01.21 : The Light Begins to Dim

[22 BBY][Seven days after the Battle of Falleen]

[Republic Navy Venator-class Star Destroyer Selfless, In Orbit Ryloth, 14th Sector Army]

'Finally manage to acquire some Venators, and it's only because they've been battered to hell and back and my forces effectively cut off' General Locus Geen reflected gazing out the thick windows at the world below, and the repair pods moving back and forth around his new Flagship. Everything was urgent now, even if it felt they'd been largely abandoned by GAR High Command and the Office of the Supreme Chancellor with orders that boiled down to; hold the Sector, and await reinforcement months from now.

Oh, it had been framed as promotions, and reorganisation, and a whole lot of other kiriffing nonsense. But he'd enough military experience to know what it was; the Republic was going to be on the defensive now, and things were looking concerning back in Coruscant. That and the 'Grand Army' and Navy were desperately trying to fill holes, hope Bothawui didn't fall, and figure out what to do with the fact the Separatists were driving hard up the Corellian Run hyperlane. Now not only was Eriadu and all territory trailing and rimward of it cut off, but so was the Outer Rim and Wildspace sectors spinward from Naboo all the way through his position on Ryloth.

"Repairs are going well I see Senior General"

Locus nodded absently as the young greenskined General Daron entered the room behind him, a glance showing the alien from the distant Lipsec Sector dressed in his modified Republic General's uniform. Still had his blaster at his side, but he at least wasn't wearing the armour all the time at Locus's request; wasn't ideal for the ranks to see their commanding officers showing distrust for them by being armoured all the time around them "Yes, from what we can cannibalise from the Redeemer we should be able to restore the Selfless to combat ready status within the next week"

"Well, that is good news Sir..." the head of 'Republic Aegis Guard' replied as Locus returned to gazing out at the stars and planet "...we'll probably going to have to rely on her and the two Acclamators for capitals, the Redeemer too if we could restore her"

He sighed "Feasible, but it will be two or three months, and that would only be to barebones operational status...and to train up crews after losses amongst the ship trained clones. It is very doubtful we will receive any reinforcements for the next few months after all, beyond our own supply runs and that will not include Clones"

"That's fine by me Sir, we have plenty of trained sentients in the sector to draw from, so we can move clone crews to concentrate on specific ships and we can crew the rest with non-clone recruits once we train them up....it'll be months before the Redeemer will be more than a wreck anyway, so that's not an issue"

'Of course you'd say such; you, Kota, and Yanthis and you're jockeying to get crews into such ships! Forgetting the GAR does not want that occurring to prevent issues with System Defence Fleets' he thought tiredly as the other officer took his seat and Locus turned towards him, taking the proffered data-reader into hand "A matter for a later date I expect General, but we have more urgent concerns in the short term I'm afraid. Your proposals on the supply situation I'm guessing?"

"Indeed, you're not going to like a lot of them I'm afraid, but we're out on our lonesome for the foreseeable future and we need to do too many things; build up the system defences here, maintain supply lines, prevent Confederate Naval forces advancing....all on our own immediate resources..." the General of the Aegis Guard presented calmly as Locus Geen began to scroll through the more detailed plans "...so we to marshal what we can across the Sector we can access. Ryloth even could face starvation, or economic collapse, in the coming months unless some system is put in place, and as you can see I have consulted with a number of the planets business and resistance leaders on the situation"

'More taking advantage of GAR regulations, temporary nationalisations, and seizure of property of those in rebellion against the Republic' he noted seeing a number of observations similar to those the 'grab everything' Ailon Guard General, and then on recruiting an army they could not sustain by the Jedi Rahm Kota. Similar, but the approach was both better and worse than the others; it was an actual business plan of sorts alongside the logistics, but called for promissory notes by the GAR, and effectively seizing property. Separatist war material largely; but also of those who'd publically supported the Confederacy, along with 'temporary seizure' of 'essential' war-time materials.

He sighed "The three of you certainly love to get me in trouble with the Senate"

General Daron snorted "We're trying to win a war here, something the Senate doesn't seem to understand, al while it has sympathetic ears to the enemy amongst its ranks. Nothing I'm proposing is illegal under the rules laid out by the Senate, GAR, or Office of the Supreme Chancellor. I had ESS's Legal Services team check for me prior to this after all"

Locus shook his head at that "Of course you did, and our new ally General Syndulla?"

"Offers his full support"

'No surprise there from our quiet schemer' Locus thought reading in silence a few minutes as he sat across from the other officer before sighing "Unfortunately for me, it seems we have little option but to resort to less than savoury methods to ensure our position remains stable. Your plan at least is within the letter of the law, though not the spirit I might add, and lets us operate without either dying the death of a thousand cuts from logistics, or facing outright revolts like some others plans"

"Yanthis I imagine?"

He nodded back in the affirmative to his subordinate "It isn't a bad plan....assuming we were pirate warlords, or back in the Mandalorian Wars. But, down to business; I'm formally appointing you Military Governor of Ryloth for a three month period, to restore order officially, and realistically till our situation improves or we're driven from the system. You will also be our Sector Army Quartermaster, though I expect that as more your subordinates will do such tasks and you merely coordinate the situation between our forces"

General Daron nodded, stroking his chin after a moment as he sat back in the chair "The others?"

