Chapter Text
[ 7957 C.R.C. ]
Plo Koon’s first meeting with Commander Diane Chester went thus: he had sat quietly in his seat in the Council Chamber for eleven straight hours and was longing dearly for his bed when Master Pong Krell interrupted regular proceedings by dragging a fresh problem to the top of their lengthy list of priorities. This problem, Krell claimed, was named Song Tulin—a former Jedi, recently AWOL and suspected of dealing with the Separatists. He illustrated his point by pushing a young human woman out into the middle of the discussion floor.
The real problem facing them was that this was not Song Tulin.
This young person matched their runaway Knight’s description almost exactly, down to being clearly and brightly Force-sensitive–tall, straight-backed, black hair tied sensibly back and dark eyes burning with determined fury. Her skin was pale, and mottled here and there with fading bruises. Her clothing was unfamiliar: a simple jacket and trousers, grey and black; the zippered front of the jacket had come half open at some point, and a maroon undershirt showed through the gap. Perhaps not the most inspired disguise, if it had indeed been Tulin. But any Jedi who had ever met Knight Tulin would immediately notice the difference.
Plo had not just met Knight Tulin. She had been a good friend of Bultar’s, before the war. And where Song Tulin was strong and bright in the Force, and had once been rigidly self-contained, like flames roiling within a steam engine, her apparent doppelganger was perhaps not so bright—but settled, steady despite the clear note of well-controlled terror riven through her signature. Molten steel cooling within a mold, perhaps.
“She claims she has memory loss,” said Krell smugly, folding the pair of arms not occupied with restraining the prisoner. She shot him a look of profound, disbelieving contempt.
“I have not once claimed to have memory loss,” she said, her voice deep and clear–a second point of difference with Knight Tulin, though one less striking. “I have introduced myself exactly as I am, and I would thank you for some form of an explanation.” She tried to straighten up; Krell didn’t budge. “My name is Commander Diane Chester. I am the first officer of the United Federation of Planets starship Bedivere . Would some member of this doubtless august body care to inform me why I have been detained? And whether they are aware that this individual has been abusing the soldiers placed under his command?”
Plo narrowed his eyes beneath his mask.
“No one cares about your lies, Tulin,” Krell began to say. Yoda raised a hand. Krell abruptly silenced himself.
Yoda’s eyes narrowed. His expressive ears drooped. “Master Krell, the fugitive this is not.”
Krell blinked. Sputtered.
“Thank you,” said the woman—Commander Chester—with no small relief. “Can I please have the cuffs and collar off now? They keep shocking me.”
Krell didn’t seem to be about to do anything. Plo got up and went over to them. “Master Krell,” he said, steady, and Krell read it as the warning it was and handed over both prisoner and key for the restraints. She stayed still as they were removed, her presence still riven with a molten sort of terror, then straightened up, pushing loose locks of grimy black hair out of her face. “Thank you,” she told Plo, stiffly polite. Then, to the Council, “I’m waiting for an explanation, please.”
Mace looked at Yoda. Yoda looked at Mace. The rest of the Council politely did not look at either of them.
Mace, as usual, lost the battle. He sighed heavily and said, “You resemble a defector, one Song Tulin. I can only suppose that the bounty hunters apparently sent to bring her in were fooled by the… close resemblance.”
She tipped her head back at Pong Krell. This gave Plo a short look at the angry red mark around her neck where the collar had sat. “And your bullying associate here? What’s his excuse?”
“He had evidently never met her,” Mace said, in the perfectly even tone of voice that said he was making mental notes and disappointed but not particularly surprised by the content of them. “An oversight.”
The Commander’s expression shifted, a little more disgusted. “Right, so how did you tell I’m not the right person?”
“Your Force signature is completely different,” Plo volunteered. “Photographic recognition can be fooled, and here it must have been; the Force cannot.”
“A Force signature?” Her eyebrows rose, but there was curiosity rather than derision in her tone.
