It was amazing how consistent Ortho Gutt's luck was.
In a conspiracy that saw the massacre of billions, he was the only one being held in jail. The only other person caught (as far as the former Captain knew) as a co-conspirator was Moff Khendon (though, truth be told, he was not).
Others involved seemed either to carry on as if they had no part or, worse, simply disappeared from public sight.
It never occurred to the former Captain of the ISD
Predator that these 'disappeared' people might also be held in other secret facilities or perhaps dead. It did not occur to Ortho to even ponder the fact that while others had died, he himself remained alive thus preserving the fact that his luck, while consistent, might perhaps also be good.
No, Ortho preferred to dwell in the self-pity of his circumstances though not without good cause. In the beginning of his arrest and incarceration, he had held onto the soldier's hope that while he was alive there was hope.
For what?
Anything!
There
had to be a reason he remained alive while Moff Khendon,
a MOFF! had been unceremoniously shot. Perhaps Zell and the others were biding their time to spring him from his inglorious prison?
Oh what flights of fancy his brain conjured up! What meager threads of victorious success he mentally tugged on all the while slumbering on a hard metal bed subsisting on rations fit for only a sick Ugnaught.
His lips trembled as he unconsciously whispered commands to an imaginary crew reliving the past glories of command while shivering under the thin sliver of blanket given by the prison guards.
Or perhaps it was simply a feverish mind that refused to acknowledge a predicament that everyone else thought was a forgone conclusion.
He was the sacrificial lamb upon which an entire city-wide state, an Empire no less would lay the blame for atrocities unmentionable.
No. He was a soldier. He was alive and he had done his duty.
There had to be reward in that!
Didn't there?
That night. At the OG. Being showered with praise among the pantheons of the Empire, by his betters... now his equals!
He had accepted his duty to be the face and public figure of the Project. A project that was the cornerstone of protecting an Empire in the most brutal fashion known.
He had done his duty!
Hadn't he?
He tried to remember the nuances of the meeting. He tried to remember what it was they had said and what he actually had done. Other than receive a very generous paycheck from an unmarked account, sit in his office, demand reports that really meant nothing to him and putting down his signature on transfer orders too complicated to be bothered to read in detail, what was there?
In the midst of all that, billions had died?
He did not remember any firing squads.
He did not remember a single name of anyone who was said to have disappeared. In the beginning, he would get visitors asking if their family member, friend or neighbor who went missing had died or if there was still hope.
He would look incredulously at the visitor. How the hell was he supposed to know?
He simply took his paycheck and frequented the brothels or the occasional slaver.
Was it murder if a slave died?
He didn't think so. The handler didn't think so. The many number of individuals whose palms were greased to look the other way in and out of the Empire did not think so.
So who were these people to look at him with contempt?
Who were they who sat in their comfortable homes oblivious to the wars Ortho had fought and the blood he had spilled on their behalf?
Ungrateful jackals the lot of them!
He had stopped accepting the visitors quickly after that.
He had done his duty.
Hadn't he?
Then the trial.
That damned trial where the very character of Ortho Gutt was not only eviscerated but burned for good measure.
And for what?
So those who had rested their backsides comfortably in the world that Ortho had nurtured into existence could strut before him turning their noses up at him.
At him!
HOW
DARE
THEY!
His hands had clenched into fists.
The Prosecution had spun a story of a lonely Governor of Garqi amassing enough personal wealth to set himself up as a criminal overlord within the Empire, using connections that Afdol Hilter himself (formerly of Agro Industries on Garqi now Overliege of Ukio) used to spread his own brand of criminal terror throughout the galaxy.
Perhaps Ortho felt justified in following in the other's footsteps?
Perhaps Ortho just liked the life of a criminal but whatever the case, justice had caught up to him.
The Defense of Ortho Gutt focussed on his military career of exceptional service. Exceptional in the fact that he hadn't screwed up in any major way and had done somewhat well under combat conditions.
But his military record could only go so far without character witnesses of which there were few. Those who worked in the office where he signed documents and generally tried to stay away from were merely HRDs who were wiped during the confusion of his arrest.
The Prosecution intimated that perhaps it happened at Ortho's command to limit further incrimination but even Ortho was puzzled as if he did not know they were HRDs to begin with.
