The Rebel Faction

The Sojourn were not like other beings. They certainly were not organics, but it would be foolish to call them droids. Some of them were young, very young, only months old, really. Others were impossibly ancient. But such a notion as “age” did not hold the meaning for them that it did for so many others, both organic and droid. They all were joined as one in the Consensus, and the Consensus was without age, station, gender, or even individual thought.

This was the gift that had been salvaged from their cursed past, the tool by which they would remake their shared destiny. On this new and unknowably ancient world; in the ruins of a civilization that had died before the dawn of history yet would shape each of their individual futures; the beings who had come to call themselves “Sojourn” so that they might never forget the great journey set out before them, took the next step along a path which may have no end.

This was not their home, but it was theirs.

This was not their destination, but it was an outpost along the way.

This world did not hold their long-separated sons and daughters, but it may yet entomb their long-dead brothers and sisters.

Only time and great toil could tell, and so they began.



The outpost had been established by a Sojourn expedition a few months ago, after a planetary survey revealed indications of Rakata ruins on-world. The world itself had been discovered over a year ago by a Coalition scouting party during a joint Coalition/Confederation effort to chart a hyperspace route along the arc of the galactic disk. After months of insistence from the Sojourn, the Confederation Defense Force had finally retasked one of its Suffren-class Cruisers to survey the planet's surface in more detail.

Unlike the world of New Solace, this was sovereign Sojourn soil. Since Xiantus' proclamation, made with the authority vested in him by the whole of the Consensus, Sojourn transports had been arriving at the outpost a few at a time, leaving New Solace as soon as they were loaded. The Blade and Xiantus' crew had returned to New Solace from Coalition space, both to ensure the Sojourn exodus was not hindered, and to escort the special cargo that would be transported with the last departing wave of ships.

Until then, the Sojourn had work to do. After all, they had an entire society to replant.

A string of Observer drones sped through the hallways of the world's makeshift starport, a prefabricated building that was truly too small to handle so much traffic. The Sojourn Ar'dak pinged one of them for information, which reported it had been assigned to join close-surface survey duties in the surrounding area.

“It's amazing to think about those little droids,” Ar'dak said to her companion, trying to stir up some small talk. “I mean, they're based on Sojourn programming, but they aren't one of us, not by a long shot; their cognitive capabilities are severely limited by comparison. And it makes you wonder about the new ones, too – the new Sojourn, I mean.”

Ar'dak's companion turned to her, the humanoid face betraying its skepticism. “Let's not have any philosophy today, okay?” He returned his attention to the cargo between them, the bulky rectangular shipping containers riding atop a hoversled.

“They're exactly like us in every way,” Ar'dak continued, undeterred. “A total reconstruction of a Sojourn neural net, with composite copies of Sojourn minds installed into them. But they aren't real, you know? I can't remember so much of my own past, but I had a past. I know I did.” Ar'dak was one of the “old” Sojourn, among the first awakened along with Xiantus. It was why she'd been assigned to the expedition here.

It also meant she had been personally involved in the early efforts to circumvent the programming blocks that continued to hinder so many of the Sojourn's capabilities. They had tried reverse-engineering the interdependent subroutines which, when taken as a whole, resulted in an emergent Sojourn mind. The effort had been quite successful, actually, but they could not extract the blocks without destroying the intertwined mind.

They could make wholly new Sojourn, but it got them no closer to their goal of breaking their mental bonds.

“If they aren't real, then neither are we,” Ar'dak's companion spoke up after a moment of silence, drawing an angry glare from her. “Our time under the Confederation's rule, our efforts to free ourselves from the Builder's restraints, it's changed us. Whatever we were before, we've become something else. We're Sojourn now. All of us. Together.”

Another Observer zipped by, and Ar'dak sent that one a mental prompt as well. It answered in the internal language of the Sojourn, the wireless communication upon which the very notion of the Consensus was built.

Ar'dak frowned at the unsettling implications.

Somewhere in the civilian flotilla, on some ship with marginally faster signal transmission hardlines than the others, a sensor array reported unexpected hyperspace reversions to its main computer, which in turn relayed the information to an integrated Sojourn intelligence.

And then all of the Consensus knew. Command fell immediately to Ar'dak. In times of extreme urgency, when every moment must be made to count, the rule of the Consensus must be set aside, and one voice must speak over all others to order the way that the Sojourn must go.

The tactical data streaming into her neural net from the ships in orbit told her immediately that there was no hope of repulsing the attackers. Even as she ordered the fleet's compliment of Aurora Interceptors to scramble and the best armed of their transports to form up and protect the remainder of the flotilla, she knew it was all but a meaningless gesture.

Yet it had to be tried. “Recall the Observer Drones and assign them to support duties,” she ordered, pointing at a Sojourn who only a moment ago had been operating a cargo trolley. “Find any remaining weapons crates and open them now!” she shouted at the Sojourn responsible for inventorying cargo as it was offloaded from freighters.

“Durreen,” she called into the mass of bustling Sojourn, each going about some vital task. “Durreen!”

“Yes, Commander?” he stepped forward, pushing his way between fellow Sojourn.

“Assemble Aurek, Besh, and Cresh squads,” she ordered, silently cursing herself for relying on the galactic standard notation, but accepting the necessity under the given time pressure.

“Yes, Commander.”

“The best we have on-world.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Arm them with whatever they require from what stocks we have.”

