Interlude - Fragments of a Mission
Note: Trying something quite different with this interlude a bit non-linear for my own interest and also hopefully might spark some ideas in others who can use these ideas in an even better way
This story occurs in between CotA and LotA
He had seen…and done…some horrific things…fortunately Aethan neurobiology was designed to rapidly deal with such things and avoid ruminations that could lead to depression or traumatic stress disorders.
Having said that this was in the top ten of the most sickening things he had seen…he clicked another still amongst the ongoing recording. The senator form Eriadu was on all fours in-between two male Gamorreans fulfilling his fantasies with the hulking green brutes…
This was the third and thankfully final item to but in the dirt file for the Chancellor, in addition to the evidence of extreme nepotism in the granting of office supply contracts for which the Senator of Eriadu was responsible and the usual willingness to change his vote based on whoever would pay him the most.
Naturally the Chancellor had no desire to prevent such venality, rather ensure he had the strongest ammunition to hold over his head…and so Valens had been asked through Kimar to spend a week looking into the Senators affairs…the messiest of them winding to grunting and disgustingly sticky close in front of him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOLOGGLE MESSAGING APP
-- Bepo’s Bantha Burgers – Freshest and Juiciest with our Secret Tatooine Tang – Franchise opportunities available --
BL@K_PRNCE>>> Check this out
BL@K_PRNCE>>> *Att.SenEria_GamorVid.vid
JdiBabe69>>>EWWWW *GAG*
JdiBabe69>>>WTF want for???
BL@K_PRNCE>>>Blackmail n stuff
JdiBabe69>>>All Bad as each other
JdiBabe69>>>Pfsassks
BL@K_PRNCE>>> still in Senex?
JdiBabe69>>> finishing up, House Anturi agreed to marriage deal to cut angriness and stuff
BL@K_PRNCE>>> frell each other in bedroom better than frell each other on battlefield
JdiBabe69>>>doubt will last…Farasa Anturi kid is whacko
JdiBabe69>>>miss you…can meet up on Rimma back to Core?
JdiBabe69>>> fingers getting sore LOL
>>New Conversation [Blue_is_Beauty]<<
ACCEPT
Blue_is_beauty>>>Agreement 13.3.5 Requisition
Blue_is_beauty>>>immediate, armed
BL@K_PRNCE>>>Calcing
BL@K_PRNCE>>>2 day’s minimum to arrive...will leave in 4 hours tidy up job for Grand Dren Licker
Blue_is_beauty>>> LOL
[[]]
BL@K_PRNCE>>>Something just came up…sux…
JdiBabe69>>>…I want sux…*frown*
BL@K_PRNCE>>>Sorry...will get you something, shouldn’t be long…Corus 5 days?
JdiBabe69>>>Can do, Black or Red?
BL@K_PRNCE>>>What?
JdiBabe69>>>Lipstick!
BL@K_PRNCE>>>You don’t need it sweetie, look sexier without it
JdiBabe69>>>*blush* hang on a min
JdiBabe69>>>*Att.1134.12.PHOTO.Pic
JdiBabe69>>>to get yr mind of gross vid…girls hungry to be eaten!
BL@K_PRNCE>>>Your Beautiful! See you soon
JdiBabe69>>>Take care V. S.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seeraw’wassan’Nuruodo was waiting for him at Ry’Kak’Cor Station located in a small system of just three gas giants and a star between Illum and Csilla. Nominally run by a private mining firm it was a Chiss launch point into the Republic and served as a rendezvous point for their agents.
He gave the pict Sofa had sent him of her ‘girls’ spilling out of her white bra another glance…he still felt slightly traumatised by the Senators peccadillos. Apparently among humans it was normally the males who were the more sexually aggressive…in that sense Sofa was atypical, but it felt familiar to him - amongst Aethans women were almost universally sexually dominant. This wasn’t the first time she’d sent such pictures of her ‘girls’ or her ‘princess’ - she had quite the exhibitionist streak…most likely a subconscious reaction against the secrecy and stigma associated with relationships and sexuality within the order….Another time bomb Kimar was merrily planting within the Order…
“Knight,” Wassan nodded in the small hangar bay,
“Minister,” he nodded back,
“Let’s frell the formalities shall we,” Wassan went on, he could feel the sense of release pouring off the Chiss, curious so like the Order in terms of hierarchy…so like the Jedi in ripping loose as soon as they could get away from it.