He considered the options, the sense of blank incomprehension dimming the glow of her steel, and chose a summary which would not require a minor lecture on the nature of the Force. “It is a form of identification unique to every living being, and utterly impossible to disguise, if you are familiar with the individual and capable of reading this signature.”
“Fascinating,” she said, dryly, and turned back to the rest of the Council. “So what happens next? This is one hell of a First Contact, but there have been worse.” Not many, her tone implied.
Mace sent Krell away to write up his report. This only scarcely improved the tense atmosphere. Plo made certain the collar and cuffs—horrible things—had not left Commander Chester with outright injury and reluctantly returned to his seat.
“First contact, hmm,” said Yoda, his ears flicking. “Our deepest apologies you have, Commander Diane Chester. Uncanny your resemblance is to Knight Tulin indeed, but ours the fault is and seek to remedy this situation we shall. However, unfamiliar we are with this United Federation of Planets.”
Plo watched the young Commander’s eyes, curious. Yoda’s speech patterns often baffled—it was half the reason he persisted using such tortured Basic grammar. Commander Chester seemed unruffled by it, her expression measured if still disapproving. Leaning into her fury to avoid showing her fear, Plo suspected–a little concerning, for a clear Force-sensitive, but it seemed likely she was untrained. There wasn’t a hint of the Dark about her.
Mace took up the explanation with another barely-stifled sigh. “Master Krell’s initial report states that he believed he had found Knight Tulin on the borders of the Unknown Regions, consorting with CIS agents from the Mygeeto front. Knight Tulin then fled into the Unknown Regions via a regional hyperlane unknown to Krell or his Admiral, so he contracted bounty hunters to pursue her.” His eyes narrowed slightly; the only outward manifestation of the annoyance clouding his stormy presence in the Force. “There is some level of interplanetary civilization present in that region, though the last we encountered were violently hostile and also clearly a different species. We were not able to discover what they identified themselves as.”
West of the Mygeeto front, Plo mused. That north-west quadrant of the galaxy was a wild place even by the standards of the Unknown Regions, full of navigational obstacles that limited hyperlane development and had, historically, obstructed the development of interstellar civilization. There had indeed been reports, too many of them to disregard, but who those civilizations were and where they lived remained a mystery.
Chester shifted; the corner of her mouth quirked. “If that, ah, hyperspace lane terminates in the region I was taken from, you unfortunately have a wealth of options. The Dominion, the Cardassians, and the Borg are all active there, though if it’s the latter, it would have been unlikely that you got any reports back at all.” The tarnish of her fear grew thick and rusty as she spoke. The mere mention of the Borg, apparently, roused more distress than being dragged before the Council had.
The Commander straightened her shoulders. “As for my people—the United Federation of Planets is an interstellar union, with respect for life and the universal rights of sentient beings as guiding principles. We share knowledge and resources to facilitate peaceful cooperation, scientific advancement, exploration, and mutual defense, and we seek to forge new friendships and understandings with the civilizations and peoples we encounter.”
A promising idea, after the absolute hash of their introduction. Plo evaluated the young Commander’s Force presence. Steady and well-controlled for someone professing no knowledge of the Force, and yet no sign of a lie.
Oppo Rancisis spoke up. “You said you were the first officer of a starship. What role does your service play within the Federation? Military?”
“Starfleet is the deep-space exploratory, diplomatic, and aid service maintained by the Federation,” said Commander Chester. “On the unfortunate occasions mutual defense is necessary, it does play a military role. But it is not a military service. We are diplomats, researchers, doctors, and aid workers first, not soldiers.” There was an edge to her words, a sadness. Perhaps mutual defense was called for more often than she liked.
A few subtle nods went around the circle. The Order could certainly sympathize.
Mace leaned back a little in his chair, shoulders straightening. “In the interest of cooperation, then—we are the High Council of the Jedi Order. I am Mace Windu, and my title is Master of the Order.” Introductions went around the circle, starting with Kit and ending with Plo. “We serve the Galactic Republic, a consortium of nineteen thousand sovereign systems, as impartial diplomats and currently as military commanders against the Confederation of Independent Systems, who seek to conquer the Republic. This planet is Coruscant, the administrative capital of the Republic.”