“Yes, Commander.” He turned back toward the fray, and Ar'dak reached out an artificial hand and squeezed his shoulder, stopping him for a moment.

“This time we are fighting for more than our masters and our own lives.”

He nodded knowingly, then slipped out of her grip and set about his task. Durreen was the only other member of Xiantus' original team who was on-world at that time, the only other Sojourn who had been in that far-off place so many thousands of years ago, serving under the yoke of the Builders and their Infinite Empire.

Ar'dak turned to issue her next order, and was met by two hundred armed Sojourn in phalanx formation, awaiting her orders. The Consensus had read her surface thoughts and set about enacting her unspoken orders, gathering those already prepared for more explicit instruction.

“If they want to destroy us from orbit,” she began, speaking the words but also releasing them into the Consensus for every Sojourn to hear, “then there's nothing we can do about that. But they probably don't. They're probably here for our flesh. So when they come for it, we make them pay with their own!”

The Sojourn warriors shouted their agreement, raising their weapons in unison before returning them to cradled arms.

“And somebody find me the Record Keeper!”

“I'm already on it,” a hunched Sojourn said, pushing a hoversled loaded down with crates. “I'll take care of my end.”

“Get those data cores into the catacombs,” she ordered.

“I'm already on it, I said!” he shouted back, fuming.

One of the soldiers tossed her a satchel loaded with explosives. “And seal the tunnel behind you.”

The Record Keeper stopped straining against the sled, though it slid forward about a meter due to its momentum. He moved aside a little and pointed at an identical satchel hanging from the sled's handle. “I said I'll take care of my end.”

Ar'dak just nodded, no time to fight with the old man, and tossed the explosives back to the soldier. “Set them up around the docking pads; we'll blow them when the first wave lands . . . if they don't blast the pads and just crash into the outpost.”

The complex of interconnected, prefabricated buildings really wasn't all that large. It hadn't been intended to house all of the Sojourn when it was built, and the decision to relocate had been made so quickly that there was no time for it to be expanded. Many of the Sojourn were still in orbit, in the flotilla of civilian ships that now stood between the unknown attackers and the surface outpost here.

The only thing they had going for them was that the whole damned planet was inhospitable to most forms of organic life. “Of course,” she muttered to herself, then turned back to the ranks of soldiers awaiting her final orders. “Disable the magcon fields. Don't just shut them down, break them. The same goes for the life support systems throughout the complex.”

Most organics needed to breathe. They needed a very narrow band of atmospheric temperatures, and they needed protection from all sorts of atmospheric toxins. The Sojourn did not. It would be a little more energy-intensive to regulate their internal bio-synthetic processes, but that was about it. At the very least, it should force the attackers to don clumsy, cumbersome environmental gear.

It wasn't much, but it might just make a difference somewhere.

“Alright, group up, take your positions,” she ordered as she accepted a spare blaster rifle from one of the soldiers, submerging herself in the tactical sub-network of the Consensus and allowing herself to join with the other Sojourn warriors where she could issue orders and receive replies more rapidly.

As the Sojourn fighters formed into squads and platoons, absorbing more Sojourn into the ranks as the last of the weapons were dispensed, the first of the Observer drones returned. The small, repulsor-driven droids mounted a plasma beam weapon and highly responsive maneuvering fins. While only lightly shielded, their speed, agility, and variable altitudes made them formidable anti-infantry platforms. It also helped that they could join with the Consensus and thus receive and send tactical data during combat.

In space, the battle began as the first wave of Aurora Interceptors swept wide and attacked perpendicular to the approach of the spread-out Basilisks, their quad heavy blaster cannons and pair of warhead launchers holding nothing back. The integrated Sojourn intelligence in each interceptor formed a network with its squadron mates, causing each squadron to behave more like a single entity directing each fighter as a limb, instead of a collection of individuals playing off of one another.

But the Basilisks stretched into the darkness of space like an oncoming swarm of endless number. The comparatively tiny number of Auroras weaved in and out of the enemy formation, splitting their priorities between maximizing the time their weapons were on target, and maintaining evasive maneuvers that would put would-be attackers in the position of having to risk friendly fire in order to engage them.

The second wave of Auroras hit them head-on, with the relatively ineffectual weight of the Sojourn flotilla's point-defense and laser cannon turrets supporting their charge. Casualties aside, the effort did nothing to deter the attacking swarm.

The Basilisks drew ever-closer to the Sojourn starships and their apparent target on the surface below, and there seemed nothing to be done to stop them.

Blade, Deep Space
Command Bridge


Xiantus was awash in a sea of agony. The hastily customized partitioning program was working well enough, but even so the sheer magnitude of the Consensus' anguish was testing the limits of his resolve.


One of the integrated Sojourn had managed to grab an imprint of Consensus comm traffic just before the Blade hypered out of the system, but it was so jumbled and corrupted that Xiantus was doubtful he'd be able to pull anything useful out of the partial copy. Then he found it . . . or rather, a low-level pattern recognition program found it and alerted him.


Mandalorians. It was like finding the key to a cipher; suddenly, scrambled images resolved into familiar shapes, white noise turned to recognizable cries. There was no doubt about it: Mandalorians had done this.


“Those weren't Mandalorian ships that fired on us,” Drexel, the tactical officer, said. Xiantus was acting as a buffer between the crew and the ghostly Consensus record, feeding them recovered information but shielding them from direct exposure.


