Quarantine

Omni's information led them to call another holo conference. All the information was laid out and they were left with a few major questions.

First was the destruction of the path to their front door, so to speak. No one really had an issue, especially if some way to conduct the tricky navigation to reach somewhere so remote could be made more simple.

Using the PPC to do the job also was easily approved. Sparrow's caution about using the weapon in any way but their home defense was mostly about letting as few people as possible know about it outside the legion members. This would be a simple, in and out, mission and there was no reason to suspect it wouldn't go smoothly.

Regarding the rest of the legion moving to Nathea an alternative was decided on. They immediately began loading an assortment of droids and a few settler volunteers who had not yet been exposed to the virus onto some of the larger ships they had and sent them to a planet in one of the connecting systems.

It was a fairly unremarkable world, and, other than the location being convenient there was nothing special to recommend it, but they had decided to build a second settlement there and invite any who wanted to from the larger legion population to join it.

Kai reported they had designed a quick version of the hyperspace beacon they had talked about. They explained the device sent a signal down a vector, if anything was in the way then the signal wouldn't reach its normal termination point. It was relatively simple tech, and, of course, not perfect, but it would beat a blind jump.

The next subject up for discussion was the permanent solution for the geten. Sparrow felt fine and Miley had used the time while the others had gathered together for the meeting to conduct an exhaustive examination of him. They decided to give it a few days before everyone took the new serum but the initial indication was that it was going to work. Already his body was purging itself of the non-functional editor.

The final item under discussion was what to do about the pirates. Sparrow and the more combat oriented geten were all for going in and wiping the group out. The problem, as it was pointed out to them, was that they currently had no way of knowing if there were innocents in the system with them and, since nearly everyone remaining in the Nathean system was now infected, they would become infected as well.

Sparrow also took advantage of the meeting to talk up the new training chips, he was backed up by Siscasse, who was now talking basic like a native.

Alexis, after thinking a few moments, pointed out that with the chips and the number of cloning cylinders they had on hand, they could rapidly produce a decent sized military force.

Omni pointed out that the synths had discussed it and planned to create a sort of generic memory set. It would give the new clones a basis to build off but not create multiple copies of an individual identity. This approach would be slower, because a certain amount of socialization was needed, but it would be more fair.

No one was really in favor of creating a large number of new clones. It was decided to move slowly, they would start a new batch of clones at the completion of the training, at least at a basic level, of the previous batch, but to vary the genotype and definitely lean towards more females than males because their population leaned heavily in the opposite direction.

They all agreed this would effectively produce citizens, rather than soldiers.

Siscasse then spoke up, discussing her people and the decision she had made to go ahead and wake them before anything else went wrong with the stasis tubes. It was decided to put the word out for volunteers to work with the newly awoken, once they got their chips installed and the language and general background information learned.

Darby watched them drag away Janos' corpse. The man had been scum, but he couldn't help feeling a bit of regret at the way he had sold him out. Pointing out the double dealing the man had been doing.

He had originally planned on including the information on Janos not using the pirates facilities for his ship repairs, but then he realized that whatever ship he ended up commanding, if indeed he did wind up in command, would need to have the same type of deal going on.

"That was well executed Darby, and I guess you want a reward." Said Lief Saxon, the so called "pirate king" himself.

"If you see fit to give one." he told the man. "I just didn't want to get sprayed with the same hose when you caught the fool."

"Your ship needs a new Captain and you look to be it." Saxon said with a grim smile.

"It seemed likely," Darby said calmly.

"I need you out there doing your job! Our ships are falling behind schedule and it is costing us precious time." Saxon said.

"Schedule for what?" Darby asked.

"You seem a clever man Darby," Saxon said, then snarled, "Don't."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't out clever yourself like your former Captain tried to do. Patrol the area you are given and conduct your business in the manner you are instructed and this will all be fine."

"But!" He now looked around at the motley crew of pirates, thugs, scumbags, slaves, and droids that gathered onboard the pirate mother ship, "If you get too curious or too greedy for your own good, you will pay for it!" It was well timed, as Janos floated past the view window behind Saxon to lend emphasis.

Honestly Darby had hoped for a little more detail on the bigger picture, but things were moving along at a decent pace, so he left it alone.