“Nineteen thousand systems,” Chester repeated. Her presence flared and flickered; she blinked, her voice faintly stunned. “How old is the Republic?”
Yoda chuckled, wry amusement radiating from him. “Depend, it does, on one’s point of view. Nearly a thousand years old are the charters of the Ruusan Reformation. Nearly four thousand is the current institution of the Senate. Exist in name, a Republic has, for millennia beyond that.”
The shock that billowed from Chester then was entirely natural, and well-hidden otherwise. “Well. That puts things into perspective,” she said, with a shaken little smile. “The Federation currently has about a hundred and fifty member worlds, and is a little over two hundred years old.”
“That does explain our lack of contact before now,” mused Obi-Wan’s blue holo, hand absently stroking his beard. “We know of a number of largely uncontacted civilizations within the Unknown Regions, and it stands to reason that there would be others still. Those we know of are determined to remain independent, which is part of the reason the region remains largely unexplored.”
“Master Plo has a contact out there, don’t you?” Kit said, humor glittering in his black eyes. “Perhaps you could ask around.”
Plo sighed through his mask. “I would, were he not ten years late in returning.” Most of the current Council had not met said contact, so he took advantage of the natural pause to ask a question of his own. “Commander Chester, you accused Master Krell of abusing the men under his command. Could you elaborate on that, please?”
They’d had… not so much reports—nothing so actionable—but indications that in this context perhaps made sense. Krell’s battalion, the 257th, were a frontline force—their relatively high casualty numbers were to be expected. Yet, in the last few months, those numbers had begun creeping steadily up. Plo had missed a few reports between one campaign and others, and the last time he’d heard the casualty totals read out the 257th’s losses had shocked him.
Anomalously high losses were one thing. Perhaps the 257th’s commanders simply needed a talking-to, a reminder to place a higher priority on their men’s lives. They got the job done, at the end of the day. Just at a cost which was approaching too high.
If it weren’t for the clones’ steadily-disappearing armor paintwork.
Plo knew how much their colors meant to the men. They could not change the identical features of their faces nor the mass-produced shape of their armor, so they did what they could to assert their individualities otherwise. Sinker and Boost dyed their hair and painted their allegiances on their armor. Others designed tattoos, dreamed about piercings they would get after the war. Wolffe had refused a more natural-looking prosthetic eye—though partially because nobody else, natborns included, had cutting-edge Alderaanian medical tech in their head and he wanted to rub it in a number of people’s faces that a clone (albeit one of the less expendable commanders) had been given such a gift.
Krell’s Commander, a tired-looking clone by the name of Dulcet, kept his hair to the letter of the regs and limited his battalion colors to a couple of blue-grey stripes on one pauldron. His shinies remained shiny for a long time.
Commander Chester turned her measured look on Plo. “Multiple instances of verbal abuse. One of physical, that I saw. More than that, his men are plainly afraid of him.” She paused there, watching his mask carefully. “There is a strong tendency to disparage their sentience, intelligence, and basic rights. Tell me, what is their legal status?”
Not a word of a lie. Plo did not bother stifling his grimace.
“In a word, unsatisfactory.” He glanced toward Mace, whose expression had gone stiff and tired. “Legally, they have been drafted into the Grand Army of the Republic, and are due the pay and supplies owed to any member of the military. Beyond the sphere of war, they are not considered citizens of the Republic and every attempt at gaining citizenship for them has so far been blocked in the Senate. We Jedi have attempted to ensure our own code of conduct is equally applied to the clones as to any other person–though we are well aware it is not enough. It is deeply concerning to hear that one of our own has neglected to uphold this code.”
Ki-Adi-Mundi sighed. “They are intelligent, sapient beings, and even if they weren’t we would look askance on the sort of behavior you describe, Commander. Would you be willing to write a detailed description of your observations? This matter is going to require an investigation.”
