IX: Pathology
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Flake-fish crumbled at the slightest pressure of her fork, splitting soft white flesh apart like an expert fanning a sabacc deck. Crisped and golden skin gave way at just the right amount of resistance to know it was perfectly done. Pungent herbs and cracked spices awoke tastebuds in such a way as to guide the flavors precisely as the chef desired, from savory to salty to slightly sweet before she swallowed the morsel down. The wine, six hundred years old and kept within a half a degree of ideal temperature, matched proper dryness and bouquet to the fish and the charred vegetables swimming in saccharide-glaze. Ten thousand credits, give or take, and in all it was a fairly middling affair, Viqi Shesh considered.
Across from her sat the Chief of State of the known Galaxy.
“It’s very good,” she lied as Borsk Feyl’ya forked a bite of his own, the Bothan glancing up at her as she spoke. A handful of other senators were in attendance too, each wisely engaged in their own conversations and leaving the center of the table to Feyl’ya and Shesh. The rest of the night might well be about SELCORE, but right now there was a single issue the two cared to speak of and it was not relief for refugees.
“I’m afraid I’ve never quite acquired the taste,’ Borsk mused as he took another bite. “I’ll take your word for it. There’s appearances to keep.” Around them was hubbub and clanking of forks and knives, dozens of sapients all partaking. One of Senator Solo’s - Organa-Solo’s, rather - aides was deep in discussion with another Senator that Viqi didn’t recognize and the two appeared poised to break out datapads to compare notes. Others were speaking on Ord Mantell, now a hotspot for the news, given the retreat of the Yuuzhan Vong from the solar system only a day previous. Actionable intelligence from the secret priestess, finally. If the Vong fleet sent to Ord Mantell seemed understrength for a world of that importance, no one was talking about it.
At least, no one was talking about it publicly. Admiral Sovv was proudly proclaiming the virtues of the New Republic Fleet again and word had it Director Scaur was considering the action, if not ironclad proof, at least a strong indication to the sincerity of the defectors.
All of it built around the assumption that the Yuuzhan Vong were not a people given to subterfuge. They blew up planets! They killed living worlds with plagues and burned ‘heretics’ in vast ritual sacrifices, or so said those fleeing on the bow-wave of the invasion. They burned and scarred their devotion into their own bodies - a particularly disgusting practice - so that everyone could see just how much their gods cared. All of it added up to one of the most unsubtle foes the New Republic had ever faced.
It beggared belief that the Yuuzhan Vong could have a deceptive bone in their body. She’d read briefs, dozens of pages long, that outlined how lying might be a cultural taboo, in fact, going against their religion. The arrogance to confidently decide what the vong religion did or did not say after a scant few months was, actually, almost comforting. The moment bureaucrats started functioning intelligently and efficiently was the moment you knew there was a plot afoot. Governing was not about getting the right information, it was about getting endlessly contradictory information and being able discern what was fluff, what was lies, and what people were convinced was true.
Viqi may be a Senator of the New Republic, but she was still Kuati.
“The schedule is finalized, I’ve heard.”
Shaken from her thoughts, Viqi dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin and nodded.
“They’re proving to be very cautious, but we reached an agreement quicker than I had expected, though a little later than I hoped.”
Borsk raised an eyebrow.
“You were hoping before the Elan conspiracy delivered something tangible.”
“I still think it’s entirely a trap. We’ve read all the same briefs, but it’s just simply too good to be true. And anything too good to be true usually is.”
“Yet your little pet project isn’t too good to be true?”
He was leading her along by the nose, but Viqi allowed it. She’d not had the chance to speak, one on one, with the Chief of State on the matter of the ‘Imperials’ yet, only getting tacit approval from his office to continue her overtures. Not that she needed the approval, as a Senator she had a great degree of autonomy, but it was still beneficial to know that he was, for the moment, at least not against her. Even if he had been, she was a Shesh. A Senator might be able to be prevented, but affairs of her family were well outside the authority of the office of the Chief of State.
“Chief Feyl’ya, they’ve decided to annex a free world and they’re calling themselves the Imperium of Man. So far the only positive I’ve found for them is that they reached out to us.”
Borsk forked a floret, considering it before putting down his fork and reaching for his own wine.
