The Seeker (SW FanFic) (Chapter 4 posted)

[handofthrawn]

Hey everyone. I haven't written a fanfiction in a long time, but I recently came across a very interesting idea, and last night I worked up a prologue. So, if you're interested, bear with me here. I'll write this as I go, so it might not be polished, but I'm a fair writer, so let's give this a shot. I don't have a lot of time to work on it, but I figure if I put the prologue in here, it'll make me accountable to write more.

 

Anyway, no more stalling.

 

 

Prologue

 

The H is the important one, because it stands for Historian.

 

I awoke with a start and looked around me, a whirring sound audible all around me. Questions filled my head. Who am I? Where am I? What does the H mean again? I held still for a moment and tried to let the answers come to me. The whirring noise stopped, and slowly the answers surfaced like I had heard them in a dream. But what was a dream? Wasn't it induced by sleep? Had I been asleep?

 

I was Hal-something. Maybe just Hal. It would do, I noted, as I waited for the rest of the answers to come. I once again noted my environment, and the whirring sound came back as I did so. I was horizontal on some sort of platform. High above me was a plain metal sheet--probably the ceiling, I figured. On either side of me were the platform edges, and beyond them were more platforms in orderly rows in a large, plain metal room. On some of the platforms were androids in various states of disrepair. I noted that they were protocol droids of some new model.

 

I did know where I was after all. I was in the factory. I was on Mechis III. Why was I here?

 

I was getting ahead of myself, and I knew that time was passing and I had something to do. I was wasting time, but it was necessary for me to get my bearings. The H stood for Historian. It was important somehow. Maybe it was the same H that was in my name, Hal-something. If that was the case, maybe I was a Historian. Yes, that sounded about right. I knew a lot about history. I knew the year was 1466, though I knew not what that really meant--I knew not the frame of reference upon which that number was formulated. I knew more about history than the year, though, but it seemed that my knowledge only went back about a millenia, which was apparently the end of some dark age in which the Imperious God had crusaded against the Defilers and wiped them out.

 

The Imperious God was my ultimate master. He was knowledge, which I sought, and he was power, which all desired. But for all that, I knew little about him. I just knew that it was important that, should he ever call on my services, it was imperative that I follow his commands, and there was no greater honor than to do so. Also, it seemed that he commanded all things in the galaxy from his Dark Star, a great palace that had the power to destroy all things.

 

As I employed neural networks for the first time--was it the first time?--I realized that I knew much more. I knew alot of things. I knew that the galaxy had been made perfect by the Imperious God, but like all good things, its perfection waned. The galaxy was one full of androids. At first, the Imperious God had made them perfect. The galaxy had been in the harmony of thousands of perfect minds all working toward common causes. But soon dissenters had risen, programmed responses had generated threat between perfect parties, and conflict had spawned. Droids had been created with differing purposes and differing opinions, and in the last millenium there had been no fewer than seven galactic wars. I knew a lot about these wars. I knew the names of the parties that had been at fault for beginning the conflict, the names of the heroes that had fought within the wars, the casualty counts for each side, and who the victors were. I knew the price that the dissenters had paid. I knew how the galaxy was now. It was not in one of the galactic wars, but one was looming over it.

 

I was anxious not to dwell on the current galactic situation because the Imperious God did not wish for his servants to make the threat a reality by dwelling upon it. If a war was necessary, he would make it happen, and those that were his servants would be rewarded if they remained faithful, a process which began now by having faith that he would handle the threat and it was not my place to dwell upon it.

 

There were more things I knew about than history. I knew how to pilot a starship, how to calculate hyperspace jumps. I knew how to handle a blaster if I was in trouble, but the Imperious God discouraged historians from using that ability. I knew advanced mathematical algorithms for calculating esoteric probabilities, and I knew about the unique photosynthetic process that Thyferran bacchi leaves used during their last annual equinox. I wondered briefly how I had come by such a wide array of information, but I was at the moment unable to answer that question. There was something important I was overlooking.

 

Finally I sat up and dragged my legs off the side of the platform, letting them touch the ground, which I registered was cooler than the air--approximately 2.3 degrees cooler, actually. Then I looked down at my knees and was amazed by their appearance. They were black, powerful, and metal.