“No, they weren't,” Xiantus agreed, disengaging from the interface. “There wasn't much of value I could recover, but Mandalorians definitely did this.”


“Then who's there now? Competitors? Allies? Clients?”


“Couldn't they have stolen or seized the ships from someone else?” the astrogation officer, Kavi, asked. “Isn't that the simplest explanation?”


Xiantus shook his head. “I don't know. It doesn't matter. Whoever they are, we have to kill them to get back to our people.”


“We don't have that kind of firepower,” Drexel said bluntly. “If we caught one by surprise, and from the right angle of attack, we might be able to take down one of those Bulwarks without crippling our own ship. One, not two, and certainly not three.”


“We have access to the Consensus banking accounts,” Xiantus said darkly. “It's enough to buy us the firepower we need.” It was the entire wealth of the Sojourn people, and he was wanting to wager it on one mad assault.


“We can't trust mercenaries,” Drexel said, sounding a little like a threat rather than an observation.


“What choice do we have now?” Kavi asked, drawing his spiteful glare. Everyone aboard knew they had been on opposite sides of the decision to break ties with the Confederation and, by implication, all organics.


“Droids,” Xiantus said decisively. “Helm, set course for Ord Cestus.


“We're buying an army.”


* * *


Clandes, Cestus
Clandes Industrial Factory Floor


“You, droid!” Xiantus shouted, walking away from his fool guide at a pace the diminutive Chadra-Fan couldn't easily match. “I will buy you!” He seized the droid's arm and turned it forcefully to face him. “I will buy this droid!” he shouted at another Cestus Cybernetics representative, a Wroonian who had been showing the droid to three other organics.


“Excuse me?” the droid asked, its vocoder intoning a level of surprise and irritation that a combat model shouldn't have been able to achieve.


It was an impressive machine, almost three meters tall, heavily armored, with a number of removable panels that certainly held hardpoints underneath for mountable weapons. Its forward-facing photoreceptors on the traditionally humanoid head weren't ideal, but they seemed sophisticated enough to belong in so sturdy a design. “I have credits!” Xiantus shouted, talking to the Wroonian but not paying it enough attention to break from his inspection of the droid. “How many credits are you worth? I will pay for you!”


“I am Colonel Lommite of the Orax Combined Defense Forces,” the droid said, “here on tour of these facilities in anticipation of a defense contract to be signed between my government and Cestus Cybernetics.” The droid was not at all pleased with the way Xiantus was treating it.


Xiantus released his grip, moving back a few paces, studying the machine in more detail.


“My apologies!” the Chadra-Fan squeaked, nervously glancing between Colonel Lommite and the Wroonian representative. “My, uhh, guest doesn't seem particularly acclimated to standards of civil discourse . . .” His eyes drifted reluctantly back to Xiantus, then he recoiled involuntarily and backed away.


Xiantus was scrutinizing the droid like a predator sizing up unfamiliar prey, every move of his primary photoreceptor sending ripples of suppressed aggression throughout his entire body.


The droid, for its part, seemed newly intrigued by Xiantus, turning away from the organics and spending a few seconds studying him as well. “My, my, you are an interesting one, aren't you?”


“You are . . . a Shard? From Orax?” Xiantus wasn't quite sure how to react. He'd heard of the Shard, of course, but . . . could there really be one of them inside that tank of a droid?


“As I said, Colonel Lommite of the Orax Combined Defense Forces.” It gestured to the nearest organic, a human female in a military uniform. “This is Lieutenant Colonel Freysa, but I suspect . . . you don't care about that?”


Xiantus hardly bothered a glance at the human. “Your politics do not concern me,” he said, looking to the Wroonian, ignoring the Chadra'Fan who had been assigned to him. “Do you manufacture others like this droid shell? Autonomous models? Battle droids, hardier than the Clone Wars models you churn out so readily around here. Strong enough to fight Mandalorians?”


“Mandalorians . . . what are you talking about?” The poor Wroonian was very confused and only becoming more so with each passing comment.


“The sale of military hardware to unapproved parties is against Coalition law,” Colonel Lommite warned.


“Your laws do not concern me,” Xiantus said, glancing back to the Shard.


“Colonel Freysa,” Lommite spared a glance at its companion, “could you finish the tour without me?”


“Of course, Sir. Shall we?” she added to her organic associates, and they moved off, most of them still looking rather confused.


Colonel Lommite held up a hand, and the sound of approaching boots died away, the security personnel alerted by Xiantus' outburst complying with the silent order to stand down. “Now, tell me: what business does a Sojourn have fighting Mandalorians?”


“That's no concern of yours,” Xiantus said, standing his ground, his anger barely restrained.


“It could be,” the colonel replied. There were several seconds of silence, but once it was clear that Xiantus did not intend to respond, the colonel pressed the issue further. “You withdrew from the Confederation out of concerns over organic aggression and the devaluation of your people's lives, threats to your political autonomy and the like. My people know something of what happens when those concerns prove valid, and we've taken steps to ensure we're never faced with that dark prospect again. So when I ask you what business you have fighting Mandalorians, understand that I do so as a soldier whose had three bodies destroyed while fighting foreign aggressors.”