“What is the issue,”
“Here,” Wassan tossed a Chiss data disc,
“For a few years now…there has been a small group of Chiss religious fanatics operating on one of the moons of Mobus, no one really cared to be honest, they numbered all of three hundred at most, a few were allowed to preach in public forums but only attracted the failures,”
Chiss meritocracy was brutal, anyone who failed to achieve a proper station became an instant pariah virtually cast out of even the lesser families, so they allowed such groups to operate – often under the clandestine control of the Ascendancy itself - as a way to deal with and control the dispossessed.
“It’s not one of ours…only notable thing was its lead by the Son of a former Minister, washed out his CEDF training and went off while his father was still in office, but that was decades ago.”
“And the problem now is,”
“Watch the recordings,”
Slipping the disk into the modified received of his datapad the first image showed a middle aged to elder Chiss male on some kind of pulpit preaching
“The time of ending has commenced, upon the dread world to be remade but the Comers, the last Gods shall do battle, the White and the Red, if the Red doth sunder the White, the Ascendancy shall to fire and ash be condemned, and the Comers repelled, but should the White…”
“He just goes on and on…go fifteen minutes in,”
Zooming forward an old crippled Chiss was brought before him, raising his hand the cripple was lifted in the air, the body trembled and shook before being let down, the man now able to walk.
Valens shrugged, he’d seen such things a thousand times from con men zooming through the holo-net for traces of actual force users with unique powers.
“See now the Grand Spirit flows through me to you, that you may be without excuse…here now I shall perform another sign…” the Chiss went on, the area around him brightening with light that seemed to come from within him
“the Grand Spirit admonishes all who have fallen into the lie of the Ascendancy, into valuing rank and skill over love and justice, walking in darkness, stumbling blind towards the abyss as the Conflagration of White and Red nears!”
The video flicked off and the next one started, a middle aged Chiss male, a stern face with a number of small scars and military bearing – although most Chiss possessed that
“I Ryshall’Tillick’Urodou do repent of my sin in attempting to undermine the work do the Grand Spirit by destroying the physical shell of the The Anointed,”
Anointed…Valens would’ve guessed ‘The Prophet’ or ‘The Master’…
“And do repent of my having doubted the truth of the words of The Anointed,”
“Colonel Ryshall’Tillick’Urodou,” Wassan interrupted as the video continued to drone out confessions,
“Was an experienced deep cover operative…to be frank our best…over the last year The Anointed started becoming more militant, harassing people in the colonies, preaching about the end of the Ascendancy and how it shackles the minds of the people…we sent him into investigate…his last report is on the disc only a week after arriving, he was reporting the miracles were not faked…and doubting his mission, this ‘confession’ was distributed publically a week after…”
Valens understood…a Chiss operative like that would need some serious convincing to join up, torture would be unlikely to work, and two weeks was not enough time for it anyway…
“You think The Anointed is using the force for his miracles and to detect your agents…” he noted
Wassan nodded gravely, the Chiss did not like the force, something they couldn’t analyse, and something that defied their rigid view of the way the galaxy worked…and so they had called him to look into it…part of their agreement he was on call to deal with such ‘unusual’ occurrences.
“We need to know what we’re dealing with…we can’t be seen spying on our own…and if this Anointed is using such nefarious means of control…”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
…The so called meritocracy of the academies in fact serves only to legitimize and perpetuate the privilege of the Ruling Houses. By asserting that an individual’s success is purely the result of their own competencies divorced from their clan resources, it systematically disadvantages those students without access to private tuition and private learning facilities common in wealthier clans and labels the failure of disadvantaged students as being the direct result of the students own poor work ethic and ability.
This perpetuates across generations as those with clan privilege as I will refer to it hence forth, are consistently more likely to achieve commissions in the CEDF and subsequently achieve merit based adoptions into larger houses, and high status roles within the government or within their own Houses administration…
…So long as this system continues we will continue to have a permanent underclass of low power clans disconnected from and resentful of the opportunities afforded to the wealthier clans. In turn the belief that their poverty is a result of their own moral failings entrenches discrimination against low power clans by incorrectly attributing responsibility from the Social system to the individual.
--Professor Nyray’Arrun’Sabosen of Csilla Polar University Social Sciences Division translated from Cheunh
And then I beheld the Harbinger of the Grand Spirit Descend before me…its body was silver flame, its face adamantium,
“Come and See” it told me and I fell to my knees to worship it in fear and trembling
But it raised me and said
“Do no worship for I am but a messenger of the Grand Spirit,”
“When Sin has reached its fullness, then by their sins of greed and violence they shall awaken the three headed demon.
