Revanche-class Star Defender Swiftsure, near Valinor


“Admiral's on the deck!”


“Pipe down already, ensign,” replied the Rear-Admiral Costigan, waving down the salute, “it's not like this is a formal function or something. What's your nameplate say...Chrosten? Well, Ensign Chrosten, you must be new here, right?”


“Ah, yes sir.”


“Then I'll let it pass,” muttered the Rear-Admiral, settling into the ship's command chair, “because I'm not one for pomp and circumstance. Let's just get the job done. Neterri, are the survivors on board?”


“The high-ranking ones are,” replied a middle-aged female, “but most of them are staying on their ships. I'm guessing they like the Diplomatic Corps about much as Lucerne does.”


“Ain't that the truth. All right, let's make the jump then.”


A steady murmur spread throughout the bridge as the star defender prepared to jump into hyperspace. Much of it was routine procedure: making sure there weren't any civilian ships in the vicinity, that everyone was indeed onboard, and double checking the nav course. Costigan didn't pay it any attention. Instead, the man pulled up the latest feed from the navy's drones that had been gliding around Anzat. The rocky red-brown world had been a hive of Reaver activity once Task Force Justitia had decimated the deepspace logistics of the Reavers in the Meridian Sector. With their scrap-yards, bases, and other support facilities demolished, most of the Reavers in that sector had either pushed deeper towards the Core, or fell back to BDE space. But some had migrated several hundred light years away to Anzat, leaving it as their last bastion of activity near the Confederation Proper. For a little over a month, Costigan's forces had harassed the Reavers coming and going to the planet, but the never the world itself because there were simply too many Reaver ships present there. But by destroying the logistical support coming to the world, Costigan had finally drove much of the Reavers present towards Antemeridias, where their fleet had been mostly destroyed before they had finally been routed back towards the former territories of the Black Dragon Empire.


While their destruction had ended the seriousness of threat of Anzat's occupation, the world remained a perpetual thorn to the Confederates. Reavers came out often in small sorties to harass the space lanes and infect more to join their ranks. Yet the group was not large enough to catastrophically threaten any of the nearby Confederate worlds yet.


Not even two hours passed before the mammalian form of the Swiftsure glided back into realspace on the outskirts of the Anzat system. Dozens of smaller capital ships followed in its wake and hundreds of planet-based starfighters from Valinor buzzed around the Confederate battle fleet.


“Shouldn't be much of a battle...” muttered Costigan, his eyes scrolling through the data readouts.


“But that won't be the hard part,” uttered an unfamiliar voice.


Costigan turned his head to see a quartet of Anzati flanked by a honor guard of Shock Troopers. A single man dressed in the business suit with a Unitas pin walked out from behind them and offered a polite smile to the Admiral. Why...why is he here...why are they here...


“I'm sorry to trouble you Admiral,” droned the diplomat, “but I thought it appropiate for the Anzati fo finally see their homeworld in person.”


“I'm afraid we're so far out that there isn't much of a view yet,” replied Brailey, flipping through more holos, “give use another five hours and we should safely, well, mostly safely, in orbit around the world. We've got a bit of fighting to do first. Mr. Sorenson, I'd appreciate it if you'd take our guests to a more safe environment till then.”


“You seem unconcerned about that part, admiral,”said one of the Anzati, “perhaps enough to let us watch from here? I promise I won't get in your way...”


I wonder if the honor guard is really to protect them, or to protect us...


“I'm afraid I'd be in violation of Confederation law if I let you stayed,” replied the man from Genarius, “it's best if you remain in the complex for now. I will call for all of you as soon as the Reavers are defeated.”


One of the Anzati offered a gracious half-bow, “As you wish.”
 

Four hours passed as the distant Confederate fleet ran silently towards the Reaver occupied world. But the bridge crew was anything but quiet. A group of sensor operators, who would have normally been off-duty, had taken over several of the other stations to better interpret the passive only data that the fleet now relied on. They chattered incessantly. Costigan had decided early on that active sensor scans of any sort would quickly reveal their location. Propelled by only the occasional burst of thrust from the engines, the starships had less of signature than they normally would have, especially with many of the ship's nonessential systems powered down. Yet Costigan found himself still staring through the various EPR screens, almost hoping that a Reaver ship would pop in among them and reveal their location.