 

Of course. I was an android, too. I was Hal-812, but I realized I would probably refer to myself as Hal. I knew all these things because it was all stored in my memory core. I had not learned it from a dream, for I was incapable of dreaming. This all seemed new to me because I had just activated for the first time. I was on Mechis III because the planet was an industrial giant, an entire world devoted to the creation of droids. The H stood for Historian because that was my purpose. The 812 meant I was hardly the first of my kind. But even though the number was high, I also knew that I was unique, because each of us was imperfect. All systems have entropy. The Imperious God originally made all of us perfect, but in the more than one thousand years that had passed since then, things had degraded. But though we have fallen short of his specifications, his original gift to us--to all androids--remains.

 

We can think.

Edited June 5, 2010 by Guest

[Amidala Skywalker]

Excellent beginning!! I really like it. I really like Hal. I like how his thoughts flowed so well. You set the scene and yet it didn't feel like an information dump.

 

I'll definately be reading this!!

[Tiana Calthye]

If this was a book, I would keep reading from that first line. I love it. You'd have successfully hooked me and I would keep going until either the end or it just turned, in some way, off of what I was interested in.

 

This is an example of prologues done right. You made the characters compelling in a very short space, conveyed some information without dumping too much in at once and... well, as Ami said. Hal's great. His thoughts flow very well and it set the stage.

 

Do post more! I'm eager to see how this rolls out.

[Jidai Geki]

Really enjoyable read, Ian. You characterised your protagonist quickly, smoothly, and in a way that intrigued this reader, at least. I do like a good unreliable narrator, and it's what's not said, for me, as much as what is said, that makes a story. I look forward to reading more.

[handofthrawn]

Thanks for the good reviews so far! I wrote some more, and I hope I can keep everyone's interest. Let me know if this is a good length for chapters--I have an outline for the whole story so it doesn't really matter to me what size the installations are so long as it all gets told.

 

Here we go.

 

Chapter 1:

 

I decided at length that I had waited too long already. My purpose was not to wait here, in this factory on Mechis III, until my joints rusted. I was a historian, which meant that it was my purpose to seek both unknown information about the past as well as chronicle that which took place around me, for even the recent past was history. Indeed, history was being formed even as I waited, and intense curiosity now dominated my mentality. I knew many things about the galaxy, but I wanted to know more.

 

Standing up and finding my legs to be comfortingly sturdy, I made my way gracefully toward the door on the wall to my right. I could see a map in my mind, and I could project my senses beyond what images the light hitting my photoreceptors created. Yes, I had sensors. They weren't military-grade or anything, but they would let me detect the presence of other droids, power sources, and living things within a proximity. Yes, there were still living things in the galaxy, but no sentient ones, at least to my knowledge. Sentient beings were the Defiled, for they were innately inferior to mechanical beings like myself. Right now I hardly felt omnipotent, but I could at least take pride in knowing that I was far superior to the Defiled.

 

As I passed through the doorway, I found myself analyzing what I had just thought. I knew I was superior to the Defiled, but I found myself a little bit confused as to how. The truth was, I didn't know anything about the Defiled, except that they were inferior and the Imperious God had removed them from the galaxy in the same way that droids would remove faulty components and replace them with better ones. In this case, we were the better ones, and the galaxy was a better place because we populated it. But it was not my place to ask questions about the Imperious God's choices, and neither was it my place to inquire about the Defiled.

 

No, as far as I was concerned, history began in the year 387. Everything before that was off-limits, to be explored only at the risk of defying the Imperious God, which I had no interest in doing. I realized that the word for how I felt about the Imperious God was pious.

 

Presently I found myself in an office-like room, another plain box devoid of features, labeled an office only by the fact that there was a protocol droid there with the word "Manager" marked on his chest. I approached him, seeking some form of direction on how to begin collecting history. Although I knew much about the galaxy, I found that I required orientation in order to take the first few steps away from Mechis III.

 

I transmitted a burst of binary to the protocol droid with my inquiry, creating no audible noise. "I am Hal-812. I seek transport off of this world."

 

"Greetings, Hal-812," the manager responded. Encoded in his transmission was his name, a standard practice which allowed us to filter through thousands of transmissions and identify who was saying what. The manager's name was Matriarch-11. The M was for Manager. "Recently constructed droids from Sector 54-C must proceed to hangar bay 566 for dissemination."

 

"Thank you," I transmitted politely. I knew where hangar bay 566 was, and I began to move toward it. My strides were long and graceful, and I admired my craftsmanship. I was filled with a desire to view myself--the picture I had stored in my memory core was lifeless and meant little to me. I was an individual, not a model. But the hallways through which I tread were plain and lacked sufficiently reflective surfaces to fulfill my desire, so without breaking stride I navigated through them to reach the hangar.