It showed me the First of Nine Scrolls, the scroll had four seals
The Demon destroyed the First seal, the Poet of the Creator most pure and noble laid low by vile treachery
The Demon destroyed the Second Seal the Scion of the Just twisted by his own pride laid low by consummate vengeance
The Demon destroyed the Third seal, the Lord of Sin drowning in his own pleasures laid low by ice cunning
The Demon destroyed the fourth seal, the Soul Thirster who Never Drank falsely satiated by vengeances cup
The Scroll opened and I beheld White and Red masked behind the Demons slaughter--The Anointed’s Vision on the Sixth Night of Fasting as recorded by Brother Twarrin’Nsarra
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whilst there were some non Chiss species under the Ascendancies rule, there were no humans, so any infiltration had to be completely hidden. Fortunately that was not difficult, with Wassan’s information Valens slipped aboard a freighter bound for Mobus VI, the Chis crew oblivious to his presence even when standing in front of him.
The trip was swift, only 9 hours with three jumps. The Moon had a thin atmosphere that wasn’t breathable, but the gas mix of oxygen, nitrogen and traces of argon was easily purified to be breathable in the old outpost that was now called the Temple of the Anointed.
He slipped out as the cargo haulers began moving the crates of food and supplies donated by supports throughout the Ascendancy, in exchange hand woven prayer shawls, ‘scared’ water and hand written prayer books were packed on board.
The captain of the freighter utterly disinterested and internally mocking of the peculiarities of the cult the only thing noticeable in the aether even as he made a juicy profit from the trade for his Clan, resenting that he had never received a commendation for saving an Officers life in a battle fifteen years before and was stuck with crummy jobs like this.
He was only one step above the others here Valens noted as he slid through the hallways a living shadow taking in the light of thought and emotion. These were the lost Chiss, unable to acquire enough merit to be adopted into a larger House or Clan, too inept to find work, too emotional and dishonourable to remain supported by their own clans, they pooled to anyone who would offer purpose outside the constrained paths the Ascendancy offered but then shut them out of with its high standards.
He found it detestable…everyone had something to contribute, he would, had and must continue to kill for a population as large as the Chiss, but even then would never contemplate such ostracism, every Aethan had a role, a place…
He sometimes wondered if the dismissive way other races treated their own was due to their lack of the aether…amongst his own everyone could feel another pain or sadness, and as the whole community could feel it, so it was whole communities role to address it…without that connection could they be just as inhumane to their own?
Stalking through the common rooms shadows he felt their renewed sense of purpose and belonging here…he could sympathize with these Anointed…but that would not stop him putting an end to it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The circle formed of seated brothers and sisters in what was once a munitions storage room, now stripped bare apart from the red hand woven mat.
Elder Brother began with a recitation
“Blessed are those who read and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is at hand. Grand Spirit Anointed us,”
“Grand Spirit Anoint us” the chant returned,
“We shall now confess, I confess to having doubted the words of the Anointed, having doubted the White and Red would come to pass…my sin is fear of my own sin leading me to deny the truth for else I must be convicted of my sins…Grand Spirit Forgive me,”
“Grand Spirit Forgive us”
Younger brother was next
“I confess to having lustful thoughts for another brother, my sin is lust…may I be convicted of my Sin…Grand Spirit Forgive Me”
“Grand Spirit Forgive us”
And so they proceeded until all had confessed, then Elder brother took the Chalice, filled with melt waters from Csilla’s galciers.
“Take and Drink…” he sipped and passed it around as they did so he recited the words of the Anointed
“Drink these the waters of our home from whence we are cast out and despised…drink from the Chalice with those who will not judge nor abandon you....Take and drink”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I knew you would come,” The Anointed replied to the shadow in the room
“It was foretold to me,”
He walked to the centre of his chamber and spread his arms, his ragged gown hanging loosely,
“I am no warrior I will not resist you…there is no difference in life or death, I am with the Grand Spirit, the Grand Spirit is with me.”
Silence
“At your leisure then,”
Silence
Silence
He began to wonder if he actually was alone…
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is Narawan’Undoro’Idontik for Csilla News Network reporting our top story for the night.
CEDF forces responded to a distress signal today from Mobus where a Religious group calling themselves the Anointed, on the orders of their leader committed mass suicide in an attempt to ‘become one with the Grand Spirit’, the following footage was recovered from the scene, a warning this may distress some viewers,”
“My children the time has come, the End is here, all who fall by the Demons hand shall be taken by him into the depths where the Three Headed Demoness shall devour them for ever, take…take and drink deeply of the Chalice passed around…take and drink"
Three children aged 14 and younger were found on the moon after activating the distress beacon and reported the leader of the group, also called the Anointed was increasingly unstable in the days leading up to this event.
287 bodies have been found and identification work has begun, if you believe you had family or friends amongst this group please click the link on your screen.
*********************************************************************************************************