He glanced at his chrono.


We're an hour out from the limits of Anzat's orbit. We're bound to be discovered soon. He gazed at the distant specks of gray. Under intense magnification, those very specks resolved into the terrible and wretched Reaver vessels. According to the holos taken from the recon drones, the largest opponent present was a somewhat repaired Golan II space station. Whether it had originally been an Imperial facility installed to protect Anzat, or whether the Reavers had dragged it in from elsewhere, he did know. But the myriad of smaller craft which buzzed around it seemed to suggest to Brailey that it was likely the control hub of the Reavers around Anzat. None of the smaller craft would pose much of a threat, or so he thought. Yet still, the man from Genarius had fully expected some revenants from a recent battlefield or a flurry of infested civilian vessels to reveal themselves as they approached. Yet none did. For tf nothing, the Reavers had proven to be dynamic and tenancious opponents. Brailey expected nothing less of them now; now that they were on the edge of extinction in Confederation space. We must have really took out their fleet at Antemeridias between the mines and the world's actual defense. This should end up being a cake walk, at least space side. Going to the ground should be interesting to say the least...


“It would seem that we're almost there, Rear-Admiral.”


Costigan spun about on his chair, his hand quietly sliding down to reach for his sidearm. An anzat stood before him. Dark green eyes peered out from his ashen gray skin to bear down on the man. Brailey narrowed his eyes and glanced around them.


“Where are your escorts, sir?” questioned the Rear-Admiral.


“With the others,” answered the anzt, sliding behind the Rear-Admiral to view the chair's holo-projector, “forgive me, I'm Commander Kell Tyris.”


Kell Tyris...why does that name seem familiar? He briefly closed his eyes, drawing upon his memories of the briefing to take the world, along with with Rear-Admiral Lucerne and the rest of the Contegorian Council. Tyris, the Anzat commander who took control of Anzat's defenses against the Imperials. The one whom Grand Admiral Desaria routed when he conquered the world. Valiant, but idiotic, or so it seemed. But they're nothing if not subtle. Still...with only those picket vessels...but are they really pickets, or hunters? Who wants to bet that they actually have something like a sensor mask...the Anzat certainly have been around long enough to turn their preferences to reality in combat? Brailey swiveled on the chair, simultenously moving the holo screens out of the anzat's view and moving to face the humanoid head on.


“Commander Tyris, I think I can make an exception for you to stay and observe the battle. Perhaps I can teach you a few things, but I'll need an escort for you first.”


“You're scared of me.”


“Shouldn't I be?” smirked the man, “my mother told me nightmares about your kind.”


“You are not prey.”


“I don't know that, nor am I willing to risk it,” murmured the man, tapping a few buttons on his console.


A trio of Observers quietly slipped out of the recesses of the bridge to float among the two commanders. The anzat immediately turned around to face the droids. Incredible. Those things are nearly silent, yet he suddenly knew where every one of them were. Perhaps they live up to the nightmares that are told of them. Tyris let an almost feral frown crease his face.


“Look,” said Costigan, presenting an open palm to the alien, “I'm just following orders. There are some within the Council who don't trust your people yet. They've always been mysterious, and not very open. What little we know hasn't been reassuring.”


“But you're willing to make us your allies?”


“It's your world. It is rightfully yours, not the Reavers, nor the Empire's. Truth be told, assuming we are successful, I don't think things will change for your race's perception even once one of you is a Councilor. You can't keep to yourself, perpeute mythical stereotypes, and then expect people to see your kind as ordinary benign citizens. You have to open up.”


“I'm not sure if your kind would appreciate it once we opened up.”


“Then you all ever see from us is fear,” murmured the man, flipping through screens of his command chair.


“Contact! We're been actively scanned...”


