by Murasaki99
It wasn’t until evening in his own quarters that Gorseth began to appreciate the magnitude of the potential problems confronting himself and his men. Luke’s words returned to haunt his mind: “You’re no longer exactly a storm trooper”. He didn’t want to admit it, but the Jedi was right. Not only were they using abilities unavailable to the average soldier, but their way of thinking had been irretrievably altered by their long stay with the Lady. Proper storm troopers were supposed to carry out the commands of their superiors without question - if they were ordered to shoot innocent civilians, so be it. Gorseth knew he could not carry out such orders. He doubted his men could have followed orders to kill noncombatants either. The Empire could always blame their reluctance to fight on their officer. They could remove Gorseth and put another in his place, but Gorseth doubted his men would have followed such orders even if he were not the one commanding them. The implications were truly frightening to Gorseth, who had all along considered himself a loyal officer of the Empire.
“We’re ruined,” he groaned, then paused to think further on the matter. Actually, they were much improved from a purely moral and ethical standpoint, but as far as the Empire was concerned, he and his men were ‘ruined’ indeed, since they could no longer blindly obey orders to kill.
What am I to do? He wondered unhappily. C’mon Gorseth, you’re the officer, you’re supposed to be the brains of this outfit. What is best for the men? Will they let us muster out? And what then? If Coruscant was any indication, what sort of life will my men have if people find out they’re clones? They aren’t going to want to split up, that’s for sure. It was terrible to think of leaving the service after all they’d been through. Gorseth’s mind worried at the prospect without reaching any solution.
Finally, he sat down at his small desk and began working on the various reports demanded of him, but even as he waded through the language of bureaucracy, his mind refused to turn loose of the dilemma. It occupied a corner of his thoughts at all times. Four reports later he stopped and ground his knuckles into his eyes, no nearer a solution than when he’d started. The chrono read midnight ship time. He glanced at it, then turned again to the datapad and began the last report.
“NR-52 Loss of Property and Material…” he muttered. “Which property? Our weapons? Our uniforms? Us?” Propping his head up with one arm, he slowly began to enter a list of items.
A strange feeling made him pause, his hand falling away from the keypad. The sensation was of a distantly-remembered pleasure and it insinuated itself along his nerves slowly and steadily.
What is…? Oh. After some effort to sort things out, he concluded his troops were making up for lost time and amusing themselves, sharing the consequent bleed-over with their officer. Gorseth tried to close off the connections, and had it been only one or two of them, he could have succeeded. From the feel of it, however, the entire platoon of them were turning their attentions to physical matters and he found himself woefully outnumbered and unable to push them all out. With a deep groan he stood up and made his unsteady way into the hall. The quarters of his men were thankfully nearby, so he did not have to walk far.
For a moment, he paused outside their barracks, trying to muster up some statement of protest. Before he could collect the words for an entire sentence the door slid open, a warm blast of welcome enveloped him; at least five pairs of hands caught him and whisked him inside. Here you are at last! The close physical contact blew away the few barriers he had left. His mind dissolved into that bright sea of communal pleasure.
***
Gorseth blinked his eyes open, finding himself lying on the floor in a warm nest formed by several bodies and a quantity of rumpled bedding. The othersense was heavy with sleep. Korion Osman breathed warmly against his right shoulder and Tenno Rui had his head nestled against Gorseth’s left arm. Tenno’s blue eyes opened and gazed calmly into his own.
“I was trying to work,” Gorseth said mildly.
“We waited till after midnight. You should’ve been in bed resting.” Tenno was happily unrepentant. “Or here with us.”
“Don’t you have any control?”
“Sure we do. We waited two whole days. You should’ve heard Buian complain.”
“I suppose I should be grateful…” Gorseth smiled wryly at the ceiling.
“Maybe so. Besides, you were worrying too much, it isn’t good for you. We could feel it.”
“And this will fix my worries?”
“Uh-huh. You’re not worried now, are you, Lieutenant?”
Gorseth squinted at Tenno’s face in the dimness as he thought over the question. “You know, I’m not. Strange.” He sat up carefully and ran a hand through his hair. He had been fretting about their eventual fates, Gorseth remembered that much at least. But the precise desperate tone of the worries had been lost, along with their emotional urgency.
“Well, I guess I should get back. I do have a report that needs to be finished early.” He rose and began to collect his scattered clothing from the heaps around him. No one else stirred.
“You’re not mad, are you?” asked Tenno, watching him through half-closed eyes.
“Mad? No.” Gorseth sighed deeply. He’d been so focused on their plight while imprisoned and trapped it had never occurred to him to worry about what their changed relationships would mean once they were back in the care of the Empire. He was quite sure that whatever the Empire thought of their way of doing things, they weren’t going to be able to change it. This meant he would just have to find a way through this, somehow. The conclusion came as a relief. He smiled down at Tenno. “Next time, give me fair warning.”
Tenno threw him a salute from his recumbent position. “Yes sir, but you shouldn’t be doing reports after midnight anyway.”
“Probably not. Get some rest; I’ll be getting our orders tomorrow.” Gorseth quietly extricated his missing boot from under a bunk and straightened up, his arms full of clothing. Turning about, he thought of his own cabin and walked into the mist several strides, emerging next to his own bed. With another sigh, he dropped his clothing into a pile at the foot of his bunk and collapsed, pulling the covers over himself. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
It wasn’t until he had eaten his breakfast next morning that he remembered returning to his cabin without walking through the ship’s hallway.
***
“You look better this morning, Lieutenant,” observed Commander Farlowa Five at their meeting the following day. “Get some decent rest?”