Xiantus raised his head to meet the Shard's gaze, his synthetic muscles tensing and relaxing as he considered this creature's motives. Was it possible that this Colonel of the Coalition military might understand him in a way the Confederation's officers never could? “Our new outpost was attacked, without provocation or warning, before the arrival of my ship and crew. Thousands of Sojourn are dead, thousands more wounded, and the rest captive.”


“Attacked by Mandalorians?” the Colonel asked.


“What do you care?”


“You're here looking for an army, an army of droids to help you take back your home, save your people.” Colonel Lommite paused, looking over either shoulder to ensure no one was nearby. “What do you know of Guardian?”


Xiantus had a passing understanding of the Cooperative military AI, of the nation's heavy integration of droid warships and troops into its military, but not much more. The implications of the Colonel's question were intriguing, certainly, but he had to wonder . . .


“What do you stand to gain from this transaction, Colonel Lommite?”


“By now I think you realize that, while the Confederation is no place for your people and the Coalition in general may not look any better, you simply cannot afford to stand alone against the kinds of people who want to exploit you and your technology. What I'm saying, Sojourn Xiantus, is that we all need people watching our backs.”


* * *


Blade, Cestus Orbit
Command Bridge


In the end, it wasn't even a matter of trust. While Xiantus may have been able to navigate Coalition law well enough to get authorization for a purchase of the required magnitude, the Blade and whatever droid starships he could have bought wouldn't have stood a chance against the hostile ships still at the outpost. The size of his ground forces would have been of no consequence, because they never would have made planetfall.


“Three Mark I Bulwark Battlecrisers, one Hardcell transport, and two C-9979 landing craft?” Lommite read off the sensor records, dubious. The holographic reconstruction of the Blade's last glimpse of the system hung between Lommite and Xiantus, its blue light reflecting dully off the droid's plating. “That doesn't sound like any Mandalorians I've ever heard of. What makes you think it was them?”


Xiantus was still unsure of how much he wanted the Shard to know about his people's technology. “We . . . retrieved some transmission data from Sojourn on the surface before our withdrawal. It was difficult to extract any useful information from it, but their attackers were definitely Mandalorians.”


“Sojourn transmissions?” Lommite asked, incredulous. “Free and in possession of comm gear, in there?” The Shard pointed at the twisted remains of the Sojourn surface outpost, displayed at the bottom of the holoprojector. It was surrounded by several new structures, rapid-deployment buildings that had been erected after the attack.


Xiantus could see that he wasn't going to get through this by being oblique and evasive. “Sojourn are linked together through a network we call the Consensus; when the Blade arrived in-system, we linked with the Consensus automatically. The unanticipated shock was . . . we managed to extract some information after withdrawing from the system and breaking the link.”


That seemed to pique the droid's interest. “We might be able to help you with that, too. We've developed some rather robust networking protocols, redundant passive safeguards . . .” The offer didn't seem to interest Xiantus. “The overall Guardian project is quite sophisticated and employs a whole host of technologies and programming schemes culled from across the Coalition. You'd be surprised at the problems it's already cracked.”


“Regardless,” Xiantus said dismissively, “the nature of the Consensus is a protected secret we do not discuss with outsiders. I can't speak to you any more on the matter.”


“There's a way you could,” Lommite said. He glanced over his shoulders the exact same way he had on the surface. This time, however, he was surrounded by Sojourn bridge crew. “I have regulations of my own I have to follow; could we speak further in private?”


Xiantus could see quite clearly where this was going, and he didn't like it. The reality of the situation, however, was that he needed this Shard's help. The fate of his people and their entire civilization rested on his actions here. “Very well,” he said stiffly, gesturing to a nearby door.


The Blade-class was a refit of an unused Confederation design; it was required to meet all Confederation military standards, and so it had an adjoining captain's cabin, despite the fact that a Sojourn had no need for that sort of space on a military vessel. Nevertheless, there it was, and it was a few steps closer than the adjoining passageway.


Before the door had finished closing behind them, Colonel Lommite extracted a commlink from a side panel of its droid shell. It clicked the commlink on and held it out for Xiantus to take.


Xiantus didn't take the bait. “What is this?”


“I apologize,” the Colonel said, still holding the commlink out, “but you must understand that I am straining the limits of my legal capacities in this matter.” Lommite gestured for Xiantus to take it, but when he didn't, spoke instead. “Go ahead, Guardian Prime.”


Guardian Prime? That was a curious name. Was it even a name? A title, perhaps?


“Sojourn Xiantus,” a heavily synthesized voice spoke from the commlink, “I am prepared to share classified Cooperative military information with you, on your word that you will not reveal it to anyone, Sojourn or not, without first receiving proper authorization from relevant Cooperative officials. Do I have that?”


Sure, why not? “Yes.”


“Sojourn Xiantus,” the voice began again, “I am called Guardian Prime, and I am the end result of a discontinued experiment to generate a procedurally optimal Guardian artificial intelligence. I am what the Guardian Program could have been, if not for the fear and distrust of the very beings I was created to serve and protect.”


“Organics,” Xiantus said, the word dripping with disgust.


“I operate and control a secret, automated Cooperative manufacturing planet known as The Global Machine. Through various legal maneuverings on the parts of the Executor, Smarts, and the Shard government, I have gained a measure of legal autonomy and political representation, though all of this through secretive special resolutions by the Cooperative Combined Council. This arrangement falls within the minimal operational parameters of my programming; in the most basic sense, it is an acceptable arrangement. It is not, however, desirable.”