“Full power, sensors go active. We're done hiding gentle peoples,” interrupted Costigan, “all weapons, fire at will.”


The Swiftsure's massive batteries opened fire on the Reaver picket. A thunderstorm of blue and green converged upon the paint-chipped CR-60. Seconds later, that starship vanished in a bright cloud of combusting gases. Costigan quickly flipped over to the sensor screens, showing the operators searching for any trace element of the infamous Reaver dust which could have bled out of the vessel during its last breath. Nothing...but still...


“Bombard the area with ion cannons, flak fire,” decided Brailey.


Blue bolts surged into the area and exploded into sprays of lightning. If there's anything there, it won't be able to resist that sort of electromagnetic interference. His brown eyes glanced down to the sensor screen, yet none of the distant sensor bleeps were moving. As if they hadn't seen it. But that's impossible. Why play dead? Unless most of them are part ships? Braily frowned.


“All ships, target the Golan II with starflares. Let's get that thing knocked out before they can really use it.”
 

Costigan wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, watching another gout of flame burst out of the Golan II's slab-like hull. He glanced up to a pair of Y-wings surged past the bridge viewport, wildly firing a mix of laser and ion cannons. Just after they passed, several dozen Piranhas zipped after them. Dozens of minute beams of emerald green lashed out at the strafing starfighters. As they neared the bow of the mighty vessel, the Y-wings exploded under the sheer volume of fire from the Confederate interceptors. Dozens of smaller Reaver craft continued their assault on the Confederate warship, yet its point defenses and hundreds of interceptors continued to wittle the number of their opponents down. He turned his attention back to the command console, flipping through several screens to focus on the port side of the defense station hundred kilometers away from them.


“Shield breach on the station's left side,” noted Costigan, pointing at a patch of crackling red.


It last only seconds before several Confederate gunners took advantage of it; turbolaser fire smashed through the shielding and into the hull itself. Shards of molten metal fluttered out of the station as deck after deck melted under the Confederate barrage. Various other ships began to take advantage of the newly created gap in the station's otherwise formidable shielding: more turbolaser fire poured intot he gap, both widening it and tunnelling through it into the crest of the station. A squadron of piranhas zipped around and launched several dozen space bombs into the gap. The station shook violently as the cascading explosions travelled through the various decks of the station, pressurized by the station's heavy framing holding its armor firmly in place. Massive shield failure struck the portside of the craft as the explosions tapered off. Costigan's lip twitched. That's half a station gone. More confederate fire poured through the unshielded side to neatly bisect the dead chunk off of the live portion. The newly detached atrophying portion fell under fire from the Swiftsure's heavy guns, incinerating the contagion contained inside. Bereft of its other half, the right side didn't last much longer, for one side could not function well with the other now gone. It's remains too disappeared under the hellish fire of the Confederate fleet.


“Status on the other Reaver vessels?”


“All destroyed.”


“Sensors, any infections on our own vessels?”


“Negative on capitals. We all stayed far enough way, but we're going to lose some dozens of the drones.”


“Self-destruct the infected ones,” ordered Costigan to the Flight Controller, “and let's pull any possibly infected drones and isolate them farther out into the system. Let's begin the irradiation process.”


A series of acknowledgements flooded the circular bridge of the vessel. Costigan turned to his Anzat guest, still carefully watched by the Observer drones. The alien peered curiously over the shoulder of one of the sensor operators. The bulbous nosed humanoid turned his piercing eyes to the Confederation commander.


“What about the ports?”


He turned his eyes to the various other space stations orbiting the world. In years past, the ports had been the only place safe for regular offworlders to stay during their visit to Anzat. While by themselves, the stations presented no threat to the Confederates, aside from their latent infection. He frowned.


“We'll try irradiating them. If that doesn't work, they're going to have to go.”


The alien glumly nodded.