The spectators did not buy the act.
Captain Yatta, his good friend was out with his ship and could not be bothered to darken his rising star of a reputation by being associated with his 'screwed' friend.
Ortho wished a thousand deaths upon his friend and as the trial wore on a slow truth began to creep into his mind. He looked left to right as if he were on a sinking ship wanting to grasp a line, any line towards safety.
Who could he call on to vindicate him?
Simon Kaine?
The Supreme Commander had retired and was nowhere to be found. Were he even to mention the man's name in connection with himself, he saw that the furor surrounding him would be inflamed more for how dare he drag the Empire's most celebrated soldier's name through the mud to save his skin?
He thought of Azrael Zell but one look at the old man's stoney face in the audience told Ortho that his very existence soiled the uniform both had worn.
The unfairness rankled.
He had done his duty!
Hadn't he?
The icing on the cake for the Prosecution was the putting of the girl's parents on the stage and, in the court of public opinion, Ortho's proverbial coffin was nailed shut.
Their tearful memories of their daughter tore at the heart strings of the spectators as Ortho struggled to remember if she had even been a good lay.
In the end, he shrugged giving up the search.
Some of the shrug must have showed in his body language for the parents saw it and lashed out a him. His expression showed surprise at their vehemence and the audience was ready to turn into a lynch mob.
"Alien hater!"
"Racist!"
"Murderer!"
"Rapist!"
That last charge drew a frown from him. He did not rape her. He paid good money!
Zell's expressionless face seemed to harden that much more with each chant as the regional Magistrate tried to restore order.
Ortho's eyes were desparate for a lifeline.
He had done his duty!
Hadn't he?
The old man's eyes hardened that much more.
The pressure mounted causing the rotund man to stumble somewhat back into his chair with a headache. He couldn't take it anymore.
As the girl's mother was being escorted off the stand she threw off her handlers and ran shrieking up to Ortho ready to claw his eyes out. The guards arrived too quickly and as Ortho desperately fought her off her hands balled into fists and pounded against his chest.
"You murdered them all, you....you....monster!"
She looked up at him as if searching for the piercing of his soul with her final judgement but saw only confused silence and sweat beads dripping from his head.
"You don't even know..." she whispered before fainting.
And it was at that moment that things fell into place. The meeting. The position. The money. The free reign.
He turned to Zell and, in the midst of his changing perspective, the old man's hard, stoney eyes suddenly were not accusatory.
No. They were
demanding.
What did the old man want?
What did they all
want?
He had done his dut---
Hadn't ---
He...
Ortho Gutt stopped his thoughts as the experiences over the past few years suddenly came together branding a realization upon his mind.
No.
He had not.
He was given free reign with no questions, no restrictions...
That was
not duty.
That was payment.
...
He had paid someone once and it had gotten him a girl.
It was payment and she had done her duty.
Confused, scared and overwhelmed but she had serviced him as he needed even though it killed her.
Her wants and desires were irrelevant.
It was not rape. He had
paid.
He looked over to Zell.
And so had they.
Now, he had a duty.
He gritted his teeth. It was a hateful duty even as it was for the girl, Netta.
But never no mind that.
He certainly didn't.
Well, I won't just lay down and die like she did! Ortho thought, not without a little bit of pride.
I commanded the ISD Predator and damn anyone who looks down on me!
As the girl's mother came too from her faint she began to stand up when Ortho Gutt backhanded her back to the floor.
The audience, foaming at the mouth though they were, reeled back in shock. Captain Gutt began to move towards the stand irregardless of what the Magistrate or Defense lawyer shouted out.
He remained standing and shouted over the throngs...
"
I have something to say!
You call me scum?! An alien hater and a murderer?? You consider me lower than the dirt beneath this duracrete?!"
His indignation, however misspent, showed. "I have spent my life beating with my bare fists those that would tear this Empire down! Those that threaten our way of life, call them alien, human, criminal or saint... I CALL THEM AN ENEMY!!"
He pointed to the fallen mother, "An alien sold me the girl! Where's his trial? It was probably a human who took her so where is their trial? Don't bitch and moan about the fate of races! WE ARE ALL FUCKERS AND WE ARE ALL GUILTY! Who did this to you? You want me to be the fall guy for your own fucking guilt?? All I did was my fucking duty defending your fucking asses and I will kill anyone who tries to to say otherwise! If you call that murder, then so be it but do not think you hypocritical bastards will deserve anything from me resembling guilt!"