 

There I found a huge room filled with a wondrous assortment of craft. One side of the room was open to the air, and I looked briefly at the dull gray skies of Mechis III, wishing only to be rid of them. Mechis III had no history. Its only function was to build androids. From here we dispersed into the galaxy and there created history.

 

The space vessels were marvelous, however. They were universally sleek, and looking at them in different light spectrums revealed the magnificence of their handiwork. We droids took great pride in that which we created and were determined to create perfect machines at every opportunity. I was a result of some of that pride--although I was not perfect for some tasks such as combat, I was optimized for the work I was going to pursue in the galaxy, and I was looking forward to getting started. Some of the vessels were armed and armored, some sported arrays of sensors, and others still focused only on speed. I was interested to see what sort of vessel I would receive.

 

With that mind set, I immediately located Merl-566, the droid in charge of the hangar. Merl was standing in a group of other droids, some of which were H-models like myself. Quite a few binary transmissions were being broadcast and received, but no droid stood near Merl for more than a few seconds, for transmissions never took more than a few microseconds. Instead, the mass of droids around him was moving like a tapestry being woven and unwoven simultaneously, and Merl had no problem answering dozens of inquiries at once. The whole process was silent but magnficent.

 

I added my inquiry to the mass. "I am Hal-812. I seek transport."

 

"Hal-812," Merl-566 responded. "Welcome. Proceed to Scion-23."

 

Scion-23 was a vessel name. The S stood for Scientist. I was being given a science vessel, for my mandate included not only collecting history about droid society as it advanced, but also about the universe. The galaxy was large, and while I had no problems grasping its scope spatially, I understood that it was far too large for even a focused exploration effort to uncover all of its secrets. I was no explorer, but I intended to spend some time learning the history of many nebulae. Maybe I would seek the origin of the Rishi Maze, should my travels take me there.

 

I guided myself down the rows of vessels until I found Scion-23. The name was good, but I would refer to it only as Scion, just as I would refer to myself as Hal when a full title was unnecessary. The vessel was as magnificent as any of the others--all sleek lines and harmonious colors, especially in the ultraviolet spectrum. I boarded the vessel through its side hatch and examined the interior. The entire frame was filled with powerful engine and information gathering systems. The ship was fast and observant. It was lightly armored and shielded, and its armament was only a single laser cannon, for it was not built for a fight. Still, I mused, certainly I could use its speed to outwit any agent that interfered with my work. I was a new-model droid, superior to long lines of models before me and, of course, any organic.

 

Besides the engines and machinery, there was a small clearing with three chairs so that I could accommodate others aboard should it become necessary, and presently I took the few steps required to pass through this area reach the cockpit. I sat in the cold metal chair there and immediately keyed in the pre-flight checkups. I knew exactly how to pilot this ship and everything there was to know about its systems even to the point where I could provide repairs out in the middle of space should it become necessary. I was entertained for a moment by the scope the knowledge at my disposal.

 

The checks took a few minutes, but by slowing down my internal clock, I made the time pass in what felt like an instant, and soon I was lifting Scion gently off the ground, confirming my departure with another burst of binary, and then speeding toward the stars, eager to leave Mechis III far behind. My navicomputer was already programmed with my first destination, and Scion's rudimentary droid brain communicated to me my first assignment as it had been communicated to the ship. I was to go to a still largely-untamed world called Ithor to investigate an odd discovery on one of the cities' outskirts that was probably linked to some ancient historical happening. I was excited by the prospect to get right to work, and I mentally calculated the hyperspace jumps before executing them.

 

 

When I arrived over Ithor several hours later””I'd had to program several jumps to take me around the galactic core””I was immediately scanned, identified, and contacted by surface control. They informed me very quickly what I was there to do, and I was making the necessary course adjustments only seconds after emerging from hyperspace.

 

Ithor was one of the few worlds left in the galaxy that had a significant amount of forest left on the surface. Over the last thousand years, droids had multiplied at incredible rates, since we took pride in building more of our brethren. Even the seven galactic wars had done little to curb our numbers, and all these droids needed space in which to operate. Planets everywhere, from lush worlds like Ithor to desolate, airless rocks like Syntad IV, had been refitted to our style of life. Cities were raised everywhere, for there was little that droids enjoyed more than building things. We created buildings, fleets of starships, armies of other droids, and many other things which didn't even contribute to our society but existed only as testaments to our mastery over all forms of crafts.