As they talked, the Confederate fleet dispersed to surround the world without getting pulled into any close orbit where they might get infected. Minutes later, the ships began to launch the Confederation's ubiquitious Starflare heavy missiles towards the world. They detonated, generating a vast web of electromagnetic waves that disabled unshielded objects, notably the Reaver dust, by overloading their capacitors. Lightning occasionally sprayed about as the short-circuits travelled up and down the conduits and links formed by the Reaver dust itself. Closer to the fleet, Confederate warships began to systematically blanket the areas around the world with turbolaser and ion cannon fire, hoping to further destroy any of the nanites drifting away from the system. Several minutes passed before Confederation's sensors swept once more through the area, looking for any electrical activity which would signal the presence of the Reavers. The Swiftsure herself launched the last volley of Starflares around the world, these ones specially manufactured on the Fidelitas to explode with burst of high radiation but a short half-life, killing off most of the particles that had managed to survive the initial Confederation cleansing procedure. But more mop-up work remained, sending small sorties of Confederation vessels to investigate and destroy any of the surviving Reaver particles. It was found that only two of the small stations that served as ports could be saved, as the other ones possessed too thick of hull plating to disabled the dust inside. Costigan had them incinerated. Nearly two hours passed before Costigan was satisfied that the Reavers possessed no more threats for the Confederate fleet to establish orbital positions to take back the planet itself. But the Swiftsure had one more objective to pull.


Costigan turned to his flight controller, “Go ahead and deploy the spaceborne C1s to establish control over the two stations that survived.”


“Shuttles, sir, or did you want to deploy them directly off the Swiftsure?”


“Helm, does our course take us near the stations?”


“Oneo f them, sir.”


“Fine,” motioned Costigan, “shuttles for the distant ones. I guess we'll see how good they do in boarding the station after jumping out of our hangar bays.”


“Yes sir.”
 

Minutes passed before the Swiftsure drifted pass near the first station. As they passed, Commander Tyris pressed his hands against the thick ceraglass panes of the bridge viewports, apparently staring out with his green eyes at the XQ3 Platform. The central glass dome of the station was missing, likely destroyed in the initial Reaver assault on the world. Costigan strode up behind the Anzat commander, slipping past one of the nosy Observers guarding the alien. Brailey eyed the alien closer. He's not staring at the station, but his homeworld. The Rear-Admiral turned his chestnut eyes to the view the homeworld. Even from their orbit, Costigan could see Anzat's notorious gray mists sweep over the world, with the occasional craggy green or brown mountain peak up through it.


“Almost how you remember it?” questioned the Brailey.


“Anzat never changes, even when beset by a plague,” mused Tyris, “I remember leaving it before the Trade Federation attacked Naboo. I came back at the rise of the new Empire under Palpatine, and the only different that I could see was a new space station.”


It's weird to think of seeing such a long-aged species, meeting them in person. I wonder how old he is...venerable by our galactic standards, but probably only a young adult by their's. His brown eyes caught the movement of many light blue specks converging on the abandoned star port. The cloud of C1 battle droids flew over towards of it in a swarm like swarm of bees. The man from Genarius strode over to command chair, leaving the anzat to ruminate about his world. But Brailey had little trouble forgetting the brooding alien, becoming engrossed in the feed of the C1s. He randomly selected one of them to transmit its sensor feed directly to him. He spared a brief glance at his Alpha-Numerical designation: Senth Wesk Blue Zero Eight Nine Two.