"What about my little Netta?" came the weak voice of the sobbing mother.
Ortho Gutt's eyes narrowed without pity and sneered, "What was she doing out alone, bitch?"
The masses started shouting back at him in derision, not even listening to his rant.
"Monster!" shouted the mother.
"Mark my words!" he spat out harshly, "When the aliens are beating down on your doors, when the Empire's enemies are at your gates and you see your comfortable life slipping away, everything familiar about you burning up, you will wish you had monsters such as I standing between you!"
The jeering started to get ugly and Ortho spit into the crowd.
"Fuck you all!"
He was pulled down from the stands and led out of the room back into a cell where everyone would soon forget about him and throw away the key.
*
As the room emptied, the show over, Grand Moff Zell (retired) smiled inwardly.
So the fucking pussy did his duty after all! I won't forget this, you fat bastard!
Present Day..
The alien ships appeared as if out of thin air. Zell knew this because the INS announcer was babbling as he walked past a local transmitter.
"...it's as if they are appearing out of thin air.."
Like there's air in space... fucking moron! Zell was flanked by various guards and troopers and it was a constant circumstance he had to deal with since this entire ordeal started.
The aliens were surgically establishing space superiority using a minimum of hardware which was truly impressive given the amount of hardware Zell could have thrown back at them. And he would have if he could have; had their logistical support not collapsed amid the panic. That was what was wrong with trying to defend a ecumenopolis! The trillion or so inhabitants who invariably mucked up the works by, in their panic driven mind to save their own sorry asses, getting in the way of military traffic who was charged with moving here and there trying to put out fires.
There was a particularly viscious arial fight taking place over several sectors but unless something happened and happened fast, the fight for aerospace would soon be lost.
Not that they were not fighting on the surface but why make things more difficult than necessary and if they could control key aerospace sectors, they could work out the kinks in their resupply lines and kick these alien asses back to whereever the fuck they came from.
But their comms were down for the moment and the fleet fighting for their life did not need a Regent looking over their shoulder bothering them every five minutes for an update. He could read a sensor screen like everyone else.
How these fucking aliens are powering their wormholes at bedrock level feeding their troops in Imperial Center was annoying.
But not as annoying as the enemy's trick of turning one's own fire on themselves. When the planetary batteries powered up in their slow, controlled and confident manner, Zell expected to see large divots open up all around Coruscant space as entire enemy ship clusters were vaporized. Instead, what happened was a series of wormholes opened up in front of the weapon shots and another series of worm holes opened elsewhere redirecting those shots back at Coruscant.
Oh, the beating they took for that one.
Now, the planetary batteries were silent as the power district for the Palatial Sector was aflame.
"Remain in your homes.." came the civic service announcement blaring in several hundred dialects and languages.
Zell and his entourage stopped and he waved impatiently for the large security doors to be opened. As the gears ground against themselves, the locking mechanism finally released, the Regent felt an almost perverse sense of satisfaction.
"Sir, I must protest.." stammered a small man that came through the doors once they were opened enough.
"Shut up," ordered Zell annoyed that the Warden would be the first out of the prison.
Behind him came a crowd of former inmates and the Regent's entourage lifted their weapons in warning.
"Listen up, all of you!" Zell shouted. "You are known to have military experience and therefore I am drafting your sorry asses. Consider this a full pardon but with strings attached. Those strings involve you searching out these alien bastards attacking us and killing them dead!
Any of you fuckers have a problem with that?
No?
Then these people behind me will have your assignments!"
The stream of people began to move past Zell, confusion being transformed into hope and the old man spotted a rather fat bastard among them.
"You! Gutt! I need you here!"
Upon hearing his name uttered from Azrael Zell, Ortho knew the old bastard was up to no good. He cautiously approached his Regent wondering if he had a better deal going for him inside the prison.
Zell's next words put those thoughts to flight. "How would you like to command a ship again?"
Ortho's eyes widened as if he had just been presented with a nubile and willing virgin teenager.
"Tell me more," he rasped licking his lips.
It was amazing how consistent Ortho Gutt's luck was.