"General Yanthis will handle operations opposite the Arkanis Sector and Christophsis, Tatooine, and CIS territory spinward. Rahm Kota will operate trailing and coreward from here to Naboo, and my squadron will serve as the mobile strike forces. You are to ensure we have enough fuel and spare parts, and get our hidden depots up and running"

"Understood Senior General, I will ensure that..."

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[22 BBY][Two weeks after the Battle of Falleen]

[Groundside, Republic Command Centre, City of Lessu, Ryloth, Ryloth System]

"So, chips in heads" I stated as myself, Jurdan Ironhill, Shesagora, and Braika Chorn sat around the large table in the conference room of the Planetary Command Centre. Before us a hologram display of our...privately researched...data on the bodies of three Clone soldiers; secure information, hand delivered, and now discussed with maximum secrecy by us three Board members of Executive Security Solutions. Incomplete information in part, but potentially enough to get us all killed too.

"Uh-huh, clones with mind-control chips in heads..." Braika agreed with disgust tingeing her voice "...you know, when we said it was a slave army it was just PR. Wasn't expecting it to be true being honest"

"It's supposedly an aggression suppressor"

I snorted in response to Jurdan's words "Yeah, sure, it's a strange bio-neural chip based upon slave chip-tech long banned looks like to me. Genetic changes to make the clones more obedient...medical report, well, it confirms a lot of what we knew....guessed really...from fighting with them. But this?"

Jurdan nodded as I gestured at display "This could get us all killed"

"Only if we let people know we know" Shesagora barked out with a half-bitter, half-amused, laugh "...well, live dangerously in this job. Questions now are; what's on those chips, and who put them there"

Braika thumped her hand off the table, nodding at me "Oh, we know who put'em there, the cult of space wizards Daron 'ere escape from. It's their secret army after all, turning up just in time to fight the Seppies it does, and they already brainwash their younglings, so not a big jump"

'Not true, but no proof otherwise' I noted deciding to nod slowly "I won't say that might not be a possibility, but it's getting passed with flying colours in the Senate so there's support there too....and the Jedi Council are bad at politics in my experience. Are they doing it as their own idea? Or as someone else's cats-paw? Or has Kamino put it there and the Jedi don't know?"

"Ugh....we need a slicer, a really damned good one. It ain't Republic or Separatist encryption, and knowing what's on it might give us some clues" Jurdan pointed out "...and what about the others? How, when, do we tell them?"

"Jurdan we can't risk any of this over even the most secure holo-net connections..." Braika pointed out before I could "...as we don't know whose done this, but it's at least Jedi Council, Senate Oversight, or the uppermost echelons of the military. This could be anything from a plan to replace all our jobs with organic droids, a Hutt plan to make slavery more common in the Republic....we're at possibly mind controlled slave clone soldiers conspiracy levels here. That's NEVER a sign of good intentions in my experience"

I sighed deeply "Braika's right, we can't risk getting caught knowing this...or even a whiff of our suspicion of such things. We're trapped in Sector as it is, and cut off from home for months to come. Now, can we get someone we can trust to keep their mouth shut and are good enough to crack the encryption on these nasty little things?"

Jurdan shrugged "Don't look at me, I'm a ship captain all my life"

"Perhaps, it's not going to be easy" Shesagora, the 'retired' smuggler muttered "...this isn't something that can be done fast Daron"

"Fine by me, but we need to do it..." Braika stated firmly "...we've just blundered unto a kriffing conspiracy at the heart of the Republic. We can't exactly pretend we didn't see it, not when we've got so many kriffing clones scattered among our forces....in control of a kriffing Star Destroyer at that!"

"Then we do that, quietly...very, very, carefully and quietly....get us a slicer or slicers and crack this thing..." I voiced my opinion my mind working through this and Order 66. I'd been curious how that had happened, especially after talking to the Clone....they were so normal at times "...not even for ourselves, but the clones themselves. I am very, very, sure they don't know about this"

"Yeah...me too..." Braika replied with a grunt "...if not for there be several million of them, in the most modern and powerful warships the Republic can build, with their kiriffing Jedi Master's ready to turn their brains off at a snap of their fingers. Don't kriffing argue with me Daron, we Mandalorians know what the kriffing Jedi and Sith are like!"

I held my hands up in surrender "Hey! It was my idea to research this Braika, so don't get snippy at me because we found more than a potential competitor!"

She groaned slumping back into her chair "Aye, true, but who can we trust? Does Geen know? The former Judicials running the Grand Army? A small group in the Senate?" she chuckled then "....well, I wanted excitement, looks like I got it"

"That ye did....we did" Jurdan agreed "...now, I think our best way to approach this is through our operations here in the Sector. We're going to be making deals and hiring slicers, doctors, accountants, smugglers, and the like anyway so we hide what we're doing and cover it with official funds. This is going to take months just to get an investigation started, and making sure it does not leak..."

"We do not talk about this to anyone outside this room, not without unanimous agreement by all of us?" I put forward and got a round of agreement after a few moments of thought and turned off the hologram data-pad and placed it into a secure lockbox "...right. Then this conversation never happened, and I'm securing this could get us all killed data for the simple reason I have mental shields to keep out Jedi intrusion. Agreed?"

"Agreed/Yes/Aye"

"Right....then let's talk about getting our logistics here in..."