***


C1 Battle droid SWB0892, XQ3 Platform Anzat Trader, in orbit via Anzat


The droid landed with a soft clank onto the platform. Dozens of identical robots fluttered down to the surface. Glancing around, the droid noted that their transponders that the rest of his squad was present. One droid, with a pair of orange chevrons painted on its right shoulder began to walk towards the central hub of the station. SWB0892 double-checked his weapons and plodded right after his squad leader, falling into a pair of wedges behind the squad leader. The droids approached the magcon field that kept a small holding and repair hangar separate from the vaccuum of outer space. His light blue photoreceptors noted small movements behind a series of crates. Switching over to infra-red mode, the droid could see that the heat signatures were very small. Its processor quickly came up with the most likely creature: an Alaskan Space Rat. They entered the field, their footsteps noisily echoed through the room, causing a pair of the rodents to peek out from behind their cover. Instanteneously, the bulk of jumpy droids fired at the rodents, their repeating blasters charring not only the creatures themselves, but destroying much of the duraplast crate that had protected them as well. Back on the Swiftsure, battle droid overseers would be going through the visual feeds to see if the rats were infected. Seconds later, the droids received orders to incinerate the rats, just to be on the same side. The sergeant battle droid motioned for a fire team of four, including SWB0892, to circle around the corpses. Almost simultenously, the droids opened fire again with their blasters at maximum power, nearly disintegrating the bodies, only leaving bits of flaming black char in their place. The other droids had spread out to completely search the hangar, but nothing of interest had been found. SWB0892's squad leader designated his other fire team to stay behind and pull security while he took SWB0892 and the rest of his fire team deeper into the station.
 

Revanche-class Star Defender Swiftsure, in orbit via Anzat


A pinprick of brilliant white light suddenly rippled out into a thunderstorm of crackling purple-blue; many more quickly blossomed after it. Tyris watched other magnetic pulse ordinances explode across the rest of the atmosphere, blanketing the world in brief but intense electromagnetic radiation designed to fry the internals of any of the Reaver nanites in the atmosphere. He withdrew his hand from the cold pane of ceraglass.


“It's fitting for our stormy world, I suppose,”muttered the anzat, sparing a glance at Rear-Admiral Costigan, who remained engrossed with whatever he was watching through one of the holo-screens.


The anzat commander strolled along the length of the bridge, still trailed by his escort of intrusive Observers. His emerald eyes lingered on the windswept peaks. Bursts of the radiation bombs continued to fall down lower, and lower into the atmosphere until they were detonating just above the highest buildings on the world. A pair of purple pulses flew out of one of the star defender's hangar bays: the magnetic pulse cannons began their supplementary bombardments of what had been Anzat's capital before its fall to the Reaver hordes. A familiar human voice called out from behind him. A brief scowl creased his face: The ambassador.


“Commander Tyris?”


The anzat commander turned to see that the rest of the anzat delegation had arrived on the bridge, accompanied by the honor guard of shock troopers, now joined by a squad of battle droids which he didn't recognize. The droids seemed roughly humanoid in shape, albeit their hands had been replaced with what seemed to be weapons' barrels, and the head seemed far more cylindrical that any organic species he had ever encountered in his ninety years of experience living in the galaxy. The brightly emblazoned Unitas symbol on their torso made their allegiance plainly clear. The Confederates and their droids...their technology...Tyris walked towards the delegation, quietly eying the ambassador. The man stared right back on him.


“Your absence triggered a security alert,” noted the man, “these droids were going to watch over you, but I see that the good Rear-Admiral has already assigned some watchers...”


“Forgive me, ambassador,” mused the alien, “I am use to having more freedom in where I go. But the good Rear-Admiral can vouch for my whereabouts during my absence.”


“Indeed, but it is a mute point. Rear-Admiral Costigan has been gracious enough to allow us to watch your world's reclamation from the bridge itself.”


“So I see.”


 ***


Watcher's Tower, Anzat


SWA1219 jumped out of the hovering CG-10 Centaur Transport onto the basalt and duracrete mixed stone landing pad of the Watcher's Tower. His blue photoceptors immediately looked up, calculating the distance to the top of the ancient structure. As he did so, dozens of his fellow C1s dropped right behind him. Several of the droids immediately moved to the front, activating their back-mounted shield generators to provide protection against any Reavers that could file out of the building to oppose them. As soon as the dropship ascended into the stormy clouds, the droids began to take blaster and slugthrower fire from the craggy windows which dotted the old watchtower. The droids instantly took cover behind their shield-wielding companions. The shields began to brightly fire under the impact of the Reavers' fire. Several of the Confederate droids turned their blasters to bear upon the windows, but to no effect; the droids simply weren't accurate enough to hit the more distant windows. SWA1219 raised his left arm up and fired, sending a pair of wrist rockets at one of the snipers' perches. The rockets exploded just after going through the window, making minute fireballs and spraying shrapnel throughout the room. Another droid, equipped with a close fire support module, began to pepper the windows with impact detonation grenades out of its mortars. Large chunks of stone began to fall, but the droid took some comfort knowing that with the damage dealt to structure, dozens of Reavers were going with it. SWA1219 reached into the pack of one his bretheren, pulling out more wrist rockets with his auxiliary hand, and loaded up the rotary magazine of his tiny rocket launcher.