He had snuck in a few discussions with Tao during the leadup to this, so once he was officially named Captain he began acting insufferable enough that he ran off virtually his entire crew in days. Word got around that the new Captain was a real taskmaster and a cocky SOB to boot.

He hung around looking for crew long enough that it was obvious he was having issues, then announced that he was taking his ship and going elsewhere to find good men.

Once they left the system it was a short trip through a couple of other deserted and out of the way stops before they met up with his new crew.

The few pirates left from the previous regime, the worst and laziest, who no one else would take off his hand, were unceremoniously escorted to the surface of the livable, if deserted planet and told to make do for themselves.

Meanwhile Darby and his motley looking but surprisingly capable new crew headed off to start the next phase of the plan.

Tao read Darby's report with some pleasure. The clone was proving to be a fantastic agent. He was still deeply confused by the pirate situation, however, something more had to be going on. If only they could...

He immediately called Omni.

Once he explained what they needed and how they could get it done the synth was 100% behind the plan. They ran it by Sparrow and the rest of the council and no one else had an objection so the next morning a load of gear from the sith fleet was sent out on an old trash freighter with a very special passenger.

Darby and his crew intercepted the freighter and boarded it. They found no crew on board, just an old protocol droid that had obviously been acting as the pilot.

They inspected the cargo and discovered it was a load of blasters. There were several types, ancient, but functional and still effective weapons.

Darby made the decision to take this find directly to the mother ship. They set course and headed out.

Once aboard the pirate vessel Darby reported what he had found and where he had it stored. Not surprisingly the pirate kings men determined that the find would be taken by them and that Darby and his crew were free to head back out.

The protocol droid was examined in the droid workshop but they found its memory wiped. They figured it must have been a reaction to being boarded and a way to protect the obvious criminals who had sent it.

Late that night, when all was as quiet as it got on board the pirate mothership, a small silver blob oozed out of the droid and made it's way into the computer system terminal.

Zane took his time and moved slowly through the system, careful not to set off any alarms. He was looking for specific information but took time to cache away all that he could on the pirates activities, names, locations, contacts, etc.

It took him a few hours to totally scour the system but eventually he felt he had learned what he could. Rather than re-enter the droid he headed to the hanger bay and waited. He definitely needed to get his information back to the Legion but it wasn't worth risking someone seeing him.

Eventually he made his way aboard a ship heading for Kihines. From there he had a way home arranged.

The information raid produced both more and less than they had hoped. There was indeed some sort of master plan going on with the pirates, they were getting backing from someone outside both current governments. The ships computers, however, did not contain info on who that might be. No contact info was provided either.

Leif had been provided his assembly ship and the initial crew and sent out to this area to raise the residents fear and to generally cause mayhem. He had been given a few criminal contacts and then sent on his way.

As Sparrow and Casse began to "date", slowly learning each others wants and needs, things moved rapidly around the legion.

First, the Legion set up a base on Kihines. They actually purchased an ancient ship that had lain in the desert for years uncounted and then sent in a ton of workers to turn it into something both secure and somewhat appealing to look at.

Among other things the legion sold ships and parts. They cleverly traded out the mismatch of ships they had in ones or twos for small and medium craft

salvaged from the crash site.

Selling off multiple ancient, but working craft would have quickly given away the fact that the find was out there. They took pains to try and operate as few ships as possible of the same class in any one location. It was hoped by doing this that they could raise less interest in where the craft were coming from.

The rest of the clone legionnaires moved, as planned to the new system. Prefab housing, created for use in natural disaster recovery and refugee camps, purchased from the new republic, was quickly put in place and more permanent stone and concrete structures began to take shape. Farms and smaller businesses began to pop up on the surface as well.

Back on Nathea Sparrow entered his office one day and was surprised to find Kitten waiting for him. Poor Kitten had withdrawn a great deal into herself after they had settled here. The others, at least those who knew her, had tried to get her to communicate but, until now, they hadn't had much luck.

"I think it's time." She said.

"Time for what?"

"Time I got rid of this form. I have never been comfortable in it and would like to go ahead and take this cure you have discovered."

"You realize that this won't mean going back to your old appearance. Sadly, we didn't save any of your original DNA so there is no going back."

"I know Sparrow, but we can get pretty close. I have worked with the docs on my particular transformation and I feel I'm ready."