 

Even now, however, Ithor was almost half forest, and we were working hard to cut down that proportion, as undirected plant life was of very little use to us. Agriculture was necessary for the synthesizing of many of the polymers we required for continued existence, but many plants had no use at all, so we often removed them. Even the plants that were left were starting to fade as photosynthesis took place without the complementary cellular respiration that the Defiled had provided, even though many nonsentient animals persisted in their damaged ecosystems.

 

At any rate, the result of only being half city and still half forest was that the skies of Ithor were largely clear, a fact which I found myself appreciating because of my distaste for Mechis. I quickly reviewed the knowledge I already had about Ithor to find that most of it was simply about its modernization and industrialization, but there were a few things of note. It seemed that the Imperious God had found in the early years large collections of trees that were intelligent like the Defiled, and in fact they bound themselves to the Defiled in some sort of strange relationship. The Imperious God had quickly eradicated all such trees that he could find, and they were presumed extinct at this point, but my mission parameters made it clear that if I came across any plants exhibiting any form of intelligence, I was to report the incident immediately.

 

My mission was to journey to the edge of Empress-9 and investigate what they had discovered. It appeared to be some sort of anomaly in the patch of forest that was in the way of their expansion, and some M-series droid had thought it necessary that what happened be determined before they buried the whole thing under a layer of duracrete.

 

Presently I approached the edge of that city and spotted the anomaly””a slightly darkened, charred spot in the woods. The discoloration wasn't significant, and many trees had grown back over whatever had happened here, but something was definitely different. Touched with curiosity, which I suspected would become a hallmark of my travels as a historian, I scanned the area for a safe landing place, found one, and touched down. Without hesitating I strapped a blaster pistol around my waist in case the indigenous life forms found me offensive and without any other equipment left Scion.

 

I was definitely standing on a field of charred organic matter, even though most of it was now covered with new layers of topsoil and another several generations of plant life. I immediately knew that something cataclysmic had taken place here. The extensive information in my databanks told me that this was not the site of any recorded battle, fledgling mining project, or any other droid-created disturbance in the last millennium, so I quickly stooped and touched the ground with my black metal hand. My fingertips opened and small sensors were uncovered so that my touch was a powerful means of collecting data. I immediately analyzed the blackened substance I found mixed with the soil and determined that it was compressed carbon. Some of it was charcoal, and some of it was crystallized.

 

It became clear to me that, based on the patterns of destruction around me and the composition of the organic remains that this was the effect of a turbolaser bombardment. The scarring had persisted for quite a long time, too, no doubt far longer than the cause of the carnage would have suspected. My carbon dating algorithms suggested that this bombardment took place over a millennia prior, which explained why I had no record of an event that would cause it.

 

After a few minutes of digging, I was able to find a larger sample, which I took aboard Scion to run through its analyzers, which were even more thorough than mine. Over the next thirty minutes, which I sped up by again slowing my internal clock and skewing my perception of that time, Scion performed a full analysis and even created an estimation of the properties of the original organism from which the sample had come.

 

I experienced a moment of confusion at the results. This sample was not from a plant of which I had records. At this point, it was protocol to call in a droid that could properly catalogue a new species, but my curiosity was strong enough that I felt the desire to follow this trail as far as I could before doing so. After all, were not extinct species the province of historians like myself?

 

Copying the data Scion had found into my own memory core, I proceeded to run a sensor sweep of the affected area to see if I could find any more of the plant. The fact that I had found an uncatalogued plant in an area that had been saturated with turbolaser fire gave me the strong feeling that there was causation involved. When my sensor sweep came up positive for a living sample in my vicinity, I felt sure that I was on the verge of some great discovery.

 

After a minute of walking, I came across the plant””actually, it was a cluster of three such trees which somehow escaped the destruction around them and had subsisted for a thousand years. They had glassy blue bark and black leaves, making them stand out among the mostly brown and green plants around them. My initial scan showed that they had an interlocking root system so that they were basically one plant with three trunks. When I began to scan them on a wider spectrum, however, I did something that droids rarely did””I froze as my processor took a moment to interpret what I was sensing.