As he did so, a pair of droids sporting anti-vehicle attachments sprinted to the side of the formation and dropped down to rest on all fours. A pair of missiles jumped out of their backs and surged into the graven durasteel gates of the building, blasting the doors back into the dark recesses of the old fortress. More blaster fire and slugs came pouring out of the entrance. The heavy anti-vheicle droids began to fire with their ion cannons, sending bright blue bolts into the darkness. SWA1219 heard several bodies drop to the ground under their fire. The close-support droid ran over towards the entrance and lit out a stream of flames past the ruined gates; a mighty inferno briefly scorched and purified the entrance of the Reaver plague. After seeing that several of the injured droids were repairing themselves, SWA1219 activated its own pack. After almost turning invisible, the droid sprinted into the breach. The husks of Reavers littered the floor and the antique furnishings now burned brightly in flames. Any other sort of organic would have long fled the place, yet one unusually large Reaver still stood at the entryway to the next room. While the droid could not tell its origin, it did recogize the threatening manner in which the Reaver brandished a large gun.


SWA1219's right arm pulsed, sputtering out a flurry of concussion bursts from his concussion rifle. The bursts smacked into the creature, eliciting a howl of pain and buffeting the Reaver backwards. His blue photoceptors noted that the Reaver was wearing some sort of antique armor breastplate once stored in the ancient place. Deciding that the value of the armor was not likely the value of the droid's existence to the Confederate commander, the droid switched firing modes on the concussion rifle. He fired. A pair of high-powered concussion blasts zipped through the central torso of the Reaver, piercing the armor to explode in the body itself. The nanite-reinforced body collapsed under the droid's attack. But even as it fell, the close support droid rushed in, almost smacking into SWA1219 and lit the body on fire with its flamethrower. The two droids began to sweep through the building, with SWA1219 sneaking up and attacking the prey while the other droid came up and incinerated the Reavers with careful gouts of searing fire.


 ***


Revanche-class Star Defender Swiftsure, in orbit via Anzat


Commander Tyris hunced over Costigan's command chair as the Confederate began to discuss the tactics of a planetary assault. While the Confederation had little experience in actually conducting assaults, they had spent plenty of time studying the tactics, if only to defeat the tactics likely to employed against them. Brailey's hands swept over a holo-projection of the world and the orbiting rings of Confederate vessels.


“We're employing what's called an orbital siege orbit,” noted Costigan, “in more normal circumstances, this would stretch our lines thin and dilute our strength in a normal fleet engagement. But this obviously isn't. Instead it's really useful if you're setting up a blockade to catch smugglers or any other sort of blockade runner. In this case, we're not only using it as a simple quarantine measure, but also to ensure that we can blanket the surface below with orbital fire support if we need it. This is a relatively seamless transition in this case too because we had to neutralize any potential Reaver activity in the atmosphere here, so the nature of the threat combined with Lucerne's school of thought that's dominating Confederate doctrine right now essentially formed our tactics. Just as a sidenote, while you may think of feasible ideas in your career to deal with certain situations, make you'll be able to politically survive it, regardless of your idea's actual success or failure.”


“You are scared of this other Rear-Admiral?”


Brailey hesitated, “It is not so much fear as political power.”


“You fear it.”


“He is an influential enough man,” admitted Costigan, “but it's more than that. A lot of officers simply know how to conduct operations in his sort of matter. It's what they're good at, and this fleet, in case you haven't noticed, isn't solely comprised of people who've worked with me in the past.”