“Absolutely.” Her expression was thunderous. “So let me get this straight: your governing entity created an army of genetically modified individuals specifically for this war, then denied them citizenship, essentially trapping them in military service. We have some legal terminology for that kind of thing in the Federation; it’s not pleasant. Why the hell is your order continuing to lend a regime that would do such a thing legitimacy through your support?”
Not an entirely correct assessment of events—but it wasn’t as if they could correct her on the clones’ origins when they still weren’t sure themselves. An interesting mix of emotions rolled through the room. Chester’s clear fury, an answering note of frustrated anger from those Councillors present, and the deep sadness that usually followed discussion of the clones’ situation.
Mace held up a hand. “You’re not wrong, Commander; it should never have happened. But it has happened, and breaking our treaties with the Republic at this point would make the situation worse, not better.”
Obi-Wan leaned forward, his expression severe through the flickering holocomm. “The Separatists openly enslave entire populations and commit genocide at their own convenience. The Republic’s flaws are many, but the alternative is worse.”
“Ah yes, the exigencies of a just war.” Her smile was a baring of teeth. “How often that’s the excuse. My people had our own dabbling in genetic modification; in people stratified by their genetic code. It ended in a war that killed billions, and destroyed two-thirds of the species on Earth. Enact that on a galactic scale…” She shrugged, short and sharp, anger in the gesture. “You know, it’s never worth it to compromise yourselves, even for a just war. Because when you come back, you find the real enemies. The people who told you you had to cut those corners. And they–they’re never the ones who go up in front of the tribunals at the end.”
This time it was sidelong glances around the room. Plo found himself unsurprised; nobody else seemed to be, either. They were not blind to the problem. There just did not seem to be a solution to it.
Yoda sighed. “And if compromise ourselves we do not, who will pay the price for our moral convictions? Those least able to protect themselves—the clones, and ordinary citizens. Escape the consequences those with power will, no matter the outcome. Two years it has been since war began. Seventeen billion refugees there are to resettle or return to their homes—perhaps more we cannot identify, and more still, the longer the war goes on. An oath we have sworn to the people of this galaxy, and fulfill it to the best of our ability we will.”
“Clones included,” Plo murmured.
“It has been my experience that there is always a third option,” Chester said, meeting his gaze steadily. “No matter how ugly the circumstances.”
“Say there is,” said Obi-Wan. “How many lives should we sacrifice for it?”
“How many lives are you sacrificing for this, right now?” She shifted that steely gaze to him.
“Far fewer than we would if we were to abandon them,” he replied, his certainty rock-solid, and if the topic of discussion were anything less serious Plo might have settled in to enjoy the show. But the topic was serious, and before Obi-Wan could wind up into full argument mode Mace raised his voice just a little to cut them off.
“I propose we shelve this topic of discussion–it is not going to get us anywhere. The question of where to proceed from here takes precedence.”
Chester drew in a breath, then glanced down, her anger furling back under tight control. “Gentlebeings, it has been a long and unpleasant few days. Before we begin the inevitable discussion about whether I ought to be turned over to the tender mercies of your military intelligence service, might I get a hot shower and eight hours sleep?”
Mace did not smile, but his severe expression eased noticeably. “You will not be given to Republic Intelligence—you clearly would be no use to them.” Chester tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow, her sardonic expression all but saying, and are you sure they know that? “More to the point it was our agent who brought you here, and therefore our responsibility to give you aid and shelter while we find a way to return you.” He drew his datapad out of the sleeve of his robe. “Master Plo, would you escort her to the Halls of Healing? I will have the quartermasters assign her suitable accommodation.”
Plo dipped his head. “Certainly.”
“Thank you,” she said, still stiffly formal.
The meeting ended. Plo went immediately to Chester, gesturing toward the doors at the side of the chamber.
She followed him out of the council chamber, doing up her jacket as she went. It was a dark, practical garment, with the look of a uniform to it. A delta-shaped insignia pinned to her lapel and three small pips attached to the high collar of the maroon shirt underneath were the only hint of decoration—or, perhaps, the only ones that had survived the trip. Sympathy welled up in his spirit, tinged with a little guilt.