“Imperium of Man. Galactic Empire. Second Imperium. It seems a sort of pathology, at this point. Some sort of derangement of the human species.”
“Aside from the unfortunate similarities, we haven’t found any connection to the Empire or the Remnant. Moff Sarreti was willing to answer a few questions from Bastion, in good faith. Considering Ithor.”
“Considering Ithor.” Borsk nodded. “A tragedy.”
“Mm,” Viqi agreed. Borsk folded his hands together, tapping fingers to his chin as he looked her over.
“What are you hoping from this, Senator Shesh? Really?”
A question she asked herself nightly, staring up at the darkened lumes of her chambers. The thought that poked its head up each time she reviewed the latest response from the ‘Imperium’ and prepared a return reply. Each time she spoke with Tresk Im’nel, the Bothan diplomat-turned Jedi-turned diplomat again, as they went over talking points. The very same question she’d endured for hours with her great great-aunt, as she threw almost every single favor and bit of leverage she’d accumulated over her comparatively short life at the wizened old bag.
“What am I hoping for? I’m hoping for a proxy force to pressure the invaders from rimward. I’m hoping for an actually energetic ally in this war. I’m hoping for an outside context problem for the vong, to give them a taste of what we’re having to endure.”
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And to be a lever to pry open the swirling, self-defeating mess that was the Senate.
“I don’t trust these Imperials an inch. If you’re worried about another catastrophe like Senator A’kla, you needn’t. I very much enjoy living.” To punctuate the point, Viqi took a long draw on her own flute of wine, making eyes at the Chief of State. It wasn’t a proper meeting with Borsk if Viqi didn’t try to at least get a reaction from him. He didn’t seem impressed.
“Elegos’ death was a tragedy, Viqi.”
“It absolutely was and it was also absolutely a colossal mishandling. I mourn his passing as much as anyone else and I will miss his spirited morality, but even if he was right, it was a job better left to an ethnologist or someone like that. Not a sitting Senator.” She knew exactly what Borsk was going to say in response and let it play out. A little dance, if you like, saying the things the other knew but measuring the way it was said, the words chosen, the implications behind the angles.
“You’re going personally,” Borsk replied, leaning back in his chair. “And that’s different?”
“I’m not throwing myself on their hospitality, Chief Feyl’ya. I’ll have Master Durron and other Jedi with me, along with the pride of my family. And if there is treachery - well, I hope you’ll be quick to avenge a poor fallen Senator.”
Borsk didn’t believe there was a great risk. No one did, not even Nylykerka or Sovv or anyone else on CSI. These Imperials in their communiques were polite and forthcoming, giving a significant amount of information on their interests in the New Republic and intentions in reaching out. Borsk was merely going through the motions, making sure to warn her that should the worst happen, he could wash his hands of it and through his mournful eulogizing, make sure the rest of the Senate and public knew that on Viqi’s head be her own death.
It had worked with Elegos A’kla and she saw the process already in motion here.
“I hope you find whatever you are looking for, Viqi,” Borsk said and she smiled at his use of her given name. The little torch she’d once had him was gone, worn away by habituation and working alongside him, but let it not be said Viqi didn’t know her type. “I really do. The New Republic could use allies right now and our list is short.”
“There’s always Hapes,” Viqi said with a grin, looking over the rim of her wineglass. The Bothan contained a wince, but barely. That insular little cluster loved to play the card of their neutrality, coupled with their untouched, albeit outdated, navy. More than once Hapes had been the topic of conversation in the backrooms of the Senate and may the Force help them all if Senator Organa-Solo got it into her head to go chase down that lepus-hole.
“Let me clarify, then: please be successful.” Borsk huffed an exaggerated sigh, tucking back into his meal as around them the sound of cutlery and glassware muttered under calm tones of the live band. Viqi took another forkful of her flake-fish, savoring the medley of spices and buttery melt of the entrée. Middling fare it might be, there was no reason not to enjoy it. Viqi Shesh took what life gave her with both hands, whatever it may be.
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‘Approach,’ the Primarch intoned.