“So you took the cautious route,” stated Tyris, leaning back, “this is what I did before.”


“Well it's true there has to be a certain balance between political necessity and tactical practicality, I can't comment certainly on the situation. If that were the case, everyone would be great military commanders. It's achieving the right proportions of intellect, influence, material, and actual leadership that makes a grand commander. And to be sure, there are excellent commanders who may be missing one of those pillars, but it prevents them from being greater.”


“Hence your Confederation's willinginess to train us again.”


“And equip,” reminded Costigan, “unless you were maybe someone of Thrawn or Gevel's intellectual capability, I doubt a bunch of pointy wooden sticks would do much good against another army with blasters in most instances.”


“So you are setting me up with all but one pillar.”


“Influence.”


“Yes,” agreed the anzat, “why not this one?”


“Influence is earned, and it's not something that be genuinely given away,” mused Costigan, “I'll be blunt with you. Those four pillars, those are Lucerne's ideas, not mine. And he's highly suggested that I help you with this one, because as he's said, you're already in the hole, Commander.”


“Because of my defeat at the hands of Grand Admiral Desaria.”


“And because Anzat will be reliant on the rest of the Confederation until your world's back on its feet.”


“Including your advice, or so it would seem,” half-snickered Tyris.


“Which is why Lucerne wants to employ you at some operations at which you are more experts than us.”


“Oh? Do tell..”


“Not here,” muttered Costigan quietly, “but I will discuss it with you in my cabin once the bulk of the fighting on the world below is done.”
 

Epilogue...


Admiral's Quarters, Revanche-class Star Defender Revanche, in orbit via Genon


“Anzat is cleansed-”


Corise shook his head, “Not for certain.”


The kashan man plopped down on the white sofa next to Councilor Harding and opposite of Councilor Thorn. While Lucerne had left Costigan to fully plan and execute the return of the Anzat to Anzat, he could not help but sneak peaks in on the operation itself. He had been surprised that Costigan didn't use his typical flair or bravado in his choice of tactics, nor his penchant for unorthodox tactics. It was so entirely by the book that Lucerne wondered if something had not happened to the man, or if he was letting a junior officer run it in his names, yet everything he saw made it appear that if the man from Genarius had indeed run the operation with the simple efficiency and orthodox precision that Corise liked to think typically characterized his own operations. Christina's brown eyes gazed into his own.


“You do not think the world is cleansed? I don't want to think of the cost of all of those bombs if this wasn't successful...”


“It's mostly successful,” suggested Lucerne, “in as far as we can tell, but I do not feel like all the areas should be considered safe quite yet. I've instructed mop-up teams and scout droids to go around the planet and look for any sign of the nanites. The old capital should be secure that the Anzat themselves have taken up residence there. Costigan himself went down and toured it.”


“I bet he thought all of their traditional, spartan lifestyle was wonderful,” smiled Harding, setting a glass down, “you're talking about a race that has technology, and has had it for eons, but they've never been fascinated by it. The anzat I spoke to seemed different than I would have guessed. Perhaps the word I'm looking for is philosophic...”


“If you can call cold-blooded stalking and hunting philosophic...” muttered Thorn, taking a sip out of her own glass.


“I won't admit to be entirely comfortable with them yet either. The anzat have always been a wild card, both thinking themselves above the galaxy yet at the very same time walking among its lowest corridors on the social scale. But I think they'll prove their use to us.”


Harding frowned, “As an asset?”


“Everyone is an asset to each other in the Confederation, it's the nature of our government,” mused Lucerne, “no, I meant even cold-blooded killing as Councilor Thorn was saying, can be useful.”


Harding gazed at the little pool of amber liquid remaining in his glass, “Is that why Valinor embraced them a little too eagerly?”


“I think so,” agreed the woman, “but the Valar are a special breed. If they think they can get an advantage on you know who...well...you know what they'd do to him...”


“The poor bastard,” sighed the Audacian, “I don't even wish that death to him.”


Corise shrugged, “The man deserves a fate worse than death itself. A return to condemnation unknown to all but a few...”