“Yes, I believe I did, sir,” replied Gorseth cheerfully. Tenno had been right; synching-up with his fellows had eased his mind and left him feeling alert and ready for whatever the day might bring. “It’s good to be back aboard ship again.”
“It’s good to finally get you all back with us.” Fiver looked at his datapad, flicking through several pages. “I see you’ve got your initial debriefing filed and all the required reports, Lieutenant. Being frozen for ten years hasn’t hurt your efficiency.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Fiver frowned at something on the datapad. “Your debriefing states you were tortured before being frozen. Did you want to file a formal war crimes complaint?” The Commander’s eyes were bright with controlled anger.
“No, sir.” Gorseth shook his head. “I understand that we, the Empire, are now in the middle of a peace process with the New Republic.” He looked away for a moment, thinking. “We’ve been hard on each other; both sides have done things that were wrong. If we want to, there’s enough between us to keep us hurling blame around for ages.” He returned his gaze to the commander’s face. “I’d rather we make an honorable peace than for me to throw fuel on the embers of war.”
Fiver stared at Gorseth for a long minute, his face deadpan. Finally he smiled. “Captain was right about you. She said you were sharp for such a young officer.”
“Captain Dun is most generous,” said Gorseth, surprised by the information and the indirect complement.
“Captain Dun has the instincts of a Jedi.” Fiver shrugged as if this were quite ordinary. “She probably has the Force, although she’s never said so and the Jedi aboard ship haven’t fingered her as someone who ought to be one of them.” He chuckled at the thought. “Just as well. She wouldn’t have any of it, anyway. Firedanse is her life and her family.”
“Firedanse is a very unique ship, if I may say so, sir.”
“’Unique’ as in you like it, or ‘unique’ as in too different for you?”
“Not all differences are bad, sir. The uniqueness of this ship is a good one. Everyone and everything works together, in harmony.”
“Glad to hear it.” Fiver rubbed his hands together happily. “In a way, this brings me to my next subject, your orders.”
Gorseth straightened automatically. “Yes, sir.”
“You’ve a set of choices to make, Lieutenant.” Fiver held up two fingers. “First is this; do you want to stay with your men or be rotated to another platoon?”
“I’d rather stay with my men, sir,” Gorseth replied at once. The commander nodded at his answer as if he had expected it.
“Fine. The second is your orders.”
“I have a choice in them, sir?” Gorseth’s sense of surprise deepened.
“Unusual, but true. Here they are: one, you can stay with us as part of the trooper contingent aboard Firedanse.” Commander Fiver watched Gorseth as he spoke. “Even though we’re not fighting the New Republic anymore, there’s plenty to keep us busy. Pirates and slavers, warlords wanting to carve a chunk out of our territory. Imperial worlds to defend.” He smiled at the happy memories. “It’s good soldiering, if you know what I mean.”
Gorseth nodded in understanding. Good fighting against enemies worthy of your mettle. It was the sort of life he’d joined the service for.
“And the other, sir?”
“The second is you and your men can debark at the moon of Yavin 4.”
“Yavin?” Gorseth looked at his superior in confusion. “You want us to serve the Jedi?”
“Not the Jedi. You and your men are being asked to join the entourage of Grand Admiral Thrawn. He’s down there practically by himself and he needs some soldiers around him. Captain Dun has been after him to take some of our troops. Last week the Admiral asked for you and your men personally. Before you were even thawed out.” He gave Gorseth a measuring stare.
“The Grand Admiral! Then he really is alive and well?!” Gorseth felt as if he were dreaming.
“Yes, he’s alive all right.” The commander frowned a moment and added slowly. “He’s a clone of the original Grand Admiral, you understand.”
Gorseth smiled at Fiver. “That’s quite all right with me, sir.”
“Good, didn’t think you’d mind.” Fiver clapped him on the back. “The Admiral told me you’d asked to serve him before, and given the opportunity, he decided to take you up on your offer. Dunno where you managed to meet him with you frozen solid for years, but that’s what he said.”
“He remembered.” Gorseth felt a warm thread of gladness in his heart. Belatedly, he offered Fiver a salute. “For myself and my men, I choose to serve the Grand Admiral. Thank you, sir, for offering me a choice.”
“Don’t thank me, Lieutenant,” the commander snorted with a strange smile as he returned Gorseth’s salute. “The Grand Admiral is quite different, so serving him isn’t going to involve much SOP, maybe not even much combat.” He thought about it for a moment. “Then again, you’re a bit different too, so chances are you’ll manage just fine.
“You’ll find out in five days. That’s our transit time to Yavin. Till then you and your men are on medical reserve. Doctor Lije says it will take several days for you all to finish healing from the surgery she had to perform to get all those Sith-cursed tubes out of you. Enjoy the rest. If you need anything, go to Stores.” He gave Gorseth another hearty pat on the back. “You and your men are something of a legend, don’t you know? Strange, you feel familiar, too.”
Gorseth decided that the commander didn’t need to know he was feeling a faint resonance connection with a non-clone who had synched-up with clones. His expression thoughtful, Farlowa Five marched off, leaving Gorseth with many things to ponder, not the least of which was a future which now looked considerably brighter than before.
He wandered through the ship to one of the decks with viewports. Outside the ship swirled the roiling bright clouds of hyperspace.
“The Grand Admiral,” he murmured. “This ought to be interesting. I wonder if he’s learned how to walk through walls, too?” Gorseth looked forward to asking him. Fanfic Main
###
Endnotes
Copyright stuff: Various Star Wars characters ©1999 Lucasfilm. The original Grand Admiral Thrawn was created by Timothy Zahn for his 5-book series starting with Heir to the Empire and ending with Vision of the Future. Go read them, they're good.
Fanfic Main | POW Part 1 | POW Part 2 | POW Part 3 | POW Part 4