Flanking walls of doughty ceramite, gilt in gold and trimmed in alabaster, enclosed a narrow track that led to where the Primarch awaited, resplendent in his newly restored plate. Each Ultramarine of the two squads stood shoulder to shoulder, bolters held smartly tight to their plastron, red lenses aglow in frowning Mark IV helms. Aeonid Thiel held his head high and paced down the row, gaze fixed forward. His booted tread thundered on marble polished enough to ripple muddled reflections of himself and the Ultramarines at attention. Tall, arching windows enclosed the gallery, letting in the bright sun of Eboracum’s primary, though the world itself was hidden below Macragge’s Honour. In the centuries of the Gloriana’s service, the gallery had seen balls and ceremonies, promotions and lectures, solemn vigils and the most beloved of all moments: joyful meetings with the lost children of Terra.
Today it served Thiel and in curious contrast to his genebulked physique, he felt rather small.
His gene-father waited, massive ceramine digits gently holding a bundle of fabric, neatly folded. To his right stood Marius Gage, Chapter Master of the First and Master Primus of the Imperium Exsilius and to the Primarch’s left was Fastus Foltrus, Captain of the 53rd and High Suzerain of Eboracum. Gage held in his hands a quiescent helm, painted with a broad stripe of red flanked by white. A brilliant white and black crest sat transverse, anchored by a brass bracket to the crown of the helm. Foltrus held in his own hands a single pauldron, rimmed in gold and painted with a crisp Ultima on an ultramarine field.
Reaching the trio, Thiel knelt gently, careful not to damage the priceless stone, sourced all the way from Macragge and Iax. Bowing his head, Thiel awaited the Primarch, who took a step forward, boots filling Thiel’s vision.
‘Sergeant Aeonid Thiel of the 135th Company, 13th Chapter. You are known as the ‘Red-Marked’ among Astartes and mortal alike. You have shown alacrity and initiative in your years of honorable service. The only mark on your record is one of grim irony, now sponged away by exemplary conduct in the darkest hours of our Legion.
Sergeant Aeonid Thiel, you are a Sergeant no more. Captain Foltrus.’
To Thiel’s left, Foltrus stepped forward along with a blank-eyed arming servitor. Momentary whines of machinery cut the silence, then the servitor lifted Thiel’s left pauldron away, exposing inner reactive mechanisms of his warplate. Foltrus gently placed the new pauldron in place, one bearing the markings and color befitting Thiel’s new position. Again the servitor’s tools whined and clacked and Thiel felt the minute shifting as his armor accepted the replacement.
‘By my authority as Primarch of the XIIIth Legiones Astartes, granted to me by my father, the Emperor, Beloved By All, I elevate you to the rank of Lieutenant.’ The Primarch shook out the folded fabric, revealing a deep blue cape, edged by fine white stitching and with a proud aquila spreading its wings across the center in golden thread. Recognizing the signal, Thiel rose to his feet and his genesire swept the cape about his shoulders, fastening it with magnetic clips to his pauldrons. Marius Gage stepped forward, offering the cradled helm in his hands and Thiel took it, peering down at the stern visage and wide crest. Then he set his jaw and met his father’s eyes.
Roboute bore the same stern severity he had for months now, but there was a brightness to his eyes as he glanced over Thiel’s otherwise battered and scarred armor, save for the pristine and polished pauldron on his left side.
‘It’s time to leave Calth behind, my son,’ Guilliman said lowly, quiet enough that even for posthuman hearing only Thiel and the two Captains might have heard it. Louder then, the Primarch gestured wide and spoke to the two squads assembled. They were all those selected by Thiel, by hand, to be part of his growing demicompany. His second, Sannad Optarch, stood at the fore of the right-side squad.
‘Lieutenant Thiel, your command. Welcome him.’
As one, the assembled squads rang their bolters off their chests and spoke, as one:
‘Lieutenant Thiel!’
‘This is an old tradition, one left behind along with the name War-Born. It is now that it is most important to remember what we had been, and all that we may yet be. The Crusade is changing and so must we. The Ultramarines have ever been the foremost of the Legions of the Emperor, and this will ever be so. Lieutenant Thiel, you shall serve as you have always served, for the glory of mankind, the Emperor, the Imperium, and the Thirteenth. Do you so swear?’
Thiel clapped his fist to his chest in the old salute, then made the sign of the aquila.
‘I so swear.’
‘Then as your first order as Lieutenant: the representatives of this New Republic arrive within the day. Carry my words to them and speak with my voice. You have my trust, Lieutenant Thiel. Now go in the name of the Throne.’