The Rebel Faction

Varn, Orbit, one day later

"I have a report to give to the Combined Council in less than an hour! I need to know what's been happening out there." Traan Shi looked more distressed than Smarts had ever seen him, and with good reason; Traan had sacrificed his career as Shili's chief diplomatic representative to help Smarts liberate Varn from the Cavrilhu, and now he found himself being used like some sort of errand boy for the Combined Council, and it was getting tiresome. But such is the way of building governments and protecting freedoms.

"Very well," Smarts said after a brief pause. "In order to effectively counter the Cavrilhu threat, I have resorted to . . . unconventional means. The tools of manipulation that the Cavrilhu employed to gain control of Varn, I now employ to destroy them." Traan's face changed as he heard those words, and it was obvious that he knew he was about to hear an uncomfortable explanation, but he remained silent, and allowed Smarts to continue. "I will show them no compassion, no mercy, no desire for reconciliation. These people have violated the sovereignty of the planet Varn, held hostage its government, looted its citizens, and disrupted its freedom; they will pay.

"Yesterday began the campaign to bring about the end of the Cavrilhu Pirates. I launched three simultaneous attacks on three specific targets for very specific reasons. The main attack was actually the result of what could be considered a double agent: during the brief time the Cavrilhu occupied Varn, they abducted members of several important families, using them to ensure that key members of the government would cooperate. One of those captured individuals was the daughter of the Minister of Commerce; since the liberation of Varn, the Cavrilhu have used her to make the Minister give them schedules for incoming and outgoing vessels and convoys. Yesterday, the Cavrilhu used information provided by the minister to launch their largest attack yet: the interception of the convoy carrying parts for the new space station; however, the Minister informed us of the Cavrilhu plot days before he gave them the information on our convoy. Because of that forewarning, we were able to stage an ambush for the Cavrilhu ships sent to capture our freighters. We were able to surround them and force their surrender; no lives were lost."

"But what about the minister's daughter?"

"The minister's daughter is just one among many of the people who were kidnapped from Varn. I've been working on a plan to free them since the day Varn was liberated. Using information attained from interrogations of captured pirates, I was able to learn the location of a corvette being used to keep these victims. I gained a supply schedule for the corvette from one of our captured pirate ships, and contacted the smuggler that would be making a supply run to the prison ship. While I was engaged in the conflict over our freighters, a small group of battle droids infiltrated the pirate ship with the help of that smuggler. Naturally, we paid him a significant sum to accommodate the change in the delivery order. All abductees were rescued safely, and were promptly brought here, to Varn.

"It seems like you've been handling the situation adequately; I don't see why you've been so reluctant to fill me in on what you've been doing."

Smarts let out what could only be described as a laugh. "You haven't heard about the last conflict. I sent Beta on what I called a "diplomatic mission." Officially, he was to "negotiate the terms of surrender" for a group of Cavrilhu who were deployed at a nearby hyperspace junction. In reality, he was there to observe them destroying one another. Over the past several days, I've secretly been contacting several Cavrilhu members located within a specific raiding party. With the very quiet consent of the High Court, I used their friends and families—who were also members of the pirate organization—that we captured during the liberation of Varn as bargaining chips , and forced them to do what I wanted. I blackmailed a few others with sensitive data I gained from interrogations and captured ship records, and the last few who I couldn't find any other way to gain cooperation from, I paid off. In exchange for burying sensitive material and agreeing to give shorter sentences to their friends and family members, they secretly planned mutinies aboard their own ships. Suffice it to say, three captains within the ranks of the Cavrilhu Pirates, and most of the crews of their ships, are now dead. The remainder of the raiding team quickly surrendered."

Traan may have thought the first two conflicts were handled well, but he definitely had something to say about this last one. "This is unacceptable. . . This is unacceptable! The Council will never condone this kind of action! You can't resort to blackmail, extortion, and bribery to get what you want! This isn't right! This isn't right!"

Smarts' voice changed to a tone more grave and resolute than Traan had ever heard from him. "I will not sacrifice the lives of Varn's citizens in some vain attempt to appease your narrow view of what is 'acceptable.' By order of the High Court, and according to the new laws of Varn, enemies of the state who refuse to submit when confronted, forfeit their right to life. I was within my legal rights to use whatever means I deemed necessary to subdue what has been deemed a 'clear and acknowledged threat to the safety of the planet Varn.'" His voice returned to the normal, emotionless, mechanical state Trann was used to hearing. "I realize that you are obligated to report according to your beliefs, but understand this: I will do to them as they sought to do to us, and I have no reservations about that. Not when it protects the lives of the men and women who serve under my command."


* * *


"You are not only the Coordinator of the Cooperative Defense Force—the closest thing to a military commander that we have at the moment—but are also the Overseer of Cooperative Affairs, a position we chose to create in order to give you the freedom you needed to carry out your self-imposed responsibilities. What you do has a direct reflection upon the entire government of Varn, and we cannot support this kind of action."