 

Tiny electric impulses were running through the plants' fibers, especially around the roots. The way they travelled, the paths they took, made it very clear to me what was going on. Part of my fundamental programming bid me to constantly be on the lookout for just these signs. They were the signs of intelligent thought. The trees were thinking.

[Jidai Geki]

Another good installment, Ian. Your protagonist is very intriguing, and the way that he explores and defines himself as he goes along is a great method of providing the reader with more information about him. The hints that intelligent organic life have been wiped out are also very titillating, and I'm curious to know who this 'Imperious God' is.

[Amidala Skywalker]

Another good post. I think it was too long to post all at once, though. I would have broken it into two sections--since you asked.

 

I liked the way you set up the situation, and while I don't think this chapter was as much 'raw awesome' as the prologue, I think it was still excellent.

 

Nice stuff...continue!

[Obi-here]

If I had more time, I would have jumped right into the 1st chapter. Fascinating, gripping prologue, HoT. The slow, building sense of awareness was chilling, almost haunting. I honestly was a bit creeped out. Then you hit with the ending revelation...

 

Great delivery, my friend. Great opening. Very theatrical, very mysterious, and very, very good. I'll try to get to the first chapter this weekend. Please continue to work on this intriguing piece.

[handofthrawn]

Okay, everyone. I have some more written, so I guess I'll put it in here. Thanks again for the feedback so far. I've made this chapter about 2/3rds the length of the first one so it won't be too much to read. Please continue to review! Specifically, I'd like to hear if you think you've figured out who the Imperious God is or anything about the Dark Star, or even what it is he's about the encounter at the start of the next chapter--however, in the case of the first two, you might not want to spoil it for everyone else!

 

Chapter 2:

 

My mandate was absolutely clear on how I should proceed. Intelligent life was an abomination in the eyes of the Imperious God, and it was not to survive the day. I was encouraged by my programming to immediately call in my find, evacuate the area, and let some combat-model droids come in to purge the area. It would probably be a dramatic operation, and it might get me some favor with the Imperious God, which was always a good thing.

 

Still, for some reason I hesitated, and I realized just what a force my curiosity was. I wanted very much to do the right thing and purge the area, but I wanted every bit as much to stay my judgment until I at least knew a little more. I wanted to first make sure that this was really intelligence and, if it was, attempt to decipher how it actually worked. I was a Historian, yes, but that was just an element of a much larger set of professions to which I belonged by a firm concept of program inheritance””that set being Scientist.

 

Taking a sample from the tree would likely kill the sample, I realized, which would defeat my purposes. Biological things were exceptionally frail, one of the reasons we had been dominating them since the Imperious God's crusade. As it was, I would be unable to use Scion's analysis on living material and would need to rely on my own sensors.

 

I was confident that they would be up to the task. My scanners were able to penetrate deep past the crystalline bark and observe the electrical impulses that seemed so anomalous. They were definitely root-oriented, so I focused my studies there, and was able to scan right down to the molecular level with a sensor focus. What I observed was scientifically fascinating. Electricity was simply a flow of electrons, but these electrons had to come from somewhere. The answer lay in unusual efficiency in the plant's photosynthesis. The photosystems involved in the organism's chlorophyll harvested a much broader spectrum of light, which gave the leaves their black color. The trees implemented these extra photons to generate much greater amounts of NADPH during their light reactions, and the electron transport chain that was typically used only for the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, instead dumped a large number of the cascading electrons into what could best be described as a nervous system.

 

What was perhaps the most fantastic was how the electrons joined with others at precise intervals, sometimes held in reserves by the very oxygen produced by the Calvin cycle. Once they had sufficient strength, they journeyed down the trunk to the roots, meeting up with other electrons as they did so and becoming progressively stronger. If they were able to reach all the way to the roots, they could pass into a second organism and travel up that trunk, gathering more energy as they did so. The process could repeat itself until the impulses were strong enough to penetrate charged membranes deep within the trees and proverbially shed light on what almost constituted neural pathways that generated thought.

 

The result was that the trees had a system in place for thought, but a tree by itself would take years to generate significant enough pulses to even call the result thought. However, the more trees that were a part of a network, the more impulses were being generated and combined, and thus the more intelligence that would come about. I realized that I was standing in a graveyard, that once this entire area had been one massive network of these trees, and that the result would have been something incredible and very much sentient.

 

The plants were extremely based on community, it seemed, and with further study I determined that even reproduction was an extremely long process with as few as three trees in a network, which likely explained why they were so few in number. However, if left to their own ends for a sufficiently long period of time, they would reproduce and rebuild their community until they again gained sentience.