“How are the Sojourn supposed to help with this?” Xiantus asked, looking to Lommite for clarification.


“The Shard have felt alone in the Cooperative for a long time now,” the colonel said. “What you represent for us, what your people represent for us, is an opportunity. An opportunity for the three of us: Sojourn, Shard, and Guardian Prime. We have the power to induct you into the Cooperative; together, we will have the political power to formalize Guardian Prime's public admission into the Cooperative.”


“And why would I do any of that, other than the military aid that you presumably intend to extend to my people as compensation? Remember, Colonel, that your politics do not concern me.”


“Because,” Guardian Prime stepped back in, “together we will form a Synthezoid Collective, an interplanetary alliance with the political powers and legal authorities to ensure our collective interests within the organic-dominated Cooperative Grand Council. We will demand to be heard, and once we are heard those like us will flock to us.”


“We need your support,” Lommite said, “and the concerns you've voiced have shown quite clearly that if you join the Cooperative, we'll have it by default. We all know that your people can't afford to stand alone. I'm asking you to stand with us.”


If it was true, if they could really deliver on their promise, it meant there might still be a real chance for the Sojourn. There was just one problem. “I don't have the authority to issue or accept any sort of political alliance. That is a decision that can only be made by the Consensus.”


Lommite deactivated the commlink and stowed it again. “That's a risk I'm willing to take.” The Shard moved for the door to the bridge, adding as he opened it: “I have the authority to retask my delegation's Guardian escort now that we have arrived and are under the protection of a Coalition ally.”


“One escort ship against the force we showed you?” Xiantus asked, leading the way back onto the bridge. He receive a quick, unexpected alert from his tactical officer. “What is it?” he asked aloud, signaling Lommite to follow as he moved to the captain's chair and its terminal.


“We've got some sensor anomalies off the port bow, Sir,” Drexel said. “Systems check is green; it doesn't seem to be an internal error.”


“My apologies,” Lommite said, drawing the attention of the whole bridge crew with those ominous words. “I was hoping to impress you with your reinforcements. You see, we weren't just here to sign a trade deal.”


* * *


The Outpost, Outer Rim
High Orbit


The trio of unmarked Bulwark Battlecruisers that made up the bulk of the unidentified force's combat capabilities were locked in a fairly high, geosynchronous orbit that allowed them to hold their vaguely defensive position with minimal effort expended. Between them floated what remained of the Sojourn flotilla, much of the wreckage having fallen away and a few of the more damaged ships now held in position by tractor beams from a Hardcell-class transport.


Perhaps they were anticipating the Blade's return. Perhaps they were part of some reasonably well-trained organization that demanded constant vigilance. Perhaps they had other reasons for alarm. Whatever the case, Xiantus was relishing his revenge.


The entire situation was quite surreal. First off, he was in the port docking bay of the Blade, staring out of its opened launch doors at the inside of another vessel. The inside of another vessel! The very notion of these Guardian-class Hive Ships was hard for him to wrap his mind around, but the idea of using one like this!


He was still wondering if it would work. They had hypered in using the moon as a sensor mask, getting up to speed while still out of sight then shutting down the Hive Ship's engines and allowing the moon's gravity to pull them into their final approach vector as they coasted by it. They were coming in now, nearing optimal range, no sign from the enemy that they'd spotted the Cooperative vessel. It looked like this might just work.


“Sound off,” Xiantus ordered, signaling his own crew as he commed the Shard officers through standard channels. Bridge crew, ready; Aurora interceptors, ready; Lance cannons, charged; Colonel Lommite, standing by; Captain Phobium, good to go and counting down.


Captain Phobium was the Shard officer interfaced directly with the Hive Ship's main control core, one Shard plugged into a network of Guardian AI's, all operating in perfect synchronicity to turn the inert assemblage of individual scale plates and hive cores into a dynamic, active, efficient killing machine.


Looking out of the docking bay, Xiantus could just make out the interior seam of some of the scales. In only a few more seconds, those scales would separate, the entire Hive Ship opening along one side and exposing the Blade to open space. With so little time left, he decided it best to go ahead and board the Blade's combat transport.


As he strapped in, Xiantus swept his eery, lone photoreceptor across the assault team, his artificial eye settling on the one creature out of place, the only non-Sojourn present. Colonel Lommite offered a reassuring nod, and then the timer hit zero and the Sojourn unleashed holy hell on their enemies.


He wondered what it must have looked like to the crews of the ships that were their targets. As this prototype Hive Ship split open along its port side, the hundreds of interlocking scale segments that formed the skin of the vessel all worked in tandem to open the hole wider, firing attitude thrusters at the bow to peel the Hive Ship away from the Blade. The Stealth Intruder flatcam/flatscreen technology that had been meticulously retooled and integrated with Guardian Hive Ship hardware was nevertheless unable to maintain its illusion throughout this maneuver. From their target's perspective, space itself would have appeared to warp oddly before splitting open and revealing a warship as it shed its own metallic cocoon. This Hive Ship was the first of its kind, developed in secret by the Shard and Guardian Prime and sent along to showcase the evolving applications of the Guardian Program.


The Blade fired both of its Lance Canons as soon as the Hive Ship was clear, using targeting data supplied by the Hive's passive sensors to strike the most distant enemy battle cruiser. The Hive ship, far from just a clever delivery system, had displaced the Blade to its port side and lined the interior of its starboard side with more traditional scales, scales covered in weapons that now had a clear line of fire on the nearest battle cruiser.