It was several hours later, and Beta was standing in front of the Combined Council of Varn. "I don't ask you to support my actions," Smarts said through Beta, "but I do ask you to permit them. You may not approve of my methods, but I have broken no law, wronged no innocent, and saved the lives of many of our citizens. The bottom line is this: a few hundred Cavrilhu died, but any other course of action would have ended in significant loss of life to Defense Force personnel, and I was not about to allow that to happen." Smarts paused for a moment, continuing in a slightly indignant tone. "Next time you give me an assignment, sirs, I suggest you consider that I am more than some simple machine, that I will defend the lives of those entrusted to my command by whatever means I am able. I would sacrifice a thousand of those lawless pirates, if it meant protecting just one of the men who has entrusted his life to me. Frankly, I find it inconceivable that you—organics—can't understand the burden of responsibility that I hold as a leader of men.

"If a price must be paid for our freedom, I would have it paid for with the blood of our enemies, not the lives of our own citizens. For as long as I serve the people, so shall it be."

It was a fairly small base for such a large asteroid, so cleaning it out shouldn't take too long. As the battle droids broke into squads of four, Gamma—Smarts' modified battle droid—was standing in the freighter, interfaced with its central computer and using its comm system to coordinate the battle droids. With the power of the ship's computer and the knowledge of his own combat programming, Gamma was prepared to lead this small team of droids to victory; however, the arrival of several transports filled with additional forces reinforced the knowledge that his creator did not place the same degree of faith in his abilities. He desired so much for the opportunity to prove himself, but his master had spoken through a medium louder than words, and he was obligated to comply.

A swarm of repulsor-propelled holocams flew from the newly arrived transports, venturing into the enemy base and relaying video of the location of every pirate they came across. After gaining the location of every pirate on the first floor, Gamma began moving his squads of battle droids through the doors leading from the docking bay. The battle droids would go first, eliminating as may of the pirates as possible before they were destroyed, but with over a hundred more droids having arrived with the reinforcements, it was hoped that they would be sufficient to secure the entire base. The standard organic troops were there to take over only in the event that Gamma and the battle droids he commanded failed in their task.

The droids worked in perfect unison, firing in coordinated patterns, relaying targets to each other, and employing surprisingly complex maneuvers, for droids. It seemed impossible that these droids were the same bumbling, ill-equipped machines that waged the Clone Wars, and that's because in truth, they weren't. These droids had been modified to function as an integrated unit, programmed with an interdependent processing system based upon the concept of a hive mind. Linked to a central control unit, the droids were able to move through several sections of the base at once, knowing where every footstep, blaster bolt, and grenade of their brethren would fall at any given moment. What these droids lacked in durability and creative tactics, they made up for with coordination and vast procedural programming.

With the video feeds from the recorder droids being transmitted directly to the central control computer, the droids moved quickly throughout the base, avoiding large groups of pirates and striking small groups of two or three without warning, then turning around and engaging the larger groups from two or three directions, catching them in precisely laid crossfire.

As the pirates became aware of just how much trouble they were in, they retreated to the second level and set up defensive perimeters. The holocam droids snuck their way through air vents and maintenance crawlspace, rushing past pirate lines in large groups when necessary, then quickly disappearing into rooms and adjacent corridors. With new information on enemy locations coming in, the droids set out to capture the next level of the base.

Gamma wondered for a moment what was happening beyond the asteroid field, where the main battle was taking place, but he quickly dismissed the thought; it was irrelevant to his task.


* * *


A fleet-wide missile barrage was launched into the pirate formation; at such close range, enemy point defense weapons didn't have time to track and destroy the incoming missiles, resulting in serious damage. The enemy responded in kind, but most of their ships weren't carrying missiles; to pirates, who needed to capture their targets intact, such expenses were nearly pointless. Cohesion among the pirates quickly broke down, and the vessels began a desperate attempt to escape. Assaulted from every side and boxed in by a relentless opponent, the pirate escape was ugly, to say the least.

As the enemy ships moved toward the outer perimeter, Defense Force vessels positioned themselves to better block the enemy retreat. The pirate response was to continue on course, ramming their way through where necessary. As vessels collided and hull plating was torn away, a few bodies began to appear in space, blasted out of their ships from explosive decompression.

Even after escaping from the Defense Force perimeter, a few of the Defense Force vessels were quick enough to turn around and give chase, or fly through the now-hollow sphere of friendly ships and pursue pirates who had escaped through the other side of the sphere. The starfighters that had been positioned to stop escaping enemy fighters broke from their patrols, chasing after the fleeing vessels and firing torpedoes and missiles in formation, trying to cripple the enemy vessels before they could make the jump to lightspeed.