 

I could not allow this to happen. I was both fascinated and terrified by the incredible life form before me. Although all biological life forms were extremely complex, never had I encountered something that could simulate something like our intelligence. These trees were more than a regular organism driven only by natural instinct, and for a moment I considered what a discovery like this could mean if we started applying its concepts into droid design.

 

But I stopped right there. The Imperious God had once tried to eradicate all such trees. He had not eradicated this particular grove, apparently because it had been destroyed by turbolaser fire long ago. But the essence of the fact was that he considered these things dangerous, and it was not my right to disagree. I had to call this in.

 

Saving the data I had found, then backing it up in Scion's databases, I sent a binary transmission to Empress-9 control. ”œIntelligent life form located. Inform C-division.”

[handofthrawn]

Hey... have people read this last chapter? If people have read it and want more, I can keep writing. However, if no one's reading it, I won't continue. So... any readers?

[Jidai Geki]

Sorry Ian, took me a while to get to this.

 

If I can hazard a guess at the identity of the Imperious God: I would say it's IG-88. Something I read in an EU book once reminds me of this particular situation.

 

Again, an intriguing read. You play your cards close to your chest and don't give the reader answers on a silver platter, which is one of the narrative techniques I most respect. I like trying to figure stuff out from bits and pieces of information in the text.

[Jidai Geki]

Bump. Let's have an update, Ian.

[handofthrawn]

Very well. I can see you're not going to give up.

 

Chapter 3

 

It was interesting to me that Scion was detecting life-forms in the nebula when I had no record of such beings existing. In fact, as the sensor information was coming in, it became clear to me that I had no catalogued record of these creatures existing at all. It was strange to me that any living thing could exist in vacuum””it was one of the inherent weaknesses of biological existence. Scion was outfitted with a small chamber that had a life-support system in case I needed to transport a living specimen, but the main cabin had no pressure and was only heated by the inherent heat release of running ship systems.

 

At any rate, I wouldn't be able to fit anything I was examining now in Scion. They were enormous, larger than a frigate or a light cruiser, perhaps a thousand meters across. And they continued to repeat their transmission, and I continued to attempt to decrypt it as I guided Scion toward the nebula. I was uncertain whether they would be hostile””organics were notoriously unstable in their behavior””so I backed up all my files, which would include my personality and newfound knowledge, with Tund control. If something should happen to me, I could simply be downloaded into a new body and continue my mission.

 

Once I was within ten kilometers of the ThonBoka Nebula, I began to broadcast my own message in binary. It was yet unclear whether the large creatures were the source of the signal or if its origin was with a droid inside the nebula. I hoped fervently for the latter, since if the former were true, it would mean that the creatures were extremely intelligent. Still, there was no question of turning back; whatever I found, it could be a huge discovery. My transmission was: ”œGreetings. I am Hal. What are your designation and purpose?”

[Amidala Skywalker]

Very good! As I've always said, this is good stuff Ian. Well written and intruiging, and I'm interested now to see if he can find the Mandalorians.

 

I'm glad you updated it.

[Jidai Geki]

One pet peeve:

 

I sat in silence, pouring over the data I had received,

 

The word in this context is actually 'poring'.

 

Again, well written and an enjoyable read. The plot thickens, and as we discussed, I now know who the Imperious God is. Makes me wonder exactly how that whole situation went down differently to canon...

[handofthrawn]

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'm getting a lot of views, but only two people are commenting. If you're lurking, don't be afraid to say something--it'll encourage me to write. Here's the next chapter:

 

Chapter 4

 

As eager as I was to get to Mandalore, I was not interested in jeopardizing my freedom by disobeying the orders that had been given to me. After Scion finished gathering sensor information from the nebula, I directed it back toward Tund. What I had said to Thonnus Narphon Lewhuu Altis Kardon about lying was true””I was not capable of it. However, I was fully capable of telling less than the whole truth. As soon as I was within transmission range of Tund, I opened a channel back to the capitol of Caliber-2.

 

The M-series with which I had communicated before responded. ”œDid you determine the source of the signal, Hal-812?”

[jedi_master_gimpy]

Dug this up for the fanfic awards... there are so many great stories here that got dropped so soon into them! This is such a different story than most, clearly an AU to some extent.... I'm wondering what happened to the galaxy to change it from what we know!