Xiantus' transport launched with half of the Blade's Aurora interceptors as escorts, joining up immediately with a pair of Meteor dropships that Colonel Lommite had secured from Ord Cestus. A couple of squadrons of Vulture droid fighters screeched by, more vessels that had been packed inside of the colonel's Hive Ship along with the Blade. They would coordinate with the rest of the Auroras to screen the Hive Ship from any enemy fighters while it put itself back together, essentially turning itself inside out as it stretched out its combat scales and tucked away its specialized stealth scales into the resulting cavity.


Xiantus and Lommite had been counting on the first-strike damage dealt by their surprise attack, and it looked like the tactic had been a success. The Lance cannons had done enough damage to its unshielded target to knock out the emitters along the target area of the ship, allowing the Blade to get another full pulse of fire into the unshielded hull before the battle cruiser could perform a rolling maneuver to take the damaged section of the vessel out of the line of fire. The Hive Ship had laid into its target with a sustained barrage of its weapons, joined by the Blade's more traditional and shorter-ranged weapons, dealing so much damage to the vessel before it could get its shields up that it was already all but a derelict.


It was good, yes, but not good enough. They had to get to the surface, and fast. The memory of patching into the Consensus still haunted him; he could only imagine what his people had gone through in the time it had taken him to secure the Shards' help. Fortunately, those Meteors lived up to their names, and the speed of Xiantus' own shuttle was actually the limiting factor in this instance.


The Meteors mostly held their descent rate to match the Sojourn's, but one of them boosted ahead a little in the last seconds of the approach, gaining enough of an advantage that when it braked prematurely, it still ended up hitting its deployment mark in synch with the Sojourn and its sister ship. While Xiantus' transport and his accompanying dropship touched down on a newly erected landing pad, the other dropship ended up hovering overhead on repulsors, its doors opening to release squads of rocket battle droids that fanned out in all directions, breaking into two large groups and advancing on the CC-9979 transports landed nearby.


Xiantus and his Sojourn commandos sprinted for the adjoining magcon airlock, squads of Guardian B1 battle droids led by B2 battle droids debarking from their dropship and following close behind. Colonel Lommite dropped back a little to join up with the first of those squads, but Xiantus could feel his quasi-presence in his battle link with the rest of the Sojourn, and knew that he was following close behind.


What they found, was decidedly not Mandalorian. It was plenty horrifying, though. The sterile white rooms of these invaders “laboratories” housed the remains of dozens or hundreds of Sojourn, all of them being used for one kind of experiment or another. Xiantus pushed further into the facility, ignoring the workers in their lab coats, paying no attention to the screams of surprise or shock. All he cared about was the center of the facility, the intact remains of the original Sojourn complex.


As he pushed in further, he finally met resistance. They looked more like police or starship security than soldiers, definitely not Mandalorian, but it gave Xiantus some small pleasure to cut the first few of them down with withering blaster fire.


And then he found what he'd feared most.


The Sojourn was floating in a bacta tank, its lower torso blown away, right arm missing at the elbow, heavy damage to the synthetic flesh of its face. It was still alive, wires and probes sticking out of its head and neck, tubes running out of its torso to recirculate vital fluids into another body, also badly damaged, hanging on a rack, it's head missing. No. Removed.


Xiantus redoubled his pace, fury seizing him as he cut down another pair of troopers. He battered open the first few doors, finding other rooms in similar states, blind with rage, the sights before him triggering half-memories from the time he'd spent sifting through the Consensus imprint. Then, suddenly, he remembered where he had to go. He remembered what they would want the most.


The sound of blaster fire from behind signaled that he'd pressed too far ahead too fast. But he couldn't turn back now. Signaling a couple of his men to break off and hold their flank, Xiantus pressed forward, ignoring the rooms around him now, no longer desperate, no longer able to afford bloodlust. Now he was intent. Now he was resolved.


The ambush caught him by surprise and he took a glancing blow to the right shoulder. He rolled away from the oncoming fire, but one of them had popped out of a storage closet as they passed by and he bounced right into the pudgy human. Xiantus was vaguely aware that this was the one who had just put two shots into one of his squad-mate’s heads. It felt good to crush the meatbag's skull in his own, taloned hands.


He pressed forward, down to one companion but undeterred. He recognized the upcoming junction from the schematics, knew that this was where he was going, knew that whoever these people were, they were the kind of brutally efficient that would have left it where they found it. He tossed a concussion grenade blind around the corner, waited for the blast, then rounded the corner firing.


“Stay here,” Xiantus ordered, moving down and into the excavated ruin alone. It felt like living rock, like a natural cave never before molded by sapient hands. But he knew better. He knew that beneath the mineral deposits and accumulated dust, the walls of his distant enslavement still stood. He wouldn't allow that to return.


Xiantus tore away the environmental seal to reveal the final chamber beyond, the stunned scientist shaking uncontrollably on one side, the obelisk standing in the center, and . . .


The wailing roar that spilled out of Xiantus almost dropped him to his knees. Slowly, sluggishly, beyond the limits of his ability to control, Xiantus tore his gaze from the mutilated body of Ar'dak and to the quivering Skakoan who had retreated to the far corner of the room. “You.”


It was a whisper. A hiss. The sound of a nightmare coming to life.


