SithLore

The newly reinstated Admiral walked out the fitting room in his new Alliance uniform. It had been a few years since he had truly worn a uniform. Most of the time he just wore some jacket he hadn’t gotten rid of and called it a day. This felt different. It felt snug. The style had changed since his time. That was the only logical reason he could come up with for it.

The navy had pressed him back into service once more. There were Imperials and Sith to fight. Lines had to be held. Peace secured. Orders to be filled. Paperwork to be fired. Yup, he was an Admiral again. He wasn’t really sure why. And why wasn’t exactly clear to those who didn’t know. Somehow Zechs was one of those who didn’t know.

He was an admiral of no one. No fleet. No command. Not even a petting zoo. But apparently he had an office.

Zechs made his way through one of the less fancy naval building on Naboo. It wasn’t Naval Command or Alliance Central or anything fancy like that. It was an annex of an off shoot set aside on its own for more "other" tasks and personal. He could have sworn someone had called it the Wedge Complex, but he had been somewhat hung over at the time.

The door came before him with its blank name slate. It seemed only fitting the man without a command or really the desire to have one. Ordering others off was a terrible fate for a man of action. A man of action he had one been, but of late, fighting felt more like a chore. Like he was going through the motions for a cause that didn't set his blood on fire like it used to.


Hopefully, they had stocked his office with a decent selection of beverages. He could use one to break off the edge of this seemingly ceremonial position and slip him out of his dress coat. It was suffocating him, and it had nothing to do with the brisk walk over. It stood for so much, and yet, he couldn’t take it off fast enough. It just didn’t feel right.

The door slid open. Behind his desk sat a familiar face. He wasn’t surprised, but his mouth played along like he was. “How did you know this was my office? I just found out I have one.”

Gone were the days of glory. Where a name like Zechs Merquise commanded an office fit for the Emperor himself, or a seat of power nestled among the stars as the beating heart of some fearsome warship. Now he was here, in this spartan place, settled between accounting and supply for the planets garrison. It would have made Salem Norongachi sad, as he flashed an ID that displayed a code that meant there were zero questions asked from the buildings security detachment, if he were not so dis-similarly forgotten; Another name lost to the sands of time and the fickle memory of a Galaxy inundated with heroes and villains.

Sal had found the office easy enough, strolling through the drab corridors, and standing in front of the door he noted the lack of name plate. It only made him smile bitterly, before he had pushed it open and closed it behind himself again. One desk, three chairs, a small cabinet off to one side because no military commander -no matter how insignificant- can plan the deaths of thousands without something to steady his nerves. He had time, he figured and checked his chrono to be sure, before the shuttle docked and the Admiral made his way to his new posting, so with that in mind he grabbed two glasses and a bottle of something. He settled into what would be the mans chair, poured himself a glass of amber liquid, set the rim of the bottle against the lip of the second glass when the door opened.

"You're early," Norongachi spoke, his hand not stopping as it upended the bottle and flowed a generous measure into the glass. He slid it across the desk. "They file that stuff weeks in advance, you know how military bureaucracy works. Or has it been so long you've forgotten how they like it signed in triplicate, lost, resigned and then flushed down the crap-pipe before it comes out on the other end?"

There was once a man who had a damn. It got slammed in a corporately scam. A net broke and jammed its gears until there was smoke. This had absolutely nothing to do with anything or anyone present.

“The dental plan makes up for it.” Zechs walked up to the desk but didn’t pick the drink up. “Thanks, but I don’t drink before I’ve had breakfast.” It just made everything taste better. The local gruel needed to remain forever a staple of what not to eat.

There was a cruel nature to gruel. Some wasn’t fit to be mortar. Some could actually be tar. It took a barren tongue to not notice the loud variances in the simple sludge. But this had nothing to really do with anything else.

He sat down in front of his desk. It cried under its new found weight. “So, what brings you to Naboo of all places?”

"This is breakfast," Norongachi replied and took a mouthful of liquid nutrients, while Zechs took a seat. "Certainly wasn't choice. All this green and lack of carbon scoring doesn't sit well with me." another drink, a lull in the conversation. "I've been assigned, they said adviser or some rubbish like that but anything else is beyond even my reach. Report to you, first thing. All very cloak and dagger, if you ask me." he set the glass down, looked at the untouched one in front of his former -and possibly current- boss and sighed.

"So, until that com goes. We're both in the dark. Unless mine goes first, then I suppose you're in the dark. In the meantime, its five somewhere. Don't make an old man drink alone."

Zechs gave in. Leaning forward, he stole a glass off his desk and threw its contents back against this throat. As it turned out, he’d need it as his old buddy said something that sounded a lot less weird with that wonderful burning sensation going down his throat. It left his words garbled amongst his attempts to clear his throat and ears. “Assigned to what? Report to who?” He had just received this little promotion. Someone was fast.

"You missed the part where I don't know didn't you?" he matched Merquise, and threw his drink back and without waiting for it to settle he stood and made his way to the demure drinks cabinet. The bottle they had both drank from found itself in his hand and he set it on the table top between them before resettling himself in Zech's seat.

"I woke up two days ago, to a single sheet of flimsiplast, it said 'Assigned. Nabbo. Zechs Merquise' the rest I made up as I went along, and before you ask yes; I have been traveling since then." he yanked out the cork stopper from the neck of the bottle and poured himself a generous helpingbefore he set the bottle to the lip of the Admirals and sloshed more liquid in it. He settled back in his chair and felt the years press on his bones, making them feel uncomfortable, like he wanted to pop every joint.