“How badly are you hurt?” he asked, carefully keeping his voice low and quiet. “You’re clearly capable of walking, but if it is painful there are other options.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve done more with worse. Let me get my head down for eight hours—hell, even six—and I’ll be good as new.”
Plo elected not to press the issue.
Chester followed in the wake of her guide, Master Plo, feeling profoundly relieved. At least this Jedi Council had been willing to entertain the possibility she wasn’t Song Tulin, and at least they seemed uninclined to turn her over to the local authorities. This had also effectively checked off the possibility of her having been captured by the Dominion or Orion Syndicate, which gave her a much better chance at survival overall.
There were still major barriers to getting home, but that would be a problem for future Diane Chester, who presumably would have had a shower and a good night of sleep over her present self.
“So this is Song Tulin.”
Chester took one look at the stiff ugly uniform and the equally rigid demeanor of the man who’d stepped in front of her, and the tentative hope she’d started to indulge faded. So much for not getting disappeared. She lifted her chin, and glared down her nose at the man.
“You are mistaken, sir,” she said, cold. “Commander Chester, first officer of the Federation starship Bedivere. And who would you be?”
“Admiral Tarkin,” said her guide, his voice smooth and steady, “we appear to have had a case of mistaken identity.”
Tarkin’s gaze slid over to him, just the ghost of a sneer in his thin lips. (Some sort of prejudice, perhaps? Master Plo was the most alien species she’d seen here so far, clearly well out of his native atmosphere if the respiratory mask was anything to go by.) “So she’s delusional as well? Or merely confused, since I see there has been a certain amount of resisting arrest involved, hm? A Republic court will not acquit you of treason on account of mental instability, Tulin.”
Chester gave him a little razor of a smile. It was a good way of hiding her roiling terror. “Then I can’t say much for your courts or systems of justice.”
Tarkin ignored her. “The Jedi Order will turn this individual over to the Grand Army of the Republic immediately.” He produced a document on some kind of shiny paper. “I have the warrant right here, signed by the head of Republic Intelligence and the Supreme Judge of the Coruscant Planetary Court.”
Chester drew herself up and her hands into fists. She swept a grimly evaluating look over Master Plo, not expecting much from him. He and his colleagues were complicit in what the Republic was doing to the clones; she doubted they would stick their necks out for a single misplaced stranger, not if the Republic officials pressed the matter. “Whoever you are,” she said, “You have, accident as it may be, abducted a Starfleet officer. Perhaps you would like to collaborate with Master Plo and his colleagues in the interests of coming to a speedy resolution of this unfortunate understanding--and establishing a future friendship between our respective peoples.” As understanding as she was willing to make it, with the worst headache of her life behind her eyes, and the room occasionally lurching around her. Hopefully there was enough of a hint that relations other than a friendship would be a very, very bad idea.
Master Plo took the document from Tarkin’s hand, and gave it a cursory look.
“You have an arrest warrant for Jedi Knight Song Tulin. You have no such warrant for Commander Diane Chester of the United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet.”
She blinked.
“It’s clearly an assumed name,” said Tarkin. His gaze went back to Chester. She met his contempt with steady disdain. After two years of war, she was getting very good at hiding her absolute terror behind a calm face. But it would take a lot less imagination to not be terrified at the prospect of being handed over to any security service in which this man had authority.
“It is clearly not.” The Jedi handed the warrant back. Chester blinked again, startled at even this much resistance. “I will grant you,” he continued, the faint buzz of a modulator underlying his deep voice, “the physical resemblance is uncanny. However, it is not perfect. We have convincing evidence that this is merely an unfortunate mix-up. We now have also, as the Commander says, an opportunity to rectify the mistake and establish friendly relations with a civilization in the Unknown Regions. The Order does not plan to waste this opportunity, Admiral.”