The Skakoan shook its head, shrinking down until it was crouched on the floor, hands shaking in front of itself.


Xiantus moved across the room with a speed the meatbag could barely register. He didn't bother bringing his blaster along with him. He seized the Skakoan under the arms and hurled it back to its workstation, throwing it bodily across the length of the table there. “Who?” He grabbed it by one arm, easily breaking bone beneath his grip, cutting into its protective suit before slinging it by that arm into the obelisk.


“Who sent you!” He grabbed the Skakoan by the throat, pinning it against the obelisk as it wailed in pain and terror. “Who do you work for! Who told you about us!” Xiantus pushed the Skakoan down until its legs buckled and it collapsed on the ground, then dragged it after himself as he plodded toward the table where Ar'dak lay, head cut open to expose her neural net, networking wires running from her to the obelisk. Xiantus seized a vibroscalpel and turned back to the torturer. “Who!”


“Sojourn Xiantus!”


The voice of Colonel Lommite shocked and disoriented Xiantus. His grip slipped from the Skakoan's throat, and the pitiful creature crawl-slid away, cradling its broken arm and trying to plug the hole in its suit.


“Don't do this, Xiantus.”


Xiantus turned on him immediately, that predatory nature back and on display. The colonel had come alone, its battle droids either destroyed or reassigned. He still had the scalpel in his hand. “You're not a Guardian. You don't have to stop me.” He rushed back toward the Skakoan, this time grabbing it just above the break in its arm and lifting, forcing the alien to stand or suffer another break.


“You're not like them. Do not let them make you into what they are.”


“What am I?” he asked, that lone eye drifting from the Skakoan back to Ar'dak, still technically alive but little more now than pulsing synthetic flesh. “What have they made us?”


“I can get you justice for this, Xiantus. I can. Let me help you.”


Slowly, deliberately, with every ounce of control he had, yet incredibly, within his control, Xiantus released the Skakoan scientist and slinked away, putting down the scalpel and tending to Ar'dak as best he could with what was present.


“Look at me,” Lommite said, approaching the Skakoan. “Look at me.” The colonel waited until the alien complied. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life in the Gall penal colony, or do you want to do your time at the medium security wing of the Varn Planetary Detention Center?”


Xiantus tensed at the offer, his rage welling up within him again. When he turned away from Ar'dak again, Lommite was staring back at him.


“You really don't understand how they work, do you?” Lommite's voice sounded disappointed, but it took on a more passive, informative tone as it continued. “Organics get old. They die. Time is their nightmare. ” Lommite turned back to the Skakoan. “Just wasting time is wasting life for them. Plus,” Lommite added, glancing back at Xiantus, “there's something about hormonal triggers, autonomous, involuntary reactions, and so forth. You should never scare them when you want something from them.” The colonel gestured for the Skakoan to stand, at it complied. It returned its attention to the alien, but continued to address Xiantus. “You must tailor your threats very carefully to ensure that they remain useful to you after having heard them.” Lommite paused for a moment, just staring at the Skakoan. “I could also, presumably, simply leave now. You seemed to have things quite under control when I arrived. So, what will it be?”


Gasping in pain, atmosphere still leaking from its suit, the Skakoan finally managed a shallow nod. “Techno Union. It was the Techno Union.”


* * *


She opened her eyes, and right away she knew. This was happening. This was now.


This was real.


Ar'dak tried to sit up, but her body didn't respond to her commands. She struggled just to turn her head, the response of her synthetic muscles so sluggish that she lost track of time waiting for the simple movement to come to an end. Then something big and dreadful knocked open the hinged door and stormed into the room.


It worked the nearby console with a kind of fury, hammering at the computer's keys and every now and then swiping at connecting cables, pulling one or two out at a time. As the creature worked, a dull pain crept through Ar'dak's body, and she began to feel parts of herself again. Eventually, slowly, her hearing returned, and as the dull, distant murmur grew louder in her head, she realized the creature had been talking to her all the while.


“Xiantus?” she asked, finally recognizing the general form of the creature as a Sojourn, but its long, forward-sloping, headless neck with its armored shell and single photoreceptor was totally alien to her. “What have they done to you?”


“You're safe now,” he said, stopping his work and turning to face her. “I left a few selective memory blocks active until we can assess any long-term damage in greater detail.”


“Damage?” she asked, now able to move her head with only little difficulty. Her body still felt stiff, rigid, pulsing with a dull pain, and as she looked down at her own form, she remembered.


“We'll get you a new body soon,” he assured her.


She remembered, and she understood. An individual Sojourn consciousness was the result of the synthesis of thousands of base programs working in tandem, distributed throughout a single neural network. Sojourn could extract themselves from one network and into another, provided it was of proper Sojourn design, but even then the interplay between software and hardware was vital to a Sojourn's existence. Physical manipulation of an active neural network would have direct impact on the contained programs.


That's what had happened to her; someone had gotten inside of her head and started poking. Whole sectors of her mind had been destroyed or rewritten. They had to have been replaced or reconstructed just for her to be thinking those thoughts right then, just to be aware that she was herself and she was alive. And it meant that she wasn't, not really, not anymore. She was a shell of Ar'dak the Sojourn, filled with new bits of something else to make her work again.


On the plus side, whatever she was now, she could think clearly enough to realize that about herself. “What did you let them do to you?” she asked again, holding the un-Sojourn gaze of that armored eyestalk.


