Star Wars: Revival/ Chapter 6: On Futures Uncertain

Chapter 6: On Futures Uncertain

"Order! Order!" Leia Organa's small, delicate hand pounded the large table with an impossibly heavy stone. Even she didn't know at the time that it was once embedded in the walls of the Jedi Temple, its ruins still scattered about the street some several blocks from where the Rebellion found themselves now.

Commander Fil, still bemoaning his cancelled retirement, leaned over to his comrade, Commander Carg. "We're taking orders from a child, now?"

"A woman child," chimed in Carg. "It's a brave New World."

"There will be order in this meeting or we will accomplish nothing," Leia reiterated, and set the stone at its place atop the desk. As she gathered her thoughts and looked at the men about her, she felt doubt creep in her mind. The men all seemed so much older to her now; so haunted. They'd seen more than she could imagine, and she wondered if she had any right to dare to lead them now. What was she thinking, a child daring to lead men? As she moved her eyes from face to face, her insecurities screamed inside her.

She shifted her focus to the stone on the table, and as if by divine intervention, she found her peace. And her purpose.

"Commander Stone," she called, her voice somehow clearer and more regal. "What makes you so certain these attacks are being perpetrated by CT-411? Commander Ponds?"

"I-" Stone started, then coughed and brought himself to stand. He wasn't sure why he was so nervous in the presence of the young princess now, after all they'd been through, but something seemed different about her. Maybe it was the angle he had to look up to as she sat behind the large desk in their clandestine meeting room, a clear position of power. Maybe it was the glow of her burgeoning beauty. Perhaps, yet, it was something more blossoming inside her; something truly magical.

He looked down to Crane for confidence, who seemed to be lost in his own dreamy admiration for the Princess. At this, Stone couldn't help but laugh inside himself, and that levity allowed him to speak calmly and candidly.

"We can't be certain, Princess Organa, but the body we discovered when we traveled to his last known coordinates was a dummy, so either he wants us to think he's dead or someone else wanted us to think he's dead. Whether it's deliberate or by coercion, he is clearly aligned with the Bounty Hunters Aurra Sing and Coach, who've also been placed at the scenes of the recent attacks."

"And who we believe fired the lethal shots that killed our soldiers," added Crane, eager to be helpful in the eyes of their new leader.

"And ate all the snacks from the commissary," added Patrick Rahr, his voice a mix of outrage and surprise. Across the table, Fil and Carg couldn't quite contain their laughter. Leia shot them both an admonishing glance.

"Tragic," Carg offered as apology, then turned his eyes to his lap.

"If he's under duress, he needs our help to freed from their control," Stone continued. "If he's working with them willingly..."

"Then he's the enemy, and will be dealt with as such!" bellowed Fil, slamming his fist on the table for emphasis.

"Order, Commander. I grow tired of repeating myself," Leia reprimanded, somewhat shocked at herself with how naturally her gravitas increased as she grew in her new role.

"He must be captured and questioned, yes," Stone agreed. "If his corruption is genuine than we have to investigate the possibility that we could all succumb to such conditioning." Crane's neck snapped up to face his comrade, his friend, his brother. Leia looked from Stone's face to Fil, Carg, and as yet unidentified Trooper at the far wall guarding the door.

All of them had the same face.

"You're saying if Ponds can turn, any of us can?" Fil offered, drawing the words out to illustrate their absurdity.

"I'm saying it's worthy of investigation."

"That's a load of Bantha Fo--"

"Enough!" Leia shouted, raising her voice above the others, silencing Carg. She turned to Stone. "If what you believe may be true you could be insinuating that every Clone Trooper is a potential threat to the Rebellion, including yourself."

Stone's eyes watered slightly, and he looked to his feet for a moment to find his strength. He filled his lungs with air, puffing his chest out, and looked at the young leader with sincerity.

"We can't dismiss this possibility. I love this Galaxy, and I swore to protect it, and right now that mission aligns me with the Rebellion. I will not rest until the Galaxy is liberated from Sith rule, and I will give my life to this endeavor. It is the finest work I have ever done, and I would die for any person in this room."

No one spoke as Stone pivoted his eyes from each face around the table. Even Patrick seemed captivated in the moment, its meaning transfixing him.

"But I've seen it happen too often already, and we can't be oblivious that it could indicative of a larger fault in our conditioning. Shale, Docks, now possibly Ponds. If there is a..." He searched for the words. All of this seemed to be reasoning inside him as he said it aloud, and the revelations were almost too much. He didn't like to think of himself this way, but he couldn't deny the weight of all that he'd seen. "Malfunction, loophole, failsafe command in us that we don't know about that can be evoked by those who intend to weaponize us, we need to know about it. And if there is a danger, we need to be--"

"Decommissioned." As the word finished, all the noise dropped from the room. Silently, breathlessly, Bail Organa emerged from the darkness behind his daughter.

"You were going to say 'decommissioned', weren't you?"

"Yes, Senator," Stone replied.

"I'm no longer a Senator, Commander Stone. Not in this world. I'm a soldier, like you. And you're no longer a clone. Any of you." He looked around the room at the faces of the brave men. "You've saved my life and that of my daughters more often than I can count, and I can look into your seemingly identical faces and know each of you, personally. You've become whom you were meant to be: men, heroes, the backbone of this Rebellion. You are free men doing the good work that must be done to set the Galaxy right. You are my comrades, and there is no conditioning or malfunction that would make me hesitate to run into a battle with any one of you on any day for our cause."

"General, with all due respect, Stone is right about one thing," Fil offered. "Ponds needs to be stopped. Regardless of his motivations, we need to put an end to these crippling attacks. I believe we have some contacts that could assist with this?" he trailed off, looking to Carg.

Carg snapped out of his own thoughts as he picked up the cue. "Yes, we know some people. Former troopers, enlightened as ourselves, who track down those still plugged into Imperial rule and... well, for lack of a better term, decommission them." His eyes met Stone's, which pierced through him. He shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly, as if to say This is what it's like now.

Bail Organa bent at the waist gracefully and whispered softly into his daughter's ear. Leia listened intently, then wrapped her delicate fingers around the stone on the table.

"Very well. Commander Ponds is to be found immediately and captured for question. However, if the option is not available he is to be considered an enemy and dispatched along with any invading faction that aims to cripple this Rebellion."

She slammed the stone onto the table, and Commander Stone involuntarily leapt in his feet. It was the closing of a coffin; not just for Ponds, but perhaps himself and every brother he'd come to know and respect. The world was changing, and it seemed to be doing so without him.*