Tarkin’s flinty eyes narrowed. “An even flimsier excuse. Any fugitive can craft themselves a cover story–though most have the good sense to create something believable.”
“Of that, I am excruciatingly aware,” Chester said, her voice even. The worst part was how stupid it all was. “Don’t you people have basic genetic scanning abilities? That should put this ridiculous matter to bed.”
There was the very faintest of exhalations from the Jedi at her side. “Since we are at this very moment on our way to the Halls of Healing, I would say that is an excellent suggestion. Wouldn’t you agree, Admiral?”
Chester tried not to hope. “I would be willing to submit to a DNA test or genetic scan in order to demonstrate I am not this Song Tulin.”
“It might be a start,” Tarkin conceded. She couldn’t even say she was surprised. Of course he wouldn’t find it sufficient. This was clearly a man who needed someone to vilify, and to people like that it hardly mattered whether the intended target occupied the role of the scapegoat. “But given the available evidence already against you, it will require a great deal to substantiate your… questionable claims.”
Chester turned to look at Plo, eyebrows raised. Let him squirm along with her. “I see your Republic places a high value on sentient rights.” Disappointingly, he did not show any reaction at all beneath that full-face mask. Convenient.
“I am not surprised you have a loose grasp of the necessities of war,” said Tarkin, and a sharp anger flashed through Chester. He equated mercy and principles with weakness, a small-minded bully given power. Who knew what he’d done to the others who’d fallen into his hands. “People like you always do.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Chester quietly. She realized she’d already lost her temper. Well, to hell with it; she was almost certainly doomed, and she might as well go down shaming all of them for their complicity. The Prime Directive allowed for chewing them out, at the very least. “What isn’t surprising is you . No matter the emergency, there are always men like you working quietly behind the scenes to make it worse. Men like you love the necessities of war; it’s all the excuse you need to get sloppy. To show your true nature—scavengers and carrion-eaters—and get praised for it, because you can frame your cruelty as a great sacrifice of conscience for the common good. No, I don’t know much about your galaxy or this Republic—but I know what you are. You don’t need to be certain I’m Song Tulin. You just need a Song Tulin to throw on the pyre, so the next idealists will think of her and back down before you have to even raise a finger. Tell me, how many of her crimes are even real? Or will you take just as many liberties with the truth there as you are here?” She turned her attention back to the Jedi. “I will still submit to genetic scanning, but don’t expect it to make any difference to him .”
Tarkin laughed. “A lecture from a traitor is hardly going to convince me, but genetic evidence is a start.”
Master Plo nodded, unreadable beneath that mask. “Then shall we proceed to the Halls of Healing?”
Chester didn’t want to turn her back on Tarkin. But she nodded anyway, firm and decisive, not a hint of her real emotion in her face or bearing. She was getting a little too good at that these days.
Footsteps approached. Two figures, out the corner of her eyes, both dressed in the kind of natural colors she’d seen facing the Council.
“Is there a problem?”
The new voice matched the unknown species with the large dark eyes and the mass of tendrils growing from his head. Master Kit Fisto, if she recalled the introductions in the Council chamber correctly. He’d smiled at her, and it had seemed honest. There was another Jedi with him, a tall slim man with long dark hair who seemed almost human but for the stubby horns that ringed the crown of his head. Master Eeth Koth, memory supplied.
“Not at all,” Tarkin lied smoothly. “The Force may whisper to you Jedi but the rest of us require more mundane evidence to support your conclusions. DNA will suffice.”
The new Jedi—both of them quite tall—flanked Diane and her guide, facing Tarkin. She squashed the urge to look nervously at them; better to make a show of being willing to trust them. If they picked her up under the armpits and carted her off after Tarkin, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. “You will have to take the lead, gentlebeings,” she said.
“That is quite all right,” said Master Plo. “This way, Commander. Admiral Tarkin, you may accompany us, but patient privacy rules apply to all within the Halls of Healing.”
“Of course,” said Tarkin. Lying his neatly-ironed uniform greys off, again.