The
Azur-Class Heavy Frigate Soulèvement translates at the system's edge long enough to deploy a single shuttle from its hold before snapping back into hyperdrive. Barely a blip on the sensors.
The shuttle merges into the lane of traffic heading towards the refuelling station seamlessly. It passes by a security picket, broadcasting its transponder codes. It was a set of older codes from a now defunct shipping conglomeration but it checked out. Scanners pick up engine emissions beyond the environmental regulations for this sector and make a note to station authority to fine the ship when it docked. What the scanners doesn't pick up was the multitude of illegal heavy weaponry belonging to the special forces squad sequestered within.
Suhara Villow sits silently amongst the dozen or so of her personal body guard, her thoughts floating away as it the shuttle's gravity generators had failed. She knows she should be feeling elation. It was now approaching two years in exile. The Chantemer People's Liberation Army over that time had evolved from a band of starving bandits into a determined and well-drilled fighting force with a functioning government. This was the final stretch. If she could gather the material support of the Republic they would finally be able to return home.
Yet...
She knows how many bridges she burned to get here. She had latched onto the Foundation like a parasite and extracted anything of worth that hadn't been nailed down in the final days during its dissolution. Their disbandment had been inevitable. She was merely taking what Chantemer was owed after all the support they had given to that united front. She knows she's lying. She wrings her hands like she's still trying to wash the blood stains off her white gloves caused by the dagger she'd plunged into the Foundation's back.
She told herself she'd be better than Olivier. She wouldn't stoop to his level. Every day that passes, every day that creeps closer to liberation, she finds it harder to believe.
"Ma'am?" a voice comes from behind her. It's
Pierre, a man in his late fourties with a fierce moustache still wearing the olive drab of the admiralty. He ought to be the supreme leader of the CPLA instead of her. He's older than her and had the higher rank before he joined the exiles. She's tried to push command onto him several times before. Every time he refused, saying the same thing: he wasn't the one who made the broadcast that lit the bonfire. As much as Suhara hated it, the others looked up to her as their beacon in the black.
"W-what?" she snaps out of her half-awake state, unaware she had started to doze off.
"We've landed. The delegation is waiting in the hangar."
"Thanks," she takes a second to rub her eyes before turning to her guards. They're not dressed in armor, rather in regular clothing. The only thing that distinguished them from the civilian crowds was the arsenal of blasters and explosives hidden under their jackets.
"Safeties on. Like we discussed. Hang back as far possible. I don't need them to get too skittish."
She'd have preferred not to bring her guards along or resort to this subterfuge but Pierre had insisted. The figurehead of the rebellion this close to Chantemer space might be too tempting a target for Olivier, even if he had to invade Republic space. Suhara shudders. She knows that odious bastard too well to bet against the possibility that he would wage an open conflict against a major galactic faction to hold onto power just a few extra days.
Suhara Villow steps down the boarding ramp, dressed the same naval red-black political officer's uniform with a peaked cap and flowing crimson cape that she had worn when she called for open revolution. She hated it. It was too tight around her neck, suffocating her. But the symbolism was too useful to discard for something slightly less flamboyant.
She sees the delegation and takes a deep breathe, already calculating what parts of her soul she's willing to sell to them.