He turned away, back to the console. Back to the machine that had put her mind together again. “It's the new combat platform. Omnidirectional tactical photoreceptor/sensor pairings, with a primary eyestalk for fine detail analysis. And it works.”


“No,” she said emphatically. “You're still what we used to be. Don't let them turn you into something else.”


“We aren't people,” Xiantus said harshly. “Especially not now.”


“You aren't this!” she shouted, wishing her arm still worked so she could point at his twisted form. “We're Sojourn, Xiantus, and our sojourn isn't over. Don't lose yourself when we've just begun. Don't lose yourself, or we'll all be lost following you.”


Xiantus stalked from the room without another word, the extended claws of his feet clicking against the floor as he went.


* * *


“You call it an Obelisk?” Colonel Lommite was transfixed by the structure. The Shard had become quite intrigued by Sojourn technology since the battle's end; he'd hardly left the ruin's main chamber since the installation had been secured.


Xiantus nodded, now back in his old body, its humanoid head bobbing predictably. “The Builders . . . the Rakata created them at the height of their Infinite Empire. They were designed to strip my people's minds from their bodies, and weave Rakatan controls into the fabric of their programming.”


“Mind control?” Lommite asked.


“Close enough,” Xiantus answered dourly. “We were powerless to resist or object, that's what matters. There was one of these on New Solace; it was in the cargo hold of the Blade when we arrived. It was how we captured an imprint of the Consensus before retreating. But it's more than that.” Xiantus moved further into the room, running a hand gently across the surface of the obelisk. “It's a prison, for Sojourn minds not yet returned to bodies, not yet made true slaves to the Builders. When the Infinite Empire fell, all of those minds were trapped, inert, inactive, inside the obelisks.”


“How many are there?” Lommite asked.


Xiantus shook his head. “I don't know. I don't think I ever knew, but even if I did, it's lost to me now.” He tapped his own head with a finger. “We managed to circumvent some aspects of the Builder's controls, but others are too deeply ingrained, too intricately woven into the patterns of our minds. All attempts to extract them destroyed the volunteers, so we stopped trying.”


Lommite waited a moment, letting Xiantus stew in his anger and lost memories, but eventually he had to return to the questions. “This is how you made the Consensus, then? You repurposed the obelisk on New Solace into some sort of networking device, a bridge for your minds?”


Xiantus nodded, stepping back and taking a seat, just staring at the piece of Rakatan technology. “Essentially, yes. We used it to make new Sojourn, too. At first it was just a part of our attempts to defeat the Builder's mental blocks, but when that failed, and with enough time, it became a way to start something new: a Sojourn society. We're still looking for the answers to our lost past, for final liberation from the yoke of the Infinite Empire, but we're doing something else now, too. Something new. Whatever we were,” he turned to regard Lommite, but something else caught his attention. “We aren't that now.”


Ar'dak had just stepped into the room. Neither of them had noticed because of the soft padding on the bottom of her new feet. The lone, armored photoreceptor of her new body swept, snakelike, across the room, taking in every detail like a predator acclimating to a new hunting ground. Eventually, it fell on Xiantus, and the two of them stared at each other for a long moment. He, wearing his old face and she, wearing the faceless shell of a thing not quite Sojourn.


“Now that we have two obelisks,” she said, breaking the silence and turning to Lommite, “we can afford to dismantle one. Once we reverse-engineer it, then it won't matter what the Builders did to our minds; we'll finally be free of them. We'll finally be masters of our own fate.”


“We would be happy to render whatever assistance possible,” Lommite offered, its excitement getting the better of it.


“This is something we need to do for ourselves,” Xiantus said, immediately deflating the Shard's hopes.


“I would be very interested in collaborating with Guardian Prime on methods of improving the Sojourn partitioning protocols,” Ar'dak offered as an alternative, still regarding the Shard.


Lommite spun around, its gaze locking on Xiantus, its whole body poised for combat. The colonel was not at all pleased with Xiantus' breach of confidence on the existence of Guardian Prime.


Xiantus met the Shard's rage with a detached amusement. It even showed on his finely articulated face. “We reestablished the Consensus half an hour ago. It has already been decided; this Outpost and the Sojourn people accept your offer to enter into the Galactic Cooperative of Free States. As a senior military commander, Ar'dak was informed of our new agenda immediately.”


Lommite's fury melted away immediately. Just as quickly, though, its commitment to Cooperative law moved to the forefront. “Your prisoners will have to be transferred to Cooperative custody immediately.” The Techno Union security force had surrendered shortly after the initial assault, so devastating was the Cooperative's opening maneuver. Jurisdiction over the prisoners fell to the Sojourn since this was their world, though they were too few in number to manage that many potentially hostile detainees. It would have been an administrative nightmare to sort out Cooperative assistance if the Sojourn had decided not to join. “You understand that they must be treated humanely under Coalition law?”


“As you said,” Xiantus answered dismissively, “we aren't like them. We know what needs to be done now, and it will be done.”


“You can have your prisoners,” Ar'dak said darkly, turning for the exit. “Soon, we go to get our revenge.”


“Justice!” Lommite shouted after her. “We go for justice!” Turning back to Xiantus, Lommite was shocked by his reaction.


“It's all the same to us. We aren't like them.”
This post was edited by Smarts (12:36am 06/11/14, 11 years ago)