeps the hell out of me.”

“I see,” Laera replied after a pause. She drained the last of her stimcaf to give her time to compose her thoughts. Eventually, she decided to share her own knowledge. “You remember the Sith War, right? Exar Kun's little Force-user insurgency?”

“Only from the history books,” Carth admitted. “Kun was a Jedi who fell to the dark side and drummed up a following; this following then tried to destroy the Order from within. At the same time, his Krath forces were attacking the Republic left, right and center, and even managed to raid Coruscant itself. They were eventually chased back to their base of operations and destroyed.”

“That's about the size of it,” Laera acknowledged. “My homeworld was one of the victims of Kun's campaign. My family survived, but only barely; we lost everything in the attack. As if that weren't enough, the Jedi-led relief force refused to lift a finger to help us get back on our feet, saying something about not having the resources to rebuild the neighborhood. My family needed the income that Republic Navy service would bring, and so I signed up; getting my officer's commission eight years ago was the happiest day of my life. The day the Jedi came to my town, that was the day their talk of 'doing the best for everybody' got shot out a proton torpedo tube, as far as I was concerned. I stopped trusting Force-users of all stripes, especially Jedi, right up until they joined the war.”

Laera rose to refill her cup. “And now we're heading for a planet filled to the brim with Jedi,” she added bitterly. “Worse, the same Jedi who wouldn't come out of their libraries and archives to help us fight off the Mandos.”

Part One Star Wars: Death and Life: Part Three