Still, some of the pirate captains had not been brave enough to ram their way to freedom, and surrendered without any further hesitation. The enemy ships that did manage to escape would undoubtedly tell of the crushing defeat they had been dealt by Varn's citizens, and repairing the damaged ships that limped away from that conflict would further tax the Cavrilhu's ever-dwindling resources. Due simply to the speed and intensity of their initial attack and the devastating effects of the follow-up mass-barrage, the Cavrilhu forces had been laid to waste quickly, allowing for comparatively little damage to the Defense Force's ships. Still, it would take time to repair the damage incurred, and it was more than likely that the enemy base had not yet been captured. Additionally, there were a number of crippled Cavrilhu vessels spread throughout the area, many of which would undoubtedly have to be boarded and forcibly taken.

Smarts sent the transmission to inform Varn that the brunt of the battle was over, then signaled a fleet of transports and boarding craft waiting just outside the system. They appeared within seconds, and were quickly assigned tasks. As the newly arrived ships turned toward their individual objectives, communications with the asteroid base were established. Alpha had accompanied the reinforcements into the asteroid field, and—having sliced into the system—was now using one of the light freighters to fill the gap in the comm relay chain. Smarts immediately reestablished contact with Gamma, uploading his records of the events so far, but chose to remain uninvolved, allowing Gamma to deal with the situation on his own. So far, things were going well.


* * *


Gamma felt Smarts' mind touch his own, but found it odd when his control over the battle droids was not superseded; it seemed that his master had more faith in him than he had previously thought. But such speculation was currently inappropriate; right now, there was a task to perform. The second floor had to be breached and taken.

Several droids prepared to storm the floor from the major access points, making enough noise to draw any waiting pirates' attention, while others worked on an alternate entry point. Holes were cut into the first floor's ceiling at places the holocams had found to be empty, then several droids helped each other up, sneaking in behind the enemy's hastily erected barricades.

Though many of the holocams had been destroyed by this point, there were still enough to scout the area for the sneaky droids and make sure they weren't detected before the appropriate time. Enemy forces had congregated at the access points to the second floor, and they were intently focused on the stairwells, turbolifts, and maintenance hatches that led to the first floor. So focused, in fact, that some of them didn't notice the concussion grenades that were quietly rolling toward them from behind. As the grenades exploded, throwing the enemy defenses into disarray, the droids from the first floor rushed upstairs. Some of the pirates were killed, many surrendered, and a few escaped to establish a new defensive perimeter.

This was getting tiresome. With so few of them left, the pirates fell back to their last major defensive point. At the top of the base was a spiral staircase that led to the base's control room. From the platform on top, defenders could take up well-protected positions from which to cover the only access point. With the high ground, thick armor shielding, and a bottleneck in the form of the narrow door a floor below them, the pirates believed they had a perfect defensive position. They almost did.

Before the droids made their final assault, a special box was brought up from one of the freighters. When everything was ready, several droids rushed through the door, drawing enemy fire and being destroyed almost immediately. But in the handful of seconds that they had the enemy distracted, the box was hurled into the center of the small room and activated. The droid that activated the box was swept upwards immediately, slamming into the ceiling and breaking apart. It was a repulsorlift, specially modified for this particular part of the base's conquest. The stairwell's wide, opened center that offered topside defenders such a perfect vantage point, also worked to focus the upward-facing repulsorlift. The blast of energy forced the defenders back, out of their line-of-sight positions from which they had been firing

Concussion grenades were thrown into the repulsor field, where they were carried up to the enemy position. Simultaneously, battle droids hugging the wall rushed up the stairwell, protected partly by the stairs themselves. With the top platform secure, the repulsor field was deactivated, and the rest of the droids made their way to the top of the stairs.

There was a blastdoor. It just wouldn't seem to end. Alpha was called to slice the door and open it.

"Wait." Gamma seemed a little confused as he turned towards the human who had just spoken to him. He had been so consumed with coordinating the droids that it took him a moment to recognize the man. It was Kerrick Arkanus, the man who had piloted the freighter Gamma was using to coordinate his droids. He was one of the few true military men in the Defense Force, and Smarts had assigned him to oversee Gamma's command. "If you open that door, every one of your droids is going to be destroyed."

"There is no other way into the command room. We must secure this installation."

"If you open those doors, your droids will get hit with grenades, lasers, rockets, and who-knows-what-else. Use that droid of yours to slice into their comms instead. Order them to surrender."

"They will not comply."

"They will when you threaten to shut down life support manually and vent the rest of the station's atmosphere into space." Kerrick gave a wry smile. "How long do you think they'll last with one room's worth of air?"

"Depending upon the number of occupants in the room, I estimate—"

"It was a rhetorical question," Kerrick said quickly, cutting the droid off. "Now, do what I say."

"We have been tasked with the expedient—"

"I am in command here, not you," Kerrick said, his voice strained with annoyance. "Now, do as I say."

Gamma was reluctant to waste time, but he sensed no opposition from Smarts. Gamma didn't understand why he needed some organic to supervise him; he was a highly advanced, specially designed machine, created for conflicts specifically like this one. But none of that mattered, because his master had given this organic command.

Gamma complied without protest; that was all he could do. He was only a droid, and nothing could ever change that.