"So long as we focus on it being the right thing to do then there's no problem. You have no need to lecture me, Kyle- and I've seen greater people than you killed in this job. Yes- you should go in each time expecting to lose. because that's the whole point. We don't have a chance. But we do it anyway, because someone has to do what's right.
"So the answer as to what you do now is obvious. We wait another chance... and we try again."
Kyle crosses his arms and glares back at the man. "Kid, you're right, I'm not a great man. But I'm good enough to know that if you plan on losing, your plan will always succeed." He looks at each of his teammates and then back to the contact. "This group will give you your first victory, however minor, and then we'll see how you feel about our optimisim."
"I'd best be off as well," Galahad says. He shakes the Contact's hand. "Adieu, my friend."
Once the Contact leaves, Galahad will address his group.
"I am sorry I was unable to do more for Lanzar. I really feel that I did not do everything I could. I have never been a highly influential Senator, I feel, and I did not focus very well on the tasks at hand. Because of this, Lanzar is burning and no one will mourn it but us.
"I do have to thank all of you, though. You all gave Lanzar and the Osokans your best efforts."
And so things come to an end.
The news of the Battle of Lanzar is broadcast across the galaxy- but only the results. Little is said of the fight itself, the triumph being marred by rumours of an Imperial General feeling from such a primitive race, and troubles caused by Rebel insurgents. Yet it was still a victory, and whilst deprived of great propaganda value it was no disaster.
-
The Emperor knew of the results before the news, before it was even reported to him. Of the various political consequences he finds himself caring particularly little. The Death Star project nears its final stages and then he will not have to care about things. The Commissars just need to keep his enemies busy for a little while longer. Meanwhile, he takes a perverse pleasure in the eradication of Lanzar, where he had first planned to eradicate the Jedi. Tidy. No more evidence of those times. There were difficulties, he understands, yet the Osokans died regardless. As for the Rebels, their time would come.
-
Andran watches the news in his quarters on Coruscant. He sends his guards away, to be alone in order to ponder it. A disaster, for sure. But Andran's truest sorrow is that his anger can be directed at much of the galaxy who will not mourn the dead race. Whilst the Old Republic would never have been organised enough to make war on Lanzar, the hatred existed, and the unwillingess to help such a world seemed endemic. Even back then, long ago, he had fought for the rights of such people. People looked to him now as a saviour- but what could he do? All he did was survive, whilst Lanzar burned. The Rebels did not better, of course. Galahad could do nothing to prefent such a calamity.
"But then it is in the family, isn't it?" he says to himself. He remembers Mandragos. In an odd way, it started there.
-
Vader stands silently in the Jungle. He is sensing the death of the world around him. In a way it is pleasing. but... he is also bored.
The wildlife does not come near.
-
Troopers have been ordered to search the wreckage of the Hall of Records. There's little left.
A Commander and an underling are looking at the wrecked remnants of some kind of golden plates, shattered and burned and melted.
The underling is trying to recognise a name he sees on a tiny surviving fragment; he has queried it with the Commander.
"Didn't you pay attention to your history?" he says. "Thart's where they fought the Hal'Nassa."
"Hal'Nassa?"
"Local gibberish. Translates roughly as 'Big Joke'. Some joke. Plenty died. Complete waste of time. Don't you know anything? The final battle of the Clone Wars."
"There wasn't a final battle of the Clone Wars! The campaigns were still going when the droids were shut down!"
"You need to go back and study. The Hal'nassa was fought seven weeks after that. Jedi General there too. Guess that was part of the joke. Anyway. Get back to work."
As they move on, they pass another similar piece in black, in melted Osokan writing.
The Osokan symbol there translates roughly as 'Slayer of the Stars'.
-
End