"Someone up top in your government spoke to someone else and they felt, bizarrely, that I needed to be here. Like I said, until that com chimes its merry chime, we're both clueless."

Zechs brushed his chin. "Funny. Two days ago, I was pla- admiring my action figurines when I received a call to come here." It couldn't be by chance.

"You've gone quite funny in the head, since we last worked together." Norongachi smirked. He supposed spending so long with so much weight on your shoulders, bred eccentricity. A mouthful of whiskey marked the passing of time before, as they had expected, the com buzzed incessantly.

"Its your office." Norongachi said, nodding toward the communications device.

Politics demanded practical solutions to impractical problems. The new wave of strife in the galaxy of late had kept Zechs up late at night, and by late night tea he had counted the ways not to solve the problems created by the political climates in both the Empire and the Alliance. It was almost like they were posed to oppose every whim the other called forth despite agreeing on several key areas such as the air was good, booze made things easier, and the greatest of them all: it was the other guy’s fault.

Finding no easy solution, he had risen up from his fluffy bed and did the unholy thing of opening his action figurines’ packaging. There on his desk he had begun to play out small scenes from the proverbial past that never happened. Jedi Master Funk dueled Dark Lord Man’Doh over the fate of the roguishly handsome Moopy the Droid. It was touch or go there for a while. The Funk got down with the dust and her yellow blade. Man’Doh let loose a shock of lightning and leapt into the air. Back and forth it went until the only one left standing was Moopy. Having pushed one another to their fullest, the two force users fell on the table to not rise again until Zechs decided to put them up.

The sad irony of it was that Moopy had been turned off. No one bore witness to the epic struggle between the two. It seemed most fitting for the day and age where every action was caught on footage. Zechs wouldn’t be surprised if Thrion had installed spy eyes all over their humble ranch.

That was when the call came in. Come. That was the short version of the message. Why? Who cared? When? Now-ish? What for? Did it mattered?

The city would take him away from the quiet life for a day or two. He took the slow way to the city. By slow, he meant he climbed in his shuttle and took the long way around the planet with a few dozen breaks along the way instead of the hour long direct flight to the city. It had taken about 2 days, but nothing good wasn’t worth waiting for, unless it was oxygen or any of those other things you kind of needed in the moment to survive. Zechs didn’t think the average person included those in that “good” list or in the spirit of the saying, but they were.

That led Zechs back to thinking about Sal. They had done a lot. He had gotten rich off their corporate days. Sal? He wasn’t sure. Zechs figured he had, but what was money? It was something to spend. A fortune was no good if you didn’t use it to live well or, well, do something with it. There had to be a point to it all. A fortune for the sake of a fortune wasn’t necessarily a good thing, unless you played to steal it off someone else.

The old days were something people tended to get stuck into worshiping. Not Zechs. Today was it. Tomorrow might not come. He had been left to die far too many times for him to live in the past without cringing or drooling at what tomorrow might become. No, pain and confusion mixed with regrets and ecstasy was all that yesterday would call forth at the most awkward of times. No, tomorrow would promise them the world, but then deliver more of the same. Live for today. That was far from Zechs’s motto, but it wasn’t like anyone could read his mind.

This was all just a mental stalling tactic to avoid the conversation and buzzing at hand. Another drink was called for, and Zechs helped himself. It was just what he needed before he picked up the com and pushed the little button to make it do its thing. “Hello.”

A voice came back through it. “Hello?”

Zechs twisted the com’s end piece with a minor frankness driven by the supposed importance of this call. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Yes! Hello. It’s me. Don’t ask who. Just check the encrypted identifier and know we only have less than a minute before I must terminate this link, so I need to do say what I need and you listen.” The voice bounced to a slight pause and back. The encryption was the general one used for Alliance com traffic, but the identifier came with enough red tape to fill a room. Whoever it was, they were high up, powerful, or a lot of trouble. Zechs bet all three. “Is he with you? I can’t get this thing to let me see.”

“Yes, but it’s an audio com so-”

“Good. Now, that you both are here… Well, there. We have a task for you that comes from authorities that’d rather not have their names attached to it. The details we’ll be sending over shortly in a package of office supplies. It is of the upmost importance you read them twice and then dispose of them with extreme prejudice. Is that understood? The orders, not the supplies. Waste not, want not. Good? Good.” The quick chat ended on static. No debate or choice in any of it.

Zechs sat the com down and looked to Sal with a look of “Yeah, that just happened.” “So what have you been up to? Poured any good drinks recently?”

He didn't think it were possible for his eyebrow to arc as high as it had, but rise it did..and rise..and rise...as he listened -bemused- to the conversation taking place at the other side of the desk. The voice wasn't one Norongachi recognized, but then again he hadn't expected to, it was probably a suit somewhere that hadn't seen daylight over his paper work in decades.

The call ended as abruptly as it had begun and they exchanged a look between them. "We're going to make small talk until this package arrives?" he asked rhetorically, then sighed. "Fine. No, they haven't even shilled out for a decent stock in your cabinet. This is some cheap Corellian blend." it didn't stop him taking another mouthful. "Married yet? Kids?"

'Bring back the good old days,' he thought, 'where an awkward conversation was politely ended